Agriculture committee  We believe the system today works. We have an excellent food safety system in Canada. We work very well with the authorities in the interest of continuous improvement. This bill is another layer on that. We have complete confidence in the system in Canada as we see it today.

Agriculture committee  I would say that this bill, in harmonizing practices between the various commodity groups, is going to help with improvements such as Jim alluded to earlier. Inspectors learn from moving from commodity to commodity. Having inspectors who have a broader view of the food safety sys

Agriculture committee  I believe Canadians already feel very confident in the food safety system in Canada. I think some of the messaging coming out of this bill is going to help boost that confidence, such as the increase in penalties, the consolidation, the harmonization, but by and large, I think Ca

Agriculture committee  In principle, absolutely we would support that. As I keep saying, food safety is paramount for our members. Any opportunity to highlight areas where there might be concerns is very important. I wouldn't have any problem with our supporting something like that.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I can't see that our members would object to such an audit. It's always a good thing to look internally at whether you have the right resources to match your requirements and your mandates and, especially given a new piece of legislation, whether you've matched up the right resou

Agriculture committee  Certainly. As I mentioned in my opening statement, there are a few things concerning where we feel that the authorities are a bit broad specifically around disclosing confidential business information, which the minister has broad authority to do, and for which there don't seem

Agriculture committee  I think the increase in fines really does show Canadians that the government is taking food safety very seriously. From a retail perspective, it's really not an issue for us, because as I said, for our members, food safety is the number one priority. If there is an issue that's i

Agriculture committee  I can be quick and then I think James probably has some more commentary. For our members, the only caution around traceability is to make sure we have a uniform system for all products. In keeping with the spirit of the legislation, which is bringing things to a harmonized appro

Agriculture committee  I wouldn't be able to comment on that, but I am certainly happy to go back to find out from our members and send that information back to the clerk.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  It makes it easier if there are uniform standards across the country so everybody knows what they're supposed to be doing. Not all of our members are national in scope. In retail, the one thing that is not competitive is food safety. Our retailers work very closely together. If

Agriculture committee  I guess I would say I don't have a strong opinion about when an audit should take place. I would have hoped that in developing this piece of legislation the government would have already done a bit of benchmarking as to what was working and what wasn't. I assumed that was why the

Agriculture committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I'd like to thank you for giving us the opportunity today to speak to Bill S-11. My name is Karen Proud. I'm the vice-president of federal government relations for the Retail Council of Canada. I'm going to keep my remarks fair