Agriculture committee  Thank you for your question. As the CFIA president mentioned, the regulations prescribed under the Plant Protection Act stipulate that, when we are unable to meet the requirements of an importing country, we do not have the necessary legal authority to issue an export certificat

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. Our inspectors are very professional. They work according to national standards that are established across all the different business lines. Of course, we hear that sometimes there can be issues on the ground, but we are open to hearing from industr

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. We deal with CBSA on a regular basis, in the regions and in Ottawa. We are working with the agency on a priority-setting exercise. The issue of spent hens is certainly one of our priorities. We've communicated this to the agency, and I think they're v

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. As I said, we continue to work increasingly with the Canada Border Services Agency to address these challenges. This is an ongoing collaboration. In fact, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and our colleagues at the Canada Border Services Agency have

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. We are very sympathetic to some of the challenges that have been raised by farmers, particularly around mental health issues and trespassing issues. From a CFIA perspective, our mandate doesn't cover those particular areas. We do work closely with ind

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. In fact, when we negotiate agreements with other countries, reciprocity standards are in place.

Agriculture committee  I'll let you answer that instead, Mr. Forbes. As far as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, is concerned, there is no funding to support the industry with respect to these efforts.

Agriculture committee  With respect to imports, the Safe Food for Canadians Act provides that the obligations and standards are the same for both imports and domestic products. For spent hens, we tried to work with industry stakeholders on a DNA test. Unfortunately, this test is not comprehensive enou

Agriculture committee  My understanding is that the DNA test isn't applicable to all poultry lines used in the industry, which poses challenges for us in identifying spent hens.

Agriculture committee  The regulations are in force, but we are in a period of compliance promotion, and that will last until February 2022. We're aware of the research that the industry is conducting, and we're awaiting the results of that. That will certainly feed into any considerations that we make

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. As the minister outlined in her testimony earlier, the negligible risk assessment will definitely open up new markets for us. We have already started to engage in that exercise, as an example, in southeast Asia. That work is ongoing and is a priority

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think it will, but we are still working with our partners. As well, work is ongoing with the industry to work on the concerns that they have raised around SRM, but also more generally on some irritants they perceive in the way we implement the current regime. We are workin