A Conservative minister has hinted Ottawa may be willing to ease its tight restriction on Canadian content required to make a food product eligible for a “product of Canada” label.
When it introduced “product of Canada” labelling rules last year, the government shocked the industry by insisting 98 percent of the product had to be Canadian to qualify for the label.
On April 23, Jean-Pierre Blackburn, national revenue minister and minister of state for agriculture, said the government is listening to critics.
For the moment, the 98 percent rule holds, he said.
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“We are listening to the processors. We are talking with them. We will then see whether things need to be improved.”
Chris Kyte, president of Food Manufacturers of Canada, said Blackburn’s comment was good news.
Many manufacturers, including FPC members, say it is almost impossible to meet the 98 percent threshold for many manufactured products that use imported salt or sugar or other imported ingredients during winter when Canadian produce is scarce.
“They took a sledgehammer to something they could have been more subtle with,” Kyte said April 27. “We have long wanted them to clean up the product of Canada labelling rules but they over-reacted.”
He said with the need for imported sugars, there can be no jams or ice creams that qualify for a “product of Canada” label after the rules become mandatory Dec. 31.
“I don’t think this did consumers any favours, farmers any favours or processors any favours,” Kyte said.
In the House of Commons, there has been a growing opposition chorus insisting the government ease the content requirement to allow more products that are overwhelmingly Canadian content to be so labelled.
In the past, the government has insisted that the 98 percent rule stays because consumers want to be sure if they are buying a product sold as Canadian that it contains “virtually all” Canadian content.
Increasingly, MPs are raising cases of companies being hurt by the high bar.
Last week, a Bloc Québécois MP said much of the cream corn sold in grocery stores comes from corn grown in her riding but the local company that makes the product cannot call it “product of Canada” because it contains more than two percent imported sugar or salt.
The 98 percent rule is “extreme and inflexible,” said Claude DeBellefeuille.
