Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz last week promised to move quickly on new labelling rules to ensure that food items promoted as “product of Canada” really are.
It has been an issue for the Canadian Federation of Agriculture and last week, Ritz heard pleas for fast action from delegates to the Canadian Horticultural Council annual meeting.
“Truth in labelling is a simple way to put it,” the minister told horticultural delegates March 6. “I don’t have a problem driving this faster.”
He was responding to a delegate from Quebec who asked if the commitment to change labelling rules could be accomplished this year.
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“I don’t see why not,” replied Ritz.
“I like to tell my bureaucrats I’m a results-driven not process-driven kind of guy,” he told delegates. “I drive that point home all the time.”
A senior Canadian Food Inspection Agency official told MPs on Parliament Hill last week that there still is no agreement on how to change the labelling rules to make sure “product of Canada” claims are not deceptive.
The issue that Ritz, MPs and farm groups have reacted to is that labels require only that the food product have at least 51 percent of the cost of the product attributable to Canada.
