Agriculture Committee on Feb. 29th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm not going to belabour it, but I'm going to use the example Mr. Allen used. He was in the auto industry.

He referred to the fact that because of automation, an auto plant that he worked in went from x number of employees in the 1970s to where it is today through technology. That's what it does. It's the same in agriculture today. Whether we like it or not, it's a fact of life, and nothing is ever going to change it. Certainly, you don't want to get into—or at least I don't want to get into—government intervention on it.

Mr. Johnston, you made a comment—a good one, I thought—on the amount of disposable income that Canadians spend. It is very true, and I don't know what you do to fix it, other than have the willingness to basically pay what food costs instead of paying through your taxes.

I do take issue with a comment you made on the “Product of Canada” labelling, whether it's jam or whatever. The intent of the Product of Canada labelling is to show that 98% of the main product is Canadian, so if it's strawberry jam, as long as 98% of it is Canadian strawberries, it's a product of Canada.

I think the processing industry in this country should be ashamed of the fact that any time they get an opportunity to put “Product of Canada” on it, they're not doing it. They're doing it for different reasons, but they usually all come down to money. I still think that there's a huge advantage to using that label. It's not used to the extent that it could be. If there isn't a Product of Canada label on it, then you can presume, as an educated consumer, that it's not a product of Canada.

Not all the processors are doing it, but too many are doing it and using the 85% as an excuse. What do you want to do, make it 100%, and then have an exemption, or whatever?

[Ted Johnston]

We went through that question with the deputy minister, Mr. Knubley, about a year and a half ago when the proposal came forward to do the exemption list. That would have been a horrific nightmare to try to deal with.

We will agree to disagree on the 98% number. The 98% number is not achievable for the vast majority of products if there's any processing done whatsoever. We run into the seasonal issue. Depending on the time of year, there might be Canadian beet sugar, but it's not coming all year. Any time you add these things to it, you don't meet the 98% number, although it is the desire of the Canadian manufacturer to be able to do so.

As I said, we are further impacted by the fact that the American product comes into this country identified as a product of the United States at a significantly lower number that we just can't meet, given the number that we are saddled with today. That's one of the other downsides.

We talk about establishing a level playing field; as God knows, there are enough things we're fighting out there right at the moment, trying to keep our noses above water; that one should have been an easy fix.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I think the opportunity is there, and it's not used to the extent that it could be.

Thanks again to all of you for being here today.

Just before we go, to the committee members, we have an in camera meeting on Monday to deal with where we go. It's basically to deal with some things that we need to discuss to move ahead.

Next Wednesday, we have witnesses coming. It's tentative at this point, but the department has been invited for the March 12 meeting and CFIA for March 14. As I said, it has not been confirmed yet, but they're aware of it. For the two weeks coming up after the break, we need witnesses or some kind of direction on where we go from there, and hopefully we can discuss that at the Monday meeting. We can think about that over the weekend.

Thanks again for being here.

The meeting is adjourned.