The Rural Voice, 1989-10, Page 26food. The CAC looks at the results of
agricultural production; its mandate
does not directly address problems on
the farm. Farmers are consumers too,
but their industry is often the target of
CAC criticism.
The CAC was set up in 1947 as an
outgrowth of the Women's Division of
the Wartime Prices and Trades Board.
The Women's Division, made up of
volunteers, had served during wartime
to advise government and consumers
how to use scarce rations well. When
the war ended, the volunteers felt there
was a need to continue with grassroots
consumer input as the technology of
war was converted into consumer
goods.
In the beginning, all the major
women's organizations in Canada sent
representatives to the CAC. Today, a
national executive and board repre-
sents the provinces. The association
has about 130,000 members — as
many members as there are subscrib-
ers to the Canadian Consumer maga-
zine associated with the CAC (there
are 53,000 members in Ontario).
The CAC works at local, provin-
cial, and national levels through the
activities of its volunteers — and on a
limited budget derived from the $25
magazine subscription (most of which
funds the magazine) and from govern-
ment grants. In Ontario, for example,
the annual grant from the Ministry of
Consumer and Commercial Relations
this year, plus the allocation from the
CAC, added up to $80,000, most of
which went to maintaining the Toron-
to office and its 1 1/2 employees.
The high profile of the CAC, then,
is a result of the commitment of its
volunteers. As Jackson puts it, "A lot
of people work hard."
One of those people is Jackson
herself. Her work for the CAC costs
her money — not all of her expenses
are paid. But she has long served in
the food industry as a volunteer CAC
member, ever since the first meeting
to set up a local CAC group in
Kitchener in the late 1950s. Jackson
has a B.A. in food chemistry and an
M.A. in public health nutrition. She
tells a story about why she went as a
representative of the University of
Toronto Women's Club to that
inaugural Kitchener meeting.
When she was growing up, she
says, her mother was unwell, and
Jackson was left with the task of
shopping for food. She remembers
being scolded for bringing home
bacon that wasn't lean enough. Back
then, she explains, bacon was rolled
up and put in a package with red lines
printed on it. Later she discovered an
organization committed to preventing
such problems for consumers.
Since joining the CAC, Jackson
has served on the Ontario Farm Pro-
ducts Marketing Board, the Ontario
Farm Products Appeal Tribunal, and
the Minister of Agriculture's Ontario
Food Industry Advisory Committee.
The Ontario Food Committee of
the CAC itself (there is also a national
Food Committee on which the two
Ontario co-chairs sit) has no formal
agenda as such. Much of its work is
commenting on proposed changes in
the food industry. One major issue for
the committee in recent years has been
getting useful, accurate nutrition
labelling on foods.
In September, CAC representatives
met with the Ontario Federation of
Agriculture to express some concerns
and ask some questions. Following
are some of the subjects discussed at
that meeting and some additional
long-standing CAC policy positions.
ST PST
There is no chance in the near
future that bovine somatotropin (BST)
will be acceptable to the public, Jack-
son says. From the CAC perspective,
the safety of BST is not an issue, but
the benefits of its use are. "As near as
we can tell," Jackson says, "nobody
can really come out for sure and say it
(BST) does lower the cost of produc-
tion." In other words, BST does not
seem to offer benefits to the consumer.
Porcine somatotropin (PST), on the
other hand, may be accepted, Jackson
says. The use of PST can be with-
drawn before the animal goes to mar-
ket, and there appears to be a benefit
to consumers in PST that is lacking in
BST. PST, Jackson says, is supposed
to produce leaner animals — but BST
doesn't improve milk quality.
PESTICIDES:
Reasoning backwards from the
consumer's point of view is also
characteristic of the CAC's position
on pesticides that are banned in
Canada but that have been used to
produce food imported into Canada.
The issue poses a dilemma for the
consumer, Jackson says. Should we
accept another country's standards?
But the CAC, she says, has no policy
on the issue per se — as long as there
is no trace of chemicals banned in
Canada on food imported into Canada.
GRADING.F F`R I
AND VE STABLES
More innovative and rigorous are
Jackson's comments on the grading
criteria for fruits and vegetables. The
CAC is asking whether those criteria
should be changed, particularly now
that consumers are leaning towards
more "natural" products. The criteria
as they stand are based largely on ap-
pearance rather than on nutrition and
taste (on sugar content, for example).
"I feel that the grading criteria
which exist in the fruit and vegetable
industry was developed without the
consumer in mind," Jackson says.
Instead, she says, the criteria serve
food processors rather than consumers
and farmers.
RCI
The CAC position is that every-
thing, including food, should be taxed
(as it is in New Zealand, for example).
It would be administratively cheaper
to tax everything, Jackson says,
because every time an exception is
made to the tax the general tax rate
must go up (although she says that
personally she doesn't like the idea of
a tax on food). But the CAC wants a
much lower blanket tax, of five per
cent, not nine per cent.
PROGRA
..........................
Stabilization, Jackson says,
"should not interfere too much with
market forces." The CAC is willing
to see government involvement in
stabilization, but says the amount pro-
ducers might get is not known soon
enough, which sometimes "tends to
make the graph more violent rather
24 THE RURAL VOICE