A seemingly minor announcement in the 2012 federal budget has grown into a potential political headache for the federal government as critics predict thousands of food sector job losses.
More than 200 pages into the budget document last year, the Conservatives announced: “The government will also repeal regulations related to container standards to enable industry to take advantage of new packaging formats and technologies while removing unnecessary barriers for the importation of new products from international markets.”
By the time the Canadian Food Inspection Agency began its consultations on the proposal late last year, food processors and producers had decided that eliminating Canadian food package size regulations would allow foreign companies to flood Canadian markets with cheaper product in containers that Canadian companies are not geared to produce because of existing regulations.
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A national coalition of food industry players and municipal politicians from across southwestern Ontario is fighting back.
“Deregulating consumer packages support neither consumers nor Canadian farmers and food processors,” said Food Processors of Canada, which argued it would favour importers and confuse consumers.
“Canadian food processors will be forced to make tough decisions: do they invest here or in the United States? Companies have options, but farmers and communities do not.”
Southwestern Ontario mayors have been contacting their MPs, mainly Conservatives, warning that the change would close Canadian factories and eliminate thousands of jobs in a food processing industry already losing ground.
Last week, the issue bubbled up in Parliament.
Arthur Smith, chief executive officer for the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers’ Association, told MPs on the House of Commons agriculture committee that amending the Standard Containers Act to end controls on packaging size would hurt processors, their workers and the thousands of farmers who sell to them.
“Removing this act would allow foreign product to come into Canada more easily than it currently does, creating further pressure and increased competition for processors,” he said.
“Keeping the act will keep Canadian processors in business longer and protect producers and small Canadian processors as well.”
He said ending restrictions on package sizes would allow multinational food processors to close Canadian plants and service the Canadian market from larger American plants.
It would be a “no-brainer” for an American company to close its Canadian plant, which was created to adhere to Canadian container rules, if they can access the Canadian market from a larger U.S. plant with no container size regulations.
New Democrat MP Malcolm Allen asked agriculture minister Gerry Ritz in the Commons to cancel the proposal because the government did not do an impact study before quietly announcing the change.
Ritz suggested nothing is imminent.
“We continue to have consultations,” he said.
“We continue to work with the industries and affected communities to come up with a positive result that will reinforce Canadian agriculture and Canadian processing.”
Allen said in a later interview he thinks the government has “slowed up the process because the pushback from mayors, communities and the industry has been overwhelming.”
