I appreciate the question. I think it's a very important issue, as the Auditor General pointed out.
The department was in keeping with Treasury Board policy, but I think raised a very valid question about whether that is sufficient in this very sensitive area. We did have a mechanism in place. All employees, when they sign on, sign a conflict of interest declaration. We deal with that. We do have a code of conduct. We do have a values and ethics code we reinforce periodically with employees, but I think the answer to the question of whether we can do a better job is yes.
I think this was the Auditor General's point, and we agree. We are very confident. We have very strong professional employees in this area, so I want to reaffirm that the Auditor General did not find any situation of actual conflict of interest, nor do we want to undermine our confidence in our employees in any way. That doesn't mean that as an employer we don't think that perhaps there is a best practice here that we should reinforce and perhaps we should have some systems in place that go beyond what we do for the general department.
That's why we've undertaken, as of last November, to have all our health products and food branch employees actively reconfirm that they've looked back at the code and that they abide by it. That's why we have an outside party doing a review for us right now, to say that given the particular nature of this kind of work, certainly understanding the professionalism of our staff, what would be a best practice? Are there things we should be doing routinely to strengthen this area?
So I think it was a very helpful observation, and we agree that despite abiding by the overall code, and again, a new one will be coming out next week and that gives us a chance for the department as a whole to reinforce this for all public servants, but we want to have the best advice. Should we be doing more in this particular area? We've already gone one step beyond, but there may be other practices that we should put in place in the future. That's what we're doing in this area.