Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that question. It is a pleasure to serve with him on the committee.
The facade the government creates is enormous. It keeps talking about all the inspectors it has hired, as my friend has noted. It seems to suggest that these inspectors have been put into the system for the purpose of dealing with food safety at meat processing plants. I found out today that 200 inspectors who were added were added to the invasive alien species program, which is designed to keep harmful organisms out of Canada. They have nothing to do with meat inspection whatsoever.
I have another concern with respect to the Conservatives' continued comments that there are 46 inspectors at this particular Lakeside plant. When I was at that plant several years ago, there were about 3,000 head processed a day. There are now over 4,000 head processed a day. That is a one-third increase. They have not increased the number of inspectors by the same proportion. My concern is that they are cutting corners, and that cutting of corners is what has led to this outbreak.