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.

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

My other question is about public education. We just got through looking at Bill S-228 to try to prohibit marketing of unhealthy foods to children. It seems to me that foods that are high in sugar or potentially high in alcohol would not be good for kids. Would you agree with that? If so, what type of public education campaign is Health Canada going to take on to make sure that children are aware of the hazards of these kinds of products?

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

According to my sources, guarana is banned in the U.S. I will check my sources again. And if you could give me your sources, that would be good because it would prevent me from doing more extensive research.

The tactic was clearly to mask the quantity of alcohol and its effect, particularly the taste. So a larger quantity can be consumed more quickly. The same expression exists in English; the Americans call it

“blackout in a can”.

How is it possible to find this kind of product when its effects are being masked? I haven't even talked about product advertising yet. We just finished our study of Bill S-228. Advertising for this product is clearly aimed at young people. I have pictures of convenience stores in Quebec where the product can be found. Advertising is certainly not for older adults. The hope is that it will target young adults, but it clearly attracts young adolescents.

How is it that this kind of product is on shelves?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Bill S-228 is done. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I have bad news.

Bill S-228 would come into force two years after royal assent. The amendment tries to replace the timeline with December 31, 2024.

As the House of Commons Procedure and Practice says, in the third edition on page 774:

...an amendment to delay the coming into force is admissible as long as the delay is considered to be reasonable and not seen as an attempt to thwart the implementation of the provisions of the bill.

In the opinion of the chair—and I had a little help—the proposal would drastically increase the time elapsed before the bill would come into force. The amendment is therefore inadmissible.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll call this meeting to order.

We're going to continue first of all with our clause-by-clause consideration of Bill S-228, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 14.

(On clause 5)

I'm going to go right to clause 5. We have no amendments for clause 5—

Yes?

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Yes, I would like to move the following amendment, which is that Bill S-228, in clause 4, be amended by adding after line 28 on page 3 the following:

7.3 Before the fifth anniversary of the day on which sections 7.1 and 7.2 come into force, those sections are to be referred to the committee of the Senate, of the House of Commons or of both Houses of Parliament that may be designated or established for the purpose of reviewing their effect. The review is, in particular, to focus on whether there is an increase in the advertising of unhealthy food in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are at least 13 years of age but under 17 years of age.

This basically provides Parliament a window to review the effectiveness of this to make sure that the exemption of advertising to 13- to 17-year-olds, or the exemption of the prohibition, would not be exploited and there would be increased advertising to this group.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Liberal-1 says that Bill S-228, in clause 2, be amended by replacing line 8, on page 3, with the following:

“children” means persons who are under 13 years of age;

The reason for this is that basically there have been some precedents, and the original wording of “under 17 years of age” might cause some confusion and may perhaps have a charter challenge, with the precedent in Quebec. The reason for this change is that this be aligned with a clause that would likely be charter compliant.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll call the meeting to order.

Senator Greene, if you would like to sit at the table, we'd like to have you.

Welcome to meeting 102 of the Standing Committee on Health, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 14, 2018, we are studying Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children.

For witnesses to help us through the clause-by-clause, we have, from the Department of Health, David K. Lee, Chief Regulatory Officer; Karen McIntyre, Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch; and Hasan Hutchinson, Director General, Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Health Products and Food Branch.

We're going to go right to clause-by-clause.

First of all, we're going to skip clause 1 for the time being. That's the title clause, but we'll return to that and the preamble.

(On clause 2)

We'll go right to clause 2, where we have amendment Liberal-1.

Dr. Eyolfson.

[Dr. Tom Warshawski]

As the chair of the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition, we strongly supported the original bill, S-228, to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children and youth under the age of 17. That's consistent with the World Health Organization's recommendations in the recognition of adolescent vulnerability. I also think it's reasonable for a government to consolidate around protection under the age of 13 for now, spend the next few years looking into how to provide meaningful protection to youth while at the same time not overstepping the ability to market unhealthy food and beverages to adults. It is not that I think that's a good thing to do, but on the other hand you draw the line somewhere; you let people take care of themselves. That's number one.

Number two is I believe in supports. I believe it's an important thing to augment good health. Physical activity is good in itself, irrespective of what it does with weight. I think it's a shame that sporting organizations are forced to make a deal with the devil. That's overstating things, but you don't want to eat or drink that stuff. You don't want kids eating and drinking that stuff. You just need the money to pursue your Olympic dream. I think there have to be other ways to help you in this.

[Ronald Lund, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Advertisers]

Good afternoon. My name is Ron Lund. I'm the president of the Association of Canadian Advertisers. With me is Chris Williams, our vice-president, digital. We thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee.

To begin, I want to underscore that ACA shares and supports the government's objective of reducing childhood obesity. To foster this support, over the last year, ACA has chaired a steering committee comprised of the largest food and beverage manufacturers in Canada, food service and restaurant operations, and their respective national associations.

In fact, for more than a decade, food and beverage manufacturers have strived to reshape the landscape of marketing to children in Canada through the voluntary children's advertising initiative, or CAI, promoting better-for-you dietary choices and healthy lifestyles to children under 12.

As you all know, the CAI is not without its detractors, and we know we can do better. That's why industry supports regulated restrictions for advertising foods and beverages high in sugar, sodium, and/or saturated fats to children, and that these restrictions must apply to all food and beverage companies. While these regulations must be effective, they also must be evidence-based, doable, and targeted to the intended audience and outcome without costly overreach or other unintended consequences.

Even with the promised amendment to Bill S-228 to define children as being under 13, significant amounts of Health Canada's approach will in fact capture a much broader audience than just those under 13, namely adults, with obvious charter implications. Health Canada's proposed definition for “child-directed” is particularly problematic. Quoting from the document, for television, “child-directed” marketing of food and beverages would be prohibited on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., and on weekends from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.

These proposed time bans for television are tantamount to a complete ban of all food and beverage advertising. For example, of the top 100 programs reported in the fall ratings by Numeris, 60% of these programs would be captured under Health Canada's proposal, effectively banning food and beverage advertising to adults.

The definition of “child-directed” for the Internet is similarly ungrounded. The consultation document refers to child-directed marketing on the internet as including “all unhealthy food and beverage marketing on websites, platforms and apps that are popular with children, even when these digital channels are intended for adults.”

Health Canada presupposes that all digital advertising works the same as broadcast. The language as written in fact would preclude most publishers and tech companies from accepting any food or beverage advertising.

A ban on food advertising to adults on television is not, and certainly should not be, the objective of Bill S-228, and exposes the bill to risks of a challenge. There's also a significant economic impact. Bill S-228, in combination with what Health Canada has proposed to support the bill, would have a serious impact on the Canadian economy, and not only on sponsorships, but in many other ways, especially with the struggling broadcast industry.

ACA commissioned an economic analysis that demonstrates the impacts of restriction on food and beverage advertising will be severe. It will reduce advertising revenues by between $860 million to $1.1 billion per year, including by $300 million to the already ailing broadcast industry. It could reduce GDP by between $5.4 billion to $7.28 billion. It could reduce employment by between 22,000 to 30,000 person-years. Wages and salaries earned by Canadians would drop by between $1.6 billion to $2.11 billion per year. Provincial taxes would drop by between $225 million to $300 million, and federal taxes would drop by between $306 million to $407 million.

It's really important to realize that the promised amendment to define children under 13 would actually have very little impact on these numbers.

We have three concerns. Our first concern is with the term “unhealthy” in Bill S-228. It demonizes food and beverages, and is out of step with other Health Canada initiatives. Second, the language and factors to determine whether an advertisement is directed primarily at children is imprecise and opens the door to regulatory overreach. Third, Bill S-228's coming into force provision leaves no time to prepare or execute.

To address these concerns, we have proposed amendments to the bill and we offer a few other proposed partnership solutions as well.

Let me start with the amendments. The actual language is at the end of the document. I had a hard time reading them, so I just summarized them here. We propose the following:

As has already been committed to, amend the age to define children as under 13. Replace all references to “unhealthy food” with the term “foods high in” as a determination by which foods can or cannot be marketed to children under 13. Right now under Bill S-228, positively regarded food products such as apple juice, cheese, and yogourt would be branded as unhealthy. In fact, defining foods as unhealthy is contrary to the current policy and practice. The Food and Drugs Act does not define “healthy”.

Moreover, Health Canada and the CFIA prohibit the use of the word “healthy”, which is considered a health claim. Consistent with the recommendations of dietitians, the terms “healthy” and “unhealthy” may be used to refer to a healthy or unhealthy eating pattern or a healthy or unhealthy diet, but not to individual foods.

The “high in” framework for nutrient thresholds is referenced in Health Canada's front-of-package labelling draft regulations and the forthcoming Canada Food Guide and should also be used, we say, to determine which foods may or may not be marketed to children, namely those with more than 15% of the recommended daily value of salt, sugar, and saturated fats.

Appropriate definitions of “high in” will also need to be developed for restaurants and other food service applications, recognizing that the DVs, daily values, should reflect the consumption of meals rather than of individual products.

The third recommendation is to revise item (ii) of proposed paragraph 30(1)(e.1) to read:

setting out factors to be considered in determining whether an advertisement is directed primarily at children, without unreasonably limiting access by an audience other than children to that advertisement;

The extra hurdle of adding the words “unreasonably limiting” is necessary to prevent regulatory overreach, which has already been evident in Health Canada's discussion document around determining whether an advertisement is primarily directed at children.

The last recommendation concerns the coming into force date. It leaves, as I said, no time to prepare or execute. The impact of Bill S-228 will be substantial, not only for marketers but also for the broadcast media, as well as the beneficiaries of sponsorships, as we've heard, not only for amateur sports and cultural and community-based events, but for such other things as the Calgary Stampede.

As such, we recommend that the coming into force date be amended to December 14, 2022, consistent with other parts of the healthy eating strategy.

You will note that none of these proposed amendments is in the least bit out of step or inconsistent with the intent of Bill S-228 . Consequently, we urge you to adopt them.

Moving on to other Health Canada and industry partnership solutions, we have several that we'd like to talk about.

The first one is to create a regulatory framework requiring pre-clearance of food and beverage advertising to children for digital advertising. Pre-clearance for broadcast advertising is mandatory, while digital advertising is voluntary. Moving to a mandatory pre-clearance of digital would reduce exposure to food and beverage ads to children and build upon the existing regulatory framework under the Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children.

We would recommend that Ad Standards provide the oversight, monitoring, and enforcement, of course in partnership with Health Canada.

Second, for broadcast advertising, “child-directed” should be redefined as advertising where children represent 25% or more of the audience. This represents a significant reduction from the voluntary 35% child audience threshold.

As noted, the time slot ban advocated by Health Canada would virtually ban all food and beverage advertising, including that directed to adults. Audience composition measurement promotes more precise audience targeting and would deliver on Bill S-228's objective without costly overreach and, I repeat for the third time, a charter challenge.

I'll move to the third point, developing a Canadian “best in class” regulatory framework for restricting digital marketing directed at kids. Advertisers are committed to mandatory pre-clearance of food and beverage advertising to children for foods and beverages below a 15% DV of saturated fat, sugar, and sodium at a campaign level, bringing it in line with broadcast. Foods above the 15% DV threshold would not be approved for digital advertising to kids.

Working with Health Canada and IAB Canada, we will develop the most effective ways to deliver a digital reach threshold ensuring that 75% of any campaign audience is 13 years of age or older. We would also implement rigorous record keeping to ensure that children under 13 are not being targeted and were not targeted through audits, random samples, and some other things that we're looking at.

The fourth recommendation would be enforcement. As with broadcast, media would not accept food and beverage ads directed at children unless they carry an Ad Standards clearance number. In cases of digital, compliance would require companies to report annually to Ad Standards on the placement of advertising. As I said, we're looking at some more technical solutions with IAB Canada. Ad Standards would investigate and report on any complaints from the public and stakeholders regarding alleged non-compliance.

For non-compliance, Ad Standards would admonish the advertiser to ensure that the issue is resolved and does not recur. Ad Standards would also publish annual compliance reports, identifying any non-compliant advertisers. Further enforcement, such as fines and criminal charges, would be administered through the regulation by CFIA.

In conclusion, I want to reiterate that we do in fact support the government's objective of reducing childhood obesity. To help achieve this point, our member companies have unique experience and insights to commit meaningful, multi-faceted, multi-stakeholder approaches to healthy eating and to the effective restriction of food and beverage marketing to children. We ask, however, that such strategies and measures be implemented without unnecessary regulatory overreach and economic harm from inadvertent prohibition of the lawful and constitutional right to market foods and beverages to adults.

To support this, we again urge that the aforementioned amendments be adopted by this committee.

Thank you.

[Erica Wiebe, Olympic Gold Medalist (Wrestling), Sport Matters Group]

Hello, Mr. Chair and honourable committee members. I'm here to share the athlete's voice, and specifically the realities of Canadian athletes today.

I grew up in Stittsville, Ontario, just down Highway 417 from here, and I relocated to Calgary, Alberta, to train with the Canadian national wrestling team when I was 18 years old. For many years I was living on AAP, the athlete assistance program, as I accumulated student debt and earned a degree at the University of Calgary.

In the first summer I moved to Calgary, I worked two jobs while I represented Canada at my first junior world championships. There I came 14th.

My first sponsor came a number of years later, and it was a local restaurant that offered to give me free meals. It was huge.

Two years before the Rio Olympics, I received my first financial sponsor, who committed to support me with $1,000 a month in the lead into Rio. I went from living off my carding cheque, which was $1,500 a month to cover rent in a big city, food, clothing, and everything, to making $2,500. That was huge for me. I felt rich. That's the reality of many Canadian amateur athletes today. Through that small, impactful amount, I was able to make the decisions that allowed me to walk out onto the mats at the 2016 Olympic Games and leave no stone unturned. I had committed everything to preparing for that moment, and singing O Canada on August 18 on top of the podium is something that I will never forget.

Olympic moments like mine inspire the art of the possible in all Canadians, but often it becomes so much more than that single moment of inspiration. Since the Rio Olympics, among many things, I've visited the Canadian Armed Forces in Kuwait, done wrestling clinics in Iqaluit, worked with refugees in Ottawa, and spoken to over 20,000 youth across our country. Without private sponsorship, I don't know if I would have had that moment and that platform to inspire all Canadians. Private sponsorship was essential for me, and it is essential for the athletes across Canada just like me who may face the reality of chasing their dreams on a shoestring budget.

Bill S-228 as currently drafted would mean a substantial drop in private sector contributions to sport at every level, from grassroots to high performance. This in turn would mean cutting off support programs to thousands of children and youth right across the country, and it would substantially marginalize the financial sustainability of an already underfunded Canadian sports system. These obviously would be unintended and opposite effects of what the legislation is intended to do, but they are very real considerations. If the goal is to develop healthier kids, then the government should remove the barriers for youth today to access physical activity opportunities. It should also encourage more private sector sponsorship in sport in Canada, not less.

Thank you.

[Lindsay Hugenholtz Sherk, Senior Leader, Sport Matters Group]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Honourable members of Parliament, I truly appreciate this opportunity to participate in this discussion as you review Bill S-228.

I'm also joined by Erica Wiebe, Olympic and most recently Commonwealth Games gold medallist in wrestling.

[Applause]

Erica and I are here today representing the Sport Matters Group. The Sport Matters Group is a coalition of over 80 sport, physical activity, and recreation organizations, who together promote values-based sport at all levels of the Canadian sports system. Our remarks today represent the interests and shared opinion of grassroots, amateur, Olympic, and Paralympic sport organizations across Canada.

As a sector, we welcome the federal government's efforts to improve the health of our children and youth by protecting them from unreasonable marketing tactics that promote unhealthy foods. We welcome the opportunity to distribute and amplify the important message carried by Bill S-228 across the Canadian sport community, while augmenting it with complementary messaging around the benefits of an active lifestyle. However, while we fully support any government effort to help young Canadians make better nutrition choices, there will be serious repercussions if the new legislation as currently constructed wrongly prevents the related companies and sponsorship categories from investing in sport programs for children and youth.

Sponsorship creates real opportunities for kids of all ages and backgrounds to get involved and provides a foundation so they can access sport. It helps to advance key principles of the Canadian sport policy by enabling sport activities to be more available and more inclusive. It encourages collaboration between sport organizations, governments, and the private sector, with a shared goal of improving the health of our young people.

In its currently drafted form, Bill S-228 would likely prevent, dissuade, or diminish the likelihood of partnerships in this sector for sport organizations in Canada. This would significantly shrink the available sponsorship market and prevent partnerships with brands that currently have some of the most established track records of investing in sport, physical activity, and recreation. Lack of sponsorship would result in increased costs and fewer children and youth would be able to access sport programs that are ultimately intended to help combat obesity. We are asking this committee to consider exempting sports sponsorship not only at the community level, but also those critical partnerships at the provincial and national levels, where sport organizations receive significant support that has a direct impact on the preparation of our Olympic and Paralympic heroes.

Sport in Canada is significantly reliant on sponsorship. Without private sector funding of sport organizations, events, and athletes through sponsorship and other forms of marketing partnerships in Canada, substantial portions of the system would lose commercial and financial viability. Approximately $1.98 billion is spent on sponsorship in Canada. Together, professional and amateur sport account for 53% of the sponsorship industry. Partners, such as Tim Hortons, McDonald's, Coca-Cola, General Mills, Subway, Kraft, Booster Juice, Boston Pizza, Panago, Gatorade, Clif Bar, PowerBar, Danone, Pinty's, Starbucks, Nestlé, and Wrigley's, to name a few, play a significant role in sports sponsorship. Should the food and beverage category be prevented or dissuaded from ongoing investment in Canadian sport, it would substantially diminish the market size and available funding options.

Several organizations contributed to this presentation and I want to highlight some of the impact statements they provided to us. Both Canada Soccer and Hockey Canada, two of the highest participation sports in Canada, have indicated that their affiliates at the provincial, territorial, and regional levels would lose many millions of dollars of investment in programming, impacting approximately 470,000 children participating in each sport. Those numbers do not take into account the impact of hundreds of thousands of children participating in Timbits hockey and Timbits soccer, which are managed separately and directly by Tim Hortons.

At the 2018 Winter Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, athletes supported by sponsors likely to be impacted directly by Bill S-228 won 38% of Canada' medals. Meanwhile, 20% of the medals were won by athletes who were sponsored by beverage companies specifically. It should be further noted that sponsors within this community commonly self-police with respect to responsible advertising.

We have heard from more than a few national sport organizations which have already been informed by existing sponsors that they do not intend to renew their investments as a result of Bill S-228. The bill is still two years away from being enacted and we are already feeling the effects in the amateur sport system.

To further contextualize the potential impact of Bill S-228 on the Canadian sports system, it should be noted that the sponsorship sales process is becoming increasingly challenging for amateur and grassroots sport in Canada. Decisions to sponsor are taking longer than ever before and are being scrutinized based on criteria against which amateur and grassroots sport typically do not perform well, such as broadcast reach, syndication, and attendance numbers.

I also want to point out how this will impact sports sponsorship at the community level. We all know that the majority of community sponsors are food and beverage companies, such as the local Subway franchisee or pizza restaurant. How will the local swim club cover the cost of providing meals for their volunteers during a swimming competition if they can no longer receive cash and value-in-kind contributions from their local restauranteurs?

We also fear a downstream impact of the bill. If organizations such as Hockey Canada and Canada Soccer are already starting to feel the pinch, what will happen to smaller organizations that do not have large participation numbers but still compete for sponsors and play an important role in creating programs for children to be active in such sports as swimming, skating, athletics, and cross-country skiing?

Speaking of smaller participation sports, I think this is a perfect segue for Erica to tell us about her story.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Welcome to the 101st meeting of the Standing Committee on Health.

We're here to continue our study on Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children).

We have four groups today. Each group has 10 minutes to make an opening statement.

We have from the Coalition québécoise sur la problématique du poids, Corinne Voyer, director, and Clara Couturier, research analyst, public policy. From the Sport Matters Group, we have Lindsay Hugenholtz Sherk, senior leader, and Erica Wiebe, Olympic gold medalist in wrestling. From the Association of Canadian Advertisers, we have Ronald Lund, president and chief executive officer, as well as Chris Williams, vice-president, digital. From the Childhood Obesity Foundation of British Columbia, we have Dr. Tom Warshawski, chair of the Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition.

Dr. Warshawski has a presentation, but it has not been translated into French so we need unanimous consent for him to be able to present it. The translation is in the works, but it just didn't get done in time for the meeting.

Do committee members give unanimous consent to have it only in English?

[Nancy Greene Raine, Senator, British Columbia, C]

Good afternoon, Chair and committee members.

Thank you for providing me this opportunity to appear before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health to give you background on Bill S-228, the child health protection act, which prohibits the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children and youth under 17 years of age.

The genesis of this bill came from the study that the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology did on the rising rates of obesity in Canada. That study found that the rates of obesity have tripled in Canada since 1980 and that now one out of three children between the ages of five and 17 is either overweight or obese. We also learned that overweight children are much more likely to develop chronic diseases later in life.

In late 2014, I attended a conference here in Ottawa on childhood obesity, where many nationally recognized health opinion leaders, experts, health professionals, and researchers from all across Canada came together to develop a consensus position on a set of definitions, the scope, and the principles meant to guide policy-making with regard to marketing to kids in Canada. Their position paper, “The Ottawa Principles”, outlines what was agreed on.

Anyone who's informed on the issue of obesity knows that there are many causes. There's no silver bullet. As our Senate committee study concluded, the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children has a negative impact on our most vulnerable age group. In our committee's study we heard testimony from witnesses who, with the exception of the food and advertising industries, unanimously supported strict controls on the advertising of unhealthy food and beverages to children.

This testimony led the committee to recommend that the federal government design and implement a prohibition on the advertising of food and beverages to children, based on an assessment of Quebec's prohibition of all advertising to children, which has been in place since the mid-1980s. Studies have found that Quebec has one of the lowest childhood obesity rates among six- to 11-year-olds in Canada, and one of the highest fruit and vegetable consumption rates.

While the prohibition in Quebec has had success, it is limited to print and broadcast advertising. As the prohibitions came into effect, other forms of marketing, including labelling, point-of-purchase promotions, sponsorship event promotions, etc., all increased—not to mention, more recently, online promotions. Some people will tell you that the Quebec experience has not had an impact on children's health. However, others will explain that as Quebec's prohibition came into effect, the other forms of advertising really increased.

After we tabled our report, I realized that a Senate private member's bill to prohibit the marketing of food and beverages to children, using the Food and Drugs Act, would be able to address the problem. I worked with the Senate legislative drafters and consulted broadly in drafting the bill. I decided that Bill S-228 should be entitled the “child health protection act”, as I'm convinced that our children's health is being undermined by the advertising of unhealthy food and beverages intentionally directed at them. As drafting of the bill proceeded, I met with staff in Health Canada, the Minister of Health, and other ministers with interest in the file, including the Minister of Canadian Heritage, who's responsible for controlling advertising on the public airwaves. They were very supportive, as were their staff.

Bill S-228, as originally introduced, prohibited the marketing of all food and beverages to children. I was thinking that nobody spends money advertising broccoli and carrots, so why not prohibit all advertising? After the legislation was introduced, I began to follow developments regarding marketing to children, as jurisdictions all over the world were dealing with the issue. In particular, the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization made public their extensive work on how to define “unhealthy” specifically with regard to the marketing of food and beverages to children. Both organizations recommend restricting advertising these products to children.

Dr. Mary L'Abbé, chair of the department of nutritional sciences in the faculty of medicine at the University of Toronto, leads a research group on food and nutrition policy for population health. She was invaluable in outlining how these agencies arrived at definitions that are now becoming best practices in countries tackling the issue of childhood obesity.

I also realized that legislation that limited the advertising prohibition to food defined as “unhealthy”, yet allowed marketing of healthy food, would be more difficult for the food and beverage industry to challenge in court.

For this reason, Bill S-228 was amended at clause-by-clause study in the Senate to limit the prohibition on advertising to children to the advertising of food that had been determined to be unhealthy. This change was accompanied by an amendment to the preamble to acknowledge the existing evidence-based nutrient profiling models that would serve as a base for classifying food or beverages as unhealthy.

I met with the Minister of Health, Minister Philpott at the time, and her officials. The minister was supportive of the proposed amendments to limit the prohibition to “unhealthy” foods and gave me assurance that Health Canada would put in place a definition of “unhealthy” that takes into account the latest science and international models.

Honourable committee members, Bill S-228, as originally tabled, prohibited the marketing of food and beverages to children under 13 years of age. As the bill progressed through the Senate, I had further discussions with some stakeholders who convinced me that new research confirmed that the way adolescents process advertising is also very problematic.

Marketing specialists today understand that adolescents can be targeted with messages that play on specific emotions. Honourable members, I'm sure most of us remember from our teen years that a large number of adolescents reject guidance from their parents and are influenced very strongly by their peers, who determine what is cool. When this age group is targeted by marketers, its members are also vulnerable to developing habits that are likely to last a lifetime. A predilection as teenagers to choose foods high in salt, sugar, and fat can result in poor food choices for the rest of their lives, and it's recognized as one of the precursors to becoming overweight and obese, which leads to all kinds of chronic diseases.

In the spring of 2017, Australian media obtained confidential emails of Facebook managers that explained how Facebook can use its technology to identify moments when young people need a confidence boost and then tailor commercials toward them. By monitoring posts, pictures, interactions, and Internet activity in real time, an advertising-driven site can now determine when its individual users, some as young as 14, feel stressed, overwhelmed, anxious, etc. The Facebook algorithms are capable of target-marketing to individual teenage users when they are most susceptible to a particular marketing message. I was not surprised at the recent testimony by Mark Zuckerberg in the U.S. Congress, but it made me even more convinced that social media companies that earn their revenue through ad sales have a lot more power to influence than most people realize.

The amount of targeted advertising of unhealthy food products to kids in Canada, including all forms of commercial marketing, has greatly increased over the years. This has happened for the simple reason that the experts who design these marketing campaigns know full well that they work.

By the time my bill got through committee hearings in the Senate, I also realized that some clauses in the bill would be better dealt with in the regulations that would be developed by Health Canada following the passage of the legislation.

My original intent was to ensure that the bill would go beyond traditional print, broadcast, and electronic advertising to include social media on the Internet. Today there are many, many ways to influence children to choose unhealthy food and beverages, and these include sponsorships, testimonials, and product giveaways. The tools used to develop successful marketing campaigns are not only very creative; they also include the latest technology to become more and more effective.

During the development of S-228 , I came to understand that amending the Food and Drugs Act is a long and arduous process, having worked on a few amendments to my own bill. I now realize that the legislation should include the general intent and framework, but the details are better left to be dealt with by regulations, which can more easily be changed to react to new ways of marketing.

I am confident that there are many stakeholder groups who will watch and ensure that the regulations to be developed following royal assent to Bill S-228 will live up to the bill's intent and purpose.

Honourable members, I sincerely ask that you consider carefully the positive impact that Bill S-228 can have on the health of Canadian children.

The goal of the bill, child health protection through prohibiting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, has not changed. I hope any amendments you make will make it even better.

Thank you for your attention. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have for me.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We should have a cake.

I want to welcome our guests. We certainly look forward to your testimony on Bill S-228.

As a witness, we have the Honourable Nancy Greene Raine, senator. Welcome to our committee.

We have, as individuals, Monique Potvin Kent, assistant professor, faculty of medicine, University of Ottawa; David Hammond, professor, School of Public Health and Health Systems, University of Waterloo, by video conference from Waterloo; and from Nova Scotia, Dr. Robert Strang, chief medical officer of health, by video conference from Halifax.

We have one little bit of business to carry over from the last meeting.

Dr. Eyolfson, would you like to move that motion that you were talking about?