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Results: 1 - 15 of 190
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
By way of introduction, I'll tell you I waitressed at the White Spot in Vancouver when I was 15 years old, and I know almost everything that goes in.
If the marketplace wants that and I'm going to go in and harangue them about it, that's where it's going to come into play for restaurants, don't you think, if there is that push on them? We've talked about transfats. If four million people go in demanding to know about transfats, the industry will respond. I think that's probably what has happened with White Spot, that they have responded to that.
When we talk about mandatory labelling, I think right now about smoking. I am not a smoker, but I look at these packages. There are really scary pictures on the front and big warnings saying this'll harm your health. I'm wondering if people aren't smoking as much any more. I'm not sure the labelling is going to do it. There needs to be more than that, with people reading the labels and paying attention to them. That's one concern I think you and I, as consumers as well as parliamentarians, have.
Also, when I taught school, after my White Spot days, ParticipAction was a federal program.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Yes, it was a federal program. You made it sound, in your response to Rob, that it was just provincial, but as you know, it was a federal program that we in the provinces were all strongly urged to use with our kids.
Tell me about the labelling. It's great to label, but how do they internalize that as consumers? What proof is there that it'll make things better? What do you think?
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
I wonder if they would, anyway. But we had that long discussion the other day, and we won't go around that block.
Anyway, I'm sure my two minutes are up, so thank you very much.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Thanks, Madam Chair.
Tom, this is interesting. I'm having a bit of difficulty here. I think all of us probably agree it's a great idea. I don't think anyone is philosophically against that. As Bev said, we're talking about the substantive portion of the bill.
This is what I'm having a difficult time with. If it is such a good thing to do, why are we stopping at just the big guys with $10 million gross? Could we all just rationalize then and go to Bev's place and have hamburgers and fries there because they don't label them? I understand that the costs would be prohibitive, but if we're talking philosophically here, why are we saying we'll just hit the big guys because they can afford it, but we're just going to forget about the other guys? You could mull over that, I guess. I don't even know if I need an answer.
I'm thinking here again about the fats, and here on the White Spot menu.... You took probably the least of all evils, because White Spot was started in 1928 as a hamburger joint, and they have probably the best hamburgers, at least in western Canada, if not all. Did they label the grams of fat of the hamburgers on the menu? It is a hamburger joint. This classy stuff was just added in the last few years. People go to White Spot for hamburgers. It says 4.6 grams of fat. Now we've all learned there are saturated fats, transfats, unsaturated fats, partially hydrogenated fats--it makes me dizzy. I don't understand that part--how we can break all that stuff down. I don't know about that, as well as all these things.
We have to realize too that we have a huge number of illiterate people in our country who couldn't read this stuff if it were up on the board. How do we educate people on all those issues I just brought up? I don't know.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Well, Bill's passed you notes--
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
But they've chosen that marketing because the consumers have pressed them on it.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Thanks.
Tom, are you aware of what the proposals were for the CFIA before this morning? Have you been in contact with each other? You're just hearing it now. Okay.
I can see that this is a mammoth task, and again, I think we're philosophically agreed that it's a great idea to let consumers know as much as possible. Between you two, I feel as if I'm watching a show go on in front of me. Do these proposals look like a solution, a half-way mark? You people have obviously been working hard. I frankly can't believe that you've had any time to even think on this, with the crisis you've been dealing with across the country. It seems to me that this may not be as much as Tom wanted, but I look at it as someone who, I have to confess, doesn't read labels very much at all, and I probably represent a huge proportion of the population--Bonnie, I won't ask how many labels you read. Could there be a compromise here, so we can do something? I don't even know if Tom is allowed to answer that, but if we're all agreed that we have to do something on it, it seems to me, as a layman, that this would be a really good start. Somehow you have to come to a compromise.
What I see happening down the road here is that somebody with some scientific background is going to take something that's labelled and do some scientific tests on it. Then there are going to be a million lawsuits, and then where are we? Or am I just cynical? I think that could happen, I can see people doing that, and boy, then we'd be in the soup. I don't know if there's a compromise between the groups here, but it looks sensible to me.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Thank you all for coming this morning. It's great.
Susan, I noticed that you said 100 grams is quite a bit and we have to figure it out. I bet you it isn't much at all in terms of what we all wolf down every day.
I'd like to ask a question. Maybe, Karen, you would be the best one to answer this, about a fat-free oil developed by Procter & Gamble, called Olestra, which was okayed in the U.S. in 1996--which is now, all of a sudden, eight years ago. I understand that Health Canada has declined that. Could you tell me something about it? I know nothing about this, so I'd appreciate an answer on that.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
What kind of food?
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
How is it novel?
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Sort of like transfats?
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Okay. Thank you.
I'm interested in this labelling that the good cholesterol is okay and the saturated fats are okay, so we up all that, but then we don't put in the part about the transfats. Do you see us moving toward this mandatory labelling of it?
I understand it's supposed to be voluntary, and we always hope everybody is going to be well-behaved.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
How many teenage kids do we know who are going to really be obsessed by that and say “shucks, I'd better not have this”? I mean, really, that's the trick, isn't it?
I see New York Fries in the Southgate Mall in Edmonton all the time. I think it looks good, but I try, not very hard, to eliminate all that. I didn't know that until today, and I'm reasonably intelligent. You can't believe it, but the labels are there.
Bruce, you're celebrating your 25th anniversary. How far have we come? You must scratch your head sometimes.
View Deborah Grey Profile
CPC (AB)
Is there a possibility, Karen, of that happening, out of Health Canada? I don't mean for the kids, but for the food guide. We all grew up with the food guide. Now that all of us baby boomers are getting older and fatter, we should have the heart attack guide too. It would be a good thing.
Results: 1 - 15 of 190 | Page: 1 of 13

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