Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Welland for his opening comments in particular.
First, we do want to express our sympathies to the families who are dealing with illness right now because of E. coli. We also want to recognize that the cattle industry here in Canada is the best cattle industry in the entire world.
My background has been as a cattle rancher. My father and three brothers are today still cattle ranching. In my riding of Selkirk—Interlake, we have 2,500 ranches and those ranch families there and farmers right across this country who raise our cattle do a fabulous job of raising healthy, wholesome livestock that are turned into wonderful food products.
However, I do have to take exception to some of his critique of the CFIA.
We have 170 new front-line meat inspectors in our plants in Lakeside. In the XL beef plant in Brooks alone there are 46 food inspectors. The way food inspection works is that in every plant, in every food inspection plant, they do what is called hazard analysis of critical control points, HACCP. Those critical points are where there are inspectors, where there is accountability, where there is a paper trail, and where there is testing so that we can catch whether there are going to be problems with food. Therefore, the CFIA was doing its job. It was doing the inspections.
To talk about transparency and accountability, everything is on the website. The CFIA has unveiled it to the press. It has unveiled it to the consumers. The CFIA will continue to build confidence among consumers and police the industry the way it is supposed to be policed.