I think this is coming up to the fourth year that we have made submissions to the House of Commons finance committee with regard to reforming GST. Simply put, our recommendation is that the Department of Finance, in conjunction with Health Canada, look at the definition of basic groceries in the Excise Tax Act and examine it to see if it applies economic incentives in ways that are consistent with the nutrition promotion messages that Health Canada purports to advance. The economic incentives must be consistent with what they're trying to tell Canadians to do.
We've also recommended that the government consider sponsoring a national school meals program. Every other OECD country does it. The United States spends about $1 a child a day on it, I think to good effect. It's long overdue for Canada to take such actions.
I've circulated my written brief. It has a blue card attached to it with a number of other recommendations--restricting advertising direct to children and that sort of thing. There's lots that Health Canada and other departments could do, and I just hope they do it.