Thank you for the question.
I think it's fair to say you can tell from our action plan and our comments here today that we take this audit very seriously. We found it a very serious audit as well.
I would like to underscore one thing before I proceed with the rest of your question. In no way should this be considered an indictment of the CFIA officials who work in the plant health area. I find them to be extremely dedicated, competent, working around, doing whatever they can do to do their very best. So I want to make it clear that although we recognize there are lacunae and things to do, I can tell you that the agency, in terms of people on the ground who work on this program, are extremely dedicated to making sure this program works the best it can.
Having said that, we recognize that we need to do better. The 1996 audit, as I mentioned previously, was on the plant and animal health programs administered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, prior to the creation of the CFIA. However, there were many recommendations made that were important. The CFIA creation in 1997 did render some of these recommendations inappropriate in terms of the mandate that was created for the CFIA.
The 2003 review also indicated to the agency that it had some serious challenges. There was a management action plan put in place in 2003 and assessed over the last number of years at the CFIA as a result of the 2003 review. The CFIA has implemented a number of the recommendations of this review.
However, we agree with the Auditor General that we have to do more. We are trying to focus that on the areas of risk management, installing a quality management program for plant health generally, and working better with partners in CBSA.