Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much for your testimony. I will begin with you, Ms. Lammens.
First, it is clear that, in my capacity as Bloc Québecois critic for agriculture, I have had many discussions with fruit and vegetable growers in Quebec. I have travelled with the committee to other parts of Canada, and I have also spoken with members of Canadian associations as well. I would like to know whether, in Ontario, you are also experiencing some of the same problems as our producers in so far as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is concerned.
In fact, two issues come up regularly. The first concerns the number of inspectors available for the inspection of food exports. Of course, most of our exports are sent to the United States. I imagine that in Ontario, many of the producers who are members of your association export their products. But before products can be exported, they have to be inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is as it should be. However, the lack of inspectors often leads producers to lose contracts. If an inspection cannot be carried out in a timely manner, it is quite possible that a buyer will decide to purchase his products elsewhere. This is especially true for food products, because they can go bad quickly.
Every time we've asked the Agency, the minister or government officials about this, we were told that there are enough inspectors. They say they are always hiring, except that when we speak to the producers directly, they report that they don't see inspectors come around anymore. It's become even more difficult to ensure that inspections are carried out in time. So we have to speak out, as we did during the 2008 holiday season. No inspector was available to inspect a significant number of shipments. MPs had to speak out before the shipments were ultimately inspected.
I'm telling you this so you can tell me how it's done at your end. Do you encounter this type of problem?