Evidence of meeting #31 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was product.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
That's interesting. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Mr. Doering said that he didn't believe that the new labelling system was going to work, and that it would cost huge amounts of money. Am I correct in saying that on what the Americans are bringing in?
Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP
The problem is that he was talking about jam. Jam is unique. Jam, like meat, is unique. You have to get pre-market approval of that label.
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Do you think that on jam the CFIA should harmonize with the U.S., as Mr. Loney is suggesting?
Partner, Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP
Interestingly enough, one of the reasons Americans prefer Canadian jam is that we have different standards for jam. We have to have a higher fruit content. One of the reasons they like it down there is that it's probably a higher-quality jam if it's made in Canada.
In going down this road—and this was what I was saying about the “Product of Canada”—be careful that you don't end up having all kinds of unintended consequences, where you're dealing with the quality of what you can call a jam, how much fruit, how much sugar, how much pectin, etc. On all those process product regulations—and there are literally thousands of rules about all that stuff—if you start to tamper with some part, you're going to run into another one.
I'm not justifying that this is about segregated pricing, and I'm certainly not here to justify undue delays for label registration. But when the CFIA comes back, Ms. Skelton, ask them if we believe any longer that it's appropriate to have pre-market approval for jam labels. If the answer is no, then there's no argument for doing it. That would require a change, but it would mean there would be no more pre-market approval. It would then be like all the other products: if the label didn't comply with Canadian law, a competitor or a consumer would complain and the Food Inspection Agency would carry out an investigation. If it was a bad label, they would require compliance.
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Mr. Loney, I want to ask another question. You expressed concern about changing the percentage of a product. If we changed it from 51%, would that affect your business?
Manager and Owner, Cloverleaf Grocery Ltd.
It might. It would never affect saskatoons, because the only place that saskatoons come from, I believe, is Canada. In other issues, say with raspberries and strawberries, the factory I buy from buys all they can from Canada, but sometimes they can't always get the berries from Canada because of the market situation or they're not available.
My problem would be, well, maybe a lot of the time, or most of the time, the raspberries would be from Canada, but if the factory can't get them, do I then have two labels? Would one say that it's a product of Canada and another one say it's not a product of Canada?
As you said, Canadian jam is better than American jam. One of the things that makes it good is the fact that I can put “Product of Canada” on the label.
Conservative
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
But you do saskatoon berries. Last year there was frost, and we had problems with the saskatoon berry crop in Saskatchewan. So you manufacture saskatoon berry jam too.
Manager and Owner, Cloverleaf Grocery Ltd.
Yes. But I don't do the processing.
Conservative
Manager and Owner, Cloverleaf Grocery Ltd.
Yes.
From what I understand, when you go not much further than, say, Minnesota south, they don't actually know what a saskatoon is. So it's basically a Canadian product; it has to be.
Conservative
Carol Skelton Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
You would really like to see CFIA then harmonize their system of labelling with the U.S. to try to solve all the problems.
Manager and Owner, Cloverleaf Grocery Ltd.
Yes. My idea--maybe it's the same idea you have--is that you don't need to make all the labels harmonized all at once. I think one label would be enough and maybe people would start thinking about it.
You probably know this more than I do, but for vitamin C, the daily recommended intake in the U.S. is, what, 310 milligrams? It's different. In Canada it's 300 milligrams. What's up with that? Flip a coin and say it's 300 milligrams or it's 310 milligrams. It makes no difference, because it's still 2%. Or split it in the middle, at 305 milligrams.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all our witnesses for coming today. It's a rather interesting conversation we're having here.
The whole idea here, when the minister commissioned or struck out on this study, was to make this work for Canadians, make it work for the Canadian consumer and for the producer. You know, everybody around here says we have the best food in the world and the safest food in the world. I think we continue to say that and I think it continues to be true. We have a system that has some problems, some grey areas and confusion, and I guess the minister wants to straighten that out.
Mr. Doering, you talked about easy solutions. One of the things I agree with you on, 110%, is “Grown in Canada”, and doing this in a voluntary way. As I was just saying to someone a few minutes ago, I can't believe we're not there already. I think this is probably the greatest marketing tool the marketers would have, “Grown in Canada”. When I go into a supermarket--very rarely, but when I do go...or when my wife goes, hopefully she looks for Canadian-made products. Sometimes, when you get the damn thing home, you realize that it really isn't made in Canada, and that gets pretty frustrating. So we have to get that straight, there's no question about that.
The other thing that I think you said is that it has to be simple, and I agree with that.
To Ms. Cruikshank, let's say it was decided that 95% of a Canadian product had to be Canadian. In other words, if you had a whole chicken and it was grown in Canada, produced in Canada, it could be called Canadian. If you had a chicken pot pie, as you suggested, and it had different ingredients from...then it wouldn't be called Canadian. Would the people in your industry agree with that, grosso modo?
Vice-President, Atlantic Office, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
I think at first blush that seems to be on track, but again, as Mr. Loney pointed out, it certainly is more complex with a multi-ingredient product because of the sourcing of it, the seasonality, where you get it from. Chicken may not be the best example because it's a supply-managed product, so obviously there's a Canadian domestic product. I guess the issue really, when you say 95%, is that the content--
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
We have to make some allowances for seasoning, etc.
Vice-President, Atlantic Office, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
Does it also include the packaging?
Conservative
Vice-President, Atlantic Office, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
Is it taking what we think we can work with presently and upgrading?
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Just to clarify that, I don't think it should mean the packaging.
Vice-President, Atlantic Office, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
Okay. I think we would certainly be more in support of it being the content of the food. But again, if that's what's agreed, then consumers need to also understand that's what is agreed.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Now, you probably know this as well as anyone. Would the people who come to all your member stores not choose Canadian, all things being equal and the price being relatively close? What percentage of your customers would choose Canadian?
Vice-President, Atlantic Office, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors
It's a very good question. It honestly is one that we're not sure of. I think in surveys, absolutely, people indicate that's what they would like to do. Whether or not when they have many things going on and there are 30-second purchasing decisions being made at the grocery store, if it's marketing appeal or something else, or their kids are getting to soccer, we can't really give you a number that translates.... Certainly there's a predisposition to do it, but honestly, we can't translate it to action.
