Thank you for that intervention, Mr. Bellevance.
What I responded to Mr. Easter in question period today was that I am not responsible for the day-to-day operations of CFIA. That falls under their mandate. They are the ones who operate day to day. I am their conduit to cabinet. I am their conduit to budget changes. I am their advocate when it comes to changing regulations, and so on, at the government level. The day-to-day operations fall within the purview of this management team. Overall they do a very adequate, very good job.
As to accountability, certainly Mr. Easter likes to talk about ministerial accountability. I certainly agree with that, and that's why I'm here with my colleagues from CFIA. That's why you've had interventions from the Public Health Agency of Canada, Health Canada, and all the other players within this.
When the listeriosis situation broke out, there were a number of agencies involved, some provincial, some municipal, some federal. At that time, when it came to the federal level, the work was to be done by the CFIA, which has the recall powers, if required—the province called them in. We have lab capacity to do the proper testing to find listeria. As I said, it's odourless and tasteless. You can't touch it; you can't feel it; you can't see it; you can't taste it. CFIA is well versed in tracing those types of things, and they did do that.
One of the lessons learned is that when you have that many different levels of operation involved, communication and coordination become paramount. One of the lessons we have certainly learned very quickly is to have a lot better communication in between, and we did develop a lot better communication and coordination in our daily meetings and briefings, and so on, as it went along.
I was proud to be the lead minister on that. Of course, it kept me awake at night listening to the cries of Canadians as to how to get to the bottom of this, of families who were involved, one in my own riding. There were a lot of people in my own riding who became ill. I've talked to them since and during the crisis. Yes, I am accountable. Yes, I am responsible, as the lead minister. But our responsibility, as is yours as a parliamentarian, is to make sure the agencies we represent at the federal level have the resources—the human resources, the people, and the money—to make sure they are able to do the job.