In spite of what my colleagues might be inferring about innuendo or looking for the proverbial conspiratorial theory in the closet, this is really about Canadians' faith in their food supply. When it comes to faith, there's a different parameter than in hard science. When you take the leap from one plus one equals two, which is an accepted value that we know how to compute, to actually having faith, there's a difference. One needs to have something beyond one plus one equals two. One has to believe that you showed them one and then you showed them another, so that you can come up with two. That leads to faith that you've actually done it correctly. So this isn't an issue, at least not for this member.
There's no issue about folks not trying hard. Everyone has the best intentions at heart. They want to assure Canadians that they have a safe food system, because we all happen to be consumers of that food. There's nobody on the other side, on this side, or out there watching who doesn't eat. We all have to eat, so it is imperative that we all feel that it's absolutely safe. Part of the dilemma we face is making sure Canadians have their faith in the system restored. It's been shaken, and justifiably so. Twenty-two individuals died last year in this country from listeriosis. That has shaken the faith of Canadians in their food supply. They need to have their faith restored.
This is not so much to suggest that something untoward is happening as it is to help make sure we actually open all of the doors, look under all of the rugs, ask all the right folks, seek out all the right questions, and actually come back and tell folks that we found it all, and restore their faith. That's part of the dilemma we face. That's a difficult task no matter who ends up having to do it, whether it's you as the independent investigator, this committee, government, those of us in the food safety business, or those who produce the food. It's going to be a significant challenge as we go forward.
There are some technical questions on this. There is the documentation you're asking for. No doubt you have a list—you talked about having forensic auditors, and they'll have a list. In your mind, will that list be part of the report? If not, do you think it should be?
One of the ways to restore the faith is for folks to be able to look through a list of documents that were requested and received. Perhaps someone will ask if you requested a document that you hadn't thought of. You would then ask for it, and it would become a supplement to the report. This would help to restore the faith. The knowledge that we looked everywhere humanly possible will go a long way towards restoring people's faith. I can't emphasize that word enough, because we can see that people have lost faith in the food supply and its safety. That really is a great change. So that's one of my questions.
I've sat on investigations before. Quite often the terms of reference are written for us and we just accept them because we're okay with them. Sometimes we get input into those terms of reference, because we see them as being too broad or too narrow, and we need to move this around based on our experiences going into the investigation. Please comment on this if possible.
I'll leave it at that for the moment.