Yes, and thank you for the question.
There are, in my opinion, four major aspects of our action plan relating to the recommendations of the Auditor General. The first is using a more risk-based approach for plant pest surveillance. We agree that we must be more risk-based. So we are doing things like auditing our pest survey protocols, which we hope to improve in next year's surveys. We are going to eliminate the backlog of requests for risk assessments by March 2010. And we will implement a more formal risk-based approach for plant pest surveillance by December 2009, which will be in time for next year's surveys, thus increasing our emphasis on using a risk-based approach.
Second, we're committing to put in place a comprehensive quality management system for the plant health program. In that regard, we've completed revisions to the import inspection manual, a very necessary tool for our inspectors. These revisions will improve consistency in the interpretation and application of our regulations. The Auditor General noticed the issue, and I would agree with this, in terms of consistency of application. Our inspectors are being trained on the procedures in the new manual, which will be completed by July 2009.
Third, we're enhancing our partnership with the Canada Border Services Agency--a very important relationship--so that we can collect better information about the effectiveness of our import control activities.
Fourth, we are reviewing what information management tools we need to modernize the plant health program. In the short term, we're making essential investments in the tools we use to track imports. We will complete an assessment of the overall information management needs, as they relate to plant imports, by April 2010.