Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members.
As Mr. Easter said, I'm Dennis Prouse, vice-president of government affairs for CropLife Canada.
CropLife Canada represents the Canadian manufacturers, developers and distributors of pest control and modern plant-breeding products. Our organization's primary focus is on providing tools to help farmers be more productive and more sustainable. We also develop products for use in urban green spaces, public health settings and transportation corridors.
We are here to speak in support of Bill C-97 due to the fact that it makes an important start down the road of regulatory modernization. As we know from both the advisory council on economic growth report—often known as the Barton report—and the agri-food economic strategy table, Canada must overcome internal regulatory barriers that hinder innovation and competitiveness if it is going to meet the government's target of $75 billion in agri-food exports by 2025.
Bill C-97 takes significant actions to address regulatory modernization. In particular, it makes key amendments to the Pest Control Products Act—PCPA for short—to help alleviate resource pressure on Health Canada's pest management regulatory agency to allow it to focus on work that meaningfully contributes to the agency's mandate.
The current requirement in section 17 of the PCPA requires the Minister of Health to initiate a special review of any pesticide where an OECD country bans all uses of an active ingredient. The language gives no discretion to the minister to determine whether or not a special review is necessary. An active ingredient that is currently under re-evaluation or has just been reviewed in Canada can still be subject to a new special review.
Certain interest groups have learned to exploit the current system, and the onerous special reviews, coupled with the challenges with the current re-evaluation process, are contributing to the PMRA's unsustainable workload. These duplicative efforts only serve to bog down the system and to prevent farmers from having access to the tools that they need to protect their crops and help drive Canada's economy.
Under Bill C-97, the Pest Control Products Act would be amended to give the Minister of Health discretion to move forward with a special review only when it stands to serve the best interests of Canadians. It also allows the minister to consolidate related special reviews, which would fix the tsunami effect that might otherwise result.
We applaud the efforts of Bill C-97 to address regulatory modernization, but it is only one part of a much broader set of improvements that are needed. For instance, we continue to press for critical improvements that can and need to be made to PMRA's re-evaluation process under existing authorities, as these have not yet been addressed.
Similarly, we are seeking formal cabinet-level acknowledgement of the economic role that both PMRA and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency play in facilitating agriculture and agri-food's economic growth. On the CFIA side for instance, the agency has still not yet clarified its regulatory oversight for products of gene editing. Gene editing is poised to transform agriculture around the globe. Despite this, Canada is falling behind some of its global competitors who are acting decisively on creating timely, predictable approaches to regulatory oversight for products of gene editing.
Examples like this are why the government needs to act quickly on the concept articulated in budget 2019 of placing a competitiveness lens on regulatory agencies. Competitiveness does not come at the expense of health and safety, which must always remain at the forefront. What it does mean is that regulators acknowledge and embrace their role in helping to facilitate innovation and competitiveness for Canadian companies, all while maintaining their focus on science-based regulation.
Action is also required for the annual regulatory modernization bill as outlined in budget 2019. The new external advisory committee on regulatory competitiveness will no doubt have some strong content for that bill.
It is encouraging to see momentum building around regulatory modernization that will serve to drive growth in Canadian agriculture and the economy writ large. However, regulatory modernization must be a whole-of-government exercise and must be led by key economic players, namely the Department of Finance and Treasury Board. Regulatory agencies do not reform themselves. They respond only to strong direction and leadership from above. Absent of that, regulatory modernization will slowly lose momentum and collapse. Given the promise held by economic growth in Canadian agriculture and agri-food, that would be a tragic development.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I look forward to the questions that the committee might have.