You must have been following the subcommittee's work. So you know that, when they testify, Minister Ritz, Ms. Swan, the President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and representatives of the Agency, as well as Mr. McCain, of Maple Leaf, they try to influence public opinion by saying that it was inevitable and that bacteria aren't visible to the naked eye.
As neophytes, we don't know everything about inspection, but they try to make us believe that this would have happened anyway, even if there had been twice as many inspectors in every plant in Canada. They're trying to demolish your claims and ours. Ever since Mr. Pomerleau revealed the government's secret plan to reduce the number of inspectors, we've been very concerned about the wholesomeness of food and public health.
And now we've been told that there wasn't any point in all that. To listen to these people, including the minister, you'd think we really didn't need inspectors because, in any case, listeria is there, it can't be seen with the naked eye, there's nothing you can do about it, it happens anyway.
You who represent the inspectors, can you tell us what they're doing in the plants? Why do you say that this sort of tragedy could have been avoided, if there had been more inspectors?