Agriculture committee  Well, it's a situation that could be evaluated, but I suggest that the consumer would not be prepared to evaluate properly the impact of the composition of a product. When you have part of it being more ingredients than the product itself, then how would you apply that to product

Agriculture committee  I obviously don't have the answer as far as quantity is concerned, but I can tell you that the majority of the product that we have manufactured here in Canada would comply with the 85%. The survey that was done by your government throughout the country, added then to the answers

Agriculture committee  You talked about the availability of Canadian products regionally. We are seeing products on store shelves that come from California or other places. Without going so far as to pass new legislation, the government could easily encourage distributors not to put Canadian products i

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  No, we have not calculated the losses, because they are considerable. First, you are right when you say that changing labels cost hundreds of millions of dollars. Distributors want to comply with the legislation, even though it provides that they can use up the labels they have o

Agriculture committee  For example, the slotting fees of $500,000 for a product, a SKU, throughout Canada, without a sale warranty, do not correspond to what happens in the American markets, where you have access to different distributors. Market access costs in Canada are excessive. The rules are ve

Agriculture committee  It enables you to place your product with the distributor, to take up space in his warehouse, to access his sales network, and to get space on store shelves. The per product cost—not in the case of a single distributor but for all the distributors—, if a manufacturer wants to sel

Agriculture committee  Let me take a step back, back to when the government commissioned a nation-wide study and consulted various stakeholders to ensure that this policy, or by-law, was really feasible and would help to better inform consumers. The minister brought in legislation before the advisory

Agriculture committee  The simplest answer is to take the example of the Raffarin legislation in France which governs margins distributors can earn on products in relation to the costs of getting the product on the market. This legislation provides parameters of sorts because regardless of what legisla

Agriculture committee  Thank you for your question. Indeed, the legislation has meant a very heavy burden in terms of paperwork for all manufacturers and processors. They have to cut through a lot of red tape from different departments that are not necessarily keeping the communication channels open b

Agriculture committee  You are totally right.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for inviting us Mr. Chairman. This opportunity that we have to exchange with you is very important to us. The Council for Food Processing and Consumer Products represents businesses who are major players in the food processing industry and it actually represents $14 bi