Thank you for your question.
Indeed, the legislation has meant a very heavy burden in terms of paperwork for all manufacturers and processors. They have to cut through a lot of red tape from different departments that are not necessarily keeping the communication channels open between themselves, which leads to a kind of duplication that manufacturers and processors have to deal with.
There needs to be more focused dialogue with Health Canada and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to truly reduce the administrative burden while maintaining at the same time the appropriate checks and balances. While the paperwork and regulations need to be simplified, consumers also need to be protected at the same time. We have approached a number of Health Canada officials about this issue and they have told us that they will look into it. However, we have not seen anything come of this.
The same is true for inspectors, who are sometimes in-house, sometimes arm's length, and sometimes they work for the province and at other times for the federal government. There needs to be a far more open dialogue between departments, like in the case of Food Valley, and for non-meat products.
The Food Valley example is a good one. The government struck a committee on which various department were represented with a view to developing a policy that cuts across all departments and to making it far easier for manufacturers and producers to gain an understanding of the processes, the objective being to fast track development. Food Valley has enabled a country that is much smaller than ours to become the fifth biggest food exporter in the world. So clearly, it would be worthwhile to take a look at this model, besides which their administrative practices are far less complex than the ones we have here in Canada.