I would like some kind of plan of action. We hear from industry that they're doing certain things. We've heard, again, from the scientific community that the impact of sodium intake is very significant. We've heard in the past about heart disease, high blood pressure, heart attacks, and you listed some other serious conditions. Now you're telling us it could even be a cause of stomach cancer. We know this is costing us dearly not only in terms of human health and well-being but in terms of cost to our health care system—$2 billion a year.
Frankly, I don't understand why we're still talking about the voluntary approach and why we're buying the line that industry is going to just do it, here are some good products, and never mind the whole picture. If this has been around for so long and you knew about it, why is industry only at this hit-and-miss approach to cutting sodium in products? Why are Canadian products often so much higher in sodium than your company's equivalent in other countries?
We had the example of a cereal—I won't give the name, but it's produced by Kellogg—that is much higher in sodium in Canada than the exact same product in the United States. Is that because you can get away with it here because we don't have tougher regulations, and that in the final analysis you won't get close to the 1,200 milligrams per day, unless you're forced to, because this salt sells your products?
Canadians are taking in 3,500 milligrams a day, and most of it is from packaged products, not from home cooking. What is the industry going to do? If you're not going to do it, I want to hear from others about what should be done to make this happen and happen quickly.