Agriculture committee  To clarify, are you talking about foot-and-mouth disease or African swine fever?

Agriculture committee  At this stage, the development of a vaccine bank is being led by CFIA. Animal Health Canada's role will be on the implementation. Basically, once we have that bank, how do we get it to the animals, should we need it? What's the process? What's the decision-making, and how does that work?

Agriculture committee  They have not specifically. I know it is a high priority for them and they are actively working on it now. Actually, my next step is to meet with CFIA in the very near term. I have a meeting scheduled with our chief veterinary officer to get a sense of those timelines and where Animal Health Canada can take the work it's already doing on the implementation to make sure that it remains complementary on both sides.

Agriculture committee  For biosecurity, on what they could do and what has happened in some other research projects, too, is things like swabbing of materials that come in and out of the barn. They can put tracers and map where, say, a potential pathogen might have moved through a barn. That might be one way that a research barn or facility could be used to help do research on biosecurity.

Agriculture committee  There are other parasites too.

Agriculture committee  Thanks, René. When it comes to wild pigs, we have a 10-year strategy. It has recently been accepted as a final draft. We say draft, because there is an indigenous engagement component we need to undertake, as well. The reason we came up with the strategy was to create a wild pig leadership group.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I would definitely say the multipartner approach that Animal Health Canada takes working with federal, provincial and territorial governments, as well as with industry partners, is something that takes a different approach. This is because it allows each partner to bring its plans and concerns forward for discussion in a collaborative way, so it helps to break down silos.