It's not intended to be inconsistent. The audit finding is the audit finding, and we fully agree with the audit finding. The challenge with risk-based inspection systems, as Carole was attempting to indicate, is what you determine is such a risk that you're not going to allow it in at all. The work that is done by CFIA, pre-border, if you will, before things even arrive here, is an assessment of either the individual products or the capacity of another country or the existence of an international standard that would mitigate that risk from coming. For those products that have been assessed and are allowed into the country, we still have that obligation to verify that a country's export shipment to us has met that standard and has not introduced a risk.
The point that I think was very critical, Mr. Chair, is the fact that the Auditor General looked not only at those things that are regulated to come in. Our plant survey work at the border also looks at those things that can come in through other means, not just though a direct import. There are issues around products, such as the introduction you alluded to of a number of pests that we know came into the country back in the 1980s and 1990s. It took many years of its presence before it could be detected.
We've identified risk pathways other than legal imports. These risk pathways include the types of wood packing material that is used. These are not plant imports or plant product imports, but the wood packing that's used to crate computers, cars, and other types of products. Collectively, as a world, we are learning about what risk pathways that presents and the need to trace where that wood material has come from and whether it's been treated appropriately.
Further, it also takes on board the reality of natural pathways. Again, a lot of the plant pests come in through global means. It's the reality of there being not just direct plant imports, but the “don't bring it back”.... We need to be aware of individuals bringing material back into Canada as well as travellers introducing things with the product they're bringing in as they come to visit relatives or business acquaintances. This product may not actually be permitted to come in, but it has to be addressed.
Finally, there's the natural introduction that can occur with some plant pests that can enter not just at land border crossings, but in the holds of aircraft, in the holds of ships, through natural wind spread, and other means.
This is part of the challenge the Auditor General has identified. We need to look at our risk-based assessments and at those pathways and products to make sure that we're investing in the right area. We fully support that, and that's where we're going.