It is a fair assessment.
I make that submission based on my knowledge of how long it takes us to do our approvals now on approved screening devices and approved instruments. Through no fault of the volunteers on my committee, it takes quite a long time to get those done. We do them by two independent laboratories, so we must have two full independent validations done prior to this committee sitting down to assess it.
I know, having been on this committee for several years and having been vice-chair and chair, that despite our best efforts, speeding that process up it is difficult while working full time and maintaining our own workloads.
Our concern is that there are numerous devices out there that purport to be passive alcohol detectors. To use an analogy, we need to winnow the wheat from the chaff there. Some of the materials will not be acceptable in Canada. However, until we have a sense of how many things are coming in the door, we remain a little apprehensive about the time it would take.
Now, since I'm in front of a government body, this is where I make my pitch. Given resources, we could hire staff and we could probably do evaluations more quickly. That has not been the traditional way that we have done it in the past, but we do have provisions in the society for that to happen. We just can't do it with our current funding.