Thank you.
I will try to leave a few minutes for my colleague Louis so that he can take part in the discussion.
First of all, I want to congratulate you, Ms. Fowlie, on your presentation. Not only is your submission very comprehensive, with photos and the like, but quite frankly, it will be very helpful to us as we go about our work. Your presentation was also very interactive. You even brought some products with you. This brings me to the following question.
You gave some excellent examples. To my mind, they are negative examples, but they clearly show that companies have created some confusion—whether it was deliberate or not—and that consumers are left wondering where the products on the grocery shelves actually come from. The reason is often very simple. Some companies do not want consumers to know. In other cases, they invoke existing legislation to say that a product is from Canada, as in the case of the pineapples that you spoke of earlier. Everyone knows that not many people grow pineapples in their garden. I am not personally aware of any farmers in Quebec or anywhere else in Canada who specialize in growing pineapples. And that is why we need to change the labelling legislation.
Committee members heard testimony from the Union des producteurs agricoles du Québec which believes that mandatory standards should be adopted. This brings me to my question. Most witnesses, including a few that we heard from this morning, have told us that they favour voluntary standards. The problem I have with voluntary standards is that we will once again end up with labels that do not say where the product originated. The company, processor or packager will not be required to specify product origin. So then, consumer will not know if the product they are buying comes from Canada or from somewhere else, for example, from China or from the United States. Certainly there is value added for the company that prints “Product of Canada” on its label. The consumer, however, will still be confused.
What are your thoughts on this subject?