Health Committee on Feb. 21st, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I'll accept any further answer, but I won't accept any more questioning, because we have to move on.

I don't see it; then we'll move on. Ms. Kadis.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There's a statement in one of the documents that says, “The current made-in-Canada solution seems to be meeting Canadian needs.”

I apologize for being a bit late—I was at another meeting. Possibly this has been addressed.

What measurement has been used to make that statement? How has it been assessed? I'm not sure what it means. Can you elaborate on it?

[Fred Schaeffer]

I think it was in my pitch, so I'll try to answer it for you. That was based on some polling that was done, going out and asking people what their primary source of nutritional information was. When you ask people that, they say it's the nutrition facts panel.

In response to the earlier question about polling, certainly I will acknowledge some particular verbiage, but I would say, as I look at polling, I think of it as directional and I try to triangulate with it. If there are multiple sources telling me the same thing, I tend to say it seems to make sense. Whether it is exactly 69.534 I don't know, but is it all kind of telling me the same thing? Yes, it seems to be. I would say that the research seems to be all coming around to say that Canadians like the nutrition facts table. They use it. They may not use it every time, but they may use it to start when they shop for a product. It seems, largely, to be working. That's my general assessment of the research to date.

[Sally Brown]

I would totally agree, though, with an earlier comment that we're not getting into the ethnic communities. They're actually more at risk for chronic diseases. There is no doubt that they are not reading the nutrition facts table, and we're not asking them often enough. I think that is a real gap.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

I think that should be included in our report and clearly identified, Mr. Chair.

I don't have the expertise here, but I have to say that, especially since serving on this committee but prior to that as well, I have been really looking at those facts. I'm not sure if I'm your typical Canadian. They have been highlighted through the meetings and brought to my attention very clearly.

When I am reading them, I'm seeing saturated fats and trans fats together as a certain total figure, and then two figures that do not align with that total figure. Can you explain that? Obviously I'm making a serious, genuine attempt to look to that for information, and to make better decisions and choices, but I'm finding that confusing. I imagine that others do as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

In fast foods?

[Carol Dombrow]

I'm not sure if I understand. You're looking at saturated fat and trans fat, and then you're looking at the per cent of daily value?

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

It has a different figure.

[Carol Dombrow]

Okay. The per cent of daily value in this case is 1%. If you have 0.2 grams of saturated and 0 grams of trans, that just shows you that there is a very small amount of saturated and trans. It's related to your total intake and your calorie intake, and it's more complicated.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

So it's an average. In other words, it's not an exact figure.

[Carol Dombrow]

It's not necessarily specific to you, that it's 1% of your daily value for saturated and trans, but it would be close; it would be a representative number in terms of the per cent of your daily value of saturated and trans.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

It's too bad that I didn't have the product with me that I had last evening, because the total percentage was not consistent with the figures for trans fat and saturated fat.

[Carol Dombrow]

That's showing you the number of grams. That's a different value. That's the quantity of saturated and trans. Per cent of daily value is related to your total intake. They're two different numbers.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

I realize that. I assumed that. What I'm getting at is that if I'm having that difficulty, others will as well.

[Carol Dombrow]

Yes.

[Susan Kadis, Liberal, Thornhill, ON]

Clearly that needs to be streamlined to take full advantage of the information, which I do think is definitely going in the right direction. My concern is that it will take too much more time, especially with relation to our childhood obesity issue and draft report. We want to be very clear and expedite this, given the ongoing problem that our children are facing.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Dykstra.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have one question, and I know it refers a little bit to the Heart and Stroke Foundation. We've done some work with, or at least had the opportunity to listen to and have interaction with, the folks from the U.K. who talked about their food labelling program and how successful that has been in its use of colours for identification.

I'm just remembering a story that I told Ms. Priddy about reading labels. I mentioned that one weekend that's what I did every time I went to get something to eat: I read the label. Ms. Demers said she felt sorry for me because that weekend was obviously a very boring one for me, but it was somewhat informative.

In any event, I saw one of the benefits of the U.K. system being the ability for people to see that image, that colour, right away and then to deal with it and say, well, it's red, it's green, it's amber, or whatever the three colours may be.

We also heard about a sort of check mark system. We talked a little bit about whether there could be an integration of the two. Quite frankly, though, shouldn't there be some prudence or some smart thinking on our behalf, from a federal perspective, that we should go with what's working versus trying to implement a system that will take some time for people to understand? From everything we've heard, the system seems to be working very well in the U.K.

[Sally Brown]

Actually, we also met with a representative who came over from the U.K. One comment she made to us, at least, was that if we had mandatory labelling, we probably wouldn't be going down this route. We actually had a long conversation with her. She was very interested in why the British Heart Foundation didn't have a health check program, so we had that discussion.

Our belief is that we need to have a mandatory food labelling program. It doesn't have to be our program. Canada also has a symbol that more and more Canadian are using and trusting. It's based on Canada's Food Guide and industry was uptaking it very quickly. The only reason a couple of companies didn't go with Health Check and went with their own was that they wanted an all-or-nothing check mark, but we would not cover desserts and condiments. They were perfectly willing to get many of their other products in, though.

So it's not perfect and it's not finished yet, but Canada is well on its way to having an excellent system, with the combination of food labeling and a third party program based on the government's food guide.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Does anyone else care to comment?

[Fred Schaeffer]

With regard to the question about whether or not you can quickly adapt something that's working elsewhere, put aside the fact of whether you believe the system works or not. The practical execution of best adapting and having to change the packaging.... The last time we went through MNL, there was a three-year period allowed for packaging changeover. As we talked about, that still cost somewhere between $150 million and $250 million.

From a practicality standpoint on the reality of getting a new system up and running, my coaching or counselling would be to focus on what we have. Train people on the nutrition facts table. It seems to be working for folks. I would not at all disagree that we need more education and awareness of that, so spend our resources there and help people understand what's there today.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Ms. Brown, you mentioned the food guide. I have to say that there are those who think it's great and those who do not. I mailed out copies of it to each of the high school teachers in my riding. Just by way of information, I've had a phenomenal response. In every high school I sent it to, we had at least one of the teachers requesting a couple of hundred of them to be able to pass them out to students. I'm scrambling to try to find some more, so if you do have some, I'd appreciate getting my hands on them.

[Sally Brown]

Mr. Chair, I think it was Mr. Batters who came up with the idea. I think nutritional labelling should be taught in the schools so that the next generation won't think twice about reading it. We shouldn't keep it a secret from children. They can learn it if they're taught it. They can learn what a check mark means and what it's based on.

No, the food guide isn't perfect. I've said we need to have stronger criteria on salt in Canada, and we also probably need criteria on sugar, because there are none. Health Check is starting to look at what we can do to develop criteria for sugar, and we want to have discussions with Health Canada on those criteria. We're not even sure what the stoplight program is based on. We couldn't find their criterion on sugar even though it's one of their stoplight criteria, so that is something we need to do.

So there's more work to be done, but starting over with another program is not the way to go, in our view.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Whether or not the guide is perfect, the fact that I got so many requests for it means there is an appetite for it—if I can use that word—and there's a reason folks want to look at it. I think it's a great start.

[Sally Brown]

It is, and we are strong supporters of the food guide. I agree with you that it's way better than it was, and there's an interactive component. It's an excellent product, and if I find any extra copies hanging out in my office, I'll send them to you.