Thank you very much for the opportunity to comment on that.
I think first of all, as a general perspective, that the opportunity within the SPP is one of dialogue that brings together a whole variety of ideas. I think the value of it is that we have had on the table over 400, so we do know that we have a lot of industry input on what issues need to be addressed. They are very pragmatic issues, as Dave was alluding to, ones that when harmonized will also create better prosperity within all of our jurisdictions.
I think within our association...and as I mentioned, it includes small, medium, and large industries, as well as touching almost any industry with manufactured goods, into a whole variety. We even include, for example, the Port of Vancouver, CN and CP, so it's quite an interesting group. All of those areas, all of those jurisdictions, touch on regulations and regulation opportunities for looking at specific issues.
One of the areas that I think I would like to address, though, is probably within food products. What I see here is an area that has a multitude of requirements and regulations. There are areas related to food safety and food security that I think we need to look at very carefully. We all recognize some of the issues related to that, so we need to look at some ways in which we can track and trace products from their point of origin to final destination. I believe there are some very intriguing ideas that can be done along that line to harmonize those ideas.
As well, as I alluded to, there are some issues related to opportunities for looking at inspections. Other government departments are involved in food products; a whole variety of government departments touch on food. Going forward, I would welcome the opportunity for other government departments to be included in a consultation framework.
I mentioned as well some of the challenges that Canadians face in exporting their products to the U.S. Because they have inputs that are from other jurisdictions--for example, blended product into the final product--we have to track where that product originally comes from. We need to develop some transparency about where it's from and where it's finally going. But we also need to look at the framework in the U.S., within the FDA requirements, of looking at products that may have come from multiple places and are finally sold into the United States. The FDA right now requires a number of products that go across the border to be investigated or held back and looked at.
I would like to say again that I think that from our regulation perspective there are a lot of opportunities to see how we can streamline that process, expedite that process, as well as work with the U.S.--for example, to expand the number of accredited labs that can inspect products so they aren't held up over a period of six weeks or so.