Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to speak on this private member's bill, Bill C-398, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, a bill which would require mandatory nutrition labelling in French and English for imported or packaged meat, poultry or seafood for retail sale, applying to businesses with gross annual revenues of more than $500,000. It would require that food sold for immediate consumption, for example, in restaurants, hotels and vending machines, include posted nutritional information such as caloric and fat content, applying to business with gross annual revenues of more than $10 million. It would require that prepackaged, multi-ingredient foods show the percentage, by weight, of important and “emphasized” ingredients.
The intent of the bill is a noble one: to provide Canadians with more information about the foods they consume. Who would not welcome the prospect of more information about what we put into our bodies every day to give us energy and keep us alive?
We are now living in an age when Canadians are taking more and more responsibility for their health. I even heard on the radio this morning that the longest lived Canadians come from British Columbia. I am so proud of that, because that is where I am from. I think it has a lot to do with people taking personal responsibility for their health and for disease prevention.
Health Canada estimates the health burden of poor diet in Canada at $6.3 billion annually, including direct health care costs of $1.8 billion. Yet when it comes to translating the noble goal of providing or requiring more health information into practice, it is not always easy. We know this from the debate over the labelling of foods containing GMOs.
The Canadian Alliance has a number of concerns about this legislation. I would like to address some of my concerns in my remarks today.
Health Canada announced new regulations for prepackaged food on January 1, 2003. These are Health Canada regulations that can be contrasted with this private member's bill. The new regulations require most food labels to carry a mandatory nutrition facts table listing calories and 13 key nutrients. Foods exempted include fresh fruit and vegetables, fresh unground meat and poultry, and food sold in restaurants. Bill C-398 would close the exemptions for meat products and restaurant foods. Undoubtedly there are good reasons why Health Canada exempted meat products and restaurant foods from the new regulations. We have a good sense of why and I will get to that shortly.
It should be noted that Health Canada is giving companies up to three years to implement the changes, and five years for small businesses. Bill C-398 that is before us today would take effect after two years. I do not know the reason for that discrepancy.
I will go on to some of my specific concerns. If passed, Bill C-398 would likely have its largest impact on Canadian restaurants and on the customers that patronize them. If passed, the bill would require chain restaurants to provide the calorie content of their products on menu boards and fat and sodium content on menus. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association says this proposal would be “highly impractical and unworkable for food service operators”.
An obvious concern for the CRFA is the fact that many restaurants have menus that continually change and dishes that are sold in countless combinations. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association also notes, “The magnitude and permutation of ingredients used by most restaurants reach staggering proportions”.
I can illustrate this with a quote from the Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association:
The make-up of a sandwich consisting of just 5 items or toppings (such as bread, meat, cheese, lettuce and tomato) can be ordered in 120 ways. A sub comprised of 10 items or toppings could provide 3,628,800 combinations. When the items for a sub are expanded to 15, then 1.3 trillion combinations are possible, making it virtually impossible to accurately communicate calorie or fat content on a menu or menu board for the vast majority of restaurant menu items.
An important consideration identified by the CRFA is that national restaurant chains and franchises operate thousands of different locations, each one being the equivalent of a small business. Many of these operators rely on regional suppliers creating significant differences in the ingredients of similar menu items.
This incredibly complicates the whole issue. It should be noted that most restaurant chains already have nutritional information about their products available on request. This information may include details such as diabetic or allergy concerns that may be more important than the provisions announced in the bill. I have a daughter with a potentially lethal allergy to peanuts. I know how careful people must be regarding many of these allergies.
That outlines some of the impact of Bill C-398 on quick service restaurant chains. The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association notes that the proposed legislation would also apply to full service restaurant chains and hotel food service where the selection of menu items is much broader, menu items change frequently, and daily specials are common.
The laboratory analysis mentioned that is required to determine the nutritional content of just one menu item can cost in excess of $150 and generally takes a minimum of two weeks. This is unworkable and we can be sure that such costs will be passed on to the consumer.
The Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association says that from a cost and timing perspective, it would be impossible for the vast majority of large and small restaurant and food service operators to meet the requirements of this private member's bill.
I want to talk about the provisions in the bill on emphasized ingredients and raise some concerns about the bill's provisions. This is found in the bill's suggested amendments to section 5.3 of the Food and Drugs Act. Bill C-398 specifies that where ingredients:
...are emphasized on a food label by words or pictures, the label shall indicate the percentage by weight of the emphasized ingredients (a) beside the emphasized words or pictures, or(b) beside the common name of the food,in characters at least 50 percent the size of those employed in the common name of the food.
These provisions are complex and confusing. Who will decide whether ingredients are emphasized and how will they decide this? This formula is unworkable. Health Canada's proposed labelling standards are more feasible.
In conclusion, the intent of this bill is commendable. I hope I have demonstrated that some of the provisions of the bill are cumbersome, confusing or simply impractical. We should not impose an unnecessary regulatory burden on food processors, importers and restaurant chains. We must consider what the financial impact will be on these same food importers, processors, restaurants and of course, the consumer. I will be opposing the bill.