Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, folks. I'm sorry I didn't hear quite all your presentation. Mr. Anderson and I had to leave for a minute.
This hearing, as you know, is really about how we can improve the food safety system based on the sad experience of listeriosis last fall that eventually ended up in 22 deaths. Certainly I'm concerned about the investigator and whether or not we're going to get to any political or government responsibility on that end, but we do have to do what we can to improve the system.
My colleague raised some questions earlier, so if I ask you a similar question just tell me so, because, as I said, I had to leave.
In the fruit and vegetable industry, Ms. Lammens, you had talked about and explained, I think, very well all the things that you have to do on the farm. There's no question you produce a high-quality product that is safe and gets on consumer shelves.
I was in Nova Scotia the week before last, and I learned there, in terms of their horticultural industry, that where in the 1970s they were producing 17% of the horticultural products that ended up on the shelves, today they're producing 8%. The problems are low returns, high costs, competition from other countries' product that is ending up on our store shelves that doesn't have to meet the same requirements that you have to meet.
I wonder what your views are in that regard. One, if the Government of Canada paid the costs of the Canadian food inspection program as it relates to you on the ground, as is done in the United States, what's your view in going in that area? It's allowable under the WTO, it's protection for consumers, and the United States covers a lot of their costs that we don't. Secondly, on the horticultural side, shouldn't product from other nations that's ending up on our shelves have to meet exactly the same standards as we do, or higher?