Agriculture committee  Even before the spring of 2012, back in early 2011, our industry recognized that one of the partners, one of the stakeholders, that we didn't have enough dialogue or interaction with was the beekeeping community. We have very good relationships with all the major grower groups. W

Health committee  Mr. Chair and members of the committee, I would like to thank you for inviting us to be here today. I am Pierre Petelle, and I am the vice-president of Chemistry at CropLife Canada. On behalf of the association's member companies, I am pleased to provide these remarks on the re

Health committee  In actual fact, what I also said was that some groups are not making use of the provisions in the act. In the act there is a provision to access all of that information in detail in a reading room. Obviously, confidential business information is removed, but anyone can request to

Health committee  From our perspective, regulatory data is one thing. Regulatory data is what's required for your submission, and it's outlined very prescriptively by the PMRA in terms of which data are required to satisfy which elements of the review. Those are the data that our members provide a

Health committee  But the act is very clear that any data pertaining to an active ingredient that is provided to the PMRA or that the PMRA is made aware of has to be part of the decision-making process. It may just be a procedural thing rather than a gap per se.

Health committee  Just in broad strokes, we support the fact that things like the Regulatory Cooperation Council work, and in terms of the red tape reduction strategy, where regulations take into account the burden they're putting on industry, that this be taken into account. But no, in terms of

Health committee  Yes, thanks. Our members are always obviously concerned about resistance development because that means the products are no longer effective, and therefore, are no longer of any use to the farmer. We always try to make sure that through crop rotation and chemistry rotation you'r

Health committee  Absolutely. As you stated correctly, the issues that we saw in isolated pockets seemed to be related primarily to corn—which is generally a dustier crop than is, for example, canola—and to some of that seed coating actually coming off of the corn. With certain planting equipment

Health committee  We feel that the measures in place have gone a long way to addressing any issues.

Health committee  I can start. Absolutely. When you look at the safety of the food that's produced in Canada, when you read about issues related to food, it's usually about microbial contamination, some sort of bacteria or virus. When have we heard about a pesticide contamination issue in food?

Health committee  We talked about the maximum residue levels that are established, so those apply to imported as well as domestically produced foods. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency tests thousands of products every year, both imported and domestically produced. In general, when you look at th

Health committee  I think that's becoming less and less of an issue with global harmonization and with many of these countries now involved at the OECD level. You're getting a higher standard globally in terms of what's acceptable, how to do risk assessments, and how to regulate these products. Wi

Health committee  Our experience with harmonization is that it has not been a race to the bottom, as you put it. It certainly brings more scientists to discuss each topic and more expertise from different parts of the world. You actually end up with the best science as opposed to the least strin

Health committee  No. The other thing to remember is that many of the CropLife Canada members—which, by the way, are both generic and innovator, just to touch on a point earlier—are global companies. Their products are being used in these companies just as well as they are in Canada and the U.S. T

Health committee  In terms of that specific example, no. We do know, through our CropLife international affiliates, that there are parts of the world where obviously they don't have the type of equipment Corey was describing for applying pesticides. We know it's much more rudimentary. Our industry