Agriculture committee  That's a good question. In previous years we had significant disease outbreaks once a decade. Now they are coming more and more frequently—whether it's PED or BSE. I was very involved in BSE in the early 2000s, H1N1, avian influenza, a whole host of them. Ebola was a threat to

Agriculture committee  All communications. When you talk about managing a disease outbreak, whether it's BSE or avian influenza, everybody needs to know what's happening in the situation all the time so that they can make good, responsible decisions, including testing information, such as which premise

Agriculture committee  Sure. There are two vaccines available that Dr. Kochhar mentioned, but neither one of them is overly efficacious. As Claude mentioned, they may reduce shedding but they won't reduce disease, and they haven't been broadly used because producers have been trying to eliminate as o

Agriculture committee  Yes, I could speak at length. I remember that day very well in January 2014. It was actually the University of Guelph animal health laboratory that confirmed the presence of the disease in Ontario, and then we went to work with our industry. We had prepared beforehand with our in

Agriculture committee  Not at this point. We have been concentrating on our own barns and enhancing our own biosecurity in the five buffer zones. When I was in Ontario with OMAFRA, we did have biosecurity support from CFIA. They came to help us with the smaller producers that we had in Ontario. You ra

Agriculture committee  CFIA has the resources. When they deal with federally reportable diseases, such as avian influenza or chronic wasting disease in western Canada, they actually come into a farm and they will work with the producer on cleaning and disinfection. CFIA has them in Ontario, but they

Agriculture committee  It does, yes. We have looked at that before. In Manitoba, we have a very engaged industry. It's a larger industry. Being responsible, we have resources that are dedicated to making sure that animals are transported humanely, but part of that is also making sure that they're tra

Agriculture committee  Sure, I can start. Again, my name is Greg Douglas. I'm the vice-president of animal care with Maple Leaf Foods. I was also the chief veterinarian for Ontario during the 2014 PED situation, when we were the first province in Canada to have PED. I was also the chief veterinarian o