Health committee  Madam Chair, I was told I had five to seven minutes when I was preparing my testimony.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest is a non-profit consumer health advocacy organization specializing in nutrition issues, with offices in Ottawa and Washington, D.C. We don’t accept funding from government or industry. The 100,000 Canadian subscribers to our advertisement-free Nutrition Action Healthletter, which you have all received, funds our health policy reform advocacy.

Health committee  With regard to the nutrients you identified, trans fat and sodium, excess sodium intake is responsible for about four times as many deaths as trans fat by some estimates. However, we're still talking about thousands of premature deaths per year. The World Health Organization, in May of this year, issued a scientific update on trans fat, indicating that the scientific case is even stronger for getting it out of the food supply.

Health committee  I can't speak for the committee—I defer to Dr. L'Abbé for that—but this committee could emphasize to government the need for regulatory amendments to facilitate the transition. We've looked at models from Finland and the United Kingdom. They produced some benefits, but their sodium levels are still on a par with ours.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. The Centre for Science in the Public Interest is a non-profit consumer health advocacy organization specializing in nutrition issues, with offices in Ottawa and Washington, D.C. Our Ottawa health advocacy is funded by 120,000 subscriptions to the Canadian edition of our monthly Nutrition Action Healthletter, which you all receive.

Health committee  I mean it's counting the products. We should consume a small number of servings from the dairy and meat categories in the food guide. According to the food guide support, I understand we should consume most of our servings from fruits and vegetables and whole grains. I concede that you do have those types of products represented in your program, but most of the products are from the meat, dairy, and other food categories.

Health committee  There's no single ingredient that is uniquely responsible for obesity. By that standard, trans fat isn't the cause, nor is saturated fat. The one distinct thing about trans fat is that it doesn't have any redeeming nutritional benefits whatsoever. It contributes just as many calories as saturated fat or polyunsaturated fat, but all it brings is harm to one's health.

Health committee  To respond to the first question, the metric for deciding what course of action to take from a public policy perspective should always be what's the public health benefit, not just in terms of reducing the loss of human life, but also financial savings and less strain on the public health care system and on economic productivity.

Health committee  We certainly don't advocate abandoning the Canadian nutrition facts panel. It's very important. It provides a lot of useful information for consumers that are interested in the details. Both the Swedish keyhole system and the Hannaford Bros. experiment, if you want to call it that, have features that are desirable.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Since, like some of the other members of the committee, I'm a repeat attender, I'll dispense with the introductory comments about the Centre for Science in the Public Interest beyond saying that we have 100,000 subscribers to our newsletter and we don't take funding from industry or government.

Finance committee  According to the Canadian Cancer Society, taxes on tobacco have been fabulously successful in reducing tobacco consumption rates in Canada. There's a table in my presentation that shows how the increases in prices mirrored very closely decreases in consumption. With respect to food, we're just basing our conclusions on the econometric studies that have been done in a number of countries.

Finance committee  Certainly, Madam, we're not recommending exclusively that. We recommend other things: education, labelling, and so on.

Finance committee  Well, there is, and in the footnotes I've cited the relevant provisions of the Excise Tax Act. I'm sure you're aware that if you eat a restaurant meal, regardless of what the food is, you pay, in most provinces, 14% tax, federal and provincial. If you buy a fruit or vegetable tray at a grocery store, you pay tax on it.

Finance committee  Certainly the sales tax should be reviewed with the idea of ensuring that the nutrition advice the Government of Canada is giving to people, and the aspirations of Canadians—for instance, that our kids read more, or that we purchase things that are absolutely essentials, whether it's feminine hygiene products, or fruits and vegetables....

Finance committee  Absolutely. My impression is that one of the reasons we have a lot of these types of vending machines in schools now is because there were some cutbacks on funding to provincial education programs. But I think there is some evidence to indicate that even switching to vending machines that sell nutritious snacks, low-fat milk, apples, and so on, can actually be profit-making for schools.