Truth in labelling

I suppose it was inevitable that some Con-friendly media outlets would try to pretend that Stephen Harper's labelling announcement this week would accomplish more than it actually will. Enter the Calgary Herald, which tries to argue that consumers should use country of origin as a proxy for safety in deciding what food to buy:

Imagine a parent who goes to a grocery store, picks up baby food labelled "Made in Canada," only to later discover the bottle was made in Canada, but the contents were provided and processed in a Third World country known for egregious health and safety violations.

Parents would be aghast to find out that the product fed to their child was from a region where food safety was nowhere near the Canadian standard, especially given one main reason they purchased the product was because they thought it was safe.

The reality of vastly different food inspection and safety standards around the world then means it makes perfect sense for the Stephen Harper government to update requirements on what food can be labelled as a product of Canada...

The new standards require that any label claiming a food product is a "Product of Canada" necessarily needs to have all or virtually all of its contents be Canadian. That includes ingredients, the processing and the labour used to make the product; an exception has been made for some foreign content to be included in a Canadian product and labelled as such if minor additives or spices are not available in Canada.

Now, it's worth noting the danger that the exceptions might substantially undermine the rule even on the Herald's own terms. Surely if an additive isn't available precisely because it doesn't past muster in Canada, then the fact that a product can be labeled as a "product of Canada" anyway based on a lack of domestic availability can't lead to any great amount of consumer comfort.

But the problems with the Herald's take go far beyond that. In effect, the Herald seeks to give the Cons a pass on the lack of any meaningful effort to monitor products coming into Canada for inspection or safety standards. Instead, it wants to place the onus on consumers to look for a single designation which on its face has nothing to do with food safety as their lone signal that a product is safe for their consumption.

Yet even that system could only be effective to the extent one assumes the Canadian regulatory system is able to do its job of both inspecting Canadian production effectively, and bringing to light any problems. Which is problematic in light of the Cons' consistent attempts to exercise political control over regulatory agencies: can any Canadian consumer feel entirely assured that an agency facing a government which has eagerly declared war on civil servants who come to inconvenient conclusions, or whose communications are under the thumb of the PMO, is able to ensure that Canada's products are as safe as they should be?

In sum, this week's announcement offers at best a poor attempt by the Cons to be labelled as consumer-friendly. But no reasonable standard could justify applying that label to a government which has worked both to suppress product information, and to undermine Canada's ability to provide the level of regulatory effectiveness that the Herald considers so important.