AGRI Committee Report

Bloc Québécois Complementary Opinion

To the Report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food entitled:

“PRODUCT OF CANADA” CLAIMS:
TRUTH AND TRANSPARENCY ARE NECESSARY

Submitted to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food

The Bloc Québécois participated actively in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food’s work on the need to tighten food-labelling standards in a spirit of cooperation and openness and with great interest.

The Bloc Québécois agrees with the general direction of the report, whose recommendations concern changes to the labelling rules and guidelines designed to help consumers make choices and to give added value to the products that come from our farms. Currently, the rules governing the labelling of agricultural products pose a two-fold problem: for consumers, who are misled about the origin of products, and for producers, who lose part of their rightful market, given consumers desire to eat local products. Under these rules, it is possible to purchase olives labelled “Product of Canada” in the grocery store, even though there are no olive producers in Canada. Such aberrations are possible under the current labelling rules, which take account of processing and packaging costs when determining a product’s origin, something that makes no sense in regard to agricultural products.

These days, and it is completely understandable given the globalization of trade in food products, people want to know what they are eating, where it comes from, what ingredients products contain, etc. While it is true that we now have access to much more information than before, the issue of where foods come from is still problematic, because the labelling standards are too lax.

Nor is this an issue simply for consumers – Quebec and Canadian producers are also losing out. The reason is simple: a study by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture (CFA) demonstrated that 95% of consumers will prefer to buy local products. And yet a product in which nothing except the packaging may be Canadian but that is still labelled “Product of Canada,” has the same advantage as genuinely Canadian products, which obviously hurts Quebec and Canadian producers. The complaints from the Union des producteurs agricoles on this topic are completely justified and we support them completely. They are disadvantaged by the vagueness of the current regulations, and this situation is unfair to the agricultural industry, which already has trouble remaining competitive.

We also agree with the opinion expressed by the UPA and a number of other witnesses who appeared before the Committee about the importance of establishing an OBLIGATORY and not VOLUNTARY standard. If the government institutes voluntary labelling, how are consumers supposed to tell the difference between products that, under the new act, are labelled “Product of Canada” (a product in which the vast majority of ingredients come from Canada) or “Prepared/Processed in Canada” (a product in which 51% of the transaction costs are Canadian) and those labelled “Packed in Canada for company X” (a company with a Canadian address) or not labelled to indicate provenance?  A mandatory standard would eliminate consumer confusion, since there would henceforth be clear and specific information on the provenance of food products.  A voluntary standard would create the same situation that exists today: consumers looking at the shelf in a grocery store trying to figure out where various food products come from. The obligatory standard should not, however, prevent a producer from putting a “Product of Quebec” or “Product of New Brunswick” label on their product.

Moreover, under our international commitments (GATT and WTO), Canada must treat imported products in the same way as Canadian products. Thus, if the measure is not obligatory, it would be illegal for Canada to distinguish products that respect the new criteria, by using a different label, for example.

Finally, it is contradictory to claim that the primary objective of an amendment to the labelling rules is the fact that consumers prefer to the buy the product that is most advantageous for Quebec and Canada, while at the same time saying that it would cost too much to establish a mandatory system whose main goal is to promote local products!

In closing, the Bloc Québécois wishes to deplore the Conservative government’s decision to short-circuit the work that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food did between April 3 and June 3, 2008, with its announcement of May 21, 2008. By unveiling an action plan to label food products, Prime Minister Harper gave the impression that the comments made by the many witnesses who appeared before the Committee count for nothing, that the recommendations of this report are worth little, and that only he has the solution. Talk about “crass politics”!

The Bloc Québécois nevertheless wishes to see the Committee’s work respected, the evidence collected there taken into consideration and the recommendations of the report followed, just as it would like to see its own recommendation to make the directive mandatory accepted.

André Bellavance

MP for Richmond-Arthabaska

Bloc Québécois Agriculture and Agri-Food Critic

Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac

MP for St-Hyacinthe-Bagot

Deputy Bloc Québécois Agriculture and Agri-Food Critic