Agriculture Committee on April 29th, 2008

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

I get the flavour of it. Okay.

I will ask this question to any of you. Obviously Canada wants to be and should be a leader with respect to the whole labelling issue. For what it's worth, relative to other countries, and particularly European countries, do you know how accurate our current labelling is with respect to what is done in Norway, Sweden, etc.? Do any of you have a handle on that?

Okay.

Mr. Jarvis, I'll ask you about Canadian labelling. You talked about the current labelling. You gave an example about cheddar cheese, and you agree that something needs to be done, so you agree with the committee studying this entire issue. In terms of what you proposed or suggested, have you a concern that what is being proposed would be too extensive by way of labelling, that there would be too much information on the packaging? Do you have any concern about that?

[Don Jarvis]

I constructed my opening remarks to make the point that when it comes to food products generally in Canada and the current labeling requirements for all food products, there are already very significant and extensive information requirements. Then I described the specific requirements for dairy products, which are probably even more intensive and prescriptive than for general food products. That's the point I was trying to make. I was just cautioning the committee and the government that when you look at further specificity, further prescriptive requirements, you have to be very careful because there's already an incredible amount of information on food labels.

Secondly, the consumer is looking for lots of information, but every consumer is looking for a basket of information, not just specifically.... Perhaps they're looking for the nutrient content. We now have a very large requirement for a nutrition labeling panel on the back, so you've got to have room on the label for that. And you have to prioritize what the consumer is really looking for. The manufacturer or processor of any food product, especially a dairy product, wants to describe the benefits of this product and go beyond just the mandated regulatory requirements that you already see, for example, in dairy products. There is other information the consumer is interested in. They're interested in recipes and how to use the product. You don't see as many recipes on products any more because there is less space on many food products for those recipes.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

I take it you would agree that amidst everything else the consumer wants to know, he or she absolutely wants to know where the item has come from. Is that not number one?

[Don Jarvis]

Yes. And as I tried to explain in my opening remarks, if it's an imported dairy product, it's clearly designated where it's from: it's a product of France, Italy, or the U.S.A. It's very clear that it's imported.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Skelton, you're up.

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

I have a bunch of questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You only have five minutes.

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

Mr. Jarvis, you mentioned Bill C-51. I didn't hear exactly what you said about it. You felt that there were some new regulations that were going to be helpful in Bill C-51, the new health bill. Is that correct, or did I hear you wrong?

[Don Jarvis]

I gave the current reference to the Food and Drugs Act and the regulations. With Bill C-51, there's been a significant addition to subsection 5(1) of the act. I think it's been purposely put there to address some of the concerns you're focused on currently at the committee level. It says:

No person shall manufacture, process, label, package, sell, import for sale or advertise a food in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, composition, merit, safety or origin.

I think “origin” has been added to the act.

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

Good.

You have the Canada mark for the meat there. When you process your chicken, you don't have to use...?

[Mike Dungate]

It's exactly the same. It comes under the meat inspection regulations. John has one for an importer. If it's actually going through a plant, you'll usually see an establishment number on the bottom part.

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

On the bottom it looks exactly the same.

[Mike Dungate]

That's how you know where it's from. But then you have to search on the CFIA website. Those of us in the industry can find it pretty quickly, but I don't think a consumer can necessarily go through and find where it's coming from based on that.

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

That was the other thing.

I didn't look to see if the dairy label has that same mark on it.

[Don Jarvis]

No. As I mentioned, the number of the dairy establishment has to be on the package label.

We just looked at dairy products, for example, and there's a vast range of dairy products in the dairy case right now. It's quite noticeable that website addresses and 1-800 lines to the manufacturer have been added to many of our products. Those numbers are manned 24 hours a day. If a consumer has specific questions about that product, it's very easy to contact those companies and get more information. But there's only so much space available on a label.

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

I understand that, and it's very interesting.

I like the traceability within the poultry industry. You've been working on that for many years. That's something that some of our cattle producers aren't going into as easily, in some ways. But I really appreciate that, and I think the poultry industry has done a great job of it.

John, when you said, “not Canadian cattle, but must be Canadian beef”, would you go a little further on that, please?

[John Masswohl]

We view everything in terms of regulations we have in Canada. Do we want to face those same regulations in other countries? As I said, we export about 1.3 million head of cattle into the U.S. per year. In 2007 we imported just over 5,000 head. In 2006 we imported just over 7,000 head. The number of cattle we import into Canada is minuscule. Almost all the beef coming out of the Canadian packing plants comes from Canadian-born animals. So I guess the question is, where is the cost benefit in that?

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

Okay. I wanted you to clarify that because a lot of people don't understand that, and I think that's the whole thing.

Mr. Chair, we weren't given the CFIA study of 2007 in our package, were we? Mr. Anderson mentioned the CFIA study of 2007, the “Made in Canada” label. Is that correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I don't think we've circulated that.

[John Anderson]

Yes.

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

May we have that, please? I would like to see it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We'll make sure we get that circulated.

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

Mr. Anderson, you talked about the revised system of grading. Would you go a little further on that, too?

[John Anderson]

At the present time, the grading system is confusing. First of all, there is the word “Canada” in it, and it's obligatory to put that on the front of labels of many products. Therefore, it becomes confused with the origin of the product. Many consumers are not educated to distinguish between the “Product of Canada“ and “Canada No. 1” labels, etc.

I think there has to be a distinction between the “Product of Canada” labelling and the grading system, so that it's very clear that the grading system is a grading system for quality, for health reasons, etc. That still should be there. But it shouldn't be connected with the origin of the product. And if we're going to use “Canada” in a labelling system, then we believe it has to be connected to a product that is Canadian.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

Mr. Atamanenko is back at the table, so we're going back to allow him his seven minutes.