Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad, Mr. Kingston, we won't be going through the machinations of trying to add those figures up again. No one seems to be able to add them correctly. It seems that arithmetic has failed the Conservative government when it comes to new math. When I was in school they called it new math. It meant that two plus two could be 16 or 22, depending on your viewpoint.
I'd like to go back to your report. One of the things I've heard about constantly through these hearings is this whole sense of science-based inspection. I've heard it, to be honest, ad nauseam. I see in your report that the compliance verification system is a cornerstone of this government's shifting the role of inspectors toward the company. You state that it was mandatory as of April 1, 2008, for processed meat. It was piloted, including at the plant where we ultimately saw listeriosis come from, but never evaluated scientifically.
If one was supposed to be doing this from a science-based approach, why didn't we verify it scientifically to make sure it actually worked?