I'll have to clarify something first. I had split service with Agriculture Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The first time I was on was from 1981 to 1987. At that time I was operating in the slaughterhouse environment, and it was a lot different from what I am doing now. At that time, it was the old system. In the old system, you had to be present, you had to do organoleptic inspection. You did very little processing, especially of finished, ready-to-eat product.
I did take an absence of seven years before coming back to my present position in 1994. When I did come back, Agriculture Canada, which it still was at that point, until 1997, was starting to change into the CFIA, into an agency. In terms of procedures and systems, I had to incorporate what I could use from the old system that we had prior, along with the new system that the agency was just starting to acquire. The MCAP system was what I learned. HACCP was just around the corner and I was learning that as well, under the FSEP. At that time, I did another five or six years as a contract employee for slaughter again, because that was my field of expertise. At that point I felt that I would like to go higher in the agency. I wanted to better myself, and I wanted to ensure that the job I was doing, for myself, was a career and not just a plain job.
Food safety is of prime importance, I think, to everybody. We all have to eat, and what we should be eating is a safe product. I feel that with the combination of my experience in the old system, along with the training in this present new system with the CFIA, with CVS tasks coming into effect, when you marry these two disciplines together you can do a better job.
I'm happy with what I do. I feel that it's effective, but as with every other system, as was mentioned earlier this evening, there are going to be problems that have to be resolved.
I cannot comment on an area that I have no expertise in. That would be better answered by people who make those decisions--those policies and programs. But overall I feel that our food safety system is very good. As I said previously, I'm very happy with what I do for a living. If I could put in a couple of more years, I'd be more than happy to do that, even after my retirement. So I do not feel at this point that it's that difficult.