Agriculture Committee on April 17th, 2008

[Christopher Kyte]

I agree 100%.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Mr. Fruitman, I would like to address a couple of things and maybe just straighten out a couple of things that you were discussing with some of the other committee members. I thought it was very interesting. You hit on something that I agree with.

This is about economics. This is about safety. It is even about fraud. Sometimes we have to be able to distinguish between them, but there should still be truth in labelling in all of those, correct? You agree with that. So then the economic benefit that you talk about and the security benefit that you talk about when it comes to labelling should really be one and the same.

[Mel Fruitman]

I'm sorry, they should not.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

They should be one and the same, don't you agree?

[Mel Fruitman]

No, not necessarily.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

How come? When it comes to the actual label and the truthfulness within the label, it should be--

[Mel Fruitman]

No, because as I said, I think the consumers are looking at it from two different perspectives. One is the safety or security one, and that's the one that is usually foremost when we're talking about foodstuffs. The other is the economic benefit one, and that would apply across all product lines.

The example that Mr. Kyte just used with the apples bothers me a little. If that producer could segment his lines and say, this time I used all Canadian apples, then that could qualify for the moment to use the “Product of Canada” designation; the others couldn't. If they cannot, if his line is mixed in some such way that he can't determine which went into which can or product, then that should not qualify for “Product of Canada”, because now he is starting to mix up the two concepts. One is knowing where the product came from. The other is the economic benefit to Canada.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Okay, but I think we all agree that consumers first should have the ability to expect both--honesty from us from the labelling aspect of things when it comes to security and when it comes to the economics. Second, I think we all agree here--and I'll let you comment on this--that what we as a government should be doing is focusing on strengthening the existing labels that we already have and making it simpler and more understandable for our consumers, whether that means raising standards or whatever. That's what we as a government should be focusing on.

[Mel Fruitman]

Yes, we should be focusing on having truthful, useful information in the labelling, and no confusion in the minds of consumers. And to that end, it seems to me that maintaining the “Product of Canada” label, but clarifying exactly what that means would be preferable to introducing a new label, which introduces many complications.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have the floor, Mrs. Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good day, gentlemen. I enjoyed your presentations tremendously this morning. I would like to come back to two or three points made by one of my colleagues concerning voluntary versus mandatory labelling. Do you not think that a voluntary standard would not be in the best interest of consumers? Often, voluntary measures are not widely implemented. Again, do you not think that consumers could be disadvantaged by such a decision?

[Christopher Kyte]

Thank you.

The current system works relatively well. What we're trying to do is improve the information that's going to the consumer. It's a voluntary system. As long as you can tell where the product was last transformed, it gives the consumer some comfortable information.

I will give an example. The apple processor I was talking about buys as many apples as he can from Canada, but he is forced to buy some from New York state. He probably doesn't have “Product of Canada” on his label. He probably has just the grade standard, that it is a grade A product. And there's nothing wrong with that. So the consumer knows this is a Canadian product. They know it's a Canadian company. They know from its address it's Canadian.

The big gap as far as I'm concerned is the product that's packed for, the product that's imported for. That doesn't confirm where the product comes from at all. It does not confirm where it was manufactured, it doesn't confirm where the inputs come from, and I think that's a big gap that should be looked at. Level the playing field.

Thank you.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

How do you feel about this, Mr. Fruitman?

[Mel Fruitman]

The labelling of origin for food products should be mandatory. We probably should maintain the “product of” type of designation, but make that a much tighter definition indicating truly that the product was grown or raised in Canada.

Voluntary labelling would work, I think, for the economic circumstances. Anything that relates to safety or security when people are concerned about their foodstuffs should not be voluntary. Mr. Atamanenko mentioned the GM foods. That, for example, is a label that should be mandatory. If foods are genetically modified, consumers should know that. We're not taking a stand for or against; give the consumers the information to make their own decision, to make their own choices.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

We now know that the 51% rule applies to the cost of production, not to the content. Several witnesses have told us how they feel about this rule. I would like to hear once again your views on this standard. You stated that you were not prepared to say what the percentage should be for the standard, only that it should apply to the content, not to production costs. Is that correct?

[Christopher Kyte]

I really don't know. I think you're right that it should be improved. There are a lot of questions about the clarity of “Product of Canada”. I think that we really have to consider what that is.

You also don't want to disadvantage companies that make some other kinds of products as well in this country. Today they're making something from Canada and tomorrow they're making something from somewhere else. You have to be careful with the labelling. Sometimes, because it's such a global economy now, if you're making a spread of some sort, a fruit spread, you may be getting your blueberries from the Maritimes this year and next year you may be having to pick up some of your blueberries from another country. Well, you don't want to have to carry a bunch of different labels. If you were putting three different fruits in your spread, and one of them happens to be blueberry and it's 5% or 10% of 30%, do you want to then say that's not a product of Canada? I'm not sure. I think there have to be a lot more people around the table looking at some of those ifs, ands, or buts.

Thank you.

[Mel Fruitman]

I don't think the consumers are really concerned about your member's problems in terms of processing the foods and where they came from.

I reiterate that we have to make that distinction. What is it that we are trying to convey? What information are we trying to convey to consumers with that label? Again, I say that when it's food we are talking about, that label is intended to convey to consumers where the contents were grown or raised, not the economic value to Canada. Those are completely different messages and those messages need to be separated.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mrs. Skelton, you have the floor.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, gentlemen. It's been very interesting listening to your points of view.

Mr. Kyte, at the start of your presentation you talked about percentages of people. You didn't exactly say what percentage of people want to know where their food comes from. Do you have those percentages offhand?

[Christopher Kyte]

No. What I said is that people want to know what the price is. They want to know what the product is. Is it what they expect it is? More and more I think they're saying, yes, they'd like to know where it comes from. We've certainly had a wide discussion.

I don't believe that all people are making purchasing decisions based on where the product comes from. My analogy is that, when I went into Farm Boy, two different kinds of peas were sold out. They were from China. Now, would I do that? I'm not sure, but I was really surprised.

The Wal-Mart story was another point of view. You're right, I think we want to increase economic activity in this country. I'm not sure that the “Product of Canada” label and where it's made, where it's grown, is going to change that. I think there are other things we should be doing as a country to grow the business as a Canadian business.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

It's interesting, because like Mr. Easter, I've been walking downtown, just checking the stores and going to the Independent Grocer and everything and really looking at labels and looking at what's been going on in light of the discussion we've had here.

As someone who has food allergies, I tend to try to find the cleanest product I possibly can. I look at Canada because, being an agriculture producer, that's what I want. If I go to buy lentils or chickpeas or something, I want to know that they were grown in Canada, that in some way they're a product of Canada. I have concerns.

Do you have any idea at all, or any facts or surveys or statistics, that we would put an unnecessary burden, an extra burden, on our processors and deplete Canadian food supplies more by driving them out of the country if we add additional costs to labelling?

[Christopher Kyte]

Our members agree that there should be truth in labelling and you should be able to make informed decisions about what you buy. Part of that is about “Product of Canada”, on which I think there has to be some discussion, and you're having that discussion. I think you also want to know, if your product is being imported, where is it being imported from. China has probably some of the nicest and cleanest processing facilities in the world, but it's the environmental situation that might be a bit of a problem, and a lack of controls in their food inspection system.

Can I just go back to the Food Inspection Agency, which was brought up earlier? For the food processing industry and for consumers, the Food Inspection Agency is the most important agency there is. They administer over 1,400 trade agreements around the world. If they did not exist, we wouldn't be able to ship products. Our trading business would end tomorrow. You could lose the Department of National Defence for two months and not even miss it, but the CFIA is really important.

Our impression is that they are understaffed. They have a lot of staff; maybe their inspection priorities have to be changed. There is an interest in doing more at the border, but they're not able to do it, and it's really important. If you look at some parts of the store, there are a lot of products that don't meet any Canadian regulations--they're not bilingual; they're not anything.

I'm sorry. I just thought it had to be said.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

That's what we need to hear. Thank you for saying it.

I look at this and I have concerns about importers who aren't meeting the standards, and it is excellent that this point was brought out. I think this is the first group of witnesses who have brought it out.

Do you have anything to add, Mr. Fruitman?

[Mel Fruitman]

This really is off topic, but I agree about the CFIA. In fact, in general we feel that consumer protection measures in this country over roughly the past 20 years have been quite lax. There are agencies that are supposed to be protecting Canadian consumers. Canadian consumers are under the misapprehension that everything we purchase in the marketplace is “safe” in some way, shape, or form. That obviously is quite wrong, because many of the rules that already exist, as loose as some of them may be, are not being adequately enforced.

So yes, beef up CFIA, and in fact, get it out of Agriculture and make it a separate agency.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Mr. Kyte, you said there were 95 recalls in.... Was that in food?