Thank you.
I think it's a really important issue that the committee is studying, but I'm skeptical about the government's announced plans for regulatory reform. I think it's an important issue, because we're slipping in global competitiveness rankings, business investment in Canada is plummeting and the regulatory burden on Canadian business is increasing. We now rank lower in the charts for regulatory burden, somewhere in the mid- to high-30s now out of 140-plus countries.
I'm skeptical too because we've had these initiatives over many years, and they never seem to go anywhere. I remember the smart regulation initiative of 2004. Then we had the Harper-Obama establishment of the Regulatory Cooperation Council, to which you referred, and then the more recent cabinet directive, in the fall economic update announcements, on regulatory reform.
On the ground, however, I hear quite the opposite. I hear from the cattlemen that they're very concerned about the upcoming CFIA regulations on transport of cattle and about front-of-package labelling. I consistently hear from seed producers about the barriers to innovation and also about the whole concern about use of seeds linked to biocides and the like, an area in which you have federal and provincial regulations now causing real challenges for grains and oilseeds farmers in the country, particularly in Ontario.
I'd be interested to hear from the Canadian Cattlemen's Association about these challenges. We've had this Regulatory Cooperation Council, and one of the express purposes for which it was established was to come forward with consistent package labelling standards.
We seem to be going down divergent paths now, so that's one issue I'd like to hear about. This whole thing was created expressly to not go down that path.
The other thing the council was supposed to do was come up with consistent grading standards for both Canada and the United States so that we wouldn't have different nomenclature for grading south of the border and north of the border. It was also supposed to come out with standard package sizing so that processors could ship product both north and south.
What's happening on those three things: labelling, packaging and nomenclature?