Thank you, Madam Chair.
In the food safety system, Health Canada's role is above all in prevention. That is the core of our mission. The department's responsibility is to define the standards that set production conditions that ensure that food products are safe and cause no harm.
The department's role is also to facilitate risk assessments in investigations—food-related investigations, that is—when there has been no incident. If you look at all the incidents that I will call “food related”—involving potential contamination—the large majority of them have no effect on human health. Hence the importance of that prevention role. This is the context in which we intervene.
To answer the first part of your question about what will become available in the fall of 2010, I think you are referring to food additives and to the process of intervention in food production in order to limit contamination. Health Canada has, in fact, worked on this specific recommendation from the investigator. We have already reviewed all the submissions made by the industry, on food additives, for example, or on technological agents that can have an immediate effect on public health—a positive, preventative effect—such as antimicrobial agents. We have prioritized our assessment of these agents. I could tell committee members about this assessment. There are no more agents undergoing scientific and technical assessment in terms of their safety and their positive effect on the system.