Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the witnesses for coming out today.
One of the things that was mentioned, and I believe part of why we're doing this, is that everyone has talked about the level of frustration and the complexity of doing it, and I think we need to be clear that this is why we're having so much discussion with those involved, because if we want to do this, it will not be a government solution; this is going to have to be a solution by the stakeholders, which the government will put forward. I think, as Mr. St. Amand mentioned earlier, the government needs to take a lead, and I think that's why this government is taking the lead.
Mr. de Valk, you mentioned one thing, and I may have heard you incorrectly, but you said that most people do understand the labelling. In my family I don't think they do. They believe they do until you explain it to them, and then they don't. Quite honestly, they now feel misled. So when we go through this process, not only is it going to be a process that has to talk about proper labelling, but it also has to be marketed so that the people of Canada understand what the labelling means.
I also believe, and I may be wrong, that if you were to talk to people here, they would say that our families are now more cognizant of labelling than I was when growing up. So why is that? The world has become smaller; products come in from all over the place. We used to have some confidence, because we grew so much more in Canada and we didn't have nearly the variety we do today.
You talked about it in terms of registration and the frustration we have in terms of our competitiveness with our largest trading partner, the United States, where they wait just seven days. In Canada there's been a frustration for years, you said, to get that type of registration for label changing. It costs you $100, and then every minor change it's another $45—and every time you do that it always rings of bureaucracy to me. So do you have some suggestions of what we can do to help or change that, Mr. de Valk?