Evidence of meeting #79 for International Trade in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was products.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Flexo Products Limited
That's my opinion in the long run, yes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Okay. That's great.
This re-registration process that you've talked about, is that going to be a complicated process? If so, in your mind is there any way to streamline that process?
Mr. Harrington, if you want to, you can jump in on that afterwards as well.
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Flexo Products Limited
To be honest, I thought it was. I spoke to some people this morning who said there are plans in place to make that re-registration dramatically easier.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Right now, you would say that you don't have huge concerns about the re-registration process—some but they're not huge.
12:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Consumer Health, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
Yes. Health Canada has the capacity, and it has ways of dealing with transitions like this. It can be a risk-based compliance and enforcement mechanism for existing products.
In fact, in situations where the transition is more dramatic, we've even seen things where.... There was reference to how long it took to get the natural health product regulations in place. There, an interim regulation was created that provided for exactly that transition. It said that the existing products on shelves could be considered authorized until such time as they were fully licensed. Yes, there are tools available to Health Canada—absolutely.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Have they put in a time frame for this re-registration process? Is it 90 days? Once you submit for this re-registration, will it be processed within 90 days, or has Health Canada not put any timeline on this re-registration process?
12:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Consumer Health, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
I don't have the performance standards for those reviews at the tips of my fingers. I'm sorry, but that's something we could follow up with.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Consumer Health, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
Yes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Okay.
There's another concern that I think I heard at the committee. It's that with this re-registration process and this new streamlined UFD, there could be a real crunch at Health Canada to get everything done. It could create some chaos in the industry.
I'll ask Mr. Parker for his thoughts, Mr. Harrington for his thoughts and then Mr. Côté for his thoughts on that.
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Flexo Products Limited
That's a fear that I have. I'm worried that, theoretically, a new U.S. company could register in three months and my current registrations won't be processed yet.
12:05 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Flexo Products Limited
The re-registrations, yes.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
12:05 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Consumer Health, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
Health Canada has to plan for this transition. We've seen it sometimes go well, and we've seen it other times go not so well.
12:05 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Association pour le développement et l'innovation en chimie au Québec
Health Canada has shown us the best and the worst in this kind of situation. We just need to make sure that the Canadian industry can weather the storm on its own turf.
12:05 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
If you were to have the opportunity to say, “Mr. Seeback, we would love to see this kind of recommendation to Health Canada on how to make sure we don't have this giant backlog that creates challenges for the Canadian industry”, how would you shape that recommendation? Would they need to have the appropriate resources ready or something like that?
12:10 p.m.
Senior Vice-President, Consumer Health, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
It's about ensuring that they have the appropriate resources in place and the appropriate processes. They can process some applications in batches. They have a variety of tools.
I think it would be very helpful for the committee to highlight the need for a plan.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Association pour le développement et l'innovation en chimie au Québec
Can you repeat the question, sir?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Kyle Seeback Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Would there be a recommendation that you'd say the committee should put forward to the government on this so that we don't have this giant backlog of Canadian re-registrations and new American registrations through the UFD?
12:10 p.m.
Member, Board of Directors, Association pour le développement et l'innovation en chimie au Québec
All the ideas discussed by my colleagues who have appeared before the committee today are good suggestions. Whether we're talking about adopting transitional measures or delaying the introduction of new measures or the implementation of the existing ones, I see all of these as a form of moratorium. I can only applaud any such initiatives.