Health Committee on Dec. 4th, 2007

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

How are you going seat all stakeholders at a single table so that they set aside their own interests in order to establish a number of effective initiatives for fighting childhood obesity, Ms. Finegood?

[Dr. Diane T. Finegood]

One comment is that we haven't actually waited that long. The CIHR Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes, under a different government, actually started its primary focus on obesity and healthy body weights back in 2002.

One of the things that are critical here is that, as you suggest, we have to close the evidence gap. We have to make sure we understand that what we do works and that there aren't unintended consequences; then we feed that back to improve what we're doing in a cycle.

In order to do that, you have to have the researchers who are capable of helping the communities and policy-makers to understand and to learn from they do. We've been ramping up the research capacity in this country for the last four or five years. We've gone from spending less than $1 million a year on research on obesity to spending nearly $25 million a year for research on obesity. Some of that is directed at children, some at broader areas.

To address very quickly the front-of-pack labeling issue, there are very few jurisdictions that have tried a traffic light system, which was, I think, of interest to this committee when the committee studied the issue. We have to learn from those jurisdictions whether that kind of approach makes any difference whatsoever. Remember, to request that of industry could require significant investment on industry's part.

We need to not only bring industry to the table. We need to bring researchers and consumers to the table to understand this. I would argue that research is a really good venue, because it's a kind of neutral zone, in a sense. We want to learn what the best way is to go about this, so we're doing everything we can within the CIHR to make this happen, including bringing the food industry together to talk about building trust.

We did this once before. We brought researchers and the food industry into the room together, and the biggest word spoken was “trust”, or the lack thereof, between the parties. Our next step is to bring them together in the spring in order to talk about trust and what we can do to actually build trust.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Thank you very much. Merci, monsieur.

Mr. Fletcher.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like you to address some of the issues that were raised earlier around trans fats. When I was health critic I had the pleasure of co-writing, with the member for Winnipeg Centre, the original motion on trans fats that was brought forward to Parliament. That of course resulted in the Trans Fat Task Force, which reported.

On page 23 of the obesity report there are a few interesting comments. I think it's important for the committee to remind itself that trans fats themselves are not a precursor to obesity; however, they do exacerbate cardiovascular issues with obese children. I think, given that this is an obesity report, we should make the distinction that trans fats are not really—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Well, it says right here, and those are the witnesses we had—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

You wrote the motion. When are we going to deal with it?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

I wish the member for St. Paul's would read the report.

Recommendation 4 says: “Establish regulations by 2008 that limit trans fat content in food as recommended by the Trans Fat Task Force, while not increasing saturated fat content.” In fact, this past spring the health minister announced that with the Heart and Stroke Foundation, who were co-chairing the Trans Fat Task Force, we would indeed be taking action, first voluntarily and then followed up with regulation, if necessary. So the government is taking action on that.

My question is—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

My question is, what was that?

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

I have another question, a serious question.

We need to organize and collect data on the incidence, prevalence, and trends on data. This goes to the data gap. Not only is improved data on obesity prevalence needed, but there is also a need for a longitudinal study on various measures of food intake and physical activity in order to help the government monitor and evaluate our policies and interventions and refine our approach. How does the government intend to track the process of its actions and develop a more compete and accurate data set in relation to this issue?

I would also add subsets of the population. You've touched on first nations and Métis populations, but there are others—new Canadians and so on, perhaps.

Maybe Diane Finegood could answer.

[Dr. Diane T. Finegood]

Certainly I can answer that question.

There are different kinds of data, first of all. There is the kind of data you would collect through surveillance processes, which is primarily under the province of Statistics Canada and the Public Health Agency in Health Canada. CIHR funds small surveillance-type projects, but not necessarily the larger surveillance projects, although we work with our partners. This evening I'll be at a meeting for the Canadian Health Measures Survey, where we're trying to collect physical measures on Canadians. Ultimately we would hope that it will be a longitudinal survey.

So there are those kinds of data, and then there are the data that help us understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions. CIHR has been working very hard to support researchers to answer those questions: what kinds of interventions work.

The Institute of Nutrition, Metabolism and Diabetes, although focused on obesity for the last five years, is now, in our strategic plan that's about to be launched, becoming even more strategic. We've funded a lot of research on what the problems are, but really what we need to do is understand what solutions work, what the most effective approaches are.

Going forward, we will only support, through our strategic funding, research on prevention and treatment of childhood obesity—and adult obesity as well, because they're certainly linked.

Those are critical areas, and we are becoming as focused as we can within our resources to ensure that the research community gets focused on what's important to Canadians around this problem.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Just for the benefit of the member for St. Paul's, on page 23, the third paragraph says, “The committee understands that trans fats do not in themselves contribute to the obesity problem; however, they want to emphasize that these fats substantially aggravate the health implications of overweight.”

Those are my questions, Mr. Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Lui Temelkovski]

Thank you.

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Given the interest in this committee, I'm tempted to ask the question whether there's been any research done correlating junk food use and people watching the Schreiber–Mulroney coverage and the scandal that's unfolding. Maybe we could do a study among journalists: how much junk food they eat in normal times and how the amount goes up when these kinds of scandals unfold. It might be interesting.

Dr. Finegood, what do you think?

[Dr. Diane T. Finegood]

We certainly know that watching television supports, if you will, junk food consumption. It does it in two ways. One is through its sedentary nature; there's a habitual behaviour. But also, advertising does stimulate one to, I guess, move away from the TV and go into the kitchen.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

So then the more these issues around the Schreiber–Mulroney scandal go on, the more people are stuck in front of their TVs and the more junk food they're eating. I guess the sooner we get to the bottom of this, the better.

[Dr. Diane T. Finegood]

I refuse to answer that question.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Seriously, I want to go back to trans fats. What Steven Fletcher is suggesting concerning page 23 is nonsense: that there's no correlation between trans fat usage and obesity. First of all, there's enough research to suggest there's a correlation. Secondly, we know there's a direct link between trans fats and coronary heart disease. What more do we need in order to get this government to actually follow the advice of the task force, which was mandatory regulations?

Mary, you and others are suggesting you're following the task force. But you aren't. You've actually been quite deceptive here at this committee in suggesting that you're following the task force when it said there must be mandatory regulations in place by June 2008. What you did, on June 20 or June 21 of last spring, was come out suggesting that you were going to follow the task force, but then you put in place a voluntary approach to give the industry until 2009 to see whether they're going to meet a target. If they don't, then you will act by way of regulation. So we're going to lose a couple of years here, when we note we have the evidence and we know it works, and yet you're sitting here telling us that the voluntary approach is going to work.

Industry was involved in the committee. I don't know who's behind this. Industry wants the mandatory approach. So who got to you? What happened between the tabling of the task force report and June 21, when suddenly the minister was saying that only a voluntary approach will work. What was it? It wasn't industry. Was it the United States? Was it trade barriers?

Something prevented you from doing the right thing, and I think Canadians deserve an answer.

[Jim Ball]

Here is a comment before Mary responds in more detail.

I think it's important to consider the evidence of progress in the reduction of trans fats in food products produced by the industry. It's not to say that the problem is resolved, but certainly industry is moving in the right direction. There was some evidence that was considered in terms of the approach that was taken.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Are we by this spring going to have achieved the elimination of trans fats down to 2% in processed foods, which would be a significant development similar to what Denmark achieved and would in fact result in a direct impact of reduced coronary heart disease? Are we going to have achieved those targets on the voluntary approach by next spring?

[Jim Ball]

The trans fat monitoring program that has been instituted by Health Canada will allow us to closely track the progress of industry on this, and we will not be able to specifically answer that question until we receive the results.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

That's my point. The task force said to put in place your regulations so that by June 2008 industry must be in compliance. You are now letting them off the hook until the spring of 2009; then you're going to assess, and then you're going to see if mandatory.... Look at how much time is wasted, when you have the facts, you have the correlation, and you know what works.

Who got to you? Why the delay? It's not industry. Who got to you, or the minister? What happened?