Agriculture committee  It's across the board in terms of the term “Product of Canada” being removed from labels on Canadian-processed product. The manufacturer could not comply with it. If you add pepper to something, or any of those types of things, you don't hit the 98% guideline. This committee did

Agriculture committee  That's fundamentally what one of the major issues is. Again, safety is not a marketable issue. They can do their own marketing thing in whatever format. It's that one single standard, and we'd prefer that it be the CFIA standard at the appropriate level so that we can comply once

Agriculture committee  There are no soft-fruit processors in Canada. They're gone. First let me make one point. We're not talking about a bailout here. We're not talking about a handout. We're not talking about grants. What this industry needs is a loan program, and that's fundamentally what we're tal

Agriculture committee  They essentially have the same needs, although the very small ones, the “fives”, don't. They need some help. Their primary issue is related to meeting safety standards versus putting in significantly larger plants. As an example of the others, the gentlemen I referred to as the

Agriculture committee  Yes. It's something we've requested in the action plan. There are a number of areas in CFIA where there has been no appeal. One is the level playing field relative to imports and domestics. Some action has taken place there, but we have example after example of overstepping CFIA

Agriculture committee  He would report to someone probably in the regional office, who would report to the western Canada director, who would then report to one of the vice-presidents here in Ottawa. It's quite a long process, depending on how far down the ladder that individual was.

Agriculture committee  Well, you forgot one. There are three layers. How about local health? Any one of them can walk into your plant. Even if you're a federally inspected plant, some local health inspector who may have been out of school for three weeks could walk in and shut you down.

Agriculture committee  It would be progress. There have been some negotiations among the provinces on federally inspected meat. It may not ever come to pass in my lifetime, but there is work being done.

Agriculture committee  The government's problem is a result of that. The result is that people are closing their doors.

Agriculture committee  How many automobile manufacturing companies are there in the world? Can I count them all on two hands? We've got 4,600 small and medium-sized guys. We've got 6,700 different companies in Canada—

Agriculture committee  Multiply that around the world, and good luck.

Agriculture committee  I don't think it's anywhere near that kind of number. It's not a homogeneous industry, unfortunately, and that's the difficulty.

Agriculture committee  I think you've hit the nail right on the head. There is a cost attached, and the retail environment in Canada does not believe that the Canadian consumer will absorb that type of cost. Prices have gone up about 6% over the last year, and they're getting some push-back on that.

Agriculture committee  It comes back to this whole discussion about the cost of food in terms of what goes on. In this country the percentage of our disposable income that we spend on food is way lower than pretty much everywhere else in the world, particularly relative to Europe. Food is relatively in

Agriculture committee  Do you mean for producers or for processors?