Agriculture committee  Sure. This is really important. I think a lot of the things, as I certainly hear from our member companies, are permanent. Whether it's changing the layout of facilities, adding in additional health and safety requirements or having different spacing and more training and safety,

Agriculture committee  Everything you said is music to our ears. For many years—as long as I've been where I am, for over 10 years—we've been pushing for a code to balance the relationship between the large grocery stores and suppliers across Canada. Over a year ago, we launched a Canadian code based o

Agriculture committee  Yes, thank you. We need to recognize that there are not enough Canadians willing to fill these jobs, so the first thing we need to recognize is that we need foreign workers. That's a really important acknowledgement to make. We need to bring in workers in different ways. We nee

Agriculture committee  Sure. I appreciate the question. I'm pleased that a couple of our member companies, Lactalis and Burnbrae Farms, are in your riding. On the shortage of labour and the costs, yes, they have increased. Different factors go into this. We know that food manufacturers have increased

Agriculture committee  Thank you.

Agriculture committee  Sure. Thank you. I do appreciate your remarks to the Canadian Federation of Agriculture yesterday calling for a grocery code of conduct to be mandatory and how we should move forward quickly with that. The 25% increase in fines is not just on food manufacturers. I've spoken t

Agriculture committee  If anything, I think the supply chain has become more integrated. There are a lot of structural challenges. We do need to modernize the infrastructure. We need to invest not only in physical infrastructure but in that human infrastructure that is the people, including the trucker

Agriculture committee  The human infrastructure piece really speaks to the support for the workers, making sure they get the right skills and child care, mental health support and whatnot. How can we attract and retain? What can companies do? We have several examples of member companies that have to ru

Agriculture committee  Definitely. I think it will be a benefit for my member companies, as well as likely most Canadians across the country, including women, men, and families.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question. First of all, I just want to say, along with Mr. Innes and Mr. Comeau, that we all need to get our ingredients, our raw materials and our products moving into, outside of and across the country. Rail and the containers and truckers are all so importan

Agriculture committee  Not at all. Labour issues are a very big concern for us. We absolutely support the increase in the cap, as well as other initiatives to bring in more labour. Thank you.

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. I'm Carla Ventin, senior vice-president, government relations, at Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada. For over 60 years, FHCP has been the largest national industry association, representing companies that man