Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her excellent question. I would send it right across the aisle because it is the same thing we have been asking this government and even the previous one. When I arrived here in the House of Commons, the Liberals were in power and we were already asking these kinds of questions.
To answer the hon. member’s question more specifically, I think that consumers are entitled to know exactly where the products they buy come from and how they were produced. There is a lack of information here. The reason is very simple. It is for purely commercial reasons. The government allows this because it wants to continue trading with other countries.
The idea has never been to forbid trade with other countries, unless their products are unhealthy. There are some foods that cannot be sourced anywhere else. Bananas, oranges, grapefruit and olives just do not grow around here. Some products will always have to come from abroad.
The great problem, as we have long known, is in the area of reciprocity and what we demand of our own products but not of those that land on our shelves from abroad. I have never been able to understand why we do not have the same requirements for these products, other than the big bucks involved.
We are told that these requirements exist. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will come and say that products cannot enter the country if they fail to meet the safety standards. However, we regularly find products right beside our own good stuff that consumers might be tempted to buy because things are put on them to make them last longer and make the fruit and vegetables look better.
I can say, though, that increasingly consumers are not necessarily looking at the colour and beauty of a product, one that has been waxed or produced with pesticides. They are looking more and more for what seems most natural and comes from somewhere close by. At some point, we will have to give our own farmers the space they deserve. When products are not up to scratch, they will have to be stopped at the border. They simply cannot enter. That is what we should do.