Bill S-228 (Historical)

Child Health Protection Act

An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children)

This enactment amends the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit food and beverage marketing directed at persons under 17 years of age.

Child Health Protection Act

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-252, which has the laudable goal of prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children of materials that are unhealthy and damaging to their health. This legislation is long overdue.

By way of a background, Canada's New Democrats have been advocating for a ban on unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children for many years. In 2012, over 10 years ago, the NDP member of Parliament for New Westminster—Burnaby introduced legislation to expressly prohibit advertising and promotion for commercial purposes of products, food, drugs, cosmetics or devices directly to children under 13 years of age. One can tell already from that short list that the bill was more ambitious than the one we are discussing today, which deals only with unhealthy food and beverages, but it dealt and engaged with the very same concepts before the House today.

In 2016, as has already been heard in the House, Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced the child health protection act. It was called Bill S-228, and that legislation would have banned the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages primarily directed at children under 17 years of age. A bit later I will touch on how this bill has reduced that age to 13, and of course, under 17 would have been more ambitious. As I will advocate in my remarks today, it would have been preferable.

Health Canada held an online consultation in 2017 to seek feedback on restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children. That was over six years ago. That consultation was open to the public, health organizations, industry and any interested stakeholders.

At the House Standing Committee on Health at that time, the Liberals unfortunately amended Bill S-228 to reduce the age limit from under 17 years to under 13 years old. They also added a five-year legislative review, which is a prudent measure.

According to UNICEF Canada, the proposed age cut-off of 17 was more likely than a younger age threshold to protect the most vulnerable from the harmful impacts of marketing. While there are different interpretations of children's evolving cognitive capacities, research suggests very strongly that not only are teens exposed to more ads than younger children and remember them better, but also that they have more means. Teenagers who are 15 and 16 years of age often have more expendable or disposable income, act in a more unsupervised manner and are more likely to purchase unhealthy foods than children under 13, yet I think, due to pressure from the industry, that threshold was reduced to 13.

Although Bill S-228 did pass third reading in both the House and the Senate, unfortunately that bill died on the Order Paper due to a Conservative filibuster in the Senate prior to the 2019 federal election. That has left us where we are at today.

I would also comment that the Liberal government has made a number of commitments since it was elected in 2015 that remain unfulfilled on this issue. The former Liberal health minister, in her 2019 mandate letter, was directed to “introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children”. That was never followed through with.

The current health minister's 2021 mandate letter instructed him to support “restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children.” I suppose it can be said he is supporting that, in the sense that the government side is supporting this legislation, but we must remember there has been no action from the government. This is a private member's bill we are dealing with here, not a government bill.

What is the result of the inaction? It is not benign. Each year, the Canadian food and beverage industry spends over $1.1 billion on marketing to children. This marketing appeals to children through product design, the use of cartoon or other characters, as well as fantasy and adventure themes, humour and other marketing techniques. Clearly these techniques work, with there being children as young as three years old who are brand aware and can recognize or name food and beverage brands.

This marketing to children means that over 50 million food and beverage ads per year are shown on children's top 10 websites alone. Their personal identifying information is collected from websites and apps for the purposes of further targeting online marketing. Children in Canada are observing an estimated 1,500 advertisements annually, just on social media sites alone, and nearly 90% of food and beverages marketed on television and online are high in salt, sugars and saturated fat. That is what we as policy-makers are faced with in the current situation.

Let us look at the facts. Poor nutrition and unhealthy food and beverage are key contributors to poor health in children. Good eating habits and avoidance of unhealthy food are key preventative elements of health policy. There is strong agreement among leading Canadian pediatric and allied health organizations that the impact of food and beverage marketing is real, significant and harmful to children's development.

Marketing to children has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. Today it is a seamless, sophisticated and often interactive process. The line between ads and children's entertainment has blurred with marketing messages being inserted into places that children play and learn. Marketing of food and beverages to children in Canada is largely self-regulated by the same industries that profit from the practice. Research reveals that these voluntary measures are not working. Numerous studies have found strong associations between increases in advertising of non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity. One study by Yale University found that children exposed to junk food advertising ate 45% more junk food than children not exposed to such advertisements. In Canada, as much as 90% of the food marketed to children and youth on TV and online is unhealthy.

Three-quarters of children are exposed to food marketing while using their favourite social media applications. Again, the majority of those ads is for unhealthy foods that are ultraprocessed and beverages that are high in saturated fats, salt and sugar. This does not just affect children. Canadians are the second-largest buyers of ultraprocessed foods and drinks in the world, second only to the Americans. The result is that nearly one in three Canadian children is overweight or obese. The rise in childhood obesity in recent decades is linked to changes in our eating habits. Overweight children are more likely to develop health problems later in life, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Children are uniquely vulnerable to marketing manipulation until the point that they achieve two specific information-processing skills. The first is the ability to perceive the difference between commercial and non-commercial content, and the second is the ability to understand the persuasive intent behind advertising. Before the age of five, most children cannot distinguish ads from unbiased programming. Children under eight do not understand the intent of marketing messages, and they believe what they see. By age 10 to 12, children do understand that ads are designed to sell products, but they are not always able to be critical of these ads.

Canada needs to get in step with other countries in the world. Other jurisdictions have since adopted similar legislation, including Norway, the United Kingdom and Ireland. By the way, my Conservative colleague was questioned about Quebec earlier and the impact of their legislation, which has restrictions on advertising to children.

Here are the facts: Quebec's restrictions on advertising to children have been shown to have a positive impact on nutrition by reducing fast food consumption by 13%. That translates to 17 million fewer fast food meals sold in the province and an estimated 13.4 million fewer fast food calories consumed per year. Quebec has the lowest rates of obesity among five- to 17-year-olds in the country, as well as the highest rates of vegetable and fruit consumption in Canada. That is relative to every other province. Now, it is true that childhood obesity rates are rising everywhere, but I think the effect of this marketing is quite clear, which is that it has slowed the rising obesity and unhealthy consumption of food marketing in Quebec, partially at least because of their early and, I think, progressive adoption of legislation before the House now.

I would also point out that Quebec has prohibited all commercial advertising targeting children under the age of 13 since 1980, so it is very clear that it is the time for the rest of the country to get in step with this. I think most of us in here are parents, have siblings who are parents, or maybe intend to be parents at some point. Certainly, we were all once children. It should be non-controversial to say that marketing of unhealthy products to our children in this country should be something that we are vigilant on and that we should act to prohibit. I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation before the House today.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

moved that the bill be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour for me to rise today to discuss my bill, Bill C-252. I would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank my colleagues for all their support and hard work in advancing the bill.

Bill C-252 essentially seeks to prohibit the marketing of foods that contain excessive amounts of sugar, sodium and saturated fats to children below the age of 13.

Additionally, the bill contains a provision that would mandate Health Canada to monitor the impact of the bill on the marketing of foods and beverages to teenagers between ages 13 and 18. This is done in an effort to ensure that food companies and advertisers will not simply turn around and amp up their marketing to teenagers to compensate for these new limits. Hence, the bill would provide an opportunity to verify the impact of this legislation and make adjustments if necessary.

One of the most concerning health issues for Canadians today is childhood obesity. To date, one in three children in Canada is either overweight or obese. We know that obesity leads to higher lifetime risk of developing severe health conditions, such as high blood pressure, diabetes and other chronic diseases.

Obesity increases the risk of at least 11 different cancers, and evidence has shown that diet-related diseases now kill more Canadians than smoking. In 2019, dietary risk factors contributed to an estimated 36,000 deaths, and the burden of chronic diseases, impacted mainly by diet and other modifiable risk factors, has been estimated to cost $13.8 billion in Canada.

Despite these dire consequences, the proportion of obese children has nearly tripled in the last 25 years. Our government has recognized these issues, and that was why it launched, in 2016, the healthy eating strategy to help make the healthier choice the easier choice for Canadians.

In 2019, the revised Canada's food guide provided Canadians with relevant, consistent and credible dietary guidance. In 2020, sodium reduction targets were published to encourage sodium reduction in food supply. However, there is still more work to be done.

It is a well-established fact that one of the major explanations for obesity is attributed to food marketing to children. The World Health Organization recognized the marketing of foods and beverages to children to be problematic as early as 2010. In fact, in a recent policy brief, it went as far as to call the evidence that food marketing altered food preferences, choices and purchases as unequivocal. Furthermore, the World Health Organization stated that food marketing not only affected children's physical health, but it also “threatens their emotional, mental and spiritual well-being”.

Children in Canada are currently being exposed to hundreds of ads every day. Whether it is through TV, online, video games or other forms of marketing, children are a highly targeted market. This is worrisome, because we know that children are especially vulnerable and susceptible to marketing. They are less able to understand or question the purpose or essence of the marketing and, as such, become easy targets of influence as they absorb and accept the messages.

A 2017 report on the health of Canadians has shown that well over 90% of food and beverage product advertisements viewed by children online or on TV have been for products that are high in sugars, sodium and saturated fats. It is not surprising then to learn that kids aged nine through 13 get more calories, almost 60%, from ultra-processed foods than any other age group.

This is especially problematic, because childhood is the period during which children learn and develop lifelong eating habits, and we know just how impactful food marketing is on the eating habits of our children.

We currently have a situation where corporations that produce foods and beverages with excessive amounts of sugar, sodium and saturated fats are allowed to market and target them to the most vulnerable members of our society, who then adopt problematic eating habits.

Furthermore, a 2018 UNICEF report argued that unhealthy food marketing to children constituted a violation of a number of children's rights as recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which includes children's right “to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.”

Bill C-252 would give us the tools to end the marketing of foods that contain the three excessive ingredients to kids and would enable them to make better and healthier food choices for themselves.

There have been some critiques of the bill. Some have said that it is not needed, because the Association of Canadian Advertisers has developed a code, “Code for the Responsible Advertising of Food and Beverage Products to Children”, which sets some limits on what is considered reasonable advertising of foods and beverages to children. They have argued that the code is enough and therefore any further legislative efforts is superfluous. To that I would say absolutely not.

A significant amount of research has shown time and again that self-regulatory codes do not work, as they are voluntary in nature and make it too easy for industry players to amp up or simply opt out. On the other hand, the development of a code clearly demonstrates that the industry players recognize the existence of a problem with marketing to kids. While this recognition is welcomed, ultimately their efforts simply do not suffice.

Dr. Warshawski, chair of the board of directors at the Childhood Obesity Foundation, during his appearance at the Standing Committee on Health, stated, “The fox should not...guard the henhouse”. We only have to look at the United Kingdom and Spain. They are respectively developing regulations to prohibit the marketing of foods to children after having witnessed first-hand that there were no positive outcomes from their existing self-regulatory industry codes.

Others have expressed concern that Bill C-252 could capture and prohibit the marketing of foods that are pantry stables, such as bread or milk. Let me be clear that is not the aim of this bill. The way the bill is framed it specifically directs Health Canada to develop regulations with the necessary nuances.

As Dr. Sharma from Health Canada repeatedly explained during her appearance at the health standing committee that the phrasing of this bill allowed for the creation of categories rather than the targeting of specific foods, which in turn would allow for a nuanced implementation and application.

In other words, foods that contain high levels of one of the targeted nutrients, but which are generally considered to be beneficial to children’s diets, such as fruits that contain high levels of sugars, would easily be exempted from the legislation. This process would be entirely based on an extensive regulatory process that would not only include consultations with a variety of actors, but also be based on strong scientific evidence regarding the nutritional needs of our children.

Some have also attempted to deform the bill and make it into something that it is not, which is an attempt to tell parents what they can and cannot buy for their children. This is simply and unequivocally false. Having raised three children myself, I strongly believe that parents have all the freedom in deciding and choosing how they want to raise and feed their children.

Bill C-252 does not target parents and adults, but strictly children. It is about removing the possibility of a billion dollar industry to reach our vulnerable children and manipulate them through the marketing techniques that will lure them into desiring products that we know could be detrimental to their health. Parents are and remain fully responsible for the food choices they make for their kids. The bill is simply about evening out the playing field and ensuring that parents can make decisions about the nutrition of their children without having to push back against powerful outside influences.

Finally, some have tried to argue that the bill should not be adopted because it would preclude other aspects of health from being addressed. For example, some people have said that the bill should not be adopted because they perceive it as a risk to the continuation of sports sponsorship and community sports. I would invite them to look at Quebec, as it serves as a model whereby sports sponsorship aimed at children has been restricted for over 40 years, yet community sports are still very much alive and well in the province. My bill’s focus on specific nutrients leaves plenty of space for a modified approach to sports sponsorship.

Similarly, critiques have advanced that, instead of passing this bill, we should focus on encouraging children to be more active. This view represents a very limited and ultimately insufficient approach to health. There is no doubt whatsoever that sports and physical activity play an important role in protecting the health of our children. However, health is a multifactorial element, and diet is just as important as physical activity. As such, our government has committed to significant investments to encourage children to move and to participate in team sports, notably with a $10-million investment in the recent 2023 budget. The supposed opposition between my bill and an approach more focused on active living is simply uncalled for. Both healthy eating and physical activity can, and in fact should, coexist. Ultimately, this is not a magic bullet that could fix childhood obesity all on its own. It is, however, an absolutely needed and key component of a broader, comprehensive strategy that needs to address this important issue.

It is also worth reminding everyone that this bill has been a long time coming. As many members may know, there have been previous attempts to advance similar legislation, which suffered from significant push-back. Most notable is former senator Nancy Greene Raine’s efforts with Bill S-228, which unfortunately got stalled in the Senate and died on the Order Paper. Similarly, we witnessed efforts by the opposition to stall this bill at the committee stage. Some members have even tried to represent the bill as lacking in consultation with stakeholders, when in fact we have heard, time and time again, the same arguments from the food and advertising industries, which have deployed extensive resources in trying to block this legislation. Industries have had plenty of opportunities to express their concerns regarding this bill, which have been heard and have been taken into account in my version of Bill C-252. Industries would continue to have opportunities to express themselves throughout the regulatory process.

In Canada, we have the chance to have a remarkable consensus across party lines regarding our approach to health. We all believe in the importance of working to ensure the healthiest possible life for every single Canadian, no matter their age or their means. Ultimately, I believe that every member of Parliament has good reasons to support this bill. That is why I would like to say to my colleagues that we should make sure we act as quickly as possible to get this bill passed. It is long overdue, and our children deserve it.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and support this bill at second reading, Bill C-252, which would amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit marketing foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children's diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are under 13 years of age.

Poor nutrition and unhealthy food and beverages are key contributors to poor health in children. Good eating habits and avoiding unhealthy food are key preventative elements of health policy, not only for our children but for generations to come. New Democrats have been calling for a ban on junk food advertising targeted at children for many years. We believe that it is wrong to let wealthy corporations manipulate our children's eating habits, particularly to the detriment of their health.

New Democrats want every child in Canada to develop a healthy relationship to nutrition and the foods they consume. We are calling for the establishment of a national school nutrition program to give every student access to healthy, nutritious food and to make healthy eating a daily lesson for our kids.

The data is clear. Numerous studies have found strong associations between increases in advertising of non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity. One study by Yale University found that children exposed to junk food advertising ate 45% more junk food than children not exposed to such advertisements. In Canada, as much as 90% of the food marketed to children and youth on TV and online is unhealthy.

By way of background, there is strong agreement among leading Canadian pediatric and allied health organizations that the impact of food and beverage marketing is real, significant and harmful to children's development. Marketing to children has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years as well. Today, it is a seamless, sophisticated and often interactive process. The line between ads and children's entertainment has blurred with marketing messages being inserted into the places that children play and learn. Three-quarters of children in Canada are exposed to food marketing while using their favourite social media applications.

Canadians are the second-largest buyers of ultraprocessed foods and drinks in the world, second only to, of course, the Americans. To give members an idea of how epidemic this problem is, nearly one in three Canadian children is overweight or obese. The rise in childhood obesity in recent decades is linked to changes in our eating habits. Overweight children are more likely to develop health problems later in life, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

Canada's New Democrats, as I have said, have advocated for a ban on unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children for a long time. In 2012, my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby introduced legislation to expressly prohibit advertising and promotion for commercial purposes of products, food, drugs, cosmetics or devices directed to children under 13 years of age. As members can see, this is a much broader prohibition that would protect our children not only from unhealthy food but from being preyed upon by multinational corporations who would take advantage of their youth.

Quebec has prohibited commercial advertising that targets children under the age of 13 since 1980. Other jurisdictions have since adopted similar legislation, including Norway, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden. Quebec's restrictions on advertising to children have been shown to have a positive impact on nutrition by reducing fast food consumption by 13%. This translates to 16.8 million fewer fast food meals sold in that province and an estimated 13.4 million fewer fast food calories consumed per year. Quebec also has the lowest rates of obesity among five- to 17-year-olds as well as the highest rates of vegetable and fruit consumption in Canada.

In 2016, Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced the child health protection act that was S-228. That legislation would have banned the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages in a manner that is primarily directed at children under 17 years of age, a higher age than this bill would set. At the House Standing Committee on Health, the Liberals amended Bill S-228 to reduce the age limit from under 17 years old to under 13 years old and they added a five-year legislative review.

Although Bill S-228 passed third reading in both the House and the Senate, unfortunately that bill died on the Order Paper when Parliament was dissolved for the 2019 federal election. Again, Bill C-252 is similar to that Senate bill, with the following key differences. Again, the current bill would set the age that would prohibit advertising at under 13 years of age, where the Senate bill was under 17 years of age. There is also a change in definition. The current bill says, “no person shall advertise foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children’s diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are under 13 years of age.” The Senate bill just said, “no person shall advertise unhealthy food in a manner that is directed primarily at children.”

Finally, of course, this bill before us today has, once again, a five-year review that would focus on whether, after this bill became law, there was an increase in the advertising of foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children's diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are 13 to 16 years of age.

I want to pause for a moment there and make a comment on that. There is a healthy debate on this bill about what the proper age should be set at. Again, the Senate bill was more ambitious and said not to let advertisers advertise to children under 17. This is under 13, and one of the concerns, of course, is that advertisers, who are extraordinarily sophisticated as we are talking about large multinational multi-billion dollar conglomerates that make a lot of money peddling chocolate, sugary beverages, etc., to children, will instead shift and focus their advertising on 14- to 17-year-olds. I think this is a healthy way to compromise, by having a study that would monitor it carefully to see if, in fact, that does happen, because if it does then this House could then adjust our legislation in five years on an empirical basis to cure that mischief.

The previous health minister's mandate letter did direct her to “introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children”. The current health minister's 2021 mandate letter instructed him as well to support “restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children.” The Liberal 2021 platform pledged to “Introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children and establish new front-of-package labelling to promote healthy food choices.”

We are happy, then, to see this legislation before the House. Unfortunately, it is done through private members' legislation and not, as stated repeatedly in the mandate letters and in the Liberal platform, by the government itself. No matter; as long as it passes, that is what is important. However, it is curious that the current Liberal government has not kept its word in its mandate letters and in its platform, and introduced legislation itself.

Industry organizations, including the Association of Canadian Advertisers, the Canadian Beverage Association, Food and Consumer Products of Canada and Restaurants Canada, have called legislation like this a “significant overreach”. They claim that legislation like this would lead to serious consequences for the economy. On the other side of the coin, Canadian pediatric, child advocacy and other health experts are strong supporters of this bill.

New Democrats want to stand unambiguously on the side of child health and welfare, not corporate profits. We want children to develop a healthy relationship to nutrition and the foods they consume, rather than being manipulated by sophisticated marketing campaigns, especially when it would affect their health.

Over 120 organizations and children's health advocates across Canada have called on the current government to restrict food and beverage marketing to kids. The Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition is governed by 12 steering committee member organizations. They range from the Heart and Stroke Foundation to the Childhood Obesity Foundation, the Canadian Dental Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, Diabetes Canada and Dieticians of Canada.

The pervasive marketing of unhealthy foods is a contributing factor to the growth of childhood and adolescent disease. Sex and gender differences come into play in the design of and responses to these marketing strategies, contributing to the perpetuation of stereotyped behaviour and generating disparities in food choices and health. This particularly hurts girls.

Studies have demonstrated that this intervention, as is presented in this bill, would result in both overall cost savings and improved long-term health outcomes, with the greatest benefits of all to the most socio-economically disadvantaged.

Let us do this for our children.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to Bill C-252, legislation that seeks to amend the Food and Drugs Act, and more specifically seeks to impose an advertising ban on unhealthy food and beverage products to youth under the age of 13. This bill is substantively similar to Bill S-228 from the 42nd Parliament, which I similarly opposed.

The objective of the bill is a laudable one. After all, obesity is a real problem in Canada among young people. Recent data indicates that approximately 30% of children and youth between the ages of five and 17 are obese. That is not good. That is a problem, and it is one that we must work toward addressing.

The issue with the bill is not its laudable objective, but rather that it seeks a simplistic solution to a complex problem, that of childhood obesity, for which there are many underlying factors. It is truly a multidimensional challenge.

The idea proposed in the bill is not a new one. Similar advertising bans have been implemented in other jurisdictions, including in the province of Quebec. In the case of Quebec, the law has been on the books for more than 40 years.

Unfortunately, the data from jurisdictions that have such bans in place demonstrate that the intended purpose of reducing childhood obesity has not borne out. In the province of Quebec, it has been on the books for 40 years. What has happened in the last 40 years? Childhood obesity has gone up, not down. If it worked, we would expect to see it go down, but that has not happened.

Looking at other jurisdictions within Canada, we see that these types of bans have not had their intended impact. We can look at a province like Quebec, which has a ban, and provinces like Alberta, which do not. For example, the Canadian community health survey indicates that my province of Alberta has a similar level of childhood obesity as that of the province of Quebec.

Given that this has been tried and tested in other jurisdictions and it has not worked, it is difficult to see how implementing this nationally would suddenly work. I do not believe it will. The evidence is not there, and on that basis alone, this bill merits to be defeated.

Let me stress that this is not just a bill with a laudable objective and with a solution that has not worked, but maybe it would work, so let us give it a try. No. This bill, if passed, would have very serious repercussions to key sectors of the economy, including reducing the GDP, costing jobs and, ironically, adversely impacting youth amateur sport.

With respect to some of the economic concerns of this bill, this bill has the potential to have major ramifications when it comes to food and beverage advertising writ large. That is a result of vague language in the bill. More specifically, the bill would seek to ban advertising directed primarily at persons under the age of 13.

The bill says advertising “that is directed primarily at”. What does “directed primarily at” mean? The bill does not specify. It does not provide any clarity. Instead, it is left to regulators at Health Canada to fill in the blanks. That simply is not good enough.

It is not good enough that we would be voting on a bill that seeks to impose an advertising ban without understanding exactly what it is we are banning. When the previous iteration of the bill, Bill S-228, was studied, key stakeholders, including the Retail Council of Canada and Restaurants Canada, expressed concern that the bill could result in a sweeping ban of all food and beverage advertising directed at adults and children alike.

This concern was informed by indications that Health Canada would be taking a broad view of interpreting what constitutes child-directed marketing. To mitigate against unintended consequences, these and other stakeholders put forward recommendations to tighten up the language and incorporate more precise language into the bill. That precise language recommended by key stakeholders remains absent from this version of the bill, so the very issue that was raised with respect to Bill S-228 remains a problem with respect to Bill C-252.

With respect to amateur sport, the bill before us could prevent, or at the very least diminish, corporate partnership and sponsorship of youth amateur sport. There are sponsorships, such as Timbits hockey, Timbits soccer, and McDonald's Canada, which sponsors more than 50,000 kids to play hockey, that could be shut down as a result of the bill because of the broad definition of “advertisement” under the Food and Drugs Act coupled with the vague language in the bill. Indeed, when Bill S-228 was studied, Hockey Canada and Canada Soccer expressed real concern that millions of sponsorship dollars for their organizations would dry up.

It is a bit ironic that a bill that seeks to reduce childhood obesity would have the effect of taking away programs and opportunities for young people to participate in amateur sport, which is a tried, tested and proven way to stay healthy and avoid obesity, in contrast to the bill before us, which is a tried, tested and failed way to reduce childhood obesity.

In closing, Bill C-252 is just another Liberal government-knows-best bill. It would put power in the hands of regulators instead of putting power in the hands of parents. We on this side of the House, as Conservatives, trust parents not bureaucrats to make the best decisions, including health decisions for their children. For that and the reasons I have outlined, I will be opposing the bill.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill C-252. This is a well-intentioned bill that is trying to address a serious issue in Canada, obesity in children.

In one of the previous Parliaments, I was actually the health critic when the former version of this bill came forward from the Senate. We know that Senator Nancy Greene Raine had brought that bill forward. In fact, she received a bit of teasing about it. As many of us will know, she was quite a famous skier but did a lot of promotional work for Mars bars, so when she came with Bill S-228, there was some teasing going on.

However, this is truly a very serious issue, because almost a third of children in Canada are obese, and it is just getting worse. Certainly, the pandemic did not make things better. I think we would all agree, even for those of us who are not children anymore, that we probably spent too much time at home snacking and putting on weight.

The bill is trying to address reducing obesity in children by controlling marketing that is intended specifically for children. If we look at places that have put this in place, there are a lot of them. Quebec was mentioned. Chile has had this program in place for a long time. The problem is that it is not working. That is the biggest problem. What happens is that they are measuring success by the number of packages they are able to have altered so that they are not directing it toward children, when, really, the measure we are looking for here is a reduction in the obesity of children. This is important because obesity is not just a serious health issue, but a cause of death.

If we look at obesity, we know that some of the related health problems are high blood pressure or heart disease. This is the number one killer of Canadians, heart disease and stroke. Type 2 diabetes is another very serious impact. Right now, there are 11 million Canadians who have diabetes or prediabetes. It is very well known that, through a mixture of diet and exercise, many Canadians who develop type 2 diabetes could have been prevented from doing that. There are many other health conditions, such as liver disease, sleep apnea and joint problems, not to mention the emotional toll. In school, we can imagine the teasing and bullying that often accompany those who are obese. This can be permanently damaging as well.

I am definitely very supportive of addressing obesity in children. It has actually tripled in the last 30 years in Canada. It is truly at an epidemic stage. The problem is that, in 2012, Quebec put in similar legislation to this and it still had a 30% increase in obesity over this length of time.

I think that if we look at the root causes of obesity and what medical science is saying about it, it is really saying that there are four factors that we need to address, or four factors that are the most important.

One is genetics and, really, we cannot do much about that. We are sort of born into the family that we are born into. I know of families who are all skinny forever and they eat way more than I am able to eat. Certainly I am envious, but I can do nothing about my own genetics, so I think that is not something the government can control.

Metabolism is another one, obviously, the metabolic rate. Generally, men have a higher metabolic rate than women, so that can be a factor. Of course, those with thyroid issues can also have metabolic impacts. Again, there is not much the government can do there.

Then there is lifestyle, such as diet and physical activity. This is a place where the government really can make some impacts. There have been studies around the world and if we look at places that have the best outcomes and the lowest obesity rates in the world, those are places like Denmark, France, Ireland, Latvia and Norway. If we take a look at what they are doing that is working, we see that there is more walking and cycling going on in many of these European countries than we have here. There is an effort in the schools to serve smaller portions of food, food that is not fried and has more vegetables. In France, they have three recesses to run around, as well as the weekly gym classes, so they are incorporating that into schools.

I certainly remember when I was in school. Keep in mind it was a different time back then, so I am more aged than many members here in the House, but in terms of diet, our household was not stellar. There were Frosted Flakes, Lucky Charms, Cocoa Puffs and Alphabits for breakfast. My mother used to let us dip our toast in maple syrup. We ate baloney sandwiches on white bread and Kraft Dinner, Beefaroni and things like that. Sprinkle sandwiches were a thing when I was growing up, so none of that diet would be considered a healthy diet today.

At the time, there were no obese kids anywhere to be found in our area because we were running around all day. We were running around at school playing soccer. After school we were playing hide-and-seek, running to the park and jumping off the monkey bars. It was all about activity. There was a specific effort called Participaction at the time that was designed to get kids moving and to get kids active. I definitely think that is something worth focusing on, in addition to the move toward healthier foods.

Environment is the fourth factor that experts are saying is important. We have talked about the environment at school and the things that can be done there. Access to sports facilities, and getting people involved in sports, and access to nutritious food are important things. Right now, the affordability of life is impacting that. That is something that the government can have an impact on. If we think about it, the increases in the carbon tax have caused home heating prices to go up, gas prices to go up, and food prices, especially fresh produce, to go up beyond what those living on lower and maybe fixed incomes can actually afford. This is something that would translate into people not eating as nutritious a diet, so that is something that the government can impact by improving the affordability of life.

At the same time, because of the squeeze on everybody's pocketbooks, a lot of the money in the child tax benefit that we expect would be used to get kids into sports and help them to afford those things is actually being used to help pay the bills. The sports tax credit that we used to have was a specific thing that motivated people to get their kids involved in sports. Those are ideas that the government can implement that can have a really big impact.

In terms of the unintended negative consequences when the discussion came to committee in the last go-round on this bill, there were a lot of organizations like Tim Hortons and McDonald's and whatnot that sponsored children's sports efforts. There was a desire to have an exemption to make sure they would not be punished but could continue to market their products, which some would consider to be unhealthy. When the bill comes before committee, it would be worth looking at those exemptions.

The other discussion was about enforcement. All of the regimes that have put bills like this in place have had difficulty enforcing them, and it has become that much more difficult now that we are in a digital age. Kids have access to the Internet. It is very difficult to control what country they are viewing content from, so the enforcement part of this is a difficult one as well.

There are those who will point out that parental responsibility is important: that parents making healthy choices and helping their children learn to make healthy choices is what this ought to be about. There are those who will say that everybody needs to have their freedom. For me, if chips are in a dark bag with a skull and crossbones on it, I would probably still eat them, but people should have individual choice. There is something to that, and I think about everything in moderation. That said, I do not think that these measures have been effective, but we need to do everything possible to reduce obesity in our country and help our children.

[Patricia Lattanzio, Liberal, Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC]

Madam Speaker, I shall proceed. As per the FDA, “food” includes beverages, and “advertisement” is defined in broad terms, including any representation by any means by promoting directly or indirectly the sale of products controlled by legislation.

The notion of advertisement is media neutral, which encompasses the latest technologies and evolving methods.

Clause 4 of Bill C-252 adds a new section to the FDA, entitled “Advertising directed at children”, whereby provisions and regulations will define the marketing and advertising mechanisms that would be prohibited and would be part of the bill.

Clause 7.3 allows, after five years of the adoption of Bill C-252, a review mechanism, possible by a committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament, in order to evaluate if there has been an increase in advertising of foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children's diets in the next group of kids, that is persons who are between 13 and 16 years of age.

Lastly, clause 6 of the bill stipulates that the act would come into force one year after receiving royal assent.

By supporting Bill C-252, we are ensuring that marketing and advertising cannot bypass parents and target children directly.

To conclude, we all have an opportunity to advocate through meaningful changes to our food environment. The government has taken important steps to create conditions to make the healthier choice the easier choice for all Canadians, but still, more work remains to be done.

We are committed to advancing the remaining key healthy eating strategy initiatives to further improve the state of healthy eating in Canada and have a meaningful impact on the long-term health of Canadians. This includes taking actions to support children's healthy eating habits to mitigate risks of obesity and diet-related chronic diseases. A healthy population, including healthy children, is not only key to reducing the likelihood of serious health problems, thus requiring fewer health care services, but would also contribute to a healthy economy as well.

Some parliamentarians may recall that a similar bill, Bill S-228, was initially tabled in the Senate in 2016, spearheading the approach to introducing restrictions on advertising and marketing to children. It had passed in the Senate, was debated and amended in this chamber, and was subsequently returned to the Senate, but never reached the final vote before the dissolution of Parliament in 2019.

In the meantime, industry stakeholders have taken initiatives to tackle the issue of advertising to children, but their attempts at self-regulation have been on a voluntary basis only and lack proper monitoring. As a result, Canadian children continue to be exposed to these ads.

It is worth noting that restricting marketing to children has become mandatory in countries such as Portugal, Mexico and Chile, and Argentina and Spain are in the process of advancing new legislative regulatory initiatives. More importantly, the U.K. tabled legislation imposing restrictions on advertising of HFSS products, those that are high in fat, salt and sugar, in July 2021. It received royal assent just last Thursday, April 28, and will come into effect in less than a year, on January 1, 2023.

Dear colleagues, Canada must follow suit. The issue on hand is non-partisan, and I hope to count on the support of all parliamentarians in this House, as well as all senators, for the adoption of Bill C-252, which will benefit our children and future generations. I would like to thank the researchers, especially Dr. Monique Potvin Kent, la Coalition Poids, the Quebec coalition, the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition, the allied health agencies, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada and the Childhood Obesity Foundation, who have worked and supported the objectives of Bill C-252 and of its prior version.

I look forward to the final implementation of Bill C-252.

Accessible Canada Act

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-81, an act to ensure a barrier-free Canada.

I want to say at the outset that I am pleased to see that the minister has brought forward this bill. I have absolutely no doubt about her sincerity in trying to improve the lives of people with disabilities. I too am aligned in that direction. I have listened carefully to the debate we have had so far talking about how to get people with disabilities the same rights and responsibilities as other citizens, how to make sure they are able to live independently and how to make sure they are free from violence. I am aligned in all those things. I think I have heard that all the parties in the House are aligned in how we improve the lives of people with disabilities, and what we can we do with this bill to make sure it is effective.

When it comes to deciding to tackle an issue, with my engineering perspective I will ask what it is we are trying to do. I think it is trying to get people to be able to live independently, to have the same rights and responsibilities as others and to be free from violence. What is the plan to make that happen? What mechanisms will we put in place in order to make sure the money or the incentives flow so the behaviours of people will take root?

In my speech, I am going to talk a bit about what has happened in the past and what the Conservatives did. Then I will talk a little about the Liberal record. Then I will talk about the situation in my own riding, some ideas about possible solutions and some concerns I have with the legislation as it is written today.

I know things were going on to help improve accessibility when the Conservatives were in power. Although I was not here myself, I saw all the announcements and improvements happening in my own riding of Sarnia—Lambton, where multiple millions of dollars were spent to upgrade different buildings to ensure they were accessible for people in wheelchairs and to put different aids in place to help people with disabilities. I note that was going on.

At the same time, we have heard other members in the House talk about the Conservative Party's introduction of the registered disability savings plan in 2008. This plan is quite a rich plan. I looked at the details of it when we were addressing an issue that I will talk about later. However, this is a plan where a disabled person can put in up to $5,000 a year and the government will match it threefold. That program has been going on for almost 10 years. Although it has not come to the point where people are collecting from the program, it is a very well thought out way of ensuring people with disabilities will have the wherewithal to retire in dignity.

I see that and see the efforts of the member for Carleton, who brought forward a very intelligent bill aimed at addressing the problem people with disabilities have when they want to go work and their benefits are clawed back. In some cases, the money they are getting from other disability programs is clawed back. I was really disappointed in the extreme that every Liberal in the place rejected that private member's bill. That bill would have been such a help to people with disabilities. We talked as well about the member for Calgary Shepard bringing forward a private member's bill on rare diseases, which was also rejected. I just heard a member from the NDP talking about her bill being rejected.

This is where one really has to question people's motives. When people say one thing and do another, they are likely to be called hypocrites. When I look at the Liberals, I see there is a lot of talking about helping people with disabilities, but then we look at the record of what has happened since the election in 2015. The first member who had the portfolio to do something here on accessibility, or helping the disabled, was the member for Calgary Centre. It was in the mandate letter, yet nothing was done. That member is also a person who has lived experience as a person with disabilities, but nothing was done. It was not a priority.

It was then passed along to the member for Etobicoke North. However, I do sympathize with her. She is the Minister of Science and has a lot of very important things to do which, of course, I, as a fellow science person, cannot criticize. Again, nothing really came forward.

Then when I looked at the bill to see what was in it, I thought that perhaps there would be a lot of infrastructure money. We know there are a lot of buildings that are not accessible and they need a lot of money in order to repair them so they will be accessible. In some cases, those could be incentives. There is a number of ways that could be done, but nothing in the bill talks about that.

In fact, the bill has sort of an element of what the minister's powers would be. It has an element of a standards organization that can talk about what the right thing to do would be. There are mechanisms in the bill to complain. There are mechanisms in it to inspect. However, there are no action words. There is really no doing of anything. It is going to be consulting and spending a few more years to try to figure out what we should do, when we already know some of the things we should do. Some of the things we should do involves investing the same kind of infrastructure money that was previously done under the Conservatives.

I have heard the government speak about the $180 billion of infrastructure money that it will invest over the next number of years. In fact, the Liberals got elected on a promise to spend very small deficits in order to put infrastructure in place. That was going to create jobs and drive the economy and repair our roads and bridges, etc. None of that ever happened. My point is that there was a lot of infrastructure money that was planned to be spent. Even though the government has had difficulty getting that accomplished, as I think it has only spent about 40% of what it planned, it has still racked up way more deficit but not on the intended things.

There is an opportunity for the government to do something immediately with respect to infrastructure to improve accessibility. Those are things where the building codes exist today. The specifications exist today. The standards exist today. No work needs to be done to consult anybody on that or have new standard organizations to do it. This already exists. All it really needs is political will to put that money in place.

Instead, the government has basically a different political will, if we look at where the billions of dollars that the government is spending is going: $4.2 billion on foreign aid; $2.65 billion on climate change support for foreign countries like China and India; $5 billion for the Syrian refugees; $1 billion for the asylum seekers; and multiple billions of other things that are spread around the world but not for Canadians and not for the disabled. When we look at where time, energy and money is put, that determines what our values are or what our priorities are.

It has been three years before seeing any kind of legislation and the legislation does not have any strong actions in it. It is more of “we'll put structures in place to consult”. I really question whether there is enough political will to achieve good outcomes here.

As I mentioned, I have some good examples from my riding that I can share. I know that the previous member of Parliament, Pat Davidson, was very active. She really cared about improving accessibility. Elevators were put in multiple buildings. We had accessibility all over the county of Lambton. As well, we have upgraded many of the schools to be accessible.

The Sarnia Arena is going under remediation. I was there for an event this past weekend and all of the entrances and front sidewalks, etc. have been improved for accessibility and all of the standards have been met.

Not everything is wonderful in my riding. We have a situation in Port Lambton where the post office, which is a Crown corporation and is under the legislation being proposed, is not accessible. It has been there for a long period of time and was grandfathered, but it is not accessible. We are having a municipal election and people are going to have to go to Canada Post to vote. In Port Lambton that is pretty much all there is. However, it is not accessible. People have known about it for a long time. My office has called and nagged and has been told that they will get to it. However, no one has got to it.

Here is an example where the solution is known. It just needs to get done and it needs to get done in a hurry. Again, where is the will to force these solutions to happen?

I have a tremendously great example of a fellow named Dan Edwards in my riding. Unfortunately, he had an accident which rendered him unable to walk and left him in a wheelchair. He has been super inspirational in the riding. He does fundraising for mental health efforts and different things.

This is one of the things he did. We have a fundraiser in Sarnia—Lambton called the Dream Home. It is a fundraiser for the hospital. He decided to get together with the architect who was going to build the latest Dream Home for a lottery to raise money for the hospital and decided to make it a visitable home. A visitable home is a home where any person in a wheelchair would be fully able to access everything, from cooking to the entrances. Everything is ground floor. It is very well done.

I had the opportunity to tour the home and see what he and architect had designed together. He shared with me a lot of information about the very many plans like this. It is quite possible. We have these solutions that we could put in place to allow people to live independently. That would be great. Again, money and political will is some of what is required here.

The other piece of advice I would give with respect to solutions and rolling out the infrastructure money is to ensure that it is well-distributed. Of the $180 billion that was announced over 10 years, only $2 billion of that was earmarked for rural communities. When we look at improving accessibility, I think we will find that there is even more need in the rural communities. In many cases, they have grandfathered their buildings. There are more older buildings, and they have not been made accessible. As well, there is less of a population base to bring in the revenue to do these things of their own volition. That needs to be considered.

With respect to some concerns about the legislation, $290 million has been proposed. I heard discussion earlier about 5,000 new public servants. I was not clear if that was 5,000 public servants with disabilities who would be hired while attrition happened, so over time, or whether that was 5,000 additional public service employees. Of course, I would be opposed to increasing the size of government.

Another concern I have with the bill has to do with leaving things for the regulations. As a parliamentarian, and a detailed-oriented one, I do not like to leave things to chance. I have seen before, under some of the legislation that the Liberals have brought forward, where it is all left to regulation.

With Bill S-5, for example, the Liberals decided, from the plain packaging and the vaping, they were going to leave a lot of it to the regulations. We were approving a bill, and as the point was made, that we really did not know what the final outcomes would be. We were going to leave it to the regulation.

In the example of Bill S-5, the Liberals want to go to a plain package. The dimensions of the plain package are produced by machines that are obsolete, that are no longer owned by anybody who is legitimately in the business. The Liberals have given businesses six months to convert.

They would have to redesign the old, obsolete machines and get them built somewhere, and that is certainly an 18-month deal, or they would have to be shut down altogether in order to achieve this plain packaging goal, or let them use the existing size. That is an example of where when things are left to regulations, they do not always get done the way that we might want. That is why parliamentary oversight is important.

Bill C-45, the cannabis legislation, is another example where the Liberals decided to leave a lot of the details to the regulation. The problem is that the regulations did not come out quickly enough to address all the unanswered questions that were still out there. Now we are left with a situation where we will legalize on October 17, and there is still a huge number of things that are not addressed in the regulations. Again, there is no parliamentary oversight to talk about them.

This point came up again on Bill S-228 with the regulation that we most recently talked about, which is the one that prohibits the marketing of unhealthy foods to children. Instead of defining what the healthy foods are, the comment was that it would be left to the regulations.

As parliamentarians, we have a right to know what that list will be and have some opportunity to object or give input if we do not agree. By leaving it to the regulations, we would be passing a blank bill that says we would be doing something. We have no idea what the something is and we have no input on the something, but we are expected to vote in favour of it. I have an issue with that.

When it comes to accessibility, we have been much too slow in moving forward and addressing these things. For example, there are a lot of the grandfathered buildings. My mother is 84 and walks with a rollator. There are a lot of places she cannot go because of staircases or it is too narrow to get through. Something needs to be done there and I look forward to seeing what solutions will be brought forward are.

I will talk a little about some of the things the government could do that would make people have more faith in its wanting to help disabled people.

Members may remember when I was here on a Friday, asking a question about the disability tax credit. Through that whole event, we found out that where 80% of people with type 2 diabetes were previously approved, all of a sudden 80% were disapproved. We raised the concern, and the Liberal government insisted that nothing had changed. Of course, as the scandal went on, it came out that indeed things had changed. There were instructions given to interpret the criteria differently, and it went very broad. It affected not just people with diabetes but people with other disabilities, such as autism and mental disorders like bipolar. It took months and months to get justice for those people. This is what undermines people's faith that the government is sincere in its efforts to improve things for people with disabilities.

I will give members another example. For people with multiple sclerosis, it can be very difficult, because people are not always be at the same degree of wellness. It is sort of intermittent where there may be periods where they cannot work and other times they may be fine.

However, the current EI rules are not flexible enough to allow a person who has MS to be on EI and work intermittently, the same total benefits as someone who takes it consecutively would get. I raised this issue with the Minister of Labour. There is an easy fix there. If 670 hours of eligibility are required and there is a certain amount of hours that people get in benefits, then allow the intermittency. Those are the kinds of things we can do for people who have disabilities to be able to live independently, to work and to engage. We need to do that.

I did take the point that was made earlier that no disability lens was used for the legislation. When we do legislation, we do it with a gender-based lens. Therefore, it is very appropriate here to take that recommendation from the member and put a disability lens in place.

I also do not like the powers to exempt in the bill. I find that when we allow exemptions and have cabinet decide, we get into trouble. We saw this with the carbon tax. The government had the power to exempt and it decided to exempt the largest emitters up to 90% of their emissions. There is an example where having the power to exempt is really not what we want.

In summary, I absolutely want to see persons with disabilities have the independence they need and have the help they need. However, it has to happen faster. I call on the government today to start putting money into infrastructure for accessibility and do the solutions that we already know about, while we craft improvements to the bill.

Cannabis Act

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like to say that this will probably be my last opportunity to speak to Bill C-45, so I want to make sure I give it full coverage.

The government says that the reason it is bringing in this legislation is that what is in place now is not working. What is proposed under Bill C-45 is not going to work either, even with the many amendments that have been brought forward.

What was this bill supposed to do in the first place? If we refer to the purpose of the bill, it is supposed to “protect the health of young persons by restricting their access to cannabis”. We can see right away a couple of things in the bill that are going to put cannabis into the hands of young children. First is clause 8, which would allow young people aged 12 to 17 to have up to five grams of cannabis. That is the wrong message in any universe.

We have talked about home grow and how when people have in excess of 600 grams of cannabis growing in a house, young people are likely to get hold of it, in the same way they get hold of liquor in the liquor cabinet. This is certainly not going to keep cannabis out of the hands of young children.

Furthermore, I would say that if the government has a belief that the systems being put in place in some provinces are going to help out, let me assure the House that Kathleen Wynne put in a process in Ontario of LCBO-type stores and delivery. For people in Sarnia—Lambton, the closest store is in London. If they called their drug dealers today, in about 30 minutes they could have whatever quantity they wanted delivered to their houses for about $7 a gram. The government has proposed a price of $10 a gram, with $1 in tax on top of that. If it thinks that is going to work to displace the organized crime that is in place, it is sadly mistaken.

The other item I want to talk about with respect to youth is the public education that was supposed to happen. The Canadian Medical Association has been clear that among young people under the age of 25 who use cannabis, 30% will have severe mental illness issues, such as psychotic disorders, bipolar, anxiety, and depression, and 10% will become addicted. Where is the public education on that? Where is the message to tell young people today that this is harmful? That message is not out there. Young people are saying, “It's no more harmful than alcohol.” They are not getting the message.

The only public campaign that has been done was done by the Minister of Public Safety, who did a brief TV commercial to let kids know that they should not drive while they are drug-impaired, which, while true, is totally inadequate to have the kind of public education that was recommended by Colorado and the State of Washington. Colorado did $10 million worth of public education for a population that is lot smaller than what Canada has. The State of Washington did the same.

We are certainly not going to achieve the first objective of keeping it out of the hands of children. What about some of the others? Will we provide for only the legal production of cannabis “to reduce illicit activities in relation to cannabis”? If we look at all the places that have legalized marijuana, we see that in Colorado, which allowed home grow, it still has significant issues with organized crime. The police have a lot of nuisance complaints, and there are entire residential neighbourhoods that smell. There are lots of problems there.

We can look at the State of Washington, which decided that it would not allow home grow, except in the case of medicinal marijuana. It was able, in three years, to reduce organized crime to less than 20%. Because it had set the age at 21, it was able to make it difficult for young people to actually get hold of marijuana. It is unlikely that 21-year-olds would be sharing with 17-year-olds, unlike with the legislation we have before us.

Another problem that has not been addressed by the government with respect to home grow concerns property-owner rights. In Ontario and Quebec, once this legislation is passed, property owners would be unable to prevent people from growing marijuana in their houses. For those who are maybe less experienced, when growing marijuana, there can often be a mould problem in the house. I have been approached by the real estate associations, which have asked questions. Currently, when there is a home grow in a house, and the house is sold, they have to do a total remediation for the mould and a recertification of the house. They want to know if they are going to have to do that for all the home grows. That question has not been answered by the government.

The other question that has not been answered by the government has to do with the impact at the border. I live in a border community. Conversations have been had with Homeland Security and with border officials. They have said, “Canada is changing its law. We are not changing our law federally. It still is illegal federally, and we are not adding resources because of Canada's law.” Dogs will sniff. If people have second-hand smoke residue on their clothes, if a kid borrowed the car and happened to be out with other kids who were smoking marijuana, if people smoke themselves and do not happen to have any with them but have the residue, the dogs will sniff it out, and people will be pulled over into secondary, and they will go through the standard procedure there. The problem is that there is not enough secondary for the number of people who will be pulled over. When asked what they will do then, they said they would put a cone in the lane the person is in and perform the secondary inspection there, which will back everything up. They have informed us to expect an increase of up to 300% in wait times at the border.

The government has known about this for two and a half years. It has done nothing to establish any kind of agreement with the government of the U.S., other than to say to make sure that people tell the truth. That, of course, is great advice, but it will not prevent the wait times and the problems that are going to be seen at the border.

Furthermore, the government has not educated young people to understand that if they are caught with marijuana in the U.S., it is a lifetime ban from that country. The U.S. is not the only country that will ban people for the possession of marijuana. There are a lot of countries in the world. Young people who intend to have a global career are not being informed about this, and there could be very adverse consequences from the public education that has not happened.

This bill was also supposed to “reduce the burden on the criminal justice system”. Unfortunately, we know that the justice minister is behind the eight ball in terms of putting judges in place. She is about 60 short. Because of that, we see murderers and rapists going free due to Jordan's principle. If there were an intent on the part of the Liberals to try to clear the backlog and make sure that those who have committed more serious crimes receive punishment, one of the things they could have done, as was suggested many times, even since last September, was let those who have marijuana charges drop off the list and get out of the queue so that the more serious offences could be prosecuted. Of course, the Liberals have done nothing with respect to that, and so again, they are not going to actually offload them from the system. In fact, there would be more criminal charges under this legislation than previously existed, because now, if people had five plants instead of four, that would be an offence. Now, if they had 31 grams instead of 30, that would be an offence. Now there would be offences for transferring it to younger people. There would be a lot of offences that did not exist previously, so definitely, we will not achieve that goal.

There was the goal to ”provide access to a quality-controlled supply of cannabis”. Now that they would allow home grow, and everyone is going to be doing their own thing, there would actually be no management of the quality control of this product. That is also not acceptable.

Some of the other unanswered questions we see have to do with workplace safety. This was raised when the marijuana issue was studied by the original council. There was testimony brought to committee. There were questions raised all over the place. How are we going to protect the employers, who have the liability, and the other employees, who are worried? They are worried about people who may come to work drug impaired. We do not want to be flying with Air Canada and have the pilot impaired. We do not want to have people operating nuclear plants who may be drug impaired.

Bill C-46 was supposed to be the companion legislation to Bill C-45. Bill C-46 was going to allow mandatory and random testing on the roadside, because, as people know, it is dangerous to smoke drugs and then drive a car. That was going to open the door, then, for people to say that if it is dangerous to smoke drugs and drive a car, perhaps it is also dangerous to then drive a plane or drive a train or operate a nuclear plant, or any of these other things. The question of workplace safety and how we are going to protect and what legislation is going into place is a total blank space.

We have not looked to our neighbours to the south that have legalized and have both mandatory and random testing in place. I worked on many projects, and I actually had an office in the States at one point in time, so I know that American employers are able to screen people before they hire them. They are able to mandatory test them, and they are able to random test them. The government has totally lacked leadership in addressing the issue of workplace safety, etc.

With respect to the actual amendments that have come, some were good and some were not good. One amendment that was brought would allow 18-year-olds to share their marijuana or allow parents in a home to share their marijuana. I am glad the government decided not to accept that one.

I am still concerned about the fact that there is even marijuana in the house. However, if that amendment was accepted it definitely would not have not been keeping marijuana out of the hands of young children.

One of the amendments that they did not accept had to do with the banning of promotional things like T-shirts, caps, and flags that would have a cannabis symbol on them. The government did not accept this amendment from the Senate. I am very concerned about that.

There are a lot of Canadians out there who are worried that when marijuana is legalized in Canada they are going to use Canada Day flags that have cannabis on them. Everybody will have a T-shirt with cannabis on it. That will be disgusting. It will absolutely denigrate our country and the people who have served our country and made Canada a proud country. It will deface that. The government has allowed people to continue to have that kind of paraphernalia by refusing the language here. It is total hypocrisy because under Bill S-228, which talks about prohibiting unhealthy advertising to children, we would not want to see pop or something like that on a T-shirt or a flag. However, with cannabis, it is okay. I am totally opposed to that.

Another thing that the government should have taken into account was the amendment that was brought on capping the potency of THC. We have heard reports from all over Canada, as people are increasingly trying marijuana for the first time or experiencing B.C. bud, which purportedly has one of the highest THC contents and a lot of potency, that people are presenting at the emergency wards with uncontrollable vomiting due to THC poisoning. Knowing that a part of the intent of this bill is to protect the health of Canadians and of youth, I cannot understand why the government would not recognize that there needs to be some control on the potency of things that are out in the marketplace.

Some of the amendments were compassionate and talked about giving people more time to pay their fines. I thought that was good that the government accepted those. I also thought it was good that they would, for young people, ages 12 to 17, who were experiencing an offence, look at ticketed offences, which is something that we would have supported, and restorative justice options.

If we look to countries that are doing the best job of intervening and helping people to get off drugs, look to Portugal. If anyone is found in possession of drugs there, they are given an intervention with a medical person, a psychiatrist, and a legal person. They then try to figure out what the root cause is of why these people are self-medicating or why are they becoming addicted, and what can be done to help get them off of it, in terms of mental health therapies or drug addiction therapies, etc. We need to look at this whole thing.

The other part that I think is unfortunate is that the indigenous people have not been adequately consulted. I was very disappointed to find that in September of last year, when we first heard at committee from Chief Day and from the Métis nation, they said they had not been adequately consulted. It is disheartening to hear that again when this went before the Senate, the same message came out that they had not been adequately consulted, and that they wanted to have the ability within their own communities to define whether or not cannabis would be allowed. Apparently under federal law, it was clarified to them that if it is a federal right of Canadians to possess cannabis, then it is not something that they would be able to go against. There was some resistance about that based on the sovereignty of the indigenous peoples. I think that was not resolved to their satisfaction.

It is worrisome that the government continues to rush ahead. It says that this is the most important relationship, the nation-to-nation relationship, yet it is willing to go and throw gasoline on a fire in terms of moving ahead when it has been asked not to do so.

Some of the other questions that arose at committee that really have not been adequately answered have to do with a lot of the detailed specifics about who is going to pay. Municipalities are saying there will be a cost to them to implement it, but they have not been included in the cost breakdown or the agreements that have happened. That is of concern. There have also been concerns raised by people who currently are consuming medical marijuana, and their understanding is that they are going to be paying tax on that.

Typically, in Canada, prescription medicines are not taxed. Therefore, as long as people have a prescription from a doctor for their medicinal marijuana, my expectation would be that it would not be taxed. However, that is not what the government is saying. Also, there is language in the budget bill that is a little suspicious, which states it would exempt people from paying tax on medicinal marijuana that has a drug identification number. The problem with that is that there are no medications that have a drug identification number because there are so many different components in marijuana that the companies have not been able to spend the research dollars required to characterize them or to effectively control the quality of them so that they could acquire a number like that. Therefore, that is a meaningless promise, for sure.

There were some amendments that were brought to bring this legislation in line with the tobacco legislation. I am in favour of having those things aligned. However, it seems unusual that the government would be spending $80 million to get people to stop smoking and then $800 million to get people to start smoking marijuana, especially when the Minister of Health just stood up and talked about how the government knows there are harmful effects.

One of the things I find very interesting, from a timing point of view, is that today Health Canada took the harmful impacts of cannabis off of its website. That was something that had been on the website. I had someone that brought it to my notice, and sent me a screenshot of what used to be there and a screenshot of what is not there now. It is very interesting that on the day that the Liberals want to see this legislation pass into law, it would suddenly take off of the website the information that shows there are harmful effects from cannabis not only to young people but also others.

Therefore, I would request that the government not hide things. Rather, it should try to be open and transparent, as it says it is always trying to be, and put that information back on the website. Every place that has legalized marijuana has said that one of the most important things to do is to invest in public education, and target that education not just to young people so that they understand the harmful effects this would have on their brains, but also to adults and parents who can influence young people, and the general public so that they can understand as well.

I am very concerned about some of the unintended consequences that will happen as a result of this legislation. I know there are people already smoking marijuana in Canada today. However, when it becomes legal, there will be many more who will decide to try it. They may not be informed about what the impact will be when they cross the border or what the impacts might be on their mental health or that of their children. They may not understand what the health impacts will be for them. They may not understand the ramifications with respect to their place of work and how they are going to impact both their employer and those who work around them.

That said, I am very opposed to the legalization of marijuana, which I have said on many occasions, not just because it is bad for people but because this bill has so many holes in it and so many unanswered questions, and there will be so many bad, unintended consequences for Canadians, that it will be left to the Conservative Party, when we come to victory in 2019, to clean up the mess made by the current government's moving forward in this rushed and irresponsible fashion to implement this bill.

This bill will absolutely not keep marijuana out of the hands of young children. It will not get organized crime out of this business. It will not unload our criminal justice system. It certainly will not provide access to a quality-controlled supply.

What we can expect is that on Canada Day there will be a lot of people out with their T-shirts on, totally insulting those Canadians who are proud of our country and who are not in agreement, and there are a lot of Canadians who are not in agreement with this legislation.

Health

[Bill Casey, Liberal, Cumberland—Colchester, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 16th report of the Standing Committee on Health, entitled “A Study on the Status of Antimicrobial Resistance in Canada and Related Recommendations”.

The sense of urgency with respect to this issue was a really big surprise to me. We heard from professionals in the health care industry about the ineffectiveness of antibiotics and the seriousness of this issue, and that unless something is done it will harm a lot of the great work that has been done in research in the health industry.

I also have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 17th report of the Standing Committee on Health in relation to Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children).

The committee has studied the bill and has decided to report the bill back to the House with amendments.

This was an interesting study. Members of all parties shared their expertise on this issue, and we feel we have improved the bill somewhat.

[Ginette Petitpas Taylor, Liberal, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for his work on the health committee and on Bill S-228.

Over the past year, we have launched our healthy eating strategy to make the healthy choice the easiest choice for all Canadians. As part of the strategy, we are updating Canada's food guide, restricting marketing to kids, and making nutrition labelling easier to use and also to understand. This month I encourage all Canadians to learn more about healthy eating and incorporating healthier choices in their diets.

Message from the Senate

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Anthony Rota]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed the following bill, to which the concurrence of the House is desired: Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children).