Agriculture Committee on May 6th, 2008

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

You also talked about a proposed two-tier system. Would that not add extra labelling costs? Consumers today want to know a lot more information than they used to. It's getting to the point that we're going to have to send out a small booklet with a jar of jam and an elastic around every one. It's almost that bad. But I understand why people want to know.

[Jeanne Cruikshank]

We're very cognizant of the cost of label changes. Within our membership, there are large players and small players. Our members have a predisposition to buy locally. This gets complicated for those small producers who have the need, at great charge to them, to do the nutritional labelling and meet the requirements.

One of the issues is that the definition needs to be clearly communicated. The label is only one medium for communicating a message. The reason there seems to be a gap, or in some cases a misunderstanding on the part of consumers, is that there are some products that really aren't the 51%. There are products like a 20-ingredient chicken pot pie, where the ingredients may come from a variety of places. It really doesn't fit into the existing guidelines.

We were proposing that the “100% Canadian” should have its own separate branding and identity. This may be on the label or it may be communicated through any one of a number of mediums, as long as it means the same thing and meets with our trading partners' standards.

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

I want to continue on that. You talked about labelling for something that is 100% Canadian. Then you talked about the other one where I think you were—correct me if I'm wrong—leaning toward the manufactured part. If you were going to that other side, in your vision, would you agree, or are you saying that something 20% imported, or even 100% imported, but manufactured or processed in Canada could come under the same label as something processed or manufactured in Canada but really only 50% or 40% Canadian?

Mr. Loney, were you implying that small business or small food companies are being treated differently than the large multinationals? I'll let you answer that after Ms. Cruikshank is done.

[Jeanne Cruikshank]

I don't think our membership has all of the answers on that, but we know there is this other category that may not be the 51% and may have ingredients from many countries. That's why we propose that the right stakeholders and the right minds need to sit around a table and get this figured out.

As an industry, in partnership with government, we can do that quickly. We can make it happen. We need to be cognizant of the trading partners. We need to take into account situations that already exist.

I'm not here with a defined answer for you on that one, but I think the right people exist, many of whom have been here, to make that happen in a quick and timely way.

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

Thank you.

[Mark Loney]

I think I am being treated a little differently. I think they gave me more attention. It's like there's a forest fire and 10 firemen show up and they're trying to water down a fence post. That's the impression I got. It upsets me when these guys are treated differently. These guys don't have to register, but I do.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Miller, your time has expired.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Doering, you mentioned that you're basically satisfied with the way the labelling is taking place but that you wouldn't have a problem if the 51% rule were to move to 80%--not through regulations but if we could just do that. Yet from all of the witnesses we heard, it seems that people feel that if something is a product of Canada, it should actually be the ingredients and not the processing.

Is it so difficult, from your point of view, to have regulations that say at least 51% of the ingredients of whatever it is are Canadian--or 60% or 70%? What should the percentage be? You mentioned that happens in juice, that if somebody voluntarily produces juice with 80%, it's a product of Canada.

We are here to see if there is a way to fix this. From your point of view, why would it be so difficult to do this?

[Ronald Doering]

I'll say it again. I'm not saying that the way we do food labelling is acceptable. It is awful. It significantly undermines innovation in Canada. It significantly undermines competitiveness, and it significantly hurts investment in the food industry.

I said that if you want to make a difference on the “Product of Canada” issue.... It's not the 500 other label issues or whether we should have pre-market label registration on jams or not. If you want to get into all that, fine. We can do all that stuff. My recommendation is to change it completely.

I was talking about the “Product of Canada” issue. There I was saying that if you really want to make a difference soon, you would recommend to the government that the Industry Canada guideline that says rather than look at the product in the can, we will look at all the costs associated with the production of that, and if it's more than 51%, you can still call it “Product of Canada”. If you want to change that, fine. Make it 90%; it could be done tomorrow. That solves the problem of those pre-packaged products that fall under this legislation and regulations. Unless they can show that 90% of the production costs were spent in Canada, they can't call it “Product of Canada”. That solves that problem.

In terms of “Grown in Canada”, you can use that now. If you want to say “Prepared in Canada”, as opposed to “Product of Canada”, you can use that now. The actual expression, “Product of Canada”, doesn't actually exist in the kind of thing we're talking about here. It doesn't. There are hundreds and hundreds of food commodities, and each of them has their own regulatory regime.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Perhaps we can stop to see what Mr. Loney has to say.

[Mark Loney]

I want to say that the 51% is maybe an easy thing to do, but the factory I deal with doesn't always get its strawberries from Canada. We try as much as we can, but sometimes the supply of strawberries in Canada is all taken up. In an overall sense, we probably are a Canadian product, but not all the time. We try as much as we can, but sometimes we can't be.

My point is that maybe sometimes we'd have to have two labels, where this is a product of Canada and the other one is a processing product of Canada. That would be a nightmare for us.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I'm not quite sure what your business is. You're not a retailer.

[Mark Loney]

I'm a grocer, and this is a sideline business.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Okay. Just so I understand, what exactly is the sideline business?

[Mark Loney]

Most of my sales are in exporting jam into the U.S. I'm an exporter.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

You don't process it; you just export it.

[Mark Loney]

I have someone process it for me. The factory in southeast Saskatchewan does that. I have my own private label.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Once again, just so I am clear in my mind, what specifically are the stumbling blocks you're experiencing in this attempt to do that?

[Mark Loney]

The length of time is one, for sure. The fact that I can't have one label for both countries is another, and that the labels are almost identical. I think you have the sheet there. To me that is a huge cost.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

There is also the cost when it seems that imported products don't have a problem, whereas you're having--

[Mark Loney]

This product here can sell the same day it crosses the border, right? And mine has to be.... It's going on a year now and I'm still not.... If I did this can of jam in the States, I could sell it tomorrow. I don't have to register the label. So if I made this in the States, I could sell it tomorrow; because I'm in Canada, I have to wait a year.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

And you can export it to the States and bring it back and sell it here. Is that what you're also saying?

[Mark Loney]

Yes, I could do that and that would be legal. But right now I'm illegal. So I have a problem with that.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you. So--

[Ronald Doering]

That problem was not with “Product of Canada”.