The surveillance objectives are:

• Detect new emerging swine health issues
• Detect unusual clinical presentation of known diseases
• Provide information about endemic diseases, and
• For diseases absent in western Canada (such as Foot and Mouth Disease and African swine fever) the objective is to help provide evidence of absence of disease to support trade.

The objectives for the current health surveillance branch of the intelligence network are:

• Facilitate knowledge transfer to producers, swine health practitioners, pork boards and governments in western Canada;
• Provide fora for discussion of swine health issues;
• Grow the network (for example seek to include more laboratories);
• Brand and expand the knowledge and credibility of CWSHIN.

The objectives for the special investigations are:

• Provide an option to contract out short projects (less than one year duration) that rarely can be funded through existing programs or academia;
• Gain practical new insight into swine health issues and control of health issues of special interest to CWSHIN’s stakeholders (producers, swine health practitioners, pork boards and governments).