Mr. Speaker, on February 21 I had the opportunity in the House to ask a question of the minister of agriculture about the expansion of country of origin labelling in Canada. At that time the minister indicated general agreement with the concept and the fact that there would obviously need to be ongoing discussions with the various sectors of the agri-food industry.
In April I had the opportunity to put a question to the parliamentary secretary to the minister, again about the issue of country of origin labelling, with the twist that it had come to my attention at a meeting of the Middlesex Federation of Agriculture that there was concern among Canadian farmers that perhaps there had been an agreement, a secret agreement I guess, made between Canada, Mexico and the United States not to pursue the idea of country of origin labelling. I had the assurance from the parliamentary secretary at that time that this was not the case.
I wish to pursue this briefly today in the House because we all know that it does pay to buy Canadian. I certainly prefer to purchase Canadian product, and that obviously includes agri-food product, as I think many Canadians do. Within a given range of expense, I think that many Canadians are prepared to pay a little bit more for a Canadian made product or a Canadian grown product in the agri-food situation.
My farm constituents in London-Middlesex would want me to say that we certainly have the safest food anywhere in the world, and as an urban Canadian I agree with that. If it is a little more expensive through no fault of Canadian farmers, then I am prepared to pay that little extra and I would certainly hope and I do believe that many Canadians are also prepared to pay that little extra.
I wonder about the labelling we see in food stores. I have spoken to the parliamentary secretary and the minister informally on this as well as many members. It is pretty easy to go into a food store in this country and see in large letters "Packaged in Canada", and below it in very minuscule letters, almost unreadable, "Product of California" or South Carolina or wherever.
To the naive purchaser, which I would be, not often frequenting these food stores because that chore is taken on by one better qualified in my family, my wife, it is pretty easy to think you are buying a product that was produced in Canada when in fact it simply was packaged in Canada.
I have a couple of questions for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
First, will the government consider some expansion of the concept of country of origin labelling, or at least will there be an opportunity to have a dialogue with the Canadian agri-food industry about this idea?
Second, is there not some concern from the minister and from our government about safety standards of agri-food product that is imported into this country? I ask this second question because we have all heard the horror stories about imported food. Let us for example talk about chicken from the southern U.S. The former illustrious member for Lambton-Middlesex has a pretty good horror story about southern U.S. chicken coming into this country, treated in such a way that I think if most Canadian consumers knew it might turn their stomachs, if not dissuade them from buying that product.
To what extent is that a concern of the minister and of the parliamentary secretary and of our government?
I have two questions in summary. Will the concept of country of origin labelling be pursued with our Canadian farmers in at least a determination of how much they want to pursue it? I understand there is a potential downside when that is done to our product in other nations. To what extent is there a concern about imported agri-food product being up to the safety standards of our product, not that it is acceptable to come into the country, but is that food in all instances as safe as our own Canadian agri-food product?