I appreciate the intervention.
Again, I'll be very clear with the committee, as I have been on multiple occasions, that in our circumstance, as to the view of Mr. Kingston that inspectors in and of themselves can prevent this from happening, they are a critical component of what we do. They very much are. I think Mr. Kingston would be the first to say that the skill sets, the competencies of our inspectors today are at a higher level than they've ever been. So again, we bring that each minute of every hour of every day that we work in plants. We recognize the consequences that we are managing, and we work hard to make sure these consequences don't happen again.
We remember what happened a year ago. Our agency has deeply embedded that into the culture of our organization. We are committed to doing the best we possibly can for Canadians, because Canadians expect no less.
We will use technology. We will allocate resources to the fullest extent we can where risk exists. But if you're asking me whether we can prevent recalls, no, we cannot. Can we prevent food-borne illness from happening at any point in the future? No, we cannot, because we know that, again, the vast majority of food-borne illness doesn't occur at the point of production. In fact, the statistics very clearly indicate internationally, in every country around the world, 85% to 90% of food-borne illness is a result of mishandling or abuse of food subsequent to its production.
So I can't give an iron-clad guarantee to this committee or to Canadians that we can prevent every food incident from happening, but I can assure you that we are doing everything possible to ensure the consequences are mitigated.