Agriculture committee  Absolutely. You mentioned automation and robotics. That's a really big issue. Right now, we're collaborating with both Industry Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to kind of benchmark, to see what kind of robotics and automation is happening in our industry. For exampl

Agriculture committee  Right. So how do you start off here? Just with GM labelling, as you say, there are no credible studies that say that GM foods are any different or less safe than conventionally made food. So that's one thing. Another key thing on the GM labelling issue is choice. We already ha

Agriculture committee  What I was referring to is that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada provided $17.4 million to Health Canada specifically for food regulatory reform, and that worked very well. As I mentioned earlier, we saw a lot of improvements with food additives. So the approval process for this

Agriculture committee  I don't have much to add here, but five years seems reasonable. The timeliness of approvals is a huge issue—and the transparency of approvals. Reiterating what Clyde said, being able to have government and industry work together to say whether it's even worth the effort to make

Agriculture committee  Sure. I will provide a translation of my statement in both official languages following this meeting. The key for us in regulatory modernization is that Health Canada holds our regulations, and these regulations have not been updated for a very long time. So we see delays in p

Agriculture committee  Excellent. I'm ready. Food and Consumer Products of Canada welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food study on innovation competitiveness. FCPC is the largest national industry association in Canada, representing companies that

Industry committee  I want to address Ms. Sgro's questions about the health and safety of products, especially non-compliant products. What I was saying is that there are health and safety concerns. The product formulations may not be approved in Canada, and the packaging and labelling may be defici

Industry committee  Training is definitely an ongoing challenge on this issue. As I mentioned, counterfeiters are much more sophisticated. Often it takes the rights holders' expertise within the companies—to actually go and physically do the inspection themselves and discuss with the border officers

Industry committee  I'm not sure how the resources are currently allocated, nor of the roles and responsibilities in how the border officers will operate in the future. I'll leave that to the department and the MPs on the committee to determine.

Industry committee  Going back to Lorne's earlier remarks that in an ideal world importers would be responsible and it is difficult tracking down importers to pay for these costs, I agree. But if it's difficult tracking down the importers of these counterfeit products, I would say try harder. Let's

Industry committee  I think the border officers would require perhaps more resources. I mean, let's think about this. Counterfeiters are becoming much more sophisticated. If the officers are going to be given additional responsibility at the border, I think more training would be required. I think t

Industry committee  We're satisfied as well. Many of our products line the grocery shelves and drugstore shelves. These are products that you put in your mouth and that touch your skin, so the stakes are very high. These are a concern for us, and we think Bill C-8 will address that on the counterfe

Industry committee  Sure. The concern about cost has to do with proposed subsection 44.07(1). Our concern here is that currently, as stated in the legislation, the rights holders would be responsible for the cost of the storage, handling, and destruction of the suspect goods. We're concerned about

Industry committee  Food and Consumer Products of Canada welcomes the opportunity to contribute to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology's study of Bill C-8, the Combating Counterfeit Products Act. FCPC is the largest national industry association in Canada, representing compa

Agriculture committee  The biggest challenge that food processors have is being able to get their products approved through Canada's regulatory system. If we have food manufacturers that are employing Canadians and creating new and innovative products in Canada, that's the first step. The second step i