Agriculture committee  The standards that are currently present in our regulations are still enforceable. They are current. However, as was mentioned by previous witnesses, first of all, they are under review, because we're collecting data about them, but they're also narrow in the type of food commodities they cover.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. The discrepancy with other standards does not really present itself in terms of violations of international agreements. Our work at Health Canada is to ensure that the standards that are in place are protective to human health. As was mentioned by previous witnesses, we have in effect two standards, the two parts per million for soft wheat and the one part per million for, again, soft wheat, destined for essentially baby foods.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, honourable members. Given the time allotted for our discussions, we have elected to restrict this brief introduction to providing the honourable committee members with a brief overview on how Health Canada sets safety standards for contaminants, such as those naturally occurring toxins that have been discussed by the committee this afternoon, in foods that are destined for human consumption, and the way we operate in collaboration with the CFIA to protect Canadians' health vis-à-vis food contaminants.