Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today, for making yourselves available, and for your patience in letting us get our agenda sorted out.
Unfortunately, as we sit here today, as is usual with the opposition parties, they're talking out of both sides of their mouths. On one hand, they've done everything they can to try to discredit, devalue, and undermine the work of the independent investigator; and then on the other hand, they've now called this premature meeting to discuss the report, which was released only a very short time ago. The government certainly intends to act on the recommendations, but as we all know, there hasn't even been a meeting of Parliament since the report was released.
On one hand, they're trying to discredit the work of the committee and the work of the independent investigator, while on the other hand they're calling this meeting, using taxpayer dollars to bring us all back here to Ottawa a couple of weeks early, on very little notice, and then, of course, turning around and accusing the government of not making people available, and so on, when there was very little notice given.
As usual, they're talking out of both sides of their mouth. To me, it's very plain from the start that the Liberals and the opposition parties are more interested in scoring political points than they are in improving our food safety system.
That said, I have a few questions. I'll direct them to the members of the CFIA, to Dr. Evans or anyone else who'd like to answer.
First of all, would you say that Canada's food safety system is stronger today than it was a year ago?