Good morning, witnesses.
As has been noted by the chair, this will be our concluding message from witnesses to the committee in terms of our going forward and reporting on this very important matter.
I guess over the past month or so we have heard a lot of things. A lot of things were repetitious from one group to another, but one theme remained consistent: people should have the right to know, and they should have the right to know that the information they believe to be true is actually true.
I guess before this committee we've had a number of issues. A number of years ago we had Bill C-27, where we brought together a number of bills. The bills died in 2006. Where we tried to bring some clarity, where truth in advertising was really the foremost issue, that was on dairy products, where we brought the dairy terms part into that bill. Even though the department felt we shouldn't do that, we did it.
Yet we hear this morning from you that we need to make sure that people have confidence in the system. We know there are things on the shelf today that shouldn't be there. You know they shouldn't be there, particularly the Competition Bureau, the CFIA. It's not a health issue. We're not talking about safety. I think you've made that very clear and I don't think there's anyone here who questions the safety of our Canadian food products.
Given that so much of the product that we buy on the shelves today is marked “Product of Canada”, when in fact the product within the contents of that packaging or containment is not Canadian, and when you ask a Canadian, they believe it to be Canadian, isn't that misrepresentation of fact or truth?
If the Competition Bureau knows this, why do we not have the watchdogs? Why do we not have the people who can go into the stores and make sure that what's on the shelf actually is what it says it is?
I just don't understand why this has gone this far. I have some other comments in terms of what we might be doing in the future, but can I have your comments on that and why we have failed so miserably in the past?