The attempt by MPs from all House of Commons parties last June to add what they called a truth in dairy labelling clause to a Canadian Food Inspection Agency bill has created a potential legislative mess, MPs were told last week by government officials.
It has created a storm of protest from dairy processors, retailers, food manufacturers and three prairie provinces. Several foreign countries including the United States have complained it will create trade barriers.
Last week, MPs were told in so many words that they crafted a sloppy legislative amendment with serious potential side effects.
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“We understand what the committee intended but that doesn’t mean a court will interpret it the way we understand the committee to have intended,” CFIA lawyer Jane Dudley said at an Oct. 17 committee meeting.
The legislation, C-27, was approved by the committee in June but still must be debated in the House of Commons and the Senate.
Liberal MP Wayne Easter, parliamentary secretary to the agriculture minister, signalled last week that the government will propose amendments in the Commons to clean up the bill.
There have been some “unintended concerns,” he said.
Don Jarvis, president of the Dairy Processors Association of Canada, said in an Oct.19 interview his members believe the best approach is to scrap the dairy labelling proposal rather than try to fix it.
The CFIA has been assessing the implications of a last minute June amendment to CFIA legislation, proposed by Liberal Rose-Marie Ur and supported by Conservative, Bloc Québecois and New Democrat MPs under the watchful eye of Dairy Farmers of Canada representatives who proposed it. It would make illegal the marketing of dairy replacement products that contain dairy terms on the label.
On Oct. 17, senior CFIA officials told the Commons agriculture committee that dairy processing and retailing interests and consumer lobbyists are correct to argue the bill would force removal of many common dairy substitute products from the supermarket because they have some dairy ingredients listed on their labels.
The political amendment also would create confusion by including a definition of milk that does not match milk definitions found in other legislation.
When MPs objected that their intent had been merely to satisfy a Dairy Farmers of Canada complaint about dairy substitute products cashing in on the goodwill that dairy terms have in the market, a CFIA official said their political intent will carry little weight if the regulations are challenged in court.
After a summer of heavy criticism, MPs on the committee were in a foul mood when the discussion got testy.
“I think this is just completely ridiculous where this is going,” said Ur. “We all sat around this table thinking we were dealing with a fairly simple approach to something and clarifying it and someone’s out there just totally making a mountain out of a molehill.”
Conservatives were suggesting the Liberals had bungled the wording.
Easter responded with a vulgarity aimed at Saskatchewan Conservative David Anderson. Committee chair Paul Steckle accused someone on the committee of breaking trust by leaking the topic of what was supposed to be a secret meeting.
The Liberal secrecy proposal, defended by Steckle and Easter, was another point of contention.
They argued MPs should hear the CFIA analysis without public scrutiny, since the next phase of the public debate will be in the House of Commons and not at the committee.
The government position was voted down and the CFIA session was held in public amidst anger and finger-pointing about the amendment.
