Finance committee  It's highly complex, but when countries are removed from the general preferential tariff treatment, there could be an effect on products that are sourced from countries that are considered the lowest developed countries. The government answered our request to look at the rules o

Finance committee  We are in the process—and we have told the department this as well—of developing another submission around the GPT in which we would look at exactly that. Certainly one criterion would be that there are no alternative sources for these products. So for tuna, there are other sourc

Finance committee  We had asked the department to do an impact study on what these changes might mean for consumers. We're doing it ourselves, and we will provide some of that information when it's complete.

Finance committee  Sorry, could I respond?

Finance committee  Our main area of concern with the review of the GPT is not necessarily those countries that are going to come off the GPT list, but the effect on the lowest-developed country and the fact that the rules of origin state that if they get inputs from GPT countries who would no longe

Finance committee  Not at all, and I would be shocked to hear that there's 100% markup on retail products when my retailers are telling me that their margins are 4% to 15% max.

Finance committee  As I mentioned, we completely understand where the government is coming from with the fact that countries like China shouldn't necessarily benefit from a preferential tariff for boosting their exports. We understand that. What we had asked for are things that will allow the retai

Finance committee  I wouldn't be able to give you that information at this point. It's something that we're looking into with our members and we've discussed with the department. As I mentioned earlier, there are 1,400 pages of the Customs Tariff—2013. Going through that, there's a significant numb

Finance committee  I think we need to be very clear as to the purpose of these tariffs. My understanding of the tariffs is that originally they were supposed to protect domestic manufacturing in Canada. If there's no more domestic manufacturing in Canada, we don't need the tariffs anymore. If they

Finance committee  Well, we've certainly seen that happen. Statistics Canada has released results that show cross-border trips are increasing substantially year upon year. In discussions with our retailers who have stores on both sides of the borders, they've seen tremendous increases in Canadians

Finance committee  It's hard to make all the correlations. But we certainly believe that in those areas where retailers are not able to find alternative sources of product.... So that's the time factor we've asked the government to give us, so that where there are other sources our retailers can fi

Finance committee  We're in the process of working with the officials in the Department of Finance to develop the testing plan. They are the ones who are developing the plan to monitor what is actually going to happen in the marketplace when we start to see the results of the tariff elimination. We

Finance committee  We've asked that the rules of origin for products sourced from least developed countries be changed to minimize the impact of these changes on those products. We appreciate the government's commitment to starting to look at the rules of origin for textiles and apparel. Finally,

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to thank you and the committee for inviting the Retail Council of Canada here today on Bill C-60. Today I have the privilege of speaking for an industry that touches the daily lives of Canadians across this country and one that is a critical compon

Agriculture committee  Health Canada has recently posted an information notice to consumers about cooking temperatures for tenderized beef in particular. At the same time, we've been working very closely with the department in getting that information to consumers. I can tell you that some of our memb