Thank you--and I think that definitely does need to be taken into consideration. I think there's a movement out there, or definitely an impression, I'll say, that anything that isn't grown in Canada, or that can't be grown in Canada.... You can use the example of grapefruits, as I did, or olives, or oranges; I think it's pretty hard to put “Product of Canada” on those.
There's also a debate out there about “Processed in Canada” or whatever. For the sake of keeping it simple, which I think we have to do.... If we have two or three terms.... I'm not sure that would work either, but we certainly need a definition that is clear to the person in the grocery store that it is truly a product of Canada.
One other thing: you said it's up to CFIA to interpret some of the regulations. Frankly, that scares the hell out of me. It should be clear and not up to interpretation.
Mr. Taylor, on the Competition Bureau, we had a gentleman here at a recent meeting who had some examples for us. He was a grocery store owner but also had a company where they exported and also imported food products from Canada into the United States, and maybe also abroad. He gave the example here of a can of jam. He's having a heck of a time getting, and still hasn't gotten, approval from CFIA on the label for it, but he can ship that product--the way that he proposes--into the States and bring it right back here the next day, no problem.
First of all, obviously that's not right. That shouldn't be happening. But I would suggest that you guys....
You say, well, you're not responsible for food products. But I don't care what product it is; in my opinion, if you're the Competition Bureau, it should be anything that affects competition. And this does affect it, because it's almost in reverse. You're basically restricting Canadian people--Canadian businessmen, producers, whoever--from competing against imported products. So I think you're shirking your duty there.
It also brings the question of relevancy. I think you need to be looking at that kind of thing. Take the monopoly on grocery stores today by the large grocery chains. We've heard from witnesses at this committee--not to deal with this issue but with other issues in the past year--that there's a monopoly out there and it's a problem. Basically it restricts small businessmen and independent grocers from being in business.
So I think you need a review of your overall mandate in order to cover a little bit more--not just complaints about labels and what have you. I'm not suggesting that this isn't important, but I think you need to look at all of that.