To both the previous question as well as this one, I would like to propose—and I did this in the presentation—that we leave the “Product of Canada” label alone. In other words, it is already understood out there, and most of us have agreed on what the understanding is. What we're missing is a way of communicating with the consumer—I agree, consumers need this information, and they're demanding more and more of it—what is really grown in Canada, what contains a “grown in Canada” situation.
You've identified your organic standard nicely: it has to be 95% organic to be labelled organic. You're saying 80% of the main ingredients must be Canadian, and then the product can bear the “grown in Canada” label. To me that makes a lot of sense, creating a new label that really communicates the Canadian content of that label. Then we have to home in on how to do that. Is it 80%?
The witnesses on the other side are from the vegetable industry. We're from the meat industry. The meat industry is a very integrated North American industry. We use feed from the United States. We use chicks from the United States. Twenty percent of our chickens—our original chickens, our eggs, and our chicks—come from the United States. How are you going to calculate Canadian content? If a turkey is grown in Canada but is eating U.S. feed--60% of the turkey is really feed--can we call it Canadian? You're going to get into all kinds of these issues. All the sausages we make contain ingredients from three or four or five different countries. How do we tell you as a consumer where the ingredients come from?
You have a product, a chicken grown in Canada. Fine. But the pasta, the vegetables, the spices, the breading is all imported. Now what do we call it? Do we still call it “Product of Canada”?
So that's why we need to talk about “grown in Canada”. If we want to send a message that this chicken in this particular product was grown in Canada, give us that opportunity. Give us a label that allows us to say something about “grown in Canada”. But you don't need to change “Product of Canada”, because the “Product of Canada” rule is very much used like your “prepared in Canada” suggestion. That's really what it's used for right now.