Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Good afternoon. I enjoyed your presentations this afternoon. As I listened to what you said here today, I'm becoming increasingly convinced....
We have spent a lot of time talking about the nutritional label that's on the food, even to the point that somehow the label, in and of itself, will compel more healthy eating. It seems to me we may be putting the cart before the horse.
As we've heard this afternoon, I'm sure we all agree that people have a whole range of preferences and choices. The idea is that we want to inform their choices, but the label itself is only there to serve that purpose. Wouldn't it be better to put more attention on how we inform their needs in the first place? We've given little attention to, for example, the food guide trying to inform consumers about what's good and what's not so good, so that when I go to the store, I will be able to determine that, based on.... I realize the nutritional label is confusing, because the range of possibilities out there is almost endless.
My wife, for example, is interested right now in trying to reduce the sodium in our diet at home. She's interested in sodium. She holds up a can of whole tomatoes and another one of diced tomatoes. They're the same size. One has 70% more sodium than the other, so she chooses the other one. Her interest is in low sodium. For another consumer, it might be something completely different.
Should we be putting more attention at the front end on the means to educate the consumer about those choices? The nutritional label is really the second part of that argument, is it not? Have we got that backwards? I leave it open to Mr. Turnbull and Ms. Jobin.