My argument is that the best thing we could do first and foremost would be to create a Canada food act. So separate all the critical issues that are associated with the regulation and the safety of drugs and medical devices, and that kind of zero-risk tolerance, if you will, that of course is so critical to health and safety in the context of pharmaceuticals and so on; but recognize, perhaps not in criminal law but in a new enabling statute that the food industry is fundamentally different, that it has a different set of risks and opportunities. We need legislation to enable innovation. We need to actually create a piece of legislation that would set as one of its legislative goals not just the protection of food safety, but to do so in a way that enables innovation. We're trying to build regulations on what to me is a rotten foundation of a very outdated piece of law in this country. Ironically we've replaced it, on the inspection side, with the Safe Food for Canadians Act, which is very modern, progressive, and risk-based, but we're doing inspections against a piece of legislation that is very old and outdated.
On June 18th, 2018. See this statement in context.