Agriculture committee  I would correct one word there: “clinical”. BSE can be seen in animals before they demonstrate clinical signs. Our testing program is designed to test all animals that show neurological signs consistent with BSE, but it also targets those populations by age and geographic region

Agriculture committee  We do continuous risk assessment on our BSE activities as it relates to surveillance, as it relates to feed, as it relates to SRM removal from human food.

Agriculture committee  They are done on an annual basis, as we relook at our targets.

Agriculture committee  We can table what has been submitted to the international program on our surveillance activities, yes.

Agriculture committee  No, that's not correct.

Agriculture committee  No, the incentive program has not been discontinued. It continues to this day. It's actually not an incentive program; it's truly a reimbursement program, which was introduced in 2003 to both facilitate the collection of samples in terms of offsetting costs incurred by producers

Agriculture committee  We at CFIA were aware that under the government's science and technology platform, there was a review of what are called non-regulatory laboratories. CFIA is a regulatory agency, so our laboratory system was not considered within the scope of that review.

Agriculture committee  That's what we're currently doing.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, we would be more than pleased to share the information we have available on testing programs in other jurisdictions as part of our import assessments of other countries. As we've indicated, our surveillance system in Canada is based on the recommendations of the Worl

Agriculture committee  To conclude, Mr. Chair, as we've testified on numerous occasions on BSE testing, we do recognize that other countries have adopted different approaches, for different reasons that are not food safety and public health related. As has been seen in many countries, testing young a

Agriculture committee  I would respond, as we've already indicated, that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency did participate in the strategic review process that was undertaken under the government's expenditure management system. I am not in a position to discuss cabinet confidences, which are protect

Agriculture committee  I've indicated that as part of the strategic review we are obliged to submit a memorandum to cabinet.

Agriculture committee  What has been made public are those initiatives that are being implemented over a period of time, as announced in the budget.

Agriculture committee  Yes. That which has been announced deals with the consolidation of import document review; improving our seed certification programs; removing the mandatory pre-market label review for meat, processed fruit, and vegetable; feed inspection harmonization; and adjustment to our avia

Agriculture committee  That was made public in budget 2008.