Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Consumers' Association of Canada is pleased to have this opportunity to present its views to the committee. For over 60 years the CAC has represented the interests of ordinary Canadians in their role as consumers of goods and services, as provided by b

Agriculture committee  Yes, generally we would not have a problem, again, as long as it is quite clear. I understand there have been some other possible terms thrown out for use. No matter what conclusion is come to, those terms have to be clear. They have to be well defined. What they actually mean ha

Agriculture committee  I'd like to jump in, please. This is why I mentioned in my opening remarks the need to consider what the purpose of this marketing is--when we start confusing the two reasons. One is economic, and one is safety and security concerns, and I think they need to be kept separate.

Agriculture committee  Certainly a product in which you can uniquely identify the items...as I said, mixed vegetables, where you may have peas, carrots, corn, or something in it and you can identify each of those, and there's no blending together of them. For all of those products to be labelled “Produ

Agriculture committee  Yes, it should be a very high percentage when we're talking about food and about cases where you can clearly identify what the ingredient is. So if it's a can of peaches, those peaches should absolutely be grown in Canada. If it's peaches and apples, or whatever might be mixed to

Agriculture committee  You're talking about a single-ingredient product? In that case, do you mean the content?

Agriculture committee  I think that would possibly be appropriate, yes.

Agriculture committee  Yes, and I hope so. I think the direction is correct and I hope that's where we wind up.

Agriculture committee  If I went to the supermarket, and in fact I do most of the shopping in my house as well, I think I would want to know where it came from. I certainly don't want to be told that it came from someplace it didn't. I did not see the products, but from what you said, it sounded as tho

Agriculture committee  It had U.S. labels, which suggests that it came from the States. Regarding the one that I didn't know where it came from, I'd probably be inclined, at least in that case, to go for one of the ones that I knew where they came from, rather than the one that I didn't. If none of the

Agriculture committee  That, unfortunately, becomes a very complex situation. Basically, I'd say food products should be marked, but there may be circumstances in which it is not practical to do so. As I said, with respect to food products, I think it should be mandatory when we are dealing with consum

Agriculture committee  Again, that gets back to the point I've made several times now on the intent of that marking. What is it intended to convey? This suggests that perhaps we do need two different types of markings, depending on, first, whether it's intended to convey an element of safety or securit

Agriculture committee  I think that certainly is the information we want to have. On the types of things you were talking about, I'm not sure whether you were suggesting there be a “grown in” and a “product of” as two separate labels.

Agriculture committee  Okay. I would just suggest that it could work if it's going to replace “product of”. However, remember the consumer makes a distinction, which might be slightly confusing, between “grown” and “raised”. Although technically there is no distinction, they may mean different things t

Agriculture committee  Remember that if you introduce a new term, you have to make it very clear to people through some kind of campaign what has gone, what is new, and what the new means.