Agriculture committee  It is certainly a consideration to elaborate the hygiene requirements as a common suite. That would have tremendous benefit because the hygiene requirements are certainly the basis on which, from a CFIA perspective, the movement of product across the provincial boundaries would be governed.

Agriculture committee  I can start, and perhaps my colleagues will want to add something. Having a more aligned set of rules for business—and I'm obviously going to respond with respect to the regulatory context—means those businesses can then make their strategic investments with greater predictability because they are working with a single rule set as opposed to multiple rule sets.

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  No, I don't have any.

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  The approach that has been adopted internationally in terms of food safety is to shift from a highly prescriptive set of requirements to one that really focuses on process control. Historically the requirements would have said that at the end of product production, have this particular pH or composition, and instead we've moved upstream.

Agriculture committee  We've already taken the first steps, because we've modified the federal regulations. Our provincial counterparts therefore have an opportunity to consider greater alignment in that regard. For many small businesses their driver is where their market is, but there are many businesses that operate close to a provincial boundary, where that opportunity to trade just across the border is still viewed as very local.

Agriculture committee  It's not on pause. We have undertaken what for us as an agency is an unprecedented amount of consultation, so we engaged with over 14,000 participants in our consultative process. We've received several hundred direct inputs and suggestions. What we said to stakeholders after our last round of consultations is that we're going to take a little bit of time to go through that extensive feedback that we've received from them.

Agriculture committee  Our interest is in completing that process, and this year going back to engagement with stakeholders.

Agriculture committee  It's our intent to move to implementation in 2016.

Agriculture committee  In 2016.

Agriculture committee  Certainly from the regulatory perspective, two areas that stand out from our perspective are the grade standards and the standards of identity. Both of those areas are fairly significant. For example, in Canada, we have 511 federal standards of composition or identity for 27 different commodities.

Agriculture committee  In general, yes. The detail is where it can get a little more challenging, but in the initiatives that we've undertaken in collaboration with our provincial colleagues the objectives are similar: to enable more businesses to participate in trade across the country as opposed to just in their local contexts.

Agriculture committee  The reality is that there will be more competition and that means more competition from out of province. Does that really constitute losers? Not necessarily and industry is probably best placed to speak to that. It will mean more competition because, in essence, there aren't the regulatory barriers to the participation in local markets from out of province.

Agriculture committee  I certainly see an adjustment. I think industry will have a much better view than I would as to the implications for individual producers in that context.