Hon. Victor Oh: Honourable senators, my question is for the government leader in the Senate. It is regarding the Health Canada proposal for the front-of-package labelling for ground beef and pork which would require ground beef and pork sold at retail to carry a “high-in-saturated-fat” warning label.

As Senator Plett noted yesterday, this small label stands to have a significant negative impact on the Canadian beef and pork industries. As most other single-ingredient foods are exempt from this labelling, such as milk and eggs, it seems unfair to target ground beef.

In addition, we must remember that this discouraging people from ground beef consumption may have other negative consequences given that, one, ground beef contributes iron, zinc and other important nutrients that are vital for a balanced diet; two, with current food supply chain issues and high inflation and food costs, ground beef offers consumers these nutrients at a more cost-conscious way than more expensive cuts of beef.

Leader, yesterday you said Canadians would continue to purchase ground beef. Does the government understand that the cost of changing the labelling will be passed down to consumers, making ground beef more expensive at a time when families cannot afford to pay more? Thank you.