Madame Vaddapalli.
Evidence of meeting #27 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was product.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #27 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was product.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Lawyer, Agri-Food Analyst, Option consommateurs
Because we're speaking about food products, obviously food has to be grown in Canada. I just threw out the number 70%, but it would have to be higher than 50%--for sure, 51%.
I was talking about the “Canada Organic” logo, and 95% may not be realistic. I was shooting you a number today. I wouldn't have had the chance to speak to all the different stakeholders. I was just throwing that number in. But “Grown in Canada”, that's the rule for me. More than 51%...then we need to discuss with other stakeholders to decide.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
I think the same thing as Nalini. Thank you.
Research Director, Consumer Interest Alliance Inc.
We haven't done the research, but I think certainly for a single-ingredient product, such as coffee, olives, or potatoes, it would have to be very high. When you come to multi-ingredient, which is most of the products we buy, then I think the issue is that somebody needs to go out and do the consumer research and find out what consumers believe. What would consumers be satisfied with as being a product of Canada? Still we have to go through all of this, and then find we still haven't reached the level that the average consumer is comfortable with. So I think we all need to do some research with our constituents, and probably broader than that, and it will probably vary.
I have to say, in defence of the chairman's product, that Alberta beef is not the only good beef. The beef from Manitoba is okay too.
Conservative
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
On that subject, I just want to let Brian know that my brother, who is a cattle rancher in B.C., might take exception to what you said; anyway, we'll move on.
Thank you very much for being here. We have this movement in Canada, a movement for food sovereignty, food security. It's my understanding, and I assume, that the whole idea of having accurate labelling is a step in this direction. It supports the idea of food sovereignty. It then supports the idea of trying to buy local as much as possible and supporting local industry.
I'd like some comments on that.
First, Ms. Bliss, maybe you could comment. You mentioned that you would like to see provincial barriers eliminated, and I understand why, so in your case meat can be exported out of the province. It's only three hours away. We know that for meat to be exported out of provinces or out of the country now, meat has to be inspected by CFIA inspectors.
In British Columbia we've seen this push for standardization result in our meat inspection regulation, which basically has put a tremendous hardship on local, small producers, because they now are no longer able to kill on the farm and sell. In other words, someone who has a very small operation isn't able to kill meat and sell to another person. So there's the whole movement to try to somehow scramble and get some money available, whether it's mobile abattoirs or to try to localize other meat inspection slaughterhouses.
We know that in Nova Scotia they've somehow made an exception for this and they allow this.
So if we see this whole movement to standardization, do you see this maybe as a detriment to the small farmer and the producer, which can then be a detriment to the whole idea of trying to support local industry?
That's my first question.
Maybe, Ms. Bliss, you could start, please.
Director, Local Food For Local People
I am very passionate about this topic. I am a farmer, and I not only can't sell meat from my farm, but I can't even feed my family, because it is illegal. If I slaughter a steer this afternoon, I have to kill it at home, I have to hang it at home, and I have to cut it at home. So I can't even eat my own meat right now unless I want to put myself through those substandards of hanging the meat in the barn and then cutting it up on the kitchen table.
I know we're in a very similar situation to what they have in B.C. I've corresponded back and forth. Unfortunately, in Ontario, we're not allowed to have the mobile slaughter plants, so we're in the process of trying to secure funding to build an abattoir. The closest abattoir I can access right now is in Dryden, which is about three hours north of Rainy River. That means I'm paying for fuel; I'm taking my animals to Dryden, and then I'm hauling them back to be processed. After I do that, I can sell them to my neighbours and I can feed my family. It's silly, because if I don't take my meat to that abattoir, it's illegal for me to take a roast beef sandwich to work, because the meat is supposed to stay on the farm. I can't take it to a potluck dinner or anything like that. It sounds crazy, but it's the truth.
It is a very big hindrance. The beef industry and all of our industries--other than the grain industry, which is doing well because of the biofuels--are hurting right now. The meat industries are in a bad way. We need to open up markets and local food. Consumers, if they can buy from you, especially in the districts and the communities that we're in--we're small and we're tightknit--want to be able to access products. An example about potatoes was given by the lady whose name I forget. People can go into a grocery store in Japan now and scan the bar codes with their cell phone and they will see a picture of the farmer who's raising that meat. They want to see that cow out chewing her cud, lying happily in the grass. People can come right to my farm and do that if they choose to. It's a huge hindrance.
We are hoping that an abattoir may begin this spring, but killing animals is not very profitable, so we're going to have to struggle and work really hard to keep that going. But it will open up some markets. And the farmers markets in the northwest have been crying for local product, but we're unable to meet them because of the regulations, because of the access to the abattoir and the regulations that go along with that.
Communications Officer, Union des consommateurs
I think that, in concepts where there are increasingly marked differences, food sovereignty is increasingly being distinguished from food safety. Let me explain. In the rules on health safety, we granted a lot of importance to the health safety of food. This very healthy obsession favours the giants in the food industry to the detriment, very often, of smaller businesses. In food safety, however, there are not just the health aspects. There are more and more consumers who are afraid of cattle growth hormones, the widespread use of antibiotics, and all the industrial procedures that also cause health problems but that are less visible than problems of wholesomeness. These questions have longer-term repercussions on health. When we buy locally, when we know the producer, when we know that he does not use growth hormones, we have less reason to fear pure health problems.
The health question must not be a pretext for killing small farmers and alternative ways of doing things. A balance must always be sought in these issues.
Lawyer, Agri-Food Analyst, Option consommateurs
I like to think about food sovereignty as a right to food. I think finding the équilibre between economics and social interests is always a big challenge, but we need to do that, because we're in a society that grows on economy. So not taking that into account is not realistic.
I meet consumers who have been in their neighbourhood for many years. There is not even one grocery store. So people buy their food in the corner stores and the dépanneurs, because it's not profitable for big industries to be there. And a lot of these neighbourhood people have very low income, so having local access to local foods in the city but also in more rural areas is very important.
I think that just being here today and the fact that you're asking questions about that means it's coming. That debate has been elevated to another level. Maybe, hopefully, public policies will help support local farmers so that access to food will be available for all consumers and so that the bigger industries will also be sensitized to this issue and their responsibility to acknowledge that.
Research Director, Consumer Interest Alliance Inc.
We have mentioned the north. Access to nutritious, health-fresh, Canadian food up north is a huge issue. Some research in native communities found that when they stopped eating so much fish because they were worried about the heavy metal build-up, what they switched to was chips and baloney, because it was all they had access to.
With the size of Canada and the distribution system, getting reasonably priced local, nutritious, safe food spread across the country is not easy. I completely agree with Nalini that we have a sort of balance between ethics and economics to try to work through, added to a really low level of consumer awareness about a lot of the issues around their food relating to where the food safety issues are—many of them are actually in the kitchen—and all of these things.
That has come from a general pulling back by the government from providing consumer information. As the world gets progressively more complicated for consumers, there's progressively less information coming from a government source. Most Canadians still believe they can put faith in information that comes from the government. It's getting a little weaker, but it's not to the level of just going on the Internet and seeing what you pull down, not quite knowing what the source is and how much credibility it has. It used to be really good; we used to have quite a lot of government information that was available. And even though we now have the Internet and it's cheaper to produce or to get the information to consumers, we seem to just keep pulling back on how much we provide.
That's another really important.... We've taken nutrition and home economics education basically out of the schools, and people out there—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
I'm going to have to cut you off. We're over time.
We're going to start our five-minute rounds. I ask all witnesses to keep your responses brief. You'll find that members are still going to ask just about as many questions as they did in the seven-minute rounds, but we're going to have to keep the responses as brief as possible so that they can get their questions answered.
With that, we'll kick it off with Mr. St. Amand.
Liberal
Lloyd St. Amand Liberal Brant, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of you for coming this morning and presenting to us.
I don't know to what extent, and it's not our business to know to what extent, you're involved in this on a voluntary or a consumer rights basis, as opposed to a basis that provides remuneration, but however you're doing it, it's appreciated for sure by the committee, and I dare say by the citizenry at large. So thank you for your efforts.
In terms of—my phrasing—the “dumbing down” of the labelling, I don't necessarily agree that it may be simplified or streamlined more than it currently is. I heard you, Ms. Hillard, say that consumers, or a significant number of consumers—I think 50%—cannot read the labels. That may be, but answer me this—anybody, if you could. Labelling now has become pretty sophisticated, pretty detailed with respect to the components that make up the product, whether it's glucose, trans fats, fibre. My God, I'm casually interested, and, frankly, casually only, in reading the seven or eight items and the percentage of those items there are. I'm rather more interested, I'll tell you, in finding out where the product originated, where it was processed, and where it was packaged.
But I'm hearing all of you say that we need to dumb it down to three words or less, so that it's “Product of Canada” or “Made in Canada”, and we perhaps needn't or shouldn't go any further. I'm disagreeing; I think we need to be more descriptive.
Do you have any thoughts about that?
Research Director, Consumer Interest Alliance Inc.
Let me just clarify. The reason people can't read the label is that the nutrition panel is the only thing on the Canadian food label that has typographical requirements. The reason people can't read it, apart from the fact that some have literacy issues, is that the print is not clear: the contrast is not clear, the size is not right, the spacing is not correct. That was the research we did. There's an area that really needs to be covered.
But we are putting so much stuff on the label now that I still contend we need to keep it as short and as clear and as simple as possible, and then let people go somewhere else for the definition.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
The important thing in what we are saying is not just the simplification, but also the clarification of the terms, what we mean by the terms put on the label.
Lawyer, Agri-Food Analyst, Option consommateurs
Really quickly, I was saying, “Product of Canada”, but under it you need to state what it means. Was it that matières premières, the main ingredients, were grown in Canada? Was it processed? You need to add that, and then you have to make the more detailed information available, either at the point of sale or a link to somewhere else where consumers can get access to that information. I'm very adamant that half of the Canadian population.... There are five levels in literacy; half of it is at level two. We're all educated, but we forget that most Canadians have a hard time reading and understanding what's on the label.
Liberal
Liberal
Lloyd St. Amand Liberal Brant, ON
So you're suggesting that the information be elsewhere, on a website or something?
Lawyer, Agri-Food Analyst, Option consommateurs
Point of sale is very good. For point of sale, I look at Quebec, where we're encouraging Quebec products. So now when you have a comptoir with a Quebec label, you have a little étiquette, which shows what is from Quebec. If it was processed, if it was grown.... That helps the consumer right away when he's buying a product: “What is that on the side of the comptoir?” It tells more detailed information right at the point of sale.