Agriculture committee  As indicated, CFIA was one of 17 departments and agencies that were part of the first of a four-year cycle, a review of all departments and agencies in government under the government's expenditure management system, or EMS, which was adopted by Treasury Board. Within the parameters of that particular program, CFIA, along with all others who have to go through that process on the four-year cycle, are required to identify up to 5% of their A-base budget in terms of areas where programs are either underperforming or could be redesigned to be more effective, to identify how those savings could possibly be seen, and then it is the decision of government as to whether or not that money would be reallocated to other government priorities.

Agriculture committee  No, that is not accurate. Our proposal is that we maintain BSE surveillance and activities. When we undertook our BSE surveillance program, designed in 2003 on the enhanced program, we identified at that time the need to achieve approximately 30,000 samples per year to achieve our objective of having a very credible system, in line with international standards.

Agriculture committee  No, that is not a true statement. The reality of meat inspection modernization, as has been the case with all of our modernization initiatives since the creation of the agency, has been to work to recognize quality assurance and HACCP-based systems, making those mandatory for industry sectors, and then ensuring that our resources are dedicated to verifying that industry is in fact achieving the food safety outcome and standard for which they are being held accountable.

Agriculture committee  No, there is no divesting of responsibility on the part of CFIA. In fact, part of our effort at CFIA has been in recognition of the changing risk environment in which food is produced, intensive agricultural production systems, globalization of food, increased utilization of foreign ingredients in Canadian food, and the reality of new and emerging pathogens in the food system associated with changes in the types of food consumers are looking for.

Agriculture committee  As has been indicated, obviously, in terms of the strategic review process, honourable member, CFIA undertook to prepare a memorandum to cabinet that outlined where we felt there were opportunities for us to make investments that would be part of a transformative process to modernize inspection activities.

Agriculture committee  Certainly. I'd just make a point, honourable member, regarding that “Product of Canada” labelling, which was the focus of a significant report from this committee, one that we very much valued and have taken into account, and we have moved forward on the “Product of Canada” initiatives.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. In recognition of the important work of the committee, we will certainly be brief in our opening comments in order to provide all members the opportunity to answer those questions that are pertinent to you. As indicated by the chair, my name is Dr. Brian Evans.

Agriculture committee  No, there's been very good progress with industry in terms of responding to the issue around a dedicated surveillance program in Canada for avian influenza. The discussions on compensation have been going on in parallel with those discussions. We have come to ground with the industry on a surveillance approach that will meet the obligations our trading partners and, I believe, Canadians would expect of our industry in identifying any potential public health risk associated with avian influenza.

Agriculture committee  The 65% target relates to part of the food safety action plan in terms of producer engagement.

Agriculture committee  But the marketing issue becomes one of how we extrapolate.... Mr. Chair, the targets were established in consultation with industry in terms of what was achievable, recognizing that, across the board, when one tries to describe industry as it relates to food safety, it deals with both domestic production and imported production.

Agriculture committee  It varies across sectors, depending on whether you're talking about the registered sector, which would deal with the meat and fish components, or the non-registered sector. Within the registered sector, I would suggest we're much higher; we're probably in the 85% to 90% range. In the non-registered sector, again based on industry capacity, it would range probably from 20% to 60%.

Agriculture committee  I think we always aim for 100%, but at the same time, in order to be fair to all, what we want to show is continuous investment, continuous improvement, and continuous participation.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman, the establishment of the compensation maximums alluded to by the honourable member were the result of two phases of review with industry in terms of their being able to document within the scope of our legislation. As was pointed out by the minister, we do not have authority under the Health of Animals Act to compensate for production loss.

Agriculture committee  Again, in establishing the values at the higher level it was pointed out to us by the government that in fact some of those areas had exceeded our authority to do so and we were instructed to bring the values back in line with our regulated authorities.

Agriculture committee  Again I want to be very clear that when we were talking about the $30 value, it was against the backdrop of the specific crisis of Abbotsford, where factors were taken into account to deal with those pressures. Subsequent to that, we tried to act in a responsive, flexible way. We were advised after the fact that in fact we had exceeded our authorities, and we were instructed, although not to do a pullback of moneys that had been allocated, to bring those values in line with our regulated authorities.