Mr. Speaker, I am glad the minister raised the question. Country of origin labelling, COOL, in the United States is indeed a very serious matter, and no, I am not proposing anything similar in any shape or form.
What I am saying is that labelling that is currently on food products in this country that states it is a product of Canada when it is not should not be labelled as such. The definition has to be changed, so that consumers know. If the minister is in a store and, as I said, picked up a bottle of olives and it said product of Canada on it, then it would be his assumption in his head that it is indeed a product of Canada. It is not. It means that 51% of the cost of that packaging, labour, et cetera. went into the process to get that product in the bottle and on the grocery store shelf. That is misleading and we cannot allow that to occur.
I do want to point out and say that I agree with the minister that the country of origin Labelling in the United States is, I believe, certainly a non-tariff barrier. Many of us from all parties on the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group have been to the United States. I know most of the ministers have been arguing with the American administration and indeed with Congress and Senate members that this is a non-tariff barrier.
I would hope that the government challenges it under NAFTA or under the free trade agreement, either one, as such, because it is creating a barrier for our products going down there. Sadly, in the minister's province, and I have talked to Manitoba hog producers several times over the last six weeks, they are seeing their market for weaner pigs dry up. Good contractual arrangements have been broken because American producers who buy weaners from Canada are worried that the product cannot be stated as grown in the United States or as a product of the United States under this new legislation. As a result, they have broken those contracts, violated contracts, and have a legislative policy that, I think, is a non-tariff barrier.
For those producers in Manitoba, they now have thousands of small pigs that they have no facilities to feed them in and they have no feed to feed them. What is going to happen to these producers? It is a financial difficulty and, I think, a legal difficulty. The Americans have to be challenged on it.