Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Boulerice, for your question. I'm sorry. I'm hearing translation in the background. Anything that would streamline that sort of process would be helpful, and we'd be pleased to participate in those discussions.

Agriculture committee  This has been a very challenging time for everyone across the supply chain, as we've heard from witnesses today. There have also been record costs associated with the grocery retail sector in Canada, if you think about having to adapt to all of the changing public health measures

Agriculture committee  Labour has definitely been a challenge from our perspective. Some of our members do avail themselves of the temporary foreign worker program, so some movement in that regard would be helpful. What it comes down to is this. There are a number of pressures on the system right now

Agriculture committee  It would be interesting to engage in a discussion around that, but what would be most helpful would be the recommendations I mentioned in my opening remarks, so that retailers can do what they do best, and go about doing business.

Agriculture committee  Grocery retail is a highly resilient industry. There are a number of pressures, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, that members are facing. Certainly, the blockades have been a major contributor recently, but there are a number of pressures, so to point to any one of them to s

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Turnbull. I guess there are two parts to that question. In terms of panic buying, that does not help. We saw that early on in the crisis with food. We saw it with other products; I think everybody heard about toilet paper and things like that. That not only does n

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to come and discuss the agriculture and agri-food supply chain with you today. Let me give you a quick introduction to the Retail Council of Canada, the RCC. Retail is the largest private employer in Canada.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Thank you for the question. Without question, our grocery members have been very fortunate in that they've been able to operate throughout this crisis. It has had significant impacts in terms of PPE and having to restructure stores. We've seen violent incidents, unfortunate

Agriculture committee  Our members are very, very active in the online space, so it will be interesting to see how things evolve. Because they are so active in this space, the ones who are going to do well are those who are going to continue to be very competitive in this online space.

Agriculture committee  We were pleased to see, with the renegotiation of CUSMA, the renegotiated NAFTA, that the Canadian government was able to keep the de minimis threshold at a reasonable level to prevent an unfair competitive advantage going to international online competitors. I anticipate that Ca

Agriculture committee  Yes, certainly, all of our members are making that an offering. Some of the challenges they're seeing have more to do with delivery and that sort of thing. Every member I've spoken with is offering online and remote ordering, and there's a particular emphasis on making that avail

Agriculture committee  We don't know the full implications of COVID-19 yet. One thing that is fairly certain is that the world is never going to go back to the way it was before. Certainly, I would anticipate that some of these things might become more common even as we start to emerge from the outbrea

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and other members of the committee, for the opportunity to provide a retail perspective on Canada's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Retail Council of Canada, we represent small, medium and large retail business

International Trade committee  Yes, we would definitely like to see better enforcement of the rules that exist. That being said, we understand the challenges associated with that. We are a trading nation, and that's a good thing. To your earlier question about online, anything that facilitates goods going bo

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Canadian consumers demand choice. Quite frankly, we live in Canada, so in certain seasons it is more challenging to produce certain types of products, in particular, fresh fruits and vegetables and that sort of thing. Canadian consumers have come to expect the freshes