I think this is all about presentation. I think today particularly we see the dog food, and we see the spinach, and we see all the other things. As Canadians, I think we have an opportunity here to say, listen, for the protection of our consumers, the Minister of Health should announce this policy, not the Minister of Agriculture. For the safety of all Canadians, we want everything that the consumers in Canada are eating to be labelled with the country of origin so our consumers can then make intelligent decisions on what to buy.
You don't get into trouble with free trade, and you don't get into that beef thing you're talking about. I understand where those guys are coming from, but if our federal Minister of Health stands up and says, “Geez, we're quite worried as Canadians. We want the Canadian public to make an informed decision, and we're going to have country of origin....”
There's a real movement, Mr. Chairman, to buy within 100 kilometres. There are the environmental concerns about carbon loading. This is a really big discussion in Canada today. No matter what magazine or article you want to read or TV program or radio program you hear, there's a lot of talk about the environmental impacts of all the things we do. There is the discussion about eating fresh tomatoes in Toronto all winter long, and people are saying that the environmental deficit is huge with the fuel and all the problems.
So I think we're in a position to move on this as a federal government and say, listen, we're looking at this thing because our consumers are aware of this issue, and we want them to know at least where it came from. Let the industry jump in and start promoting our Canadian suppliers.