Mr. Chair, members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee today. I am the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and I have with me several experts from the agency. We look forward to assisting the committee with its important work.
The threat to Canada posed by invasive species, plant pests, and plant diseases is very real. With that in mind, the CFIA welcomes the work of the Auditor General. We have thoroughly reviewed the findings of the Auditor General's report on managing Canada's plant resources. We take these findings very seriously and we are actively addressing them.
The CFIA's plant import program needs to be modernized to reflect increased import volume, speed of trade, and changing trade patterns. Since the audit was completed, the CFIA has taken concrete steps to address the audit's recommendations. Our action plan, which has been shared with the committee, outlines short-term and long-term initiatives.
Although not a formal recommendation, the report says that the CFIA needs a clear champion to address these issues in a timely way. I agree. I have asked Dr. Brian Evans, the agency's executive vice-president and chief veterinary officer, to oversee this action plan. He will be supported by a senior level committee and a program management office. He will make sure that the actions in this plan are supported by technical project plans and that the responsible executives are held to account for their timely completion.
I will now turn to our action plan and some of the actions already under way. First, we are using a more risk-based approach for plant pest surveillance. We are auditing our pest survey protocols, which will improve next year's surveys. We are eliminating the backlog of requests for risk assessments. This will be done by March 2010. We will implement a formal risk-based approach by December 2009, in time for next year's surveys.
Second, we're putting in place a comprehensive quality management system for the plant health program and we have completed revisions to the import inspection manual. These revisions will improve consistency in the interpretation and application of our regulations, and inspectors are being trained on the procedures in the new manual. This will be finished by July 2009.
Third, we are enhancing our partnership with the CBSA so that we can collect better information about the effectiveness of our import control activities.
Finally, we are reviewing what information management tools we need to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the plant health program, and we are identifying options to fund these. In the short term, we are making essential investments in the tools that we use to track imports. We will complete an assessment of the information management needs as it relates to plant imports by April 2010.
While a lot of work is already under way to improve our approach and capabilities with respect to plant imports, we acknowledge that there is much more to be done. We look forward to the work of this committee to further guide our efforts.
Thank you, and we're happy to answer any questions the committee may have.