Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think there are a lot of areas you have to look at with meat. Meat is a very highly perishable, high-risk product. These loads are travelling sometimes thousands of miles, and a lot of things can go wrong. The meat could even be substituted. These truckers could stop anywhere and substitute that product.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I would suggest every truck be inspected. We used to do it, and I used to refuse five or six shipments a month for stuff that was in, as I said, dirty trucks, with product off condition, reefer units not working, product misrepresented. They say it's young chicken on the truck, and you find out it's fowl.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Right.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  It's being done, but to what extent? I can just tell you, from personal observation and talking to other people in the industry, that it's not being done. In my own area, I've never seen inspectors take a sample for micro analysis. I used to take samples according to sampling plans, and I used to submit them.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Well, with the system the way it is now, CFIA has created a big gap and has opened the gate up quite a bit for this type of thing to happen, whereas back then we were finding those things with inspection. What's going on now? We don't know. We have no knowledge of what's going on.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  That's possible, but right now—

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  It's supposed to happen, yes, but I don't think there has ever been anybody shut down from the U.S. or been delisted for exporting an inferior product unless they've been audited by an audit team that has gone over there.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  In the industry course, I just basically train them to know all the procedures: what happens, how a load is certified, how it clears through customs at the border, what happens when a load is inspected, why loads are refused entry--

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The general information.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  A lot of meat is inspected, but at the same time, a lot of meat has been “failure to present”—it didn't show up for inspection. That has been a big problem. We're tracking shipments all the time in my facility, loads that are supposed to come to us and don't come to us. I went through access to information and found out there were almost 3,000 shipments that never were presented for inspection.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think it's very important. They are to be mentors. They are to be providing advice and helping you in difficult situations. If they don't have any knowledge of the system, it's very difficult for them to give you advice that you would be able to use.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  It's supposed to be fully inspected. It's supposed to be certified.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Right.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Well, I've inspected a lot of loads that were certified, and there were a lot of problems with them. I have had loads off condition. That could have been in transit. That could have happened at the plant level. I have had shipments of meat that had pathological lesions on them. I have had loads of meat that were in trucks that were filthy, dirty, had foul odours to them, and yet had a USDA seal on them.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Well, we did that at one time.