Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I can give you my considered scientific opinion; I can't speculate as to whether it would guarantee that we would have found the circumstance. Again, I think the difficult reality of the consequences that occurred last summer was that there were unknowns about this issue of the

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Having identified this previously unknown risk, we believe we have--and this is important to the memory of those...and to those families who have lost loved ones--prevented, to a large extent, this type of scenario from unfolding again in the future. The measures that have been

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Again, a number of the reports, ours and Ontario's, recognized the need for ensuring that when samples are taken in these types of circumstances, they're identified as high priority for testing on the basis that we are actually dealing with investigating food-borne illness, in th

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think we all, as CFIA and Canadians, recognize the outstanding work that Mr. McCain did in terms of bringing issues forward to Canadians in a very responsible, timely, transparent way. He's to be commended for that. We encourage all industry leaders, and government leaders, to

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  At no time were there mandatory requirements for industry to do environmental testing. Up until 2005, as the government, we were conducting environmental testing on a twice-per-year basis. With the introduction of mandatory HACCP in 2005, the greater percentage of the industry

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, honourable member. Very briefly, on the issue of what I believe Mr. Michael McCain was alluding to, the issue of consumer awareness or consumer education is a very significant element of a robust food safety system. We certainly do have an obligation to inform Canadi

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you for the question, honourable member. Again, I take your points as very valid. I think if you look across the lessons learned, the issue of coordination, early engagement, and information sharing is a common theme that's been picked up by all jurisdictions. We're all p

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I apologize to the member. We'll hopefully reconnect on another round. Again, as Carole has indicated, what is really important about this is to put in true context for everybody not just the roles that people were playing but the information we were dealing with individually an

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Carole. Thank you, Mr. Chair. In full respect of the committee and their desire to question, I'll be as brief as possible. Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate the opportunity to appear before this committee, and I welcome your contributions to our sin

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members and Mr. Bellavance. First let me make two quick comments. Certainly we will respond in a very timely and earnest way to provide the level of detail that you have sought from the CFIA with respect to inspection numbers. I believe in a previous ap

Agriculture committee  With respect to the process that you asked about, the expenditure management system, as I've indicated, requires all government departments and agencies. All of them are covered over a four-year cycle. It's our understanding that we will go through this process again in three or

Agriculture committee  I'll try to be brief, Mr. Chairman. Less prescriptive, again, in previous testimony relates back to the recommendations from this committee and the fact that there are elements of our program that have been viewed as having created a non-competitive sector--for example, issues o

Agriculture committee  I think your first question was, did we have any assurance as we started down the process that any opportunities to reallocate money to internal priorities would be supported? The short answer to that is no. The very nature--

Agriculture committee  Yes. Since we were created--

Agriculture committee  No. The ERC stands for...?