Thank you.
We're affected by this act through our relationship with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and specifically the Fertilizers Act. Compost falls under schedule II, as well as digestate, which has to be registered.
The Compost Council of Canada is a national non-profit organization dedicated to convincing Canadians that organic residuals do not go to the landfill, but should be returned to the earth for the health of the soil. Nowhere in any of the various acts that are going to be affected by this proposal is there any reference to the health of the soil. We can go ahead and put any inputs we want and prove the inputs that we are going to be allowed to use, but there is absolutely no concern for the integrity of the soil. That's where compost fits in, to get it back into the soil.
The work of the members of the Compost Council of Canada reflects Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Environment Canada, every provincial and territorial ministry of the environment, and every municipality across the country, including industry. Our concern is that with the reduction in the concern for efficacy from CFIA it's now up to industry to stand up and take care of our own matters. To that end we have developed a program called the compost quality alliance, which goes above and beyond the requirements of government, to go ahead and test for the agronomic properties of compost, making sure that the consumer trust that now has been given to the industry, versus having oversight from the government, is maintained by our industry.
We are looking for your collective support to increase your attention to the health of the soil with respect to organic residuals, to make sure that they get back to the soil to provide the best possible means for all these new products to have integrity in their long-term viability in the Canadian marketplace, and very importantly, for you to start to get the message out that it's no longer dirt, it's soil. It's the only thing that really matters. Everything that we as Canadians draw upon comes from our soil. As a collective entity, we need to bring more attention to the health of the soil and propel the need for organic recycling in Canada.
Thank you.