Agriculture committee  Certainly our objective is for continuous improvement in the system. If we use the example of SRM, we've taken very much to heart that the industry has noted that the compliance cost in response to SRM removal is an issue. What they've said to us is that they share the commitment

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  Certainly. Thank you. Our colleagues in the United States have embarked on a very ambitious agenda by working with us through the Regulatory Cooperation Council to look at where greater alignment is possible, as well as to look at where approaches can be more reflective of today

Agriculture committee  I'd like that.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. I'll speak to the imported food and equivalency, and I'm sure my colleague will speak to some of the specific issues around inspector protection. First of all, as for the reference to imported food not being inspected for food safety, that's simply not corre

Agriculture committee  All foods in Canada are subject to the Food and Drugs Act, which has specific and explicit requirements around their safety. Implementation is a shared responsibility between the federal government and our provincial counterparts. A farmers' market would normally, first and for

Agriculture committee  The example you used of the canola, where the U.S. had intercepted a shipment of product where they found a contaminant, I think is an indicator of the interest that both the U.S. and we in Canada have in terms of management across the entire supply chain. That canola meal going

Agriculture committee  Okay.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  Actually, no. Compliance verification is really the agency's tool in verifying that the industry has done what it is expected to do. When we talk about latitude, what we talk about is shifting the regulatory framework to one that focuses on what the expectation of the industry

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We extend our appreciation to the committee for the invitation to appear. As you well know, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is Canada's largest science-based regulatory agency, and is dedicated to safeguarding food, animals, and plants.

Agriculture committee  Right now we have veterinarians posted in China and Russia, as the minister has said. In addition to that, we also have veterinarians in place in Japan, the European Union, and we previously had a veterinarian in Mexico, but that position is not filled at the moment.

Agriculture committee  What I'm trying to explain is that it's dependent on risk and commodity. So if we're talking—

Agriculture committee  Certainly. We'll overview the import.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. From a regulator's perspective, a science-based, rules-based approach is critical to predictability. Nothing makes the job of an exporter or an importer harder if they can't understand the rules, if the rules appear to be arbitrary. That's one of the wonde