Agriculture committee  I've already touched on how, as a relatively small pesticide market here in Canada, we incentivize and attract investment will contribute to an agile, predictable regulatory system, and we should aspire to be a global leader in regulatory performance by requiring the PMRA to meet 100% of its performance targets.

Agriculture committee  I can't speak specifically to the outward inspection issue, but when it comes to trade execution and the regulatory space, I think a key priority for us has to do with the CFIA and their adoption of electronic phytosanitary certificates, or ePhytos. With the rapid digitization of the global trading system, Canada should be at the vanguard of that but, unfortunately, we're well behind the rest of the world and many of our competitors in making this transition to ePhyto exchange.

Agriculture committee  There's a scientific process under way. The use of aerial drones provides the opportunity, of course, for farmers to protect crops where ground-based application is not viable. That could be wet conditions or what have you. This is a good example that ties back to one of our main recommendations around leveraging regulatory best practices and approaches from other trusted risk-based jurisdictions.

Agriculture committee  When we talk about requiring the Pest Management Regulatory Agency to consider food security and economic impacts, we want them to do that without compromising on health and safety, and the key to that is science. We're not talking about changing the level of health and safety protection that Health Canada has established as a goal.

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think the other panellists have covered this well. One thing I'll note from a grain sector perspective is that we export the vast majority of the product that we grow here in Canada. Oftentimes farmers are impacted by geopolitical factors that impact trade that are completely out of our control.

Agriculture committee  To address the first part of that question around requiring the PMRA to consider food security and economic impacts in its regulatory decisions, we do feel that there's room to be more ambitious in that regard. As far as the means to accomplish this, I think that there are different ways to achieve this, and ultimately it's for the government to decide how to proceed.

Agriculture committee  We were not approached for official consultation.

Agriculture committee  I would disagree with the assertion that that promise does not need to be fulfilled and that the mandate doesn't need to be changed. As mentioned already, health and safety will always be of the utmost importance, but we need to find the appropriate balance between regulating for risk and regulating for growth.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. Thank you for the invitation to appear today. As noted, my name is Mac Ross, and I'm the vice-president of trade policy and crop protection with the Canada Grains Council. The Canada Grains Council is the national organization representing the entire grain value chain, including Canadian farmers, seed and life science companies, exporters and all major field crop commodity associations.