Mr. Speaker, in 1999 Canada adopted the Codex agreement and international standards for the use of dairy terms. If a product is intended to substitute milk or milk products, dairy terms such as butter and cream must not be used. While soy beverages exist, soy milk does not.
Canadian dairy farmers invest over $75 million each and every year to promote their products. Yet many companies mislead consumers by co-opting these terms in their labelling where there is no dairy content in the first place. Foods like buttery flavour popcorn and strawberry and cream cereals, despite their labels, do not actually contain any dairy products and mislead consumers.
Having put on a good show at the international level, the government is now creaming Canadian dairy farmers by refusing to apply these standards at home. When will the government actually enforce these dairy term standards?