Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to say that the member for Prince George—Peace River is asking us to accept as fact what is actually fallacy and fiction.
Following the Weatherill report, the former president of the CFIA, Carole Swan, said that PricewaterhouseCoopers was brought in to review CFIA's functioning. The Conservatives speak of all of the Weatherill recommendations being followed, but the fact is that PricewaterhouseCoopers was not hired by Agriculture Canada to do a full comprehensive resource audit, which was requested. They were only asked to deliver a review. Therefore, the full comprehensive resource audit of CFIA, including human resources, has not been done.
It is a fact that the Meat Inspection Act already gives the CFIA the authority to demand all they need in order to protect Canadians and promote food safety. That was repeated in government guidelines issued in February of this year, letting the inspectors know that they had that authority and the processors know that they had to assist and honour any requests.
Finally, the fact is that there were 170 new meat inspectors, not 700. They were all directed to the ready-to-eat meat plants, such as those at Maple Leaf Foods, and none to XL Foods.
Those are three facts. Those are three things that this member would have us think otherwise.