Thank you.
Good morning. It's not every day that we can say this in Parliament, but I sincerely believe that we will manage to achieve something concrete on this issue. The proof is there seems to be some political will, not only on the part of the government but of all parties in the House of Commons as well as the stakeholders involved, to do something to improve the way food products are labelled. Perhaps I'm naive to think that we'll really achieve a satisfactory result for everyone. I dare to believe that. Perhaps I would not have come here today or I would not have run for office if I didn't think we could change things.
This is a file that affects a lot of consumers who are entitled to know what they're buying and consuming. There's the whole economic aspect for our agricultural producers, so that their products can be properly identified and that people can make an enlightened choice to consume a local product. There's also the whole issue of food safety that is related to this labelling.
Ms. Bryanton, when you referred earlier to the Throne Speech and the budget, you stated that action had been taken in the area of food safety. I'd like to know what has actually changed. This week, there was a series of articles—you certainly read them in La Presse newspaper—which presented a number of cases of products from overseas which contained salmonella, bacteria, glass, metal and chemical disinfectants.
I've always felt that products entering Canada were not sufficiently scrutinized. It's often been said that the use of pesticides that are prohibited in Canada should suffice to prohibit the entry of a product grown elsewhere, even in the United States. This isn't clear. Unfortunately, this rule has never been applied to the letter. Despite what you say, perhaps the government has uttered some pious wishes about food safety and security, but I get the impression that with the seizures, the recalls... Products are being withdrawn from the shelves. Recently, it was cantaloupe, spinach, carrot juice, pear juice. Those are the examples that spring to mind. We even had trouble with pet food.
I don't know if there's been any improvement, but I'd like to hear your views on this and I'd like to know whether, in concrete terms, we're really moving toward tighter inspection of food entering the country.