Mr. Speaker, in response to (a), in bringing the front-of-package, FOP, regulations forward, the government has given careful consideration and analyzed in detail the potential costs and benefits of its plan to inform Canadians of nutrients of concern in their food.
All regulatory packages go through a rigorous cost-benefit analysis, which is summarized in the regulatory impact analysis statement, RIAS, published with the regulations. In addition, a more detailed cost-benefit analysis report will be available upon request after the regulations are published.
The regulations and the RIAS were published in the Canada Gazette, part II, on July 20, 2022.
Finally, to ensure that FOP regulations are efficient, technical exemptions were given in specific conditions. Raw, single-ingredient ground meat was given such exemption.
In response to (b), the FOP nutrition symbol is not a warning and does not categorize a food as healthy or unhealthy. Rather, it provides a clear visual cue that a food is high in saturated fat, sugars or sodium.
The FOP nutrition labelling regulations are not expected to raise food prices. The Canadian market is competitive, and evidence suggests that prices, in general, are not going to change because of these regulations.
Canadians may see some small adjustments in price between products with and without symbols at first as their demand initially changes, but over time, prices are expected to equalize for products in the same category, for example as is the case currently for soups “lower in” versus “higher in” sodium. In most product categories, Canadians have many options for substitution.
In response to (c), single-ingredient ground meats are conditionally exempt from the FOP nutrition symbol requirement.
To become compliant with the new FOP nutrition symbol and vitamin D amounts, the food industry will incur a one-time cost to update labels, estimated at $1.09 billion or $887.02 million present value. The direct benefit of the additional information FOP nutrition labels will provide to Canadians is valued at an estimated $2.33 billion over 15 years.