Mr. Speaker, as I said in my comments, there may very well be other jurisdictions in the world that have a system, but to date none of them have been able to make it work. It is one thing to pass laws and to have regulations, but we want to make sure that when we do it in Canada it is one that is enforceable. When that is done in any country of the world, the role of Codex Alimentarius is very important because they set the international standards for the labelling of foods.
Even in Canada, with all the incredible ability we have to produce a diversity of different food products, we import nearly one-third of our food. Food is moved from one part of the world to the other. When any country determines that there must be a mandatory something, and I am not saying it should not, as long is it meets those other criteria, in this case the labelling with regard to GMO or the labelling with regard to the level of protein, fat or carbohydrates, there must be a world standard so that if a product comes into a country, that country is assured that the process in the country of origin is one that is credible, meaningful and enforceable. If this is not done, then it is very meaningless and could be misleading to the consumers. That is the importance of the discussions around Codex Alimentarius. Everybody must know that what is happening in another country is meaningful to them and vice versa. Everybody must know what is expected when they ship or sell a product into another market and be able to demonstrate that there is testing, et cetera, for that product.
At the present time a number of questions need to be answered. The challenge we all have is that if it cannot be tested then how meaningful is it to consumers. If consumers see something, bring it to the authorities, point out what it says on the packaging, ask whether it is right or not and there is no ability to take the product and say it is or no it is not right, then the consumer is no better off. If it is not right, then the consumer may be even more misled than before. We cannot and do not want to go there.