Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the presentations, gentlemen, and the directness to the issue that we're talking about, which is “Product of Canada” designation.
Mr. Kyte, you mentioned in your remarks that there has to be a strengthening of enforcement and increased store checks. I guess I'd put it this way. We did some checking over the last few days, and there is definitely an advertising blitz on pork tenderloin at the moment in this city. It's advertised in one establishment as fresh pork tenderloin for $2.99 a pound and there's no “Product of the United States” declaration on it.
I have samples here that I'm willing to send around to the committee members, and you can have a look at them as well, but it's clearly a grade of the United States product. I have three packages of pork tenderloin here. Two are marked “Pork tenderloin U.S.”, the other isn't marked at all.
It's a blatant violation of our Meat Inspection Act, and I'd ask the parliamentary secretary to serve notice on CFIA that they should be doing those store checks, because consumers do need to be able to make a choice. I think consumers recognize we have a Canadian hog industry in disarray.
They stuck with us when we were in trouble in the meat sector in the beef industry and in fact increased consumption when we had BSE. I think consumers need to be given the opportunity to buy Canadian product and be assured they're buying Canadian product, and that labelling by quite a number of stores is, I think, hurting producers.
So I'll send these around, Mr. Chair, and you can have a look at them. You can see the difference.
Mr. Kyte, in terms of store checks, in your experience, is it a lack of human resources at CFIA, or where's the problem? I will come to “Product of Canada”, but there's no sense of having “Product of Canada” on a label if the enforcement measures by the Government of Canada are not there.