Agriculture committee  On the“Product of Canada” question, as I mentioned in the presentation, in chapter 7 of the manual of procedures “Product of Canada” is being encouraged as a phrase that we use for all our exports because our importing countries are demanding it. So keep that in mind, that “Produ

Agriculture committee  The labelling process in Canada is what we call a registration process, and in many ways $100 is a bit of a cost-recovery type of thing. There have been discussions with the government about getting out of that registration process. But one of the interesting things is that meat

Agriculture committee  It really depends on the company. Major companies with good resources know this is an important issue. They've put resources into it and they're ahead of smaller companies. So it's not really a Canada-U.S. thing, but it has a lot to do with the resources you can throw at this iss

Agriculture committee  I guess it comes from the dealings we've had with “Product of Canada” up to now. The witnesses are right that “Product of Canada” is an old concept we've had on the books for at least 40 years. On what it has really meant over the years and what people understand about it, it's m

Agriculture committee  You really hit the point that's going to bog this whole discussion down. Nutritional labelling was a very interesting exercise and very costly to the industry, but we're there now and we're doing it. But the allergen situation has also been very interesting and challenging. We'r

Agriculture committee  There's nothing easy about this whole subject, but the easiest way to ensure that the cost impact will be minimized is to go the organic route. I think you're very familiar with how our organic label was created over the last three years. It was a long process, but it was worth w

Agriculture committee  What they are going to do is stop buying Canadian product, because they have a difficulty in defining country of origin. That's why the Canadian government is on record as opposing country-of-origin labelling. What you're going to see is that there are groups in the United State

Agriculture committee  Yes, I would agree that it's going to be easier in the fruit and vegetable industry, because I think the origin of the product is much easier to identify in the fruit and vegetable industry and there are fewer products there that are mixed in origin. The meat industry, as I said

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  No. You have to be very careful in how you go down that road, because there may be, and there are, in fact, many products that people prefer imported. They have already had a taste and they like it. Imported wine is a good example. You, yourself, probably in your own home, have i

Agriculture committee  No, but suppose you have a recall. A Canadian product is involved in a recall. Then Canadians may say, whoops, we think we'll switch to that other product.

Agriculture committee  To both the previous question as well as this one, I would like to propose—and I did this in the presentation—that we leave the “Product of Canada” label alone. In other words, it is already understood out there, and most of us have agreed on what the understanding is. What we're

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the opportunity to present our views on this important subject. We certainly agree it's worthy of a look at this whole issue, and I agree with what my colleague has already given you in terms of some of the issues surrounding it. I don't t