Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
A lot of the examples we use in our presentation have been used, so I'd like to focus on four key points in our presentation. For the record, we support the CFA grown-in-Canada approach very highly.
We have a system here in Canada that's been working in a certain fashion that we feel is misleading. In dairy we go back quite a ways about labelling. It's not just about products of Canada. We have a lot of other industry players in the food production area that have been using dairy terms on their packaging when there is no dairy content. We've been struggling. We've received support from a lot of the political parties here on labelling. This is an add-on for us, like when you talk about products of Canada, and so on.
So our board sat down to look at it and basically came up with four key areas. Depending on the approach you use, at least develop regulations for “Product of Canada” claims on food goods, and be very clear about those regulations.
We need to consider more strict requirements for “Product of Canada” labelling than those currently dictated in the guidelines. We have a few examples here. If that's the approach you're going to take, instead of saying it has to be 51% minimum content, we say it should be 70% minimum content, and 70% of the costs of production must be incurred in Canada. Strengthen those criteria, so if most of the product in that package is from Canada, you put the onus on that if you're going to use the “Product of Canada” labelling.
Also make the regulations voluntary, with a less onerous option on minimum Canadian content where you use “Processed in Canada”, with the incorporation of a country of origin and a listing of primary ingredients. So if you have a product that's been processed here but most of the ingredients come from outside Canada, you list the primary ingredients on that package and then you can say it was processed in Canada. That's the approach we'd like to see.
When it comes to using “Made in Canada”, that should apply only to non-food items. “Product of Canada” is for food, and “Made in Canada” is for non-food items. Be very clear on that so it's not misleading.
I think if you achieve those criteria, the less you stir up what we have and the more you clearly define in a better form what that terminology means. Then have a public campaign to promote that kind of approach to the consumers so they clearly know what's being talked about.
In a nutshell, that's basically what we have in our presentation. I'd like to make a final few comments and read through different presentations. I'll do this in French.
We must be very careful in what we do, because the terminology varies from one agricultural product to another; for example, "Product of Canada" versus "Product Grown in Canada". We produce milk, but we grow cereal. We have to adopt French and English terminology that means the same thing. From my experience in agriculture, it's often complicated to use the words "cultivé" and "produit". I don't want to get too technical, but if we develop logos or other similar things, the French and the English versions have to send out the same message.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.