> Food and Nutrition

Made in Canada, eh?
by author Michelle Hancock

Is there an international congregation in your kitchen?

Imports from around the world steal my table space–everything from salad dressing to canned tuna. But with the safety of imported foodstuffs increasingly questioned, should we be paying more attention to our food, including so-called “Made in Canada” products that are legally allowed to contain foreign ingredients?

Yes, say consumer groups who have criticized Canada’s product-safety laws–the same laws that have allowed toys, foods, and drugs that have resulted in a rash of public recalls and health warnings.

Contaminated pet foods, toothpastes, and antibiotic-laced fish are just a few imported products that have made headlines over the past year.

“The main problem is that the laws are 50 years old,” says Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers Association of Canada. “They’re totally out of date.”

Regulatory Overview

Health Canada sets standards related to the safety and nutrition of food sold in Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) enforces them. The CFIA’s activities include verifying that imported food products meet Canadian requirements.

The onus lies on importers to ensure that foods don’t contain anything poisonous or harmful, and that they’re manufactured safely. Imports are supposed to be marked by country of origin and/or with the importer’s name.

Overall, Canada is the fifth-largest importer, at 2.8 percent, of world agriculture and agri-food imports. In 2006 imported food sales reached $22.4 billion, according to an Agri-Food 2007 report.

Back on my tabletop, a random sampling reveals carrots, avocado, apples, and peppers from Mexico and the US; dressings from Europe, Taiwan, and Japan; pasta sauces from the US; tuna products from Thailand; and a variety of canned and processed products from Canada, the US, and abroad.

Their appetizing diversity is overwhelming; Canadian products should be the easiest to pick out. Or not.

Legal but Misleading

Under Canadian law, ingredients might come from other countries, yet the product can have a “Made in Canada” or “Product of Canada” label if 51 percent of manufacturing and product costs were accrued in Canada.

During a phone call, an agent with the CFIA’s Fair Labelling Practices Program calls this law “tricky.” He gives the example of “Made in Canada” bread, in which only 12 percent of ingredients might be from Canada, and the other 39 percent to make up the 51 percent rule is the result of labour and packaging costs.

This is misleading, agrees Cran of the Consumers Association of Canada. What’s more, it prevents consumers from knowing when goods are truly Canadian.

Cran specifically mentions apple juice, where juice concentrate from overseas is shipped here, then mixed with water or Canadian juice and sold under a Canadian label. He says his association has searched across Canada and hasn’t found a box that they can be sure is truly Canadian.

“I don’t know if there’s a health issue,” he says. “If there was a health issue, it couldn’t be identified by Canadian consumers.”

Cran says their office receives many calls from people saying they’d be willing to pay more for products genuinely made–and sourced–in Canada.

Struggling Food, Farming Industries

Is a country that’s self-sufficient foodwise simply a pipe dream? For a start, it would require major support to reshape our farming, trade, and processing industries and to stop the increasing trend of companies using out-of-country facilities to avoid the higher manufacturing, labour, and food costs here.

More than 60 percent of food processing for Canadian companies was done in the US in 2003, where it’s cheaper.

At time of writing, the last Canadian canning factory east of the Rockies–CanGro–had just closed, a move expected to seriously impact hundreds of Niagara Peninsula farmers and suppliers.

McCain Foods, a big Canadian multinational food processor, has plants in about 20 countries.

But cheap is never cheap, says Mae Burrows, executive director of Labour Environmental Alliance Society (leas.ca).

She points out that factory conditions in other countries don’t always meet humanitarian or sanitation standards, let alone guarantee food safety.

Hence, we have the recent rash of food and goods recalls, which some might say is a product of our own making, pun intended.

So, what about my “Canadian” products?

Inspection Perception

Vancouver writer Michelle Hancock is considering giving up cereal for breakfast in favour of local, free-range eggs. michellehancock.ca

Source: alive #307, May 2008