Health committee  Thank you. With me today is Jim Libbey, chief financial officer for the Public Health Agency. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to the supplementary estimates (B) for 2010-11 as they pertain to the agency. Our commitment to chronic disease prevention and control is among our highest priorities for the coming year and this year.

Health committee  I'll let CFIA speak to the standards of inspection.

Health committee  It was a surprise. The fact that we were able to detect it I think was an important piece of detective work. It was literally the needle in the haystack, or more accurately a different-sized straw in a haystack. It is something we now know about, and now I think inspection methods and things will be appropriate to that.

Health committee  Thank you for the question. The next steps will be to consider to improve our process for recognizing challenges posed by nature. In fact, in nature, there are a great many elements that can cause infections in the population. So we must anticipate infections, like the H1N1 virus or a bacterium.

Health committee  I'll be very quick. One of the important things about surveillance is that when someone gets ill, they may or may not go to the doctor. If they don't go to the doctor, there's no diagnosis—and the majority never go, and never need to actually. Then those who go to the doctor may or may not get tested.

Health committee  Panorama is the name for an integrated suite of tools, not just for surveillance but also case management. In the budget--I think it was in 2004--money was given to Canada Health Infoway for the development of a surveillance tool that could also serve as a case management tool. There are a number of aspects to the modules.

Health committee  Frank can speak to the lab system.

Health committee  Yes, we'll probably.... We have stuff that we use to track these things and review them internally, but we'll put a chronology together for you.

Health committee  The protocol is how we as a country relate to the outbreaks, whatever the source, when it comes to food-borne outbreaks. So if there's something international affecting Canada, then clearly it outlines how we as a nation respond at each level of jurisdiction and across different organizations, including the communications.

Health committee  Frank is sitting in Washington at the global health security discussions that we do on a range of topics, so maybe I'll address it to start. Obviously we had good cooperation even before listeria, but we've been able to refine that in terms of a more formalized process augmenting the ad hoc kinds of things, finding ways to work more closely together.

Health committee  I'll start. Certainly we're on track. The target is obviously September of next year, but many of the things, for example the FIORP, are in place. We're using it, and we will be testing it shortly, etc. Many of the recommendations have actually already been implemented. For many of those that are in process, it's a matter of refinements.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. For the benefit of new committee members, I would like to begin with some context. Whether it is from the farm to the kitchen or from the kitchen to the table, food-borne outbreaks can and will happen. Food-borne illness normally occurs at home. It happens after unsafe handling or preparation, even when the food supply itself is safe.

Health committee  We have a number of things. Obviously, with our provincial and territorial partners, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and CFIA, there's the FIORP, the food outbreak response protocol and the revisions to that. We're also using Panorama. Some of the resources we've received will assist us in using Panorama, applying it in surveillance, and again working with other jurisdictions around that.

Health committee  Excellent. Thank you. Thanks to the committee again for the opportunity to speak on our supplementary estimates (A). With me today is Jim Libbey, the chief financial officer for the agency. As you know, it's not quite six years ago that the Public Health Agency was created. In this fiscal year, $664.8 million has been allocated to the agency, and I'd like to briefly outline a few of the areas that illustrate how these funds are put to good use.

Health committee  We will deal with that. Again, it's part of the overall budgeting, allocation, planning, etc., in terms of once we get to that point, what if anything else is needed, or is it shifting?A lot of this is actually setting the stage for the right kind of work to be done. That's really key, and the resources have been very helpful in assisting us to do that.