Better Labelling Required

 Better Labelling Required

- jim Young

“From the Vancouver Island to the Alberta highland,

‘Cross the Prairie, the lakes to Ontario’s towers.

From the sound of Mount Royal’s chimes, 

Up to the Maritimes,

Something to sing about, this land of ours!” - Oscar Brand

Canada has its problems and weaknesses. I get that. And I get that some Canadians are not happy with the way our country has been run for the past few years. Hell, there will always be some Canadians that are not happy with our government regardless as to who is in power and what they are doing.

But when it comes right down to it, ALL Canadians are my brothers and sisters. A young boy will fight and torment his sibling endlessly and without shame. BUT the moment someone else tries to knock down this same sibling - that’s a different matter. He will be at his sibling’s side ready to defend him or her with everything he’s got.

And that’s how I see Canada today. Regardless of our political differences all Canadians should be coming together in defence of their siblings.

On a recent trip to Costco it was very clear to my wife and I that Canadians are doing just that as we witnessed many shoppers checking product labels to ensure they were buying mostly Canadian to the best of their ability.

I watched in awe and began to “quietly hum” Oscar Brand’s “This Land Of Ours”. 

Of course we were checking labels too. In fact, many of our purchases had been pre checked for Canadian Content on the internet ahead of time. But when in doubt, we checked the labels again.

This wasn’t always as easy as you might think and we soon discovered that Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) need to improve their regulations for required labelling practices.

The picture below shows a container of Metaucil from Costco. There was no mention of the country of origin, only the following statement:

DISTRIBUTED BY/PAR PROCTER & GAMBLE

INC., TORONTO, ONTARIO M5W 1C5

P&G

www.pg.com

www.metamucil.ca

This tells us absolutely nothing as far as the country of origin of the product goes.

Anyone who does not already know that P&G is an American company and Metamucil is a product made in the U.S. might incorrectly assume that P&G is a Canadian Company, or that Metamucil is at least Made in Canada because of the mention of Toronto, Ontario. In fact, all it really means is Procter & Gamble (an American Company) has a distribution centre in Toronto where they import Metamucil (a product they make in Phoenix, Arizona) for distribution in Canada.

I tried to scan the QR code to see if that provided more information but the QR code was too small for my phone to read.

All labels for products sold in Canada need to clearly indicate the country of origin of the company as well as the product inside the container. And providing that information in a QR code is NOT acceptable. There needs to be quick and easy access to this information to help the consumer make an informed decision.

The pictures shown above are of a container of Metamucil we had on hand. Following our most recent trip to Costco, we came home with Benefibre gummies, a substitute for Metamucil.

Benefibre products are made in Canada albeit by Bayer which is a German Company. But at least there appears to be no American content.

For the record, the information of the country of origin on Benefibre is as vague as its counterpart Metamucil. The only reason we knew it was made in Canada was because we had done our internet homework prior to our shopping trip.

And while we should expect Health Canada and the CFIA to mandate better labelling we should also insist that suppliers such as Costco, Walmart, Loblaws, Sobeys and all the others to proactively demand better and more informative labelling from their suppliers.

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