Evidence of meeting #48 for Government Operations and Estimates in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cgsb.
A recording is available from Parliament.
11:45 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Thank you, Mr. Bélanger. Your time is up just perfectly.
Next, then, for the Conservatives we have Mr. Bev Shipley.
You have five minutes, sir.
11:45 a.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm visiting the committee, so some of my questions may be a bit redundant in terms of some of the history that has happened.
There are eight standards organizations. Obviously, often the more you have, the more the complexity grows. Where does someone go when there is duplication of a standard on a similar product? That has to happen a lot. If I'm the individual wanting to find the standard, maybe I want to sell internationally and I have duplication of different organizations, who filters that out for me?
11:45 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
I'm going to start with an answer, and then I'm going to ask Begonia, because she has more technical knowledge than I do, to be honest.
Let's say you're a Canadian company, and the first thing you want to do is sell in Canada. The first thing you'd want to know is whether there are any standards and any certification programs you need to meet to sell your goods. You can go to the Standards Council of Canada. They can explain the whole Canadian regime as to where the standards exist. That information is available online.
If you want to go outside of Canada, then you have to start thinking about the requirements in the other jurisdictions. This is where things get far more complex, because you have to understand what the actual requirements are. In many cases there are no requirements for a certification or a standard. I want to be very clear: for many, many things none of that is required.
For some things, there's a significant network that, in fact, is global. One of the challenges for some things, of course, is that I, as a manufacturer, would like to go out and have one test and one certification and have extensive market opportunity. There are regimes around, and there are certain areas that do allow for that.
I'm going to pass it over to Madam Lojk to give you a bit more detail on that.
May 7th, 2015 / 11:50 a.m.
Director, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
The national standards system that we are part of represents only a fraction of the standards systems in Canada, and it's like that in all countries. We represent what's called the voluntary standards system, which falls under the area of ISO and the IEC, the International Electrotechnical Commission. But there are thousands of industry standards out there.
It does get a little complex, because you have to make the distinction between what's in a regulation, what's in a certification program—it's also called a certification scheme—and what an industry standard is. It's a very difficult question to answer.
Within the national standards system, which is coordinated by the Standards Council of Canada, in theory there is no duplication, because up until now the four Canadian standards development organizations worked in their areas and avoided duplication. With the introduction of new standards bodies, there is still a requirement to not have duplication, so if UL from the United States wants to develop a national standard for Canada, it is obligated to see if one already exists.
We are seeing a little bit of friction beginning to happen, but in theory there should not be duplication within our system.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
That leads me to one of the comments in your presentation that I would not have thought of, but it is of interest. You talked about organic agriculture standards and said you've been including small and medium-sized enterprises.
Standards are used for certification. Who determines what is organic?
11:50 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
The short answer in this case in terms of the standards is that the committee establishes the standard.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
But it says here that actually they go to you for certification, for provincial jurisdiction, and for harmonization equivalency, whether it's domestic or for some of the foreign trade.
It's a valid question, I believe, because I'm not sure anybody can put their finger on what organic is, whether it's in Canada or from province to province, and more so in the countries that are listed—the EU, United States, and Japan—which actually then takes it further if you start to talk to some of the Asian countries.
There are different standards. Can someone tell me how you can have organic honey, for example? If I were to call up and want to know the standards for organic honey, where would you send me?
11:50 a.m.
Director, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
Thank you. I'd like to try to answer your question.
We have two standards for organic food in Canada. We have the organic agriculture standard and the organic aquaculture standard. They are both national standards of Canada.
They were financially supported by Agriculture Canada. We call that the sponsor. I believe CFIA also contributed to them. They are in regulations. Part of the rationale for having standards is for transparency for consumers, so that when they're buying something they know what they're actually buying and there's consistency in quality.
The standards themselves don't go into the details of the actual product, whether it's honey or not. I can give you a sort of line to tell you what they actually do. They outline the principles of how to increase the quality and durability of the environment through specific management and production methods. They focus on many things, including the humane treatment of animals, but they do not make specific claims about the health, safety, or nutrition. So they outline principles for how you run an organic practice.
11:50 a.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I think you've actually hit the nail on the head a little bit. It doesn't talk about standards; it talks more about principles.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
I'm sorry. I gave you quite a bit of latitude, but you're a full two minutes over time. It was an interesting question and interesting answer. Thank you.
That concludes our first round of questioning actually. This is probably the last opportunity the committee will have, prior to starting to craft a report on our findings, so there are two items of clarification I would like to put to you from the chair.
First, in order to make it clear to the committee members, with regard to the total budget and the amount of cost recovery and the net cost to the taxpayer of operating the CGSB, did I understand that to be just short of $1 million per year?
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
Yes. I believe last year, 2014-15, the total net cost was $900,000.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
We did. We charge a fee for some of our programs, so that produced a revenue stream of $2.1 million.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
That's viewed as cost recovery against your total budget.
A lot of the questioning seems to imply that the standards, the activities of the CGSB, constitute a barrier to trade or an onerous responsibility for small business or entrepreneurs. A point you made in your remarks was that you view it as a net benefit to the smaller businesses and entrepreneurs. Can you explain why you find that?
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
Small businesses can be part of the process, but as all these organizations go forward, because there is a balance of businesses and consumers, standards often produce a baseline for purchasing. So, for example, when a group such as Public Works references a CGSB standard, it does it for a specific reason: because it has an existing definition, which is neutral and performance-based, and it fits in with our procurement direction, so we can then reference that in a competitive process.
That's good for us, but it's also very beneficial for the market, because as a document in itself, it gives clear direction to everybody in the sense of what we're going to buy, and it's an open document.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
A small business may define specific technical components or give intelligence in terms of a best practice for the production of a product or a service that is very beneficial to a small business just starting out. It gives them content in terms of their business and an understanding of the expectation of performance and delivery in the marketplace.
So this can aid a small business. We talk about levelling the playing field. What we mean in part is that we're providing that information to all Canadians so that even small businesses can take a look at those standards. If they relate to their business, they can then take those and integrate them into their business model and then bring their quality up to the performance standard.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
The Chair NDP Pat Martin
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
We'll begin our second round. We're going to go until about 12:45, ladies and gentlemen. Then we have to conclude, thank our witnesses, and give some direction to the analysts to begin to craft a report based on what we heard.
We should have time for at least three more rounds of questioning.
Mr. Ravignat is next on the list.
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
I think probably the main worry Canadians have has to do with the issue of conflict of interest when you're setting standards. I think that's fundamentally what we're talking about. You need a third party to do that, because you have to make sure that conflict of interest doesn't creep in.
Do you feel your role in ensuring there is that third party analysis is crucial?
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
I want to make sure I understand.
When you talk about third party, you're not talking about us as a standards development organization, are you?
11:55 a.m.
NDP
Mathieu Ravignat NDP Pontiac, QC
I'm talking about an independent voice, someone other than industry.
11:55 a.m.
Director General, Acquisitions Branch, PWGSC, Canadian General Standards Board
You're absolutely right. I think one of the virtues of the system is the requirement to have balance in the committees between users and manufacturers. All the major vested interests have to be in the room. There has to be a balance between the number of representatives so no one group can dominate that process.