Agriculture committee  I think we have two things. The first is that we have established supply chains that allow us to have great choice in grocery stores now.

Agriculture committee  I can't speak to a specific grocery store practice about a specific product, of course.

Agriculture committee  I think there is a dynamic happening out there in which consumers are really driving “local”. For example, a restaurant association of 500 chefs revealed that sourcing locally was the number one trend this year. Retailers, grocery stores, and restaurants are responding to this in a major way.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. This is a big question. Clearly, academia and the scientists have a major role, of course, in research, and applied research is very important, but I think there's an increasing focus on how we commercialize it—or pure research, rather, that they're interested in.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. At the very bottom, it is a question of a mindset shift. We have been making incremental change, and investments in science clusters and so forth are positive, but we need to be aiming high; we need to be beating out our competitors in markets. I think having objectives and using metrics will help drive our performance.

Agriculture committee  There's a lot of activity around trying to source locally. Walmart, for example, has made a pledge to double the amount of produce it sources in the United States from local source. Supply chains themselves are responding. All I'm saying is that we need to look at the possible avenues in which to address the identified problem.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. With respect to mandating local procurement, if I understood that correctly, mandating can often raise challenges. We have to be respectful of our international trade obligations, so we have to understand what any such practice could do. I think the first step, and perhaps even the better step, is to look a little more in our own backyards.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. Federal-provincial issues are very much front and centre for the agrifood sector. There are many activities being undertaken right now federally, provincially, and territorially to try to streamline issues and harmonize regulations, including in the slaughtering of beef and federally and provincially licensed facilities, for example.

Agriculture committee  Well, of course, there is the Growing Forward 2 process, which is designed to have a consolidated approach across the country in order to plan, manage and prioritize, and then fund, federally and provincially. That's a robust process that's under way, and it's been under way for some time—previous plans, that is.

Agriculture committee  Bob, do you want to?

Agriculture committee  I don't want to put you on the spot. Mr. Chairman, maybe you better preside on who....

Agriculture committee  Okay, then, Bob, you can think of a good answer. Quickly, back to the hospital point, this is a really interesting area. It speaks to the idea that we tried to present here, which is whether we should be thinking about the health sector and the agrifood sector, and are there mutual opportunities, such as in the procurement of Canadian food, wherever it may be grown, to help serve hospital meals?

Agriculture committee  Yes, thank you. Thank you, Bob. I think it should be organic; that is, it should naturally evolve where there are business opportunities to be had. Government absolutely plays a key role. They are regulators, they are funders, and they are trade promoters, so in their own right they can have an impact on the marketplace as a whole or on a specific value chain or supply chain.

Agriculture committee  I wonder if I can defer to Bob to start, given that the paper was authored by the George Morris Centre.

Agriculture committee  Merci. Thank you for the question. What is happening is that governments across the country are trying to facilitate how supply chains can work. I'll comment on the federal government for a moment. What we are seeing, federally and provincially, are funds going into the University of Laval for the nutraceutical centre there—among some other facilities across the country—to understand, for example, how clinical trials can be held on various food compounds to understand how they can work.