Justice committee  Good afternoon. My name is Alex Scholten. I'm the president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association. The Canadian Convenience Stores Association, or CCSA, represents the economic interests of the 25,000 convenience stores located in communities across Canada. My discuss

Justice committee  I was also nodding, so I agree with Mr. Preston's comments. Thank you.

Justice committee  The breakdown between the large chains and the independents is about 50-50. The independents, then, would make up the smaller number of stores. I couldn't give you an exact number, but definitely about half are probably nearer the one site, as opposed to more.

Justice committee  They would definitely provide training on safe practices, safe habits, what to do in the event of a criminal activity taking place. From my perspective as a former retailer, my staff would be trained on what to do in the event of a shoplifting case coming up, how they should reac

Justice committee  Yes, we would cover all stores that would be offering convenience items. That would include everything from a corner store to a stand-alone store to some of the small retail outlets you'd see in a shopping mall.

Justice committee  It would depend on the nature of the business and what the owner of that business dictated as being necessary. The typical age is 17 to 35. The late-night practices would depend on a business-by-business basis. Again, we have training for our retail members and the late hours and

Justice committee  Yes, that would be absolutely fair. With profit margins of 1% to 1.5%, there is no money to hire security guards or have extra staffing. We're at a very cost-efficient operating basis.

Justice committee  Absolutely. It creates a situation where we have more flexibility in how we can protect our property by not simply being able to act while a crime is being committed but in a reasonable time period afterwards. That definitely gives our members much more flexibility, and we'd very

Justice committee  That is absolutely correct. Our members first and foremost want to make sure that they're not putting themselves or their customers and employees in harm's way. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is they often have to. I would note in the case of Mr. Chen that in his te

Justice committee  I would say that it's not just rural communities, but even urban sites, where having police attention to some of these matters is not very prompt. Retailers are frustrated by that. They feel the attention that is necessary to protect their business interests is not there. Givin

Justice committee  No, unfortunately we don't have that.

Finance committee  Good evening. My name is Alex Scholten, and I serve as the president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association. On behalf of the 23,000 Canadian convenience stores in Canada and the 183,000 people they employ, I want to thank you for taking time to listen to our concerns.

Finance committee  Okay. Regulation within Canada continues to expand annually, and this has resulted in declining growth and prosperity for small business owners. We've identified over 517 federal and provincial laws that impact the convenience story industry. Despite government’s strong dedicat

Finance committee  The third is that the government follow through on their one-for-one rule announced in the red tape reduction strategy, ensuring that equally onerous laws are removed for every new law introduced, and that the federal government take the lead on these initiatives with their provi

Finance committee  From what we understand the rates to be across the world, the United States pays the highest rates anywhere in the world. Canada is a close second, and other countries have lesser rates. The information that we have on our industry at $36,000 per year per site is very high. Unfor