Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Maybe I should step back and describe how the work is assigned. Our inspectors are grouped in complexes. We call them complexes, and that means a complex of plants. For example, there may be a group of 10 plants in western Toronto, and for those 10 plants there would be three, four, five inspectors.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  First, I would say all the work is inspection work. There is really no distinction in terms of food safety outcomes. Reviewing records, reviewing tests, reviewing sanitation records, this is inspection. It's looking at the records that are part of the HACCP plan in that plant. Those records are verified by going onto the plant floor, looking at the in-plant lab.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you for the question. We saw the report, or the information, I should say, that came from the Agriculture Union. We were very anxious to analyze that and share that information. Since that time, we've understood...and we've had conversations with the union about the data they presented.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes. I'll be quick, Mr. Chair. It's very hard to talk about an ideal number of plants per inspector. I'm not trying to avoid the question, but the reality is that because plants have varying degrees of complexity, size, and geography, and the time it takes to get to them, there are a lot of factors that come into play when you're deciding how many plants each inspector will have.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Easter for the question. With respect to the amount of time that inspectors spend on the plant floor versus record review, the 50% is a number we stand by as a number that globally describes the amount of time inspectors across the country, in a wide variety of plants, spend on the plant floor.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, I'll answer the question about what occurred with respect to the inspection records at the plant. There were two inspectors assigned to that plant, on two different shifts. Every day they did the compliance verification. There were inspection records. So we're talking about a lot of records, on a daily basis, on two shifts, over an extended period of time.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Was there an evaluation of the pilot projects? Yes, there was an evaluation. It was a constant evaluation. I'm not aware of any specific document that can be provided. We could certainly go back and have a look at the ongoing work that took place throughout those pilot projects.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The overtime policy did not get in the way of completion of the compliance verification tasks. In fact, there was no limitation or cancellation of overtime. The compliance verification tasks require various elements, including pre-operational and post-operational inspections. That's part of the overall approach.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I can't answer your question right now. I can't sit here and say that every single compliance verification task in every meat plant across Canada last year was done. That would be impossible for me to say. But we certainly can provide you with some data in that regard fairly quickly as to what was done in each of the plants.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, certainly; I welcome the question. Last summer there was really no change in terms of cancellation of overtime. In fact, we've always approved essential overtime. I want to come back to the point about inspection of equipment and inspection of sanitation procedures. Going back to my earlier comments, we had two inspectors in the plant.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I probably won't be able to answer all of your detailed questions on numbers, but certainly I can give you some initial responses, and we'd be very happy to provide additional information later on. Since the agency was created, the number of front-line inspectors has steadily gone up, and we currently have 3,228 front-line inspectors.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you for the question. At the Maple Leaf Bartor Road plant, we had at that time, the time you specified, two inspectors. There were two shifts. Each inspector would have been present on the day shift or on the night shift. And it is true, as you indicated, Monsieur Bellavance, that the one inspector on the day shift had seven facilities that he was looking after.

Agriculture committee  I'll start with the second one and say that definitely we will help. We will be as transparent as possible. We will get the information out there so that this stigma that seems to be attached to these farms as a result of this unfortunate circumstance can be lifted as quickly as possible.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I understand.

Agriculture committee  Certainly we understand what these findings mean for these producers. We certainly empathize with their situation. We also are doing our very best to move this forward as quickly as we possibly can. We are not alone in this decision-making. We are clearly very closely linked with the U.S., and Mexico to some degree.