Finance committee  Thank you, Chair. I'm Colleen Barnes, the executive director of domestic policy at CFIA. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with members of the committee today. I am here to describe the proposed changes to the Health of Animals Act. Before I begin, I want to b

Finance committee  We do have humane transportation regulations, yes.

Finance committee  We do regulate that area.

Finance committee  No, not at all.

Finance committee  This one doesn't have a financial dollar figure attached to it because it's a new tool that the agency is going to have at its disposal. As I said, when we have a serious disease we try to eradicate. We have to go in there and take intensive samples. If it turns out that we can't

Finance committee  Mr. Chair, there are savings associated with this new tool. That's why it's in this piece of legislation. It's hard to quantify, because it will depend on the disease and the situation in the future.

Finance committee  We recognize that things are changing out there, for instance, with climate change, and the nature of disease is evolving. So we looked at situations, for example avian influenza, which we've had success in eradicating. If we hadn't been able to, the costs of managing that diseas

Finance committee  We can zone now. But what this will allow us to do is that when we have an area that's declared under quarantine and we can't eradicate that disease, we can now put a control zone in place where we can manage the disease while we use science or other ways to effectively eradicate

Finance committee  That's right, Mr. Chair.

Finance committee  That's just one example. It's not designed for that disease in particular. It's for any disease where we find ourselves in a place where we can't eradicate.

Finance committee  No. This actually will help us. We then get this new zoning approach that, as the other member mentioned, is well recognized internationally as a management strategy, and it actually helps us keep our markets open.

Finance committee  It would be, based on science, in terms of our approach. So to that extent, yes.

Finance committee  Potentially. When you're in a situation where you can't eradicate, we could move to this zoning. And that is well recognized internationally as a management approach that would only, then, have implications for the zone and not the rest of Canada.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The issue that has been raised flags the concern the way subclause 10(3) is written. Exports and imports would all have to comply with the Canadian regime, and that's not the case. It's only if there are regulations in place that it operates. What we've do

Agriculture committee  Paragraph 51(1)(e) is the regulation-making authority around exports.