Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Unfortunately, this morning I am going to have to revisit the comments made on Tuesday by Michelle Boudreau, the director general of the Natural Health Products Directorate. As I pointed out on Tuesday, the figures she provided did not seem to correspond to the figures we were given by the Library of Parliament Research Service. I am going to quote Ms. Boudreau, who said: “Within this backlog, there are only 193 product applications left to be completed.”
That means that when we look at the backlog, the pile of what is left to be completed, we see that all the rest have been completed. There are still 193 applications left to be completed in the pile. The rest have been completed, with a yes or a no. That is what “completed” means.
Here is another quotation from what Ms. Boudreau said: “So, we are very confident that we will reach the stated objective by the end of March and within the timelines we had set. We expect to have completed everything that is outstanding, in other words 3,000 licensing requests by the end of December 2010.”
We look at the two piles, the pile that is backlogged and the pile of applications after April 2008, that is all that's left. For the rest, Ms. Boudreau told us it was 3,000, while according to the Library of Parliament Research Service, what is left is 10,705 applications. I am asking Mr. Rosenberg to tell me what the real figure is, is it 3,000 or 10,705?