Good morning, Mr. Chair.
My name is Paul Glover, and I am President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
I appreciate being invited to speak concerning our response to the Auditor General's report on fraud risk.
I would just like to begin by saying the CFIA is a risk-based regulatory agency dedicated to safeguarding plants, animals, and food. Our work promotes the health and well-being of Canada's people, environment, and economy. The agency is pleased to note that this report did not identify any gaps or weaknesses at the CFIA that would have put food safety and human health at risk.
Prior to this audit, we had fraud risk management practices and mechanisms in place. These practices and mechanisms are: having a fraud prevention policy, undertaking fraud risk assessments, providing training on values, ethics and conflicts of interest,
restricting the use of sole-source contracts, and performing ongoing analysis of procurement data. Still the CFIA welcomes this opportunity to strengthen our management practices and mechanisms. As Mr. Ferguson has indicated, the CFIA agrees with all of the recommendations of the report and is committed to enhancing fraud-prevention measures and to making sure that all stakeholders, internal and external, understand the obligations.
I'm very pleased to report that the CFIA is on track to meet each of the milestones identified in the agency's management response and action plan. While some of the recommendations are already complete, others are well on track and the CFIA expects that all recommendations will be addressed by March 31, 2018.
I'll stop here.
I would be pleased to take your questions.
Thank you.