Agriculture Committee on April 29th, 2008

[Mike Dungate]

Our concern centres more on the fact that imported products can be labelled as products of Canada. In our view, the consumer is not interested in knowing exactly what country a product comes from, but in being able to distinguish between a product of Canada and an imported product.

If it is voluntary, it is possible to use the "Product of Canada" label. We want it to be mandatory to meet all of the requirements in order to use "Product of Canada" on a label. That is what is mandatory. It is not mandatory to say that the product is imported from a certain country.

Is that clear?

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Yes, but if the standard is not mandatory, what are you going to put on the label? A government cannot adopt standards that, once again, leave the door open to vague labelling. That is my concern.

[Mike Dungate]

I'm going to think about that. I had not thought about that, that there is a difference between the two. But there is no doubt that it is necessary for us to ensure that a product labelled "Product of Canada" truly is a product of Canada.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Anderson, is your organization in favour of a mandatory standard?

[John Anderson]

We have not taken a position on the issue, because some of our members favour a voluntary method, whereas others are more in favour of something formal.

I agree with Mr. Dungate that what is most important is ensuring that "Product of Canada" means something very clear. At present, that is not the case. What we are urging the committee to do is to clarify that. At present, cooperatives that are producing products of Canada have no guarantees that they will be able to market their products to consumers who know that it is a product that is entirely made in Canada, because their products are competing with other products labelled not only with their origin, but also with labels such as "Canada No. 1", etc.

I think that is the first thing that needs to be clarified. The other issues are also important. I also think that it depends on the various industries. This important issue also affects products such as dairy products, beef products, and so on, as to whether they are what they claim to be.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Miller, you're up.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today. This is an issue in which I've been very interested and have been working on through local farm groups and what have you since the late seventies. I've always thought we needed more truth in labelling. Finally, I think we're on the road to something.

John, I want to carry on with the discussion Mr. Easter was having with you. I just want to be clear on the cattlemen's position. You were talking about mixing the cheaper American product that comes in. Basically you have 80% of what have you, but if Canadian product were more....

I just want to understand if at the end of the day the cattlemen are in favour of having the content be Canadian--regardless of the dollar value--in order to be called a product of Canada. Is that a fair assessment?

[John Masswohl]

Right. If you're going to call it Canadian, it has to be Canadian.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes. Are you basically saying, for the sake of argument, that as long as a majority of content is...so 51% or more?

[John Masswohl]

I'm not sure if you mean a percentage of value.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

No, I mean a percentage of product.

[John Masswohl]

I don't even mean a percentage. In the example I used, when you have ground beef that has imported ground beef, it's not Canadian, so it can't be called Canadian, period. That's what we'd be saying on that.

I think probably in this room--and I don't think anybody has mentioned it--there's room for a “Processed in Canada” designation, if you want to go down that route as well. We're saying, first of all, if you're going to label, it's voluntary. But if you do choose to label something as Canadian, it had better be Canadian, and we need to know what the standard is for it to be called Canadian.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

You're saying that it needs to be totally Canadian.

[John Masswohl]

It needs to have become beef in Canada.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I'm not sure I understand.

[John Masswohl]

I'm making a distinction between cattle and beef.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Are you saying that it should be totally Canadian beef?

[John Masswohl]

If you're talking about raw beef, which is in chapter 2 of the tariff, it has to be totally Canadian beef, not necessarily from Canadian cattle but Canadian beef.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay. We'll move on to the other issue, which is voluntary versus mandatory. André just talked about it. While I do have some sympathy toward mandatory labelling, I think under what's being talked about, it would be very irresponsible of Canadian organizations or producers not to want to label and be proud of their product, so I think the thing will take care of itself.

At the same time, I know people like me--and I'm sure like André and other people--are going to be monitoring the situation to make sure that things are going as planned. Under voluntary labelling, I think it will probably look after itself. In essence, what you should have, for the most part, is that anything that isn't labelled won't be grown in Canada or be a product of Canada. People should be able to decipher that, as long as we educate the public to it.

Mr. Anderson, you talked about having one label on the front--and I believe it was “Product of Canada”, or whatever, on the front--and then country of origin on the back, which causes confusion. One consumer might look at the front, not the back, or vice versa. In that case, is there not some way that the label could simply be done to cover both? Do you have any comments on that?

[John Anderson]

I think right now it is definitely a source of confusion, but the question is how you fix it. I think there are different ways of doing it, as long as the public is educated as to what those different labels mean. It must be clear to us that a “Product of Canada” label has to mean that the majority--and we're not saying how much, but certainly more than the 50% of the content of that product--has to be Canadian. That has to be clear for people. There has to be an education campaign around that to make clear what it means.

There may be many products of which the majority of content is Canadian. There may be some imported ingredients, and that's okay as long as people know that the main ingredients determining the product--and not the pepper that's put in it or something--are Canadian. That has to be prominent, so that when the consumer goes to buy that product, they can trust that it is a Canadian product when they see it on the front label.

If there are more clarifications that have to be delivered to the consumer, they could be on the back label.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay.

You just touched on something that Mike touched on earlier, which is that consumers today want to know where their food comes from. We all know the problems and the crisis in the livestock sector right now, and urbanites in my riding want to support agriculture. What I hear out there is that the only way they see of doing it--or at least one of the obvious ways, as they say to me all the time--is that if you tell them or show them that the product is being produced in Canada, they'll dang well buy it. I'm hearing that loud and clear, and I believe it. I think our consumers today want to do that, and that's why I think this is very important.

Mike, you talked about “Product of Canada” and “Grown in Canada” a little bit more. You touched on a 20% figure under chapter 16, and then you talked about chapters 18, 19, and 20. Could you talk a little further about that, if you wouldn't mind?

[Mike Dungate]

For us it was coming back to the essential character of the product. If you walk down a grocery aisle, frankly, the challenge for us in the meat industry overall is that even if it's a packaged product, most of it is sold by the meat and then the add-ons that go into it.

Certainly when you've got a product that is primarily meat.... That's what chapter 16 says. It says there's a significant portion that's being sold because it's a meat product, not because it's a pizza or an egg roll that's got chicken or beef in it or a taco that's got something in it. Those are the ones in chapters 18, 19, 20, and 21. Those are food preparations, and for us, you just need a majority value content in that area.

But if you're selling the chicken part or the beef part or whatever in a meat product, then our sense is that you have to have a majority of not only the total value of the product but also of that meat content in there. It's like a double hurdle.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

I know Alex had to take off to the House. He's going to be coming back, and we'll fit him in with a seven-minute round when he comes back to committee, if members are okay with that.

We'll continue with the five-minute round.

Please go ahead, Mr. St. Amand.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of you for coming and presenting to us this morning.

Mr. Dungate, in your written presentation I don't think it's a typographical error in the last paragraph on page 1, where it says,“CFIA continues to pursue veterinary agreements”. That's not to be “voluntary” agreements, I take it. What are veterinary agreements, may I ask?

[Mike Dungate]

Veterinary agreements are the means by which CFIA approves the inspection regime in another country and that country approves our inspection regime.

Our only issue there is that we don't get consulted in terms of what countries and what processes are going on, and what the risk assessment is in those countries. As we go through on farm food safety in Canada and people want more and more to know what farm practices are, whether from an animal welfare perspective or from a food safety perspective, and as we go out and approve, really, what are not systems in other countries--