Product Of

You might know that I've found the whole idea of Canadian Cattle producers getting upset over American COOL as funny. Mostly because it doesn't seem right for them to be upset over internal American Policy. Now I have another reason to think their behavior is funny. Canada has it's own COOL law. It might work a little different from the one being worked on in the US, but they have one.

The way their law works, it allows them to label such things as coffee and olives, crops not grown in Canada, as a "Product of Canada." How interesting. Their law allows such a label as long as 51% of labor or material is in the final product and the final product is a new and identifiable product.

So, under Canadian law, they could take US ground beef, which under present COOL legislation would have a label such as "product of USA, Canada and Mexico, reform it into hamburger patties, add some spices and they could call it a "Product of Canada." Then they want to complain about American COOL? I laugh at them.

I guess what is really funny about this is how it highlights the problems with the proposed COOL law that is in the hopper now. The packer could grind up a bunch of ground beef from cattle that originated in Mexico and Canada with no cattle from the US and slap a label on it that says "Product of USA, Mexico and Canada" and it would be perfectly legal. Not much better than Canada's system is it.

Again, I will point out that I am not a fan of COOL. A true COOL program would cost me a lot of money and not net me much in the end. The compromise that is in the hopper now will not cost me much, but is not really COOL as the proponents mean it to be like my example shows. I am happy for the compromise since it doesn't hurt me as a producer in the field but how much the present system will help consumers, I don't know.

A person who is gifted sees the essential point and leaves the rest as surplus. Thomas Carlyle