RCC’s response to today’s Supply Chain Summit
TORONTO – January 31, 2021
Retail Council of Canada (RCC) was pleased to join Ministers Alghabra, Ng, Champagne along with MP Koutrakis, and key business and industry leaders, at today’s Government of Canada Supply Chain Summit.
RCC believes that this Summit, including future discussions and collaboration among stakeholders to address the critical challenges and barriers facing our supply chain efficiency and resilience, is essential to optimize existing infrastructure, increase capacity and improve our supply chain performance.
“As an essential stakeholder, RCC supports both short and long terms solutions to improve the supply chain as retailers rely heavily on a resilient and modern infrastructure to ensure they can deliver the products that Canadian consumers want and need,” noted Diane J. Brisebois, President & CEO of Retail Council of Canada.
Among the many issues raised, RCC emphasized the need for labour and skills training, a reduction in red tape with increased intra-provincial collaboration and regulatory harmonization to facilitate the movements of goods across Canada, sharing of data to allow for better planning, and investing and leveraging in new technologies. And finally, we cannot emphasize strongly enough the need for the Government of Canada to work across departments and with provincial, territorial and international partners to address these issues in a multi-lateral and holistic manner.
RCC joined other business associations in urging the Government of Canada to name a Supply Chain Commissioner to lead a Joint Industry-Government Task Force to bring departments and stakeholders together to effectively address ongoing supply chain disruptions in the short-term and support supply chain resiliency in the long-term. As stated, recognizing that the challenges we face do not fall within the purview of any individual Minister or department, a Supply Chain Commissioner would play a vital role in bringing the necessary stakeholders to the table and providing transparency and accountability for finding solutions.
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About Retail Council of Canada
Retail is Canada’s largest private-sector employer with over 2 million Canadians working in our industry. The sector annually generates over $78 billion in wages and employee benefits. Core retail sales (excluding vehicles and gasoline) were over $400B in 2020. Retail Council of Canada (RCC) members represent more than two-thirds of core retail sales in the country. RCC is a not-for-profit industry-funded association that represents small, medium, and large retail businesses in every community across the country. As the Voice of Retail™ in Canada, we proudly represent more than 45,000 storefronts in all retail formats, including department, grocery, specialty, discount, independent retailers, and online merchants. dev-rcc.pantheonsite.io
For more information or to schedule media interviews, contact:
Michelle Wasylyshen at mwasylyshen@retailcouncil.org
