Mr. Speaker, the hon. gentleman is touching upon an issue that he, this government and I regard to be very important.
That is the harmonization of our regulatory systems in relation to our trading partners around the world, and of course in the North American context most particularly with the United States and Mexico.
When I say harmonization, I want to make the point very clear that we are not in any way talking about lowering Canadian standards. Our standards are the best in the world. We will continue to ensure that Canada's food system is the safest and highest quality in the world.
There are ways in which we can make savings through harmonization. I would advise that those discussions with our NAFTA partners are already under way and are already making progress. We are developing a pilot project for the joint review of applications for new products in the future.