The issue of mislabelled imports has been a real problem for the industry for many years. It dates back to the seventies. It predates me. It kills jobs.
I remember a few years ago there was a U.S. company shipping in french fries that didn't meet Canadian standards, and they were being sold in Toronto. It was costing the industry $57,000 a week until we could finally get those things off the shelves. And that took us about two months. So that gives you a sense of the financial dynamic of mislabelled imports. They can come up. They can be dumped.
If they have a price war in the United States, they'll divert their product into the Canadian marketplace. By the time we get it off the store shelves, we've lost a lot of money. So the financial side puts a stress on companies, especially the smaller companies. And we don't need to lose any more companies. We've lost 24 sizable processing plants and 9,000 employees in the last two years. We don't want to see more of that happening.
The second point is that if somebody gets sick, do they care if it's from an American product or a Canadian product? Well, on the Canadian product side, you're doing what you can--your due diligence. You're trying to eliminate the risk. But we're not trying to eliminate the risk on imports. And that's a problem.
If you look at the size, the number, and the frequency of food-borne illnesses caused by American producers--from spinach, lettuce, red peppers, peanut butter--the numbers are huge. If we think we have a problem in Canada, take a look elsewhere.
Did I answer your question?