Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, we are in the process of hiring staff. We've received funding for 170 new inspectors. I'm pleased to announce that as of today we have hired 157 already. The people we're looking for to do these kinds of jobs have technical or science background

Agriculture committee  Yes. Thank you for the question with respect to imported meat procedures. It is true that in 2009, at that time companies could give notice 72 hours in advance and get clearance on whether their shipment was going to have to be inspected in Canada or not. Based on the recommen

Agriculture committee  I just want to reiterate my points a bit. I said that there's an equivalent amount of time spent. The U.S. requires it. There's a bylaw that products being exported to their country are under a regime that requires a presence on every shift. What I'm saying is that the total a

Agriculture committee  The timeframe would be, well, as quickly as we can get the people on and get them up and running. I hate to promise, because there's a staffing process and a training process that has to take place, but it's certainly within four to six months. We'll have the people hired withi

Agriculture committee  As we audit theirs.

Agriculture committee  Well, we have 35 new inspectors hired to do the ready-to-eat listeria work. I don't have exactly the number of people who have--

Agriculture committee  No. The 35 new inspectors are for listeria-related, ready-to-eat meat inspection. I can give you the details of where they're located. Obviously there are quite a few processing plants in Ontario and Quebec, so most of those 35 inspectors are going into Ontario and Quebec, but th

Agriculture committee  I'll start with the global figure, and the question of how many inspectors we have on the ground. The answer is that 3,315 staff in CFIA are involved in front line inspection. As you take that pool of inspectors, we look at what resources have come to the agency in the last cou

Agriculture committee  Yes. I wasn't sure if you wanted me to get into that detail, but certainly I'd be glad to talk about the presence in plants. The policy with these new resources is to move to more coverage in all meat processing plants. We've started with the larger plants that produce about 80

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  No, that's fine, thanks.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I would just like to clarify that the section 4 tasks are a very important part of the CVS. We are working very diligently to put those section 4 tasks in place. That was part of the original design of the CVS, that those would come over a two-year period. They're an additional s

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, honourable member, for the question. In fact, in reply to your last question with respect to why didn't we go right away and do a comprehensive look, we did that. The policy required an in-depth listeria review. We sent a team of food safety

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  No. What I'm saying is that for the Bartor Road plant we did an in-depth evaluation. Now I want to move on to the section 4 tasks. We have started those tasks. They are to be done for all plants over a two-year period, and that's where we, as you indicated, bring in a specialist

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  As I indicated, I can't give you an ideal ratio because there are variabilities in the plants, and I explained previously why there is no set ratio. I can tell you that overall there is a ratio for all the plants and all the inspectors; there's a ratio of slightly over three plan

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Just to be clear on the question, yes, the one inspector for the Maple Leaf Barter Road plant had, I believe, six plants, maybe seven. Before, those were cold storages, which require less inspection effort. I don't believe it's correct to say that overall in the Toronto area the