The issue I wish to bring to the attention of this House this evening, Mr. Speaker, is one I raised three weeks ago regarding the Gaspé Cure Inc. consortium and the problem it is faced with.
I would like to inform this House of what Gaspé Cure is and what problem it is faced with. Gaspé Cure is a grouping, as the name consortium indicates, of five processing operations dealing in salted dried codfish. This consortium employs approximately 250 people.
Last spring, in a contest sponsored by the Quebec agri-food export club and Soquia, Gaspé Cure won the highest award of excellence. With respect to what Gaspé Cure is, I wanted to add that this consortium used to include at least eight processing operations four or five years ago. but following some form of industrial rationalization, there are only five remaining today.
I want to emphasize that these people are trying to maintain their trademark, as well as working on improving their visibility world-wide and their efficiency in terms of production. The problem now, and it has grown in the last two years, is that other companies in other regions of Canada, in the Maritimes, have started to produce what we in the Gaspé call an imitation product.
There is a difference between the two products. Why? Because the process in the Gaspé takes into account our humidity, our climate, the number of days of sunshine, which give us a particular micro-climate for the type of production that we want to have.
The dried salted product may be less well known in Canada and to Canadian consumers. Nevertheless, you should know that it is highly prized in some countries and eaten in ceremonies or at big festivals, as in Portugal or Spain, for example.
For this reason, the market and image of the Gaspé Cure consortium are very important for them.
I am being signaled to speed up a little; indeed, I am not really used to speaking under Standing Order 38. What I am asking the government, because I know that it is supposed to have done studies to come to a conclusion, is that it recognize right away that after all the studies are done, the Gaspé Cure consortium will have its own restricted trade name for the region.
It is very important for them. In the past, they showed that there was a glaring difference between their product and the one made elsewhere, so we want this issue to be cleared up as soon as possible.