Well, I've been growing this one for a very long time and losing this one for almost as long.
What we're looking for is a commitment on the part of governments to move towards that kind of an approach. There have been various initiatives in the past where governments have assigned officials to develop national codes, whether they were for horticulture, for dairy, or for retail and food service. What we saw happening then was provinces falling out of step with that objective, for various reasons. Some of them have to do with getting time on the agendas in provincial legislatures; some of them have to do with other things. But we don't see much progress down that road.
Starting with ministers of agriculture or agrifood and ministers of health, we would like to see them make that very strong comment to the principle of a coordinated approach, and secondly, then, launch a process that would involve themselves and their governments, and industry stakeholders and other stakeholders, consumers and others, in the discussion as to how to get there.
We see, as the brief pointed out, some very interesting examples as to how that could be done. Whether they would fit in the Canadian context, with all of our challenges and our history, that's another question, but I think great progress could be made down that road. In the end it probably would see some differences still remain, and whether those would be regional, that's possible, but it more likely would be provincial in that sense. What we'd like to see, though--I really don't like to use the phrase “minimum standards”--is a good, strong set of basic national food safety standards and approaches. That way, industry all across the country, whether farmers, input suppliers, manufacturers, or retailers and food service, would be able to say, “Okay, this is what we're trying to get to”, and everybody is trying to get there.