Agriculture committee  On the labelling side, as an industry we are also making investments to improve the level of knowledge in order to provide scientific evidence about the nutritional value, the scientific evidence on the health outcome value. We think it's very important, and we are very supportive of strict labelling requirements that are put on food so that we are not misleading consumers through misleading labelling.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I don't know specifically.... We do have nutrition labelling on cans of pulses, on dry packs of pulses. We are working closely with Health Canada to more closely align the regulation systems we have, because there's a lot of food movement across the borders. We're very supportive of alignment across regulatory agencies, reflecting cultural differences in food consumption.

Agriculture committee  There are two parts to that question. The first go-round of the crop logistics working group, and I did have the honour of co-chairing it in its first iteration, was to be focusing on issues that included producer cars and the transformation away from the Canadian Wheat Board's role to an open market system.

Agriculture committee  Yes, because the system is never good enough. We can never be comfortable to sit on our laurels. So yes, I am passionate about getting in there and saying, “So what are we going to do now to make it better?” It has to provide value for farmers. As Mark said, we're not the lowest-cost production.

Agriculture committee  Yes, and I'll refer to the slide. Of course, I also get passionate about the opportunity for pulses in addressing health and nutrition issues. Whether we're talking about Canadian communities or whether we're talking internationally, diabetes and cardiovascular disease are two of our largest health care costs in Canada.

Agriculture committee  On rail service review expectations, the pulse industry was part of the coalition of rail shippers. I think there was really an unprecedented level of collaboration between automotive, fertilizer, chemical, forestry products, and agriculture to all come to an agreement. There was an unprecedented level of unanimity in addressing the shared concerns.

Agriculture committee  Safety is number one. What we are talking about are tolerance levels that are realistic. Even in something like gluten-free foods, there are tolerance levels, because you can never ensure zero. I wouldn't look at it as condoning. It's ensuring that you have margins that are well within safety boundaries, but respecting and understanding that you can never ensure zero.

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's a huge area. I'll maybe focus in on one area, again where I think the federal government can be playing a lead role in this. We actually have the Canada Grains Council semi-annual meeting on right now, just down the street. Following that, Thursday afternoon and Friday, we have the grain industry round table.

Agriculture committee  Mark may weigh in here. From a company's perspective, the reputation and continued operation and liabilities for problems are so enormous that there is a lot of focus put on ensuring that there isn't contamination. This is in everybody's interest along the supply chain. Even with all of the due diligence and care that's taken, we have had examples where dust from the crop that was handled previously by equipment....

Agriculture committee  Well, I agree with Mark's comment in terms of a key measurement element that we can add to that. As I said, once the cars are filled and ready for pickup, then we need to continue to monitor, as we are now, looking at transit time by different corridors. Our supply chain, especially in pulse and special crops, is very complicated.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, members of the committee. I have asked the clerk to circulate a one-page diagram, which I'll make brief reference to during my presentation. Success in the pulse industry is measured in a number of ways, but for any business the bottom line is the bottom line.

Agriculture committee  The view of the members of the Canadian Special Crops Association is that a range of payment options are out there. Many of us use electronic transfer whereby funds are transferred immediately. The question we are raising is, are we dealing with a 20th century problem in a 21st century piece of legislation?

Agriculture committee  The meeting hasn't been scheduled. We haven't had the meeting yet, but we have been informed of the consultation to talk about that. We have had a call with the Grain Commission, where they outlined to grain companies the changes that were being proposed, where we raised some of these same concerns that we've raised here in terms of the lack of detail around the replacement of a mandatory bonding with a mandatory insurance program, and the concern we had about whether that was going to ensure that we weren't providing an unlevelling of a playing field between companies in Canada.

Agriculture committee  I think you've nailed the point I was making. We have to continue the evolution of the Canadian Grain Commission, especially because we are moving to cost recovery. When there are going to be mandatory charges, we have to make sure we've minimized the charges across the board to the degree that we can, and we've taken a 21st century approach to dealing with some of these issues.

Agriculture committee  Again, I'm not here representing terminal elevator operators, but certainly the 110 companies that are exporting grain, pulses, and special crops to more than 150 countries around the world...our whole reputation as a trade is based on having long-term relationships and being a reliable supplier.