I was actually hoping the Auditor General would answer the third question first.
In response to the question on the issue of survey priorization, we fully agree with the Auditor General that we need to find a different equilibrium in terms of both what we're actively doing for new detections versus dealing with those issues that have been identified. But currently, I guess, our efforts are to try to mitigate the consequences of what does exist.
I believe the Auditor General did make specific reference in her report to the fact that currently the CFIA is managing six declared plant health emergencies with six different plant pests that affect different sectors. One affects the stone fruit sector, particularly in the Niagara Peninsula, and others affect the forestry sector and the potato sector. Again, the challenge becomes one of trying to mitigate the economic challenges in terms of production costs to those sectors that are impacted by the presence of those pests, as well as mitigating the potential market access economic loss, which can be significant for a country that is very export-dependent in our forestry and other sectors.
That certainly is a challenge we are taking on in terms of the risk modelling proposal that has been included in our action plan, in the role that I will continue to play in the oversight of managing the interface between our science determinations, our operational delivery and our program design, and in co-chairing with my counterpart, Mr. Baker, on the finance side, in the short term, how we manage both the costs of those emergencies but also how we can make reallocations within the organization to make sure that we have that balance in looking for the new surveys.
It also has an impact on the operational staff, who are charged with both managing the existing detections and their time allocation in looking for the new pieces. So part of that looks at new partnerships. Does it have to be CFIA alone that conducts the survey work? We do have MOUs with three provinces currently, Alberta, B.C. and Ontario, to try to engage and expand that capacity to work in these areas of agreed priority. But it is a negotiated priority with both the industry's affected sectors and the provinces in terms of the areas they're prepared to invest.
We are trying to be as creative as we can to expand the expertise that can be brought to those surveys, in a way that will give us the balance the Auditor General has recommended and which we fully support.
The second point you raised was the extended risk assessment backlog. This is both about getting smarter about doing the risk assessment processes and finding alternate ways to advance the risk assessment processes. Again, part of that is the sharing activities that we're undertaking to do with other jurisdictions, so we're not duplicating risk assessments into common ecosystems, so that we can use that risk assessment if it applies to the Canadian circumstance and ecosystem as part of our process. Another part is to work more closely with the academic sectors and, where they have expertise, to engage them in conducting some of the risk assessment work on our behalf. Then there is us getting more into a validation of the risk assessment process than the actual front-end piece.
So we do recognize that is an area, and we stand by the commitment to eliminate that backlog by 2010. That's a hard commitment, and I will come back to this committee if it's not met.