Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members. Thank you for inviting the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition to appear during your hearings on this important subject. The coalition was formed in December 2000 and incorporated in 2007 to act as a single, strong voice for industry

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  My apologies, Mr. Chair.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I would think that the best starting point for our answer, from the coalition's perspective, is that we are realists, even though we have put some very challenging suggestions before the committee and before governments about having a

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Well, I've been growing this one for a very long time and losing this one for almost as long. What we're looking for is a commitment on the part of governments to move towards that kind of an approach. There have been various initiatives in the past where governments have assig

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Mr. Bellavance, I think you're quite right, that we have a very uneven system in terms of food safety across the country and in terms of traceability at this point as well. What the coalition is seeking is opportunities for governments and industry and other stakeholders to com

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  We certainly want that, and we certainly want a high degree of coordination and communication in times of crisis. Industry has seen some very good practices on the part of government in certain crisis situations in which there has been very good communication, but in other situat

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  First of all, I'll deal with the issue of the consensus model. I've been working in food safety with various associations and governments for almost 20 years now. I have seen remarkable consensus achieved within industry and within groups that represent large and small players.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  You've asked a number of questions there. I'll try briefly to deal with them, Mr. Chair. First of all, I'd encourage the committee to think about HACCP or HACCP-based programs as having been constructed using a very powerful tool of analysis. HACCP is a toolkit that you use to

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Mr. Chair, the founding rationale of the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition is a firm belief among members of the supply chain that it is a supply chain responsibility, from input suppliers, whether they're producing agrifood chemicals or other chemicals used in food pro

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Mr. Shipley, I think we do. One of the premises of trade policy in the 21st century, I believe, is that before you can impose requirements on the products coming into your country, you have to have the same requirements at home. Certainly that has driven federal interest in areas

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  If we went back over time, you'd discover that the coalition has been making a number of suggestions since its formation as to the need to improve certain parts of the infrastructure. And it's not just hard capital infrastructure, but the other parts of infrastructure that are pa

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  When you refer to the outbreak, do you mean last year's listeriosis outbreak?

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, I'm just trying to clarify, is that what you meant?

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I don't know of any exercises yet that have come out of the incident last summer, but the lessons learned documents, as you know, have just been tabled very recently. As an example, a workshop is coming up near the end of this month that is very much going to involve industry and

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  To my knowledge, we have not received an invitation to do so. Other individual food businesses or associations might have been involved in some of those discussions.