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 rate 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 was 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.

[David Lee]

Eighteen was originally stated in the first proposal, Bill S-228, and at that time, the frame, I think, was established really on who would be susceptible to advertising. When it was proposed to be brought down to 13, the monitoring became very important because we didn't want to see the dynamic that the advertising would turn around and....

This is just monitoring, and I take it the outcome is that Health Canada comes to committee, to Parliament, and gives the results so that you can see the trends and see if there needs to be any kind of adjustment at that time. The value of the monitoring is just to report in on what the advertising trends will be for those age groups. It wouldn't be determinative of any further change. It would really provide more evidence.

[David Lee]

To clarify, if it's helpful, the original proposal was “at 18” in the earlier round of discussions on Bill S-228. There was a motion to bring it down to 13, but in doing so, there was a discussion that the department really wanted to be careful to make sure that advertisers didn't move from 13 years old up into that range of just below 18, which is still a vulnerable population. That's where the range comes from of up to 18. It's just to keep that monitoring and making sure the advertising doesn't turn around to target that group.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Again, if this wasn't a bill that had been introduced before and if we hadn't had extensive consultations before, then I would agree with my colleagues.

The other thing that I think is important is that we as MPs bring a lot of information and knowledge that we acquire through the course of our interactions to this committee. Not everything that we know is heard here. Here's what we know. I'm going to repeat this.

In 2007, 16 years ago, the food and beverage industry launched the Canadian children's food and beverage advertising initiative. That's what brought in the voluntary code. That's been in place for 16 years.

As Dr. Ellis already acknowledged, and we all acknowledge—you don't have to be a doctor to know this—there's an epidemic of childhood obesity in this country. I don't think you have to be Sherlock Holmes to put those two things together. The voluntary code ain't working.

Do we need to hear from witnesses to cement that fact? No, we do not.

When Bill S-228, the Child Health Protection Act—I think it's same title that Ms. Lattanzio has put to this bill—died on the Order Paper in 2019, researchers at the University of Toronto found that food industry interactions with government outnumbered non-industry interactions on that bill. They looked at 3,800 interactions, including meetings, correspondence and lobbying, in the three years before that bill failed. They found that 80% of those interactions were from industry, not public health or not-for-profit organizations.

Let's just name the elephant in the room. This bill has been studied to death. It has been consulted to death. Every single stakeholder entity who has wanted to have a say in it has had their say in it. We know what their positions are. The bill has not changed significantly. The bill introduced today is substantially the same as the one introduced by Senator Nancy Greene Raine. There is no difference in the general public, except for one thing: The childhood obesity epidemic has probably gotten worse.

What's to hear?

I'll tell you, the advertisers are going to come say they don't like the bill. I'm curious to hear it if anybody is going to seriously contend that it's otherwise. They don't like it. That's why they proposed a voluntary code of conduct.

Again, if we didn't have 16 years of evidence of what the impact of a voluntary code of conduct was, then I'm sure Mrs. Lattanzio wouldn't have sought to use her order of precedence to introduced this very important bill. We don't need to hear from anybody. There's an opportunity for every member of this committee to question Mrs. Lattanzio, to question the ministry staff and also to introduce amendments.

If anybody thinks the bill is not strong enough or feels that it needs to be improved, they can introduce amendments. In fact, everybody has had that opportunity. I would just propose that we defeat this motion. There's nothing to be gained from hearing from one witness next week, or this week, or frankly any other time.

Do you know what? At the end of the day, if you don't like the bill, vote against it. It's everybody's democratic right in this room. If the Conservatives don't like this bill, if they think that the evidence isn't strong enough or if they think the bill isn't appropriate, they can vote against the bill.

[Dr. Tom Warshawski]

I'm not “worried”; I'm sure that they will. It was effective in killing Bill S-228 in the Senate.

However, I believe that the civil servants in Health Canada recognize the data. I think that most parties in the House of Commons recognize the importance of this bill. I believe that government has the necessary information and desire to move these issues forward.

[Dr. Tom Warshawski]

I think it's important. Polling has indicated that between 75% to 80% of parents want to see restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children. The government back in 2015 tried to get this moving. Conservative Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced a private member's bill to the Senate—Bill S-228—that had very strong support in the House of Commons. It initially had unanimous support in the Senate and wound its way back to the Senate in 2019, but then died on the order paper. It was filibustered by certain senators and died.

That is one of the concerns we have as government waits for Bill C-252 to wind its way through Parliament. We think it could very likely suffer the same fate as Bill S-228 and die in the Senate. We think it's important that this bill be allowed to go through. Hopefully it will pass, but a parallel track would be for government to implement the regulations I mentioned in the Canada Gazette.

[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.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My questions are for Dr. Montes.

Dr. Montes, in the last panel, we heard what I would characterize as pretty shocking testimony from one witness, Professor MacIntosh, who asserted that children as young as 12 have the potential capacity to make a decision to terminate their lives. Of course, 12-year-olds are years away from voting and from being able to make other adult choices. In the province of Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act bans commercial advertising that targets youth under the age of 13.

In 2017 the Senate unanimously passed Bill S-228 that prohibits the marketing of food and beverage products to those under the age of 17.

How do you square that with Professor MacIntosh's assertion that 12-year-olds can make a decision to terminate their lives?

[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.

[Anne Minh-Thu Quach, NDP, Salaberry—Suroît, QC]

The reason I ask is that there is a bill at the federal level that does exactly that, Bill S-228. It's currently stalled in the Senate, unfortunately, even though it passed in the House of Commons. If you were to press the senators holding up the bill, everyone would benefit.

Along the same lines, prevention is another dimension that comes into play.

A lot of focus has been on the benefits of physical activity outside the school environment, but shouldn't we promote prevention much earlier on? I've been pregnant twice, so prenatal classes come to mind. Why not take advantage of those classes to support prevention efforts, promoting healthy eating and explaining the importance of being active with your child to expecting parents?

I mentioned the support available to parents in Quebec. From a public health standpoint, shouldn't the federal government, on its end, invest in prevention activities aimed at parents, using prenatal classes or some other means? The government could launch a TV and radio campaign to give parents helpful tips they could use to convince their children to be more active, for instance.

My sister is a doctor. When she recommends 30 minutes of physical activity a day to parents, they tell her they don't have time. Even if she reduces it to 15 minutes a day, parents tell her they still don't have time. Finally, when she recommends at least five minutes a day, they don't dare say they don't have time, but they don't follow her recommendation.

Wouldn't it help to have the federal government launch an education campaign to give parents tips to increase their children's level of physical activity?

[Max Fritz, Interim Executive Director, Canadian Association of Fairs and Exhibitions]

Thank you, John.

Good morning, everyone. Like John, I bring a diverse background in the fairs and exhibitions business. I was born and raised in Calgary—an Alberta boy—and I live on a farm just outside of Calgary. I've spent my entire career in the fairs and exhibitions business in the Calgary area.

Throughout this presentation, we have been citing numbers—35 million visitors annually and so on. These numbers come from an economic impact study commissioned in 2008, the research going back almost 10 years. These numbers offered our organization strength, helping us and our stakeholders understand the role we play in Canadian society.

Therefore, our third recommendation is that the government provide funding in the amount of $1 million for an in-depth national survey of the economic and socio-economic impact of fairs and exhibitions across Canada. In 2008 it was reported that our events contribute $1 billion annually to the economy, and that fair-related spending supports 10,700 full-time jobs spanning many sectors. As mentioned above, we are confident that these numbers have increased but have no tangible proof or measurement ability to do so without a new study.

One of the main ways our events also contribute to the Canadian economy is by supporting and stimulating tourism. We, along with festivals and other events, have been able to drive attendance for decades from local, national and international visitors. These visitors stay in Canadian hotels, eat in Canadian restaurants and buy Canadian souvenirs and products. As a result, fairs and exhibitions alone generate $97 million in federal taxes annually.

To ensure that these events remain world class in an increasingly globally competitive marketplace, we recommend that the government establish a funding program in the amount of $20 million per year specifically dedicated to the growth of fairs, festivals and events with a capacity to generate touristic and economic activity. Through this funding, Canadian service providers would also be promoted, and an incentive program would be developed to hire Canadian providers, supporting them and therefore ensuring Canadian competitiveness in the entertainment and event marketplace.

Our final recommendation for your consideration is that the government provide exclusion for fairs, exhibitions and events in regard to sponsorship as it relates to Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children). Many local fairs and events rely heavily on the support from local businesses, sponsors and corporations to sustain their community-building activities. Bill S-228 may impact upon their industries and their ability to support our events. Hundreds of small communities and rural and remote fairs work very hard to continue their operations, despite at times some revenue declines and ongoing logistical challenges. Without the support of the private sector, these local communities will likely not be able to hold their fairs and exhibitions as they know them today.

CAFE is a service-based organization. We're a charitable organization. We want the further support through the above recommendations to allow our membership to be successful in the future.

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

It being 5:30 p.m., the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at third reading stage of Bill S-228 under private members' business.

Call in the members.

The House resumed from September 17 consideration of the motion that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the third time and passed.

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.

Child Health Protection Act

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to see you again today as Parliament resumes. I hope that all my colleagues are pleased to be back, as am I. It is a beautiful day and a good time to return to Ottawa to engage with our colleagues.

I would like to thank the Hon. Nancy Greene for introducing this bill in the other chamber, and I congratulate her on her exceptional career. She has been a role model for all Canadians, especially young people. I really wanted to pay her this small tribute.

Child obesity is very costly for Canadians. We must continually improve our children's quality of life. In fact, several studies show that the costs associated with obesity are very high. In March 2016, when testifying before a committee in the other chamber, Ms. Laurie Twells, associate professor at the Faculty of Medicine of Memorial University of Newfoundland, stated that the financial burden of the direct cost of health care and the indirect cost of lost productivity due to obesity in Canada is estimated to be between $4.6 billion and $7.1 billion a year. Problems associated with obesity cost our society between $4.6 billion and $7.1 billion every year.

I think everyone here in the House agrees that we need to tackle this major problem. We need to do better for future generations. This brings me to Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, which proposes a ban on food and beverage marketing directed at children. In my view, this bill unfortunately does nothing to really eliminate the problem of childhood obesity. Canadians' lifestyles have a considerable impact on their health. I think we should have started by addressing the lifestyles of young Canadians.

Speaking of which, I am pleased to remind the House that the previous Conservative government had introduced a tax credit to increase Canadian families' participation in sports. Getting Canadians moving is the best way to really bring down obesity rates. The tax credit brought forward by the Harper government focused on athletic, cultural, and social development to ensure that Canadians, even from a very young age, adopt and maintain a healthy lifestyle. That was real action. The idea was to encourage parents to get their kids to exercise by helping them pay for those activities. Enrolling your kids in sports like hockey and gymnastics can often be very expensive. My daughters were in gymnastics and I know from experience that a year of gymnastics for a little girl is very expensive, but at the end of the year, we received a tax credit that allowed both of our daughters, and not just one, to do gymnastics. The entire family was encouraged to exercise.

Unfortunately, one of the first things this government did was abolish the children's fitness tax credit. This credit represented a real solution to the obesity problem. I believe that hundreds, or even thousands, of children benefited from this credit and were able to participate in sports. The Liberal government chose to go after advertising instead of Canadians' lifestyles. This shows, yet again, that the Liberal government does not understand life in Canada's regions. Canadian families deserve better. The government could be depriving many organizations, all across Canada, of the money they use to run activities that get kids moving. I will explain. Yesterday Thetford Mines held its half marathon. One thousand people participated, including seniors, who were making a return to physical exercise, and young families with small children, who were exercising and decided to participate in the Thetford Mines half marathon. This means that the participants had been exercising and running with their families. These are wonderful family activities.

Thetford Mines was able to organize a half marathon because we have financial partners, which include Oasis juice, Yum Yum Chips, and Krispy Kernels. Unfortunately, under a Health Canada definition that has yet to be released, these companies could be seen as producers of unhealthy foods. I will come back to that. I think there is a problem when it comes to Health Canada defining unhealthy foods. Bill S-228 gives Health Canada the latitude to determine which foods are healthy and which are not. That is a real problem.

A number of companies promote physical activity by sponsoring sports organizations. If the Liberal government moves forward with this bill as it now stands, all of those companies would be prohibited from continuing their involvement in various communities. We proposed an amendment to exempt these companies from the advertising ban, particularly when they sponsor sporting events. Take for example Tim Hortons and McDonald's, which have supported Canada's Olympic athletes for a long time now. It is important to recognize that. However, no one on the other side of the House would support the amendment introduced by my colleague from Sarnia—Lambton, who does excellent work on the Standing Committee on Health.

I am very concerned about leaving it up to Health Canada to decide which foods are healthy and which are not, because this issue is closely connected to an agriculture-related issue I have been working on, namely front-of-package nutrition labelling. Health Canada is currently making decisions about what is and is not good for people's health instead of letting people decide that for themselves. I have some straightforward questions.

Is orange juice healthy? Is yogurt healthy? Is cheese healthy? I am sure Canadians encourage their kids to drink orange juice every morning and eat yummy yogurt. Health Canada, however, says that the front of these products' packaging should be labelled to show that they contain too much fat or sugar, for example. That is what Health Canada is looking at.

Will cheese makers have to stop running ads aimed at children? Will companies that make all-natural juices, such as orange juice, have to stop running ads aimed at children? I predict that, left to its own devices, Health Canada will prohibit such companies from advertising their healthy products to children because it seems disinclined to take all the science into account. The department is making decisions based on public opinion and forcing food manufacturers to label some products that have not been scientifically proven to be harmful.

The fat in yogurt is not necessarily unhealthy. People need to consume certain amounts of certain kinds of fat. That is good for our health. Even so, Health Canada has decided to put big warnings on these products telling people they are dangerous. Under Bill S-228, those same people will decide which foods are unhealthy. Things do not look good for dairy producers, cheese makers, and anyone who grows fruit that gets made into juice. That is how this is shaping up.

Bill S-228 will not solve the problem of obesity. Furthermore, it gives Health Canada powers that are much too broad, particularly regarding the definitions of what is healthy and what is unhealthy, and demands no accountability. Health Canada will make all the decisions, and in two years' time, everything will be prohibited. This is nonsense. It is time to take a step back so we can really understand what needs to be done to ensure that Canada's youth does not have to face the scourge of obesity. We need to encourage physical activity by making it easier for families to access physical education programs and encouraging youth to practice their sport. The tax credit we introduced in that regard was excellent and suited all families.

If we really want to eliminate obesity, we need to give Canadian families the means to purchase healthy food at all times. Above all, we need to allow them to decide for themselves what is healthy and unhealthy. We already allow Canadians aged 13 to 17 to do all kinds of things. They can drive a car for example. The older kids get, the more rights they have, but now the government wants to tell kids under 18 that they cannot decide for themselves what is healthy and what is unhealthy. Instead of prohibiting kids from seeing something, we should be educating them so they can make healthy decisions throughout their lives.

We are prepared to work with the government to find solutions. This is why we proposed an amendment to exempt sponsors of sporting events and other similar activities from the application of this bill. This would guarantee the survival of festivals, half marathons, and other organizations. Unfortunately, this amendment was rejected outright.

If the government truly cared about Canadians' health, it would have listened to us and surely would not have allowed the legalization of marijuana. Talk about being at odds with healthy living. The Liberals legalized a product known for being harmful.

[Julie Dabrusin, Liberal, Toronto—Danforth, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today in support of Bill S-228, the child health protection act, legislation that, if passed, would restrict the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children under the age of 13. Our government commends the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for sponsoring this important bill in the House of Commons. We also commend former Senator Greene-Raine for introducing the bill in the other place, and for her tireless efforts to support healthy choices for Canadian children.

More than at any time in our history, children are being exposed to a steady stream of advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages. It goes without saying that the advertising of these products has a significant influence on children when they make consumption choices and purchase requests.

Children are eating fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended, while their diets often exceed the recommended amounts of sugars, salt, and saturated fat.

It will come as no surprise that one in three Canadian children are overweight or obese. We know that the consumption of unhealthy foods early in life is linked to a higher risk of health problems later in life, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. It is a worrisome reality that these diseases are now starting to become more common in children. We cannot allow this trend to persist. This is an issue that requires national leadership.

The evidence is clear. The World Health Organization has identified the marketing of unhealthy foods to children as a major contributor to childhood obesity. In Canada, on a daily basis, children are exposed to advertisements designed to appeal to them for food and beverages high in sugar, salt, and saturated fats. These advertisements go well beyond the traditional print, radio, and TV ads of the past. In fact, a recent analysis concluded that 90% of the millions of online food and beverage ads that Canadian children see every year are for unhealthy products.

What I would like to stress is that these advertisements are used for a reason. They are used because they work. They influence our children when they are making choices of what foods to eat, or what foods to ask their parents to buy. Taking action today on restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages provides us with an opportunity to ensure our children have a better chance at a healthy start in life, one that is based on a foundation of healthy eating choices. That is why our government strongly supports the bill, and is committed to seeing it passed and brought into force.

The process to develop the bill included a great deal of thoughtful study and engagement with all affected parties. That is why, after careful consideration, government members presented legislative amendments to the Standing Committee on Health, where they were adopted. These amendments included changing the definition of children to under 13 years old, for the purposes of the act.

There is precedent, under the Quebec Consumer Protection Act for defining a child as under 13, in the context of restricting advertising. The Quebec legislation was subject to a challenge under the charter, at the end of which the Supreme Court fully upheld Quebec's restrictions on advertising to children. However, we also know that teenagers are often targeted by the advertising of unhealthy foods and beverages because of their increased independence, access to their own money, and susceptibility to peer influence.

Taking these considerations into account, government members introduced an additional amendment to require Parliament to conduct a mandatory review of the legislation within five years of the act's coming into force, with a particular focus on its definition of children. This review would serve to monitor the effectiveness of the restrictions, determine if new forms of advertising are affecting children and assess whether there was an increase in advertising targeted to adolescents aged 13 to 17 years.

At the Standing Committee on Health, we heard some concerns that the bill might have unintentional consequences related to children's involvement in sports. I want to be clear that our government is committed to recognizing children's sports as a key element of supporting an active lifestyle. Community sporting activities provide social and health benefits to children. Taking these benefits into account, our government is committed to exempting children's sport sponsorships from the restrictions through regulations.

The development of this regulatory exemption will be informed by the Quebec Consumer Protection Act, with consideration given to prohibiting specific advertising practices targeted to children under 13, such as unhealthy food giveaways at children's community sporting events. Those are the types of things that we will be looking for.

The amended bill along with the regulatory exemption will ensure that our approach achieves the best health outcome for children. Our government will not let up on the fight to reduce obesity and chronic disease. Restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages is a key part of our government's healthy eating strategy, a multi-faceted approach aimed at improving the food environment and giving Canadians the tools to make healthier choices. Government action aimed at reducing chronic disease over the years has taught us a valuable lesson that no single action, not one alone, is a silver bullet, but a suite of actions complemented by effective public education can turn the tide.

We cannot underestimate the influence of these advertisements nor can we sit idly by and watch the health of children decline due to poor eating habits. That is why I am encouraging all sides of the House to support this bill. Together we can advance this important piece of legislation that will protect the health of Canadian children and make the healthy choice the easy choice now and for future generations of Canadians.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as the critic for families, children and social development, I am pleased to rise in the House today to support Bill S-228 and to speak about this issue that is so important for the health of our young people.

According to Ms. Francine Forget-Marin, director of health promotion and research at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, “children are very vulnerable to advertising because they cannot distinguish between good food and bad.... We are now seeing trademarks being used in video games and advertising permeating social media.” This statement precisely and clearly identifies the challenge that this bill addresses. The situation is worrisome and requires that we take action.

Among industrialized countries, Canada ranks sixth for the highest obesity rates for children. The childhood obesity rate in Canada has almost tripled in the past 30 years, according to the 2016 study by the Senate committee. Obesity leads to health problems such as hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, bone and joint problems, and mental health issues such as low self-esteem, poor body image, bullying, depression, and so forth—all of which are affecting younger and younger people.

The annual economic burden of obesity is reported to be in the billions of dollars. However, according to the senate committee's 2016 study, obesity costs Canada between $4.6 billion and $7.1 billion annually in health care and lost productivity. The use of captivating advertisements that encourage our children to consume unhealthy food and beverages contribute to the obesity problem.

The World Health Organization found that the marketing of unhealthy foods was one of the main risk factors for obesity, especially since children are much more easily swayed by advertising than adults. Children who are more exposed to advertising have a tendency to ask for products that feature a character or logo they recognize. Research by the Heart and Stroke Foundation found that kids see more than 25 million food and beverage ads a year on their favourite websites. These figures are as impressive as they are troubling.

We also know that childhood obesity does not disappear as soon as a child becomes an adult. Children with weight problems are more likely to experience weight problems throughout their adult lives. This is a long-term problem that requires a long-term solution.

That is what Bill S-228 does. It eliminates the problem at the source by prohibiting certain types of marketing. That is why I think Bill S-228 is necessary.

I would like to take this opportunity to talk about what people in the riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot are doing to fight obesity. I am thinking here of the Heart and Stroke Foundation volunteers in Montérégie. I would like to commend Linda Jodoin, Stéphane Martin, Jérémy Ménard, and others for the work they do to help our community. These volunteers are helping to save lives by working to fight heart disease and stroke. I thank them once again for their contributions and for the incredible work they do to help people in our community.

As an MP from Quebec, I also want to mention how proud I am of my province, which is the only one that already has legislation in place in this regard. The Quebec Consumer Protection Act, which has been in effect since 1980, has had a very positive impact on the health of our children. According to a 2011 study, Quebec has the lowest rate of obesity among children aged 6 to 11, and the highest consumption of fruits and vegetables. This shows how important and useful legislation is. I would therefore like to once again commend Quebec for being a leader on this.

The NDP has always cared about this issue. In 2012, my extraordinary colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby introduced Bill C-430.

The bill sought to amend the Competition Act and the Food and Drugs Act to expressly restrict advertising and promotion, for commercial purposes, of products, food, drugs, cosmetics, or devices directly to children under 13 years of age.

The NDP supports this bill because we believe in reducing children's exposure to ads promoting unhealthy food and beverages that can cause obesity and mental or physical health problems.

The two main factors linked to obesity are eating habits and physical activity. By banning the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, Bill S-228 tackles the issue of eating habits in a fundamental way, because it forces all of Canadian society to rethink what we teach our children about food.

As we have seen, ads targeting children influence not only their eating preferences and behaviours, but also their nutrition knowledge. As a result, ads play an active role in teaching children about food.

This bill would also close certain loopholes in the 1980 Quebec act that inspired it. That is another reason I support it.

Under Quebec law, kids can still see packaging, storefront advertising, and products on supermarket shelves. When I discussed this with people from Quebec's Weight Coalition, they told me that exceptions to the legislation are an ongoing problem.

This bill would ban food and beverage marketing directed at children, and that includes how products are labelled and packaged, of course.

By supporting this bill, we are also signalling to parents that we understand their concerns. We support them because we know that navigating the aggressive marketing techniques we have been talking about alone is not easy.

Nevertheless, as a New Democrat, I think we have to respect provincial jurisdiction. This bill has to be consistent with and informed by the Quebec law.

This bill must not result in a total ban on food and beverage advertising to children under 17 years of age. It needs to be consistent with Quebec's legislation, which defines children as being 13 years of age or under.

The restaurant and food services sectors are affected by this bill, and they feel the same way we do. They support the idea of strengthening measures to prevent obesity in children under 13. At the same time, however, they think it is unfortunate that the age associated with the term “child” in this bill is 17, whereas the age limit in Quebec's act is 13.

I also want to make sure that we all understand the legal and economic ramifications of this bill before we pass it. I am not convinced that the views of the affected sectors, such as the restaurant and food services sectors, were adequately taken into consideration in committee.

Restaurants Canada told us that Health Canada's definition of a healthy food is too restrictive. It excludes any food that provides less than 5% or 15% of the daily value of saturated fat, sugar, and sodium.

In conclusion, I believe that by supporting this bill, we are making the right choice. If we take action today to help our children eat better, we can create the healthier adults of tomorrow and guarantee a healthier society. The example of Quebec, which tackled this issue successfully almost 30 years ago, should encourage the federal government to take this path for the sake of our constituents' health and well-being.

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

Mr. Speaker, I hope that you had a good summer. I certainly did.

I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act by prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children.

I would like to begin by thanking many individuals and groups for their ongoing efforts on this bill. First, I would like to thank Senator Nancy Greene Raine, now retired, for her years of service and her ongoing commitment to the health and well-being of Canadians, particularly the health of children. I would also like to thank members from all parties and the many witnesses for their passion and expertise.

Basically, Bill S-228 seeks to prohibit food and beverage marketing directed at persons under the age of 13. The bill's introduction in the House is rather timely because its objective can be found in the Minister of Health's mandate letter. Although this bill is well intentioned and seeks to combat childhood obesity, many stakeholders and witnesses expressed their concerns about the scope of the bill and its potential unintended consequences.

Similar legislation already exists in Quebec, which is often cited as an example. Quebec passed legislation in 1980 to ban advertising aimed at children aged 13 and under. To be clear, while it is true that Quebec has one of the lowest obesity rates in Canada, that is not necessarily a consequence of the ban on advertising targeting young people.

At a committee meeting, I asked witnesses from Quebec's Weight Coalition whether the obesity rate went down after Quebec passed the legislation. One witness replied as follows:

The Quebec act, which dates from 1980, was not passed to reduce obesity, but for ethical reasons and because of the vulnerability issues involving all forms of advertising. In terms of data on obesity, we were unfortunately unable to measure them in the past.

This comparison was repeated over and over again during consideration of the bill. However, someone who is rarely quoted is Ronald Lund, who appeared before the committee and told us that Quebec's obesity rate is quite similar to that of the rest of the country.

He said, “In fact, in terms of how fast it exploded and where it is today, the rates of obesity and overweight[edness] in Quebec are basically not statistically different from the rest of Canada.”

I think it is off the website now, but one can still find the link on Quebec's Ministry of Health's own website. It talks about the great increase since 1978 and adds that the good news is that rates there are not significantly different from those in the rest of Canada. Despite a homegrown test, the obesity rates in Quebec are not dramatically different.

Therefore, when we approach Bill S-228 and talk about the legislation, I am just not sure that it is going to work, though I am firmly behind its premise that we want to reduce obesity in children, as we know that childhood obesity is a predeterminate of very chronic disease as they get older.

Certainly, I think there are some problems with the bill, and I am going to address several of those.

First, there was an allusion to the definition of healthy food not being nailed down. At committee we talked about making the definition potentially the same as for front-of-pack labelling, where things high in salt, sugar, or saturated fats would be considered unhealthy. However, that could not be agreed upon, and there is currently no agreement about the definition.

The Liberal government is content to leave that to the regulations, but I think we can see the same problem with regulations that Health Canada is having when considering the Canada food guide and front-of-pack labelling. For example, there are situations where apple strudel would be considered healthy but cheese would not be. Therefore, I really think that not having a definition of healthy food is a weakness in this proposed legislation.

Second, if we are trying to make sure that children under the age of 13 are not exposed to the advertising of whatever we determine unhealthy food to be, the enforcement of that is going to be extremely difficult. For example, as per the conversations we had, does that mean television ads after nine o'clock at night could potentially be allowed to advertise some of these things? The problem is that there are parents who are not parenting well or are allowing their children to stay up past nine o'clock, and so we cannot really be sure at any point in time that we would not be targeting that audience. What about signs? What about billboards? I mean, there would not really be an opportunity to enforce this without a huge number of people basically policing all forms of media.

We know that things put in place by the Liberal government have not been well enforced and we expect to see further ones. For example, with the forthcoming marijuana legislation, clearly there was an effort made to restrict advertising to make sure that it did not appear to be cool to smoke marijuana. However, the government did nothing with enforcement with regard to the huge number of T-shirts and other paraphernalia that exist. The Senate brought an amendments, which were not accepted. Again, there is no enforcement. With respect to Bill S-5, the proposed tobacco legislation, we know that enforcement activity is needed when people who are not authorized to produce and distribute are doing it. However, the 60% cigarette contraband rate in Ontario, for example, and I think 30% or 40% across the country, shows a lack of enforcement. Therefore, I really think that this proposed piece of legislation would definitely have difficulty with enforcement.

Also, do we really need to have the government telling us what we can and cannot eat? I am all about personal freedom and individual accountability. When I was growing up, we had all the sugared cereals. We had Tony the Tiger, Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Alpha-Bits, and I consumed all of those, along with toast dipped in maple syrup. My mother made us bologna sandwiches. However, I can tell members that there was not a lot of obesity, because we were all outside running around and playing. Therefore, if the government really wants to address obesity, I think the call to action should be to get young people active again. When I was growing up, there was a federal program in place called ParticipACTION, which was designed to get people out and running around. I certainly think that would be more effective in achieving results.

Members can see from my earlier testimony that many people from Quebec are saying that the rates there are not different from those in the rest of Canada. Therefore, this legislation is not going to have the impact we would want it to have.

As well, the senator who introduced this proposed legislation is a multiple Olympic champion. She was fit, and even in her senior years she was driving fitness activities here on the Hill. However, I would point out that she did choose in her career to advertise Mars bars, and I do not think anyone thought it was a problem for an athlete to do that. However, she had the personal freedom to choose that, and now she wants to remove that personal freedom from other athletes who may choose to do that. I certainly am able to exercise, eat occasionally at McDonald's, and eat chips from time to time. It is a balance. I think it is a question of moderation.

Therefore, for all of the reasons I have cited, including the difficulties in enforcing the proposed legislation, the fact that I do not believe the legislation would work, and the government's interference where I believe there should be personal freedom, individual accountability, and good parenting, I will not be supporting this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, with respect to Bill S-228, the Minister of Health stood in the House and promised that sports scholarship programs would be exempt from this legislation in order to ensure that activities promoting healthy lifestyles and choices would continue.

I brought to committee an amendment mapping exactly what the minister had committed to and it was rejected. Could the member comment on why the Liberals did not keep their promise?

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

moved that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to stand here today as a sponsor of Bill S-228, the child health protection act, at its third and final reading in Parliament.

I would like to begin by thanking my fellow colleagues on the Standing Committee on Health for their thoughtful review of the legislation. It was an honour to work with all of them and I look forward to continuing to work together on issues affecting Canadians.

Childhood obesity is an epidemic of such a magnitude that it is a matter of national concern. Today, one in three Canadian children is either overweight or obese. We know that obesity is linked to chronic conditions and illnesses, such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, sleep apnea, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke and some cancers, and its effects are compounded if the onset is premature.

During my career as a physician, I noticed more of my patients were overweight or obese and I was seeing instances of heart disease and type 2 diabetes in younger and younger people. According to the World Obesity Federation, if current trends continue, more than 10 million adults in Canada will be obese by 2025 and treating health problems caused by obesity will cost Canada nearly $34 billion per year.

In its final report presented on January 25, 2016, the World Health Organization's Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity found that there is unequivocal evidence that the marketing of unhealthy foods and sugar-sweetened beverages has a negative impact on childhood obesity. The report recommended that any attempt to tackle childhood obesity should include a reduction in the exposure of children to marketing. This bill takes concrete steps to address this public health issue by eliminating the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children.

During the committee stage of this bill, I introduced two consequential amendments to the legislation. The first was to alter the definition of a child from 17 years of age to 13 years of age. During Health Canada's consultation with stakeholders, it became clear that any regime built on restrictions aimed at older teenagers would be subjected to considerable legal risks associated with a restriction on freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Currently, there is a strong precedent for defining a child as under 13 in the context of advertising restrictions in Quebec and the province has withstood a charter challenge that was fully upheld at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Recognizing there is evidence concerning the vulnerability of teenagers to marketing, as well as the experience in Quebec where industry shifted marketing efforts to teenagers when restrictions were imposed on younger children, I moved a second amendment that requires Parliament to conduct a mandatory review of the legislation, with a focus on the definition of children within five years of the act coming into force. Through the parliamentary review of the legislation, the government would also be obliged to report publicly on compliance with the bill and on progress toward our common goal of healthier children of all ages. This work would ensure that, if necessary, we will have the data needed to support a broadening of restrictions at a future date.

During this bill's second reading and committee stage, there were also questions regarding the regulations that would be established. Recently, Health Canada released the document, “Restricting Marketing of Unhealthy Food and Beverages to Children: An Update on Proposed Regulations”. In this document, Health Canada stated that the new regulations would define “unhealthy” food, set out factors to determine if an advertisement is directed at children and set out exemptions to the prohibition, such as for children's sports sponsorship.

There has been much discussion as to what qualifies as unhealthy foods and beverages. As such, Health Canada is considering a model to define “unhealthy” food as foods having a front-of-package symbol, as proposed in draft regulations, or exceeding the threshold for the nutrient content claims, such as low in sodium and salt, low in saturated fatty acids and/or low in sugars. The Specific Nutrient Content Claim Requirements, such as the ones previously listed, are used by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to quantify food claims made by manufacturers. I encourage my colleagues to review the Specific Nutrient Content Claim Requirements for salt, sodium, saturated fatty acids and Health Canada's proposed requirements for sugars, for the exact quantities under the proposed regulations and for what amounts of sodium, fats and sugars would qualify a food or beverage as being unhealthy.

With regard to the factors to determine if an advertisement is directed at children, we need to consider that the impact of marketing to children is a result of both exposure to unhealthy food ads through settings and media channels and the power of the marketing techniques used.

As such, the proposed approach addresses both by considering three primary elements: settings, media channels and advertising techniques. Settings would include places, events or activities, and could include day cares, schools and children's clubs, as well as children's concerts and festivals, among others.

Health Canada would determine certain factors related to the settings, such as whether the setting is one where children are generally or frequently in attendance, and the nature and purpose of the event or activity determining whether unhealthy food advertising is child-directed.

Under the proposed regulations, marketing to children would be prohibited in child-directed settings. Where the audience has both adults and children, the marketing of unhealthy foods would be restricted only if the advertisement itself is found to have child appeal and would be prohibited if the characteristics of the ad, such as colour, theme and/or language, were clearly directed at children.

Children are also exposed to advertising through a variety of media channels, including digital applications, Internet, television, films and print. Health Canada is currently exploring the use of factors such as the nature and purpose of the media, whether it was intended or designed for children and whether children constitute a significant portion of the audience when determining whether unhealthy food advertising is child-directed.

With regards to the audience portion, Health Canada is considering a prohibition of marketing to children when the proportion of children in the viewing audience is over 15%. For media channels where the proportion of children in the viewing audience is less than 15%, the marketing of unhealthy food will be restricted only if the advertisement is found to have clear child appeal. With regards to determining advertising techniques with child appeal, it must be understood that a wide range of powerful techniques are used to advertise foods to children. Therefore, Health Canada will need to determine whether the design, technique or characteristic of the advertisement target will influence or appeal to children. For example, an ad for confectionery treats depicting child-appealing elements such as cartoon images and/or children's toys would be prohibited.

Over the past several months, there have been concerns that there could be a negative impact on access to community sports if sponsorships were prohibited. In its proposed regulations, Health Canada will exempt children's sport sponsorships to address these concerns, with only specific techniques designed to appeal to children under 13, such as mascots or product giveaways, being prohibited.

Marketing to children would be allowed for community sports teams, sporting events, sporting leagues and associations, and individual child athletes. For example, in the context of a sporting event where a company is supplying sports jerseys to the team, its logo can appear on the sports jerseys.

Working on this legislation has been a long yet rewarding process. When I was practising medicine, I would too often treat patients suffering from the numerous medical complications due to obesity. While I am not in the emergency room to treat patients suffering from these illnesses now, I am here, in the House of Commons, as a representative of my community, to address the preventable issues that are hurting our society and burdening our health care system.

We now have an opportunity to address childhood obesity, which should frankly be a non-partisan issue. That is why I am calling upon all members of this House to show their support and prove we are united in fighting this epidemic.

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.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing.

I have a document here. It's a request that Health Canada sent out. It's the cost-benefit analysis survey that you've sent out to food processors. In it, your department asked, as per Treasury Board guidelines, that they provide a cost-benefit analysis, which I think would amount to Bill S-228. In there you're asking many, many questions that I think industry is very uncomfortable with, and one of them is that the cited costs not include costs related to the reformulating of food.

I'm just curious. If you're asking industry to provide a cost-benefit analysis of marketing, etc., shouldn't the cost of reformulating their goods also be included in the cost-benefit analysis? My understanding is that it costs the industry almost $2 billion to do this, and I'm just wondering if you could provide some comment as to why your department would do this.

Child Health Protection Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Bruce Stanton]

Pursuant to order made on Tuesday, May 29, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at report stage of Bill S-228 under private members' business.

The House resumed from June 5 consideration of Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), as reported (with amendments) from the committee.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), as reported from the committee.

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.

[Karen McIntyre]

It would be in the act itself. Probably, in the same way that Bill S-228 introduced a new section 7, it would be another section.

[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?

[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.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Okay.

Second, at our last meeting there was a proposal to invite the Minister of Health to come to present for supplementary estimates. I'm just looking back through the schedule again. We've just had her in for Bill S-5. The budget's coming down tomorrow. We'll be having her here shortly after that for main estimates. We can certainly cover off any questions we had for the supplementary estimates at that time. We have a ton on anyway. We have pharmacare to finish, Bill C-326, AMR, Bill S-228, and resumption of the food guide and whatever we're going to do with that. We have a really packed agenda.

I would like to move that we rescind our invitation to the minister and instead invite her to attend the main estimates when those are scheduled.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The deadline for witnesses for Bill S-228 is the 22nd. Bill C-326 is Monday, March 26, and that's the first day we have on that. On the 28th, we have Bill C-326 again. That's what I have at the moment.

Going into April, we have clause-by-clause study, the antimicrobial report, and so on. Right now, for the short term, Wednesday is clause-by-clause study, and that's really the most important thing right now.

Are there any questions on the witness lists or anything?

Go ahead, Ms. Gladu.

Child Health Protection Act

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Pursuant to order made Tuesday, February 13, 2018, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill S-228 under private members' business.

The House resumed from February 12 consideration of the motion that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to have the opportunity to address the House today regarding an important piece of legislation to prohibit the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children. Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), has come to the House so that we can do our part to protect the health and well-being of Canadian children. It is through initiatives such as Bill S-228, introduced by the hon. Senator Greene Raine, that we will have a lasting impact on the health of Canadians.

I want to thank my friend and colleague on the health committee, the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, for his efforts in shepherding this bill through the House of Commons.

Diet-related chronic diseases are a national health crisis. For example, some three million Canadians, one in 10 adults, are currently living with diabetes, and about 90% of adult Canadian diabetics have type 2 diabetes.

To make matters worse, Canada's obesity rates are on the rise. Almost two-thirds of Canadian adults, 64.2%, are overweight or obese.

We have already heard from a number of our colleagues that the rate of obesity in children has tripled in Canada since 1980. This means that our children are at higher risk of developing a range of health problems later in life, including type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. With all this in mind, I would like to applaud the Minister of Health for her strong leadership in bending the curve. Specifically, the Minister of Health has launched the comprehensive healthy eating strategy, which targets the diets of all Canadians, including children. The key focus is to make the healthy choice the easy choice. Significant progress has been made on the healthy eating strategy since it was launched in October 2016. For example, Health Canada has advanced new nutrition labelling requirements that will increase the clarity of nutrition information on food packaging by 2022. Health Canada has also published new regulations that will eliminate industrial trans fat by 2018.

Moving forward, Health Canada is advancing initiatives to continue this momentum to support better health outcomes for Canadians. This includes reducing sodium in processed foods, revising Canada's food guide to reflect the latest scientific evidence, and introducing front-of-package labelling regulations to improve the ability of Canadians to identify foods high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat.

Restricting the commercial marketing of unhealthy foods to children is an important and timely component of the overall strategy. Now more than ever, our children are being exposed to a significant number and range of advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages.

The marketing world has changed. In addition to traditional advertising, unhealthy food and beverage advertising is now all over the screens our children are exposed to.

According to a recent study, children see over 25 million food and beverage ads on their favourite websites every year. Technology has made it easier for advertisers to reach children now, no matter where they are. These factors combined are producing poor health outcomes and will have a negative impact on our children and our country in the long term.

In fact, the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children has been identified by the World Health Organization, WHO, as a major contributor to childhood obesity. To encourage countries around the world to tackle the problem, the WHO has developed guidance for implementing marketing restrictions, which Health Canada has followed in developing its policy.

Other countries are recognizing the need to take action in this area as well. Regulatory measures have been put in place in countries all around the world, including South Korea, the United Kingdom, and Chile. Health Canada is learning from their experience, as we are also learning here at home from Quebec, where regulations restricting marketing to children have been in place for over 30 years. The evidence suggests that this approach is working, as French-speaking children in Quebec are exposed to fewer ads than children outside of Quebec.

Advertising and marketing techniques work to influence behaviour. Health experts, and the food and beverage industry alike, have long recognized the impact that advertising unhealthy foods and beverages has on children. Unfortunately, voluntary efforts to reduce marketing to children have not worked. While some industry members have taken steps to restrict certain marketing practices to children, this legislation supports a stronger, comprehensive approach and has the potential to create substantial change for Canadian children.

In an effort to protect the health and wellness of Canadian children, the government is focusing the marketing restrictions on unhealthy foods that are high in salt, sugar, and saturated fat. These nutrients are associated with an increased risk of chronic disease and obesity. As such, they are also the nutrients which the WHO recommends we focus on in defining unhealthy foods for marketing restrictions.

The vast majority of children are consuming sodium at levels that are associated with an increased risk to health. In fact, the average daily sodium intake of Canadian children exceeds the recommended upper limit by a staggering 80%. This excessive intake of salt is putting children at increased risk of developing high blood pressure.

Our children are consuming excessive amounts of sugar, largely due to sugary drink consumption. The 2014-15 Canadian health measures survey reported that 16% of children and youth were drinking sugar-sweetened beverages every single day. Research has shown that this can contribute to an increased risk of tooth decay and childhood obesity. In Canada, tooth decay affects 57% of children aged 6 to 11 years, and nearly one-third of Canadian children are overweight or obese. Diets that are high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat play a large role in this alarming statistic.

This legislation, along with the various initiatives under the healthy eating strategy, will support better health outcomes for Canadians. Placing restrictions on the marketing of foods and beverages that are high in salt, sugar, and saturated fat will make it easier to choose whole foods that are the foundation of a healthy diet, foods that align with the dietary guidance provided in Canada's food guide and encourage a healthy diet and growth.

As the healthy choice becomes the easier choice for Canadians, we hope that the food and beverage industry will shift toward producing and promoting more foods that better meet the nutritional needs of Canadian children. This initiative aligns with the Department of Agriculture and Agri-food's food policy for Canada, which supports the need to increase access to affordable foods and grow more high-quality healthy food.

Research shows that marketing influences what children eat and drink. We know that food has a direct impact on health and well-being. This is why Bill S-228 is important to protecting the health and well-being of all children in Canada. Today, this marketing of unhealthy food and beverages is so pervasive that we need to play our part by providing parameters on the advertising of unhealthy foods and drinks directed at children.

I ask the House to support Bill S-228 in order to protect the health and well-being of all Canadian children by restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to once again speak to Bill S-228, which is about marketing to children. I only had the chance to speak to this motion for about two minutes when the bill was last debated. I will use my remaining eight minutes to comment on some new developments that have taken place since the bill was last debated.

The bill is being sponsored by the government as part of its healthy eating strategy and is one of four key pillars of this strategy. This objective is also outlined in the Minister of Health's mandate letter. Furthermore, her letter stated that she would introduce “new restrictions on the commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, similar to those now in place in Quebec”.

When I was speaking to the legislation in December, I had a great deal of concern that the government was not, in fact, following the Quebec model. The model in Quebec, when it comes to marketing food and drink products to children, is based on an age limit of 13. Originally, Bill S-228 set out that companies would be prohibited from advertising to any children under the age of 17, which is certainly far off from the model in Quebec.

Since then, the minister has announced that the government would be looking to amend the legislation so that the age limit would be 13. I am very pleased to see that the government will move forward with that amendment. It is important. An age limit of 13 is far more reasonable and is more reflective of the model I believe we are aiming for. I look forward to seeing those amendments brought forward.

However, the Quebec model focuses solely on advertising and does not contain labelling and packaging bans, bans on testimonials and endorsements, bans on sales promotions, or bans on sales. All of these are currently possible restrictions in Bill S-228. They would certainly create a system that was far more restrictive than the one in Quebec. Therefore, the bill goes beyond the minister's mandate letter and does not truly accomplish the goal of introducing a model similar to Quebec's.

I would welcome amendments to Bill S-228 that would ensure that the legislation did not include the activities I just outlined. We need to be as close to the Quebec model as possible, and that would certainly help the bill get much closer.

I also have a number of concerns about how vague Bill S-228 is. The bill would essentially pave the way for the Department of Health to create regulations for marketing to children. In fact, the only truly defined aspect of the bill is the age limit. Everything else is left to the discretion of Health Canada. This is concerning, because we have already seen Health Canada deem foods like milk and beef unhealthy in its review of Canada's food guide.

Bill S-228 would amend the Food and Drugs Act to give Health Canada the power to define unhealthy food or to set out the criteria for determining whether a food is unhealthy. It is unclear what kinds of food would actually fall under the scope of this legislation. Over-consumption of anything, instead of moderation, is not good, but to define milk and beef as unhealthy is absolutely not true and is very insulting to the dairy and red meat industries.

Furthermore, the bill is vague about what kinds of advertising would be deemed to be targeting children. This would again be left completely to Health Canada to implement through regulations. Given that the bill is so broad, it is difficult to know what exactly we would be agreeing to in passing Bill S-228. The bill needs to be more clearly defined so that we can be sure that Health Canada would not have the power to unilaterally start regulating our food and beverage industries without evidence to suggest that these regulations would have a positive impact.

Further still, the legislation would leave Canadian food and beverage companies at an unfair disadvantage. Under this legislation, Canadian companies would be unable to advertise on websites, social media, and apps that may be intended for adults but are popular with children. However, foreign companies would not face these same restrictions. This is unfair and could have significant economic impacts. It is another attack on Canadian small businesses.

There is also some significant hypocrisy when it comes to this legislation. I find it interesting that on the one hand, the government is hell-bent on eliminating advertising to children for food and beverages, while on the other hand, it is allowing our children to possess certain amounts of marijuana.

Furthermore, under this legislation, marketing to children by the food and beverage industry would be prohibited, but alcoholic beverages would not face the same restrictions. It does not make sense at all. For example, a 13-year-old watching Hockey Night in Canada would be able to watch a commercial for Budweiser, but Tim Hortons would be prohibited from advertising hot chocolate or Timbits. It does not make sense.

In closing, I am fully in support of measures that promote healthy eating and good nutrition for our children. However, I am not supportive of broad and unclear legislation that would put significant regulatory power in the hands of Health Canada without any legislative direction.

The minister made a number of promises in relation to this legislation. She said that the bill would not target companies that sponsor sports programs, such as Timbits hockey and soccer. I am pleased that the minister has made this promise. However, until I see it included in the bill, I am sceptical and do not trust that this will in fact be the case. I want to see it first.

I support the intent of the legislation. However, the bill needs some significant work at committee to ensure that there are clear and defined objectives. The current draft of the bill would leave uncertainty, and it would leave all decision-making power in the hands of Health Canada. We need more direction.

I have another concern. One of the government MPs has said that we should go beyond the legalization of marijuana and that all drugs should be decriminalized. It just blows my mind. We are talking about the health and safety of kids, and everything the Liberals say and do contradicts that.

With that, I am done for the day.

The House resumed from December 12, 2017 consideration of the motion that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Mr. Speaker, at this time of the year, I want to wish you, all of the pages, staff, and colleagues a very merry Christmas and a very happy and prosperous 2018.

It is a pleasure to speak today to Bill S-228. While the intent of the bill is something we should all support, and I certainly do, more than one member has talked about its unintended consequences. I met today with members of Canada Soccer and Sports Matters, who are very concerned about programs. Everyone is very aware of the Timbits hockey and soccer programs and a number of others. These could be in severe jeopardy of not complying with this bill if the regulations are not done right. That is a concern.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise today in support of Bill S-228, the child health protection act. I know this legislation will make a difference in the overall health of Canadians, especially our youth. As chair of the all-party diabetes caucus, I know the importance of deterring unhealthy food choices in favour of a healthy, active lifestyle.

I would like to express my thanks to the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for sponsoring the bill. I would also to recognize the efforts of the hon. Senator Greene Raine for leading the bill and for her tireless work in advancing the national dialogue on restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children.

Young children are subject to the influence of advertising in many forms of media. With bright colours and big excitement, advertising can attract young Canadians to food and drink choices that do not contribute to their nutritional needs or that are filled with sugar, which is a leading cause of obesity among our youth today.

The social and economic costs of diet-related chronic diseases in this country are already unsustainable. Chronic diseases impacted by diet cost the Canadian economy at least $27 billion dollars every year, and that cost is growing. We need to break this trend and move the needle in the right direction, starting with our children. This is just one example of unhealthy marketing to young Canadians that would be prevented through the changes suggested in this legislation, and that would be a great thing.

Bill S-228 seeks to restrict the marketing of unhealthy food to children. It seeks to prevent bright and animated imagery from influencing children to choose foods and beverages that do nothing to meet their daily nutrient needs and that fills them with unhealthy sugars, chemicals, fats, and empty carbohydrates. This is an important move at a time when our nation faces a chronic disease crisis brought on by diets that are high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat. The bill would help head off growing obesity rates in Canada and could even help reduce the epidemic of diabetes that is soaring from coast to coast to coast.

As I mentioned previously, my role as chair of the all-party diabetes caucus makes me especially proud to support this bill brought here by my friend and colleague, who brings his extensive medical background to our work on the Standing Committee on Health.

Today Canada ranks among the most overweight OECD countries, based on body mass index. A 2017 obesity update by the OECD showed that in Canada, approximately 27% of the population aged 15 and over is obese. In my riding of Brampton South, we see that obesity is a significant health concern for all residents. In fact, in Peel Region, 51% of adults and 32% of grade 7 to 12 students are overweight or obese.

Many factors contribute to these chronic health concerns, including high levels of sodium consumption. Canadian children consume on average more than 80% of the daily recommended salt intake. This can lead to high blood pressure, which comes with many dangerous consequences. Across the country, 25% of Canadians are living with diagnosed high blood pressure, and this rate has been rising by nearly 3% each year since 2000.

While there are many factors that contribute to obesity, a lack of nutritional balance and an overuse of unhealthy foods is a major contributing factor. Interventions like this one are important to protect young Canadians from the appeals of advertising, which can draw them to make unhealthy choices in their daily food and drinks. Certainly, reducing our obesity rate will have a significant impact on reducing the rate of Canadians living with type 2 diabetes. Reduced blood sugar levels, increased physical activity, and loss of about 5% to 10% of total body weight can make a great difference in overall health and quality of life.

Our government is taking great strides to encourage healthy, active living. Canada's healthy eating strategy is a great example of this, with many elements working together to help Canadians make the healthy choice the easy choice.

Too often, with the pressures of our busy lives, Canadians forgo home cooking in favour of processed foods. Too often, we substitute nutritional value for convenience, and with the power of advertising, this can lead to habit-forming patterns for Canadian youth and young adults. In fact, a recent study found that children are exposed to more than 25 million food and beverage ads on their favourite websites. The World Health Organization has also expressed its concern about the power of advertising targeted at children. In 2010, WHO member states, including Canada, made recommendations calling for comprehensive controls on the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children.

We all know how pervasive marketing can be when it comes to making consumer decisions. How many words have entered our common language after first being brand names? How many of us can sing along to the jingles on TV and radio? How many of us can name the big orange tiger on the cereal box?

When healthy eating and active living can make such a great difference in deterring the onset of obesity and chronic disease, a responsible government should do all it can to help Canadians live healthy lives.

This summer, I travelled across Canada to speak with Canadians about healthy eating and heard great support for this bill as it made its way through the other place. Now that it has been raised here, I continue to hear support for this bill and the positive changes it would make to the overall health of Canadian youth. Youth are, after all, the next generation of Canadian adults, and if we can promote improve their health at a younger age, we will see consistent change in the overall health of all Canadians.

It is my hope that in the years to come, the pressures of food and beverage industry marketing will be removed and that children and young Canadians will making healthier choices, contributing to their overall health.

I want thank my colleague for bringing this bill here, and all who have worked to protect young Canadians from targeted marketing of unhealthy foods and drinks. I encourage all of my colleagues on both sides of this House to support this bill and do their part to help us protect the health of Canadian youth. Together, we can make a real difference in the health and well-being of Canadians today and for years to come.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and speak to Bill S-228, a bill that would prohibit the marketing of unhealthy foods to children.

I would like to thank Senator Nancy Green Raine for her continued dedication in this area and for her hard work on this bill. I would also like to thank the member for Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley for introducing this bill in the House.

When we talk about the bill, it is important we take a fact and evidence-based approach. I think everyone in the House would agree that we would like to see obesity reduced in Canadians, and that is the goal. However, one of the troubling things is the bill would likely not do that.

First, let us look at the current situation. We have witnessed a decline in childhood and adolescent obesity levels in Canada from 2004 to 2015. This finding is based on the most recent Statistics Canada data from the 2015 Canadian Community Health Survey. Therefore, rates are declining and people are starting to become aware about what they eat and the effect it has on them.

We have heard in the House how other countries have implemented similar legislation to what is proposed here. In fact, the province of Quebec has had this type of legislation in place for the last 40 years. Unfortunately, there has not been a reduction in obesity rates in Quebec. Its rates have been flat for the last 10 years. Therefore, when we look at addressing obesity, it is important to address all of the factors and ensure that what we do will have an impact.

I know the member who has sponsored the bill is a runner and very fit. I am a triathlete and, in full disclosure to the House, I do from time to time eat chips. I do consume McDonald's, Tim Hortons, and a variety of things that might be categorized under the legislation as being unhealthy. However, I do not think members would say I am obese. Certainly, I am quite healthy. It is a balance.

If I look to how I grew up, I remember we ate Lucky Charms, Cap'n Crunch, and a myriad of candied cereals that would make the unhealthy list. In fact, my mother used to give us toast that we dipped in maple syrup. However, there was not a large amount of obesity then, because we ran around all day, played outside, and got our physical activity. Physical activity is probably a stronger factor than what we see here.

One of the problems I have with the bill is the vague definition of “unhealthy” food. Who will decide that? As we pointed out, everything in moderation can contribute to one's diet. That is problematic.

The other thing is the unintended consequences of the bill. I was pleased to hear, with some of the amendments the member has proposed, about the age requirement being held to 13. Although I do not think the bill would have the intended effect of reducing obesity, it is clear that it is problematic with respect to court challenges and also with respect to what we allow people 15 and 16 years old to do. We allow them to fly planes, to get their driver's licence, and all kinds of things. It seems like we need to err on the side of personal choice and individual responsibility.

Also, there will be an impact for many of the folks who have businesses, McDonald's and Tim Hortons I mentioned. Pop is another controversial topic of conversation. However, all of these businesses will receive an unintended consequence. Therefore, I was happy to hear that the health minister recognized there would be an impact on the community support that these organizations provided with respect to sporting events and those kinds of things. It is important that we keep those up, and all the other things they do to support the community, such as the Ronald McDonald houses and the camps that Tim Hortons run. There are numerous beneficial things.

Therefore, I do not think we want to implement legislation that would not actually address the obesity issue but have these other negative consequences, which may not be intended.

One of the concerns that has been brought up as well, which would be addressed by the amendment of reducing the age, is with respect to the kids who work in restaurants or convenience stores and would be exposed to marketing.

The advertising part of this also looks to be difficult to implement. I am not sure what we expect to happen with billboards, because young children will see the billboards. Is that marketing directed at children? Who will make those calls? I think it is unreasonable to assume that the people at Health Canada are going to be able to determine whether advertising is directed at children, and to enforce it. How would they enforce that? How many resources are required to enforce something like that? Those are questions that still need to be answered.

The other concerns that have been raised to me have to do with predominantly adult audiences. If the audience is 95% adult, would we allow unhealthy foods to be advertised there or not? Some of these things seem a little hypocritical. If we look at the government allowing 12- to 17-year-olds to possess up to five grams of marijuana, it seems ridiculous and very hypocritical that we do not want them to see ads for unhealthy foods. There are things of that nature that need to be addressed in this legislation.

There are also going to be economic impacts from this. Estimates from a recent industry study indicate that a ban on food and beverage advertising would result in a GDP reduction of over $10 billion a year, tens of thousands of lost employment person-years, and reductions in income, payroll, and corporate revenues of nearly $1 billion. These unintended consequences will be very bad for the country. As I said, I do not believe the legislation is actually going to get to the heart of the issue, which is reducing obesity.

The other thing that is problematic from my perspective is this. I grew up enjoying Christmas calendars and Easter bunnies. I really think that there is a time and a place where the marketing of treats does not result in obesity. They happen occasionally and are not a chronic part of an everyday diet. That needs to be looked at as well, and exemptions would have to be put forward for those.

I do not know how one would measure whether or not marketing is primarily directed at children. I am not clear on the definition of that. If we look to other places that have implemented similar programs, I know that the data from Chile suggests that it has not seen a reduction in obesity, even though it put in place some very stringent measures. The boxes of Lucky Charms and Cap'n Crunch that I talked about have to be packaged in a white sack in Chile, yet it is still not seeing a reduction in obesity. Similar results exist in the U.K. as well. Therefore, we need to be fact-based and evidence-based when it comes to how we view this legislation.

One of the things that I would like to see is a focus on the activity level of children. I talked about how there was no obesity around our neighbourhood because we were all very active. We have to educate our children and Canadians on the food that they eat and how to live a healthy lifestyle. That is good education and I have certainly changed some of my eating habits over time. It is better for us to educate and then allow people to make their personal choices. If they are taking their kids out, they should be able to take them to McDonald's. I do not think we want to get into a situation where we have a nanny state and we are influencing the personal choices of people. Individuals have a responsibility. Parents have a responsibility.

Those are my comments. I look forward to being at the health committee to talk about this, to look at the amendments that are put forward, and to further discussion.

[Bill Blair, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased today to have the opportunity to rise to speak in support of Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children).

With the introduction of this bill last fall, the hon. Senator Nancy Green Raine took a significant step forward in protecting Canada's children from the negative influence of commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages. The bill before us today represents an effective means to bring about real change in this area. That said, I also believe that the new amendments to be moved by the sponsor at committee are critical to the success of this important endeavour.

Taken together, the decision to change the definition of children to “under age 13” and the inclusion of a mandatory review of the legislation within five years of its introduction will strengthen Bill S-228. Specifically, the amendments will be effective in protecting children under the age of 13 from the negative influence of the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages now, while monitoring the impacts on teenagers aged between 14 and 17.

We cannot underestimate how important this piece of legislation is to the health and well-being of our children. We are all well aware that a nutritious and balanced diet is important to promote good health. In fact, a healthy diet is one of the best ways to prevent obesity and devastating chronic diseases like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and stroke.

Over the past few decades, the Government of Canada has made great strides in supporting Canadians by promoting good eating habits, through the long-standing Canada's food guide, the introduction of the nutrition facts table, and improvements in the way foods are labelled.

However, a number of factors are challenging public health efforts and making it increasingly difficult for Canadians to eat a healthy and nutritious diet. Because of this, we are seeing alarming rates of obesity and chronic diseases in this country. More than one in five Canadians lives with chronic diseases, and the rates is increasing. The social and economic costs have become unsustainable. Chronic diseases caused by poor diets have been costing the Canadian economy at least $27 billion every year, and that cost is growing. Perhaps even more disturbing is that our most vulnerable population, our children, are beginning to carry this heavy burden.

Our children are being brought up in an environment where processed, unhealthy and fast food is the norm. Children are not only eating fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended, but they are also exceeding the amount of sugar, salt, and saturated fat they should be consuming. The statistics are alarming. Recent research shows that toddlers are consuming up to 27% of their calories from sugar, and nearly a third of Canadian children are overweight or obese. As a result, this population is now more at risk than previous generations for developing health problems later in life, such as type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

This is a serious health crisis that requires our immediate attention. More needs to be done to improve the health of our children and to reduce their consumption of foods that are high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat.

Current public health efforts to curb this growing crisis are being hampered by the powerful and pervasive marketing messages for unhealthy food, particularly those high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat. These marketing strategies often appeal to children's emotions and influence their eating habits.

To be clear, we are not only referring to the commercials that play during children's television programming. Modern food advertising to children takes on many forms going well beyond traditional media. Today's advertising includes sophisticated strategies that make use of online venues, product placement, and brand recognition. For example, according to a recent study, today's children, collectively, are exposed to a shocking 25 million food and beverage ads every single year on their favourite websites alone. Children are also exposed to marketing every day in schools, restaurants, cinemas, and grocery stores. These industry practices include celebrity endorsements, promotions and incentive programs designed to entice children to remember, prefer, and select specific company brands.

Ninety percent of foods advertised online to children are high in sugar, salt, and saturated fat. It is not surprising that marketing has been identified by leading experts as a major contributor to childhood obesity.

Bill S-228 puts forward a legislative strategy under the Food and Drugs Act to address marketing to children by imposing prohibitions on the advertising of unhealthy food and beverages directed at children. Most parents are not aware of the extent to which their children are exposed to these advertisements, or the potential negative impacts on them.

We are not alone internationally in battling this problem. The World Health Organization and the United Nations have endorsed government action against harmful, unhealthy food marketing to children. Several countries have already taken action, including the United Kingdom, Mexico, Chile, South Korea, Sweden, and Ireland.

Here at home, voluntary efforts on the part of industry have not proven to be effective, and the time has come for Canada to take stronger action. I would like to remind the House that the Minister of Health has also committed to restricting the marketing of unhealthy foods to children as part of her mandate requirements. These restrictions will complement Health Canada's comprehensive healthy eating strategy, which aims to make the healthier choice the easier choice.

The strategy also includes other initiatives, such as revising Canada's food guide to provide dietary recommendations based on the latest scientific evidence. Health Canada is also improving food packaging labels to make it easier for Canadians to understand what is in the food they are buying. In addition, Health Canada is pursuing sodium reduction targets, and the Minister of Health has already banned industrial trans fat in packaged foods with regulations that will come into force next year.

Getting and keeping our children active is key to their living long, healthy, and productive lives. To support this goal, the Minister of Health has made it clear to me that she will advance regulations under Bill S-228 to exempt the sponsorship of community sporting activities from marketing restrictions. Many community organizations have expressed concern about the impact this might have on important sporting activities, and the minister has listened to them and is prepared to respond appropriately.

Community sporting activities provide social and health benefits to our kids. However, since we also know that sponsorship is a powerful marketing tactic, the government will engage with the sports community to better understand the risks and benefits of sponsorship to ensure that our policy approach achieves our goal of the best health outcomes for our children.

I commend the Minister of Health for her leadership in this area. Together, these measures will result in real change for Canadians and, in particular, Canadian youth.

I urge all members of the House to support this legislation so that our children have a chance to grow up healthy without the negative influence of the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages.

It is important that our children and future generations have the tools they need to make healthy food choices. With the right tools and with restrictions on the marketing of unhealthy foods, I am confident that we will be able to bend the curve in the obesity and chronic disease crisis.

[Brigitte Sansoucy, NDP, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, Canada ranks sixth among industrialized countries in respect of its percentage of children who are obese. The number of obese children in Canada is rising dramatically, and it is having a considerable impact on the health of Canadian families and our health care system. It is time that the government took action and remedied this situation.

I am therefore rising to support Bill S-228, which seeks to find solutions to the serious problem of childhood obesity resulting from children's exposure to food marketing. The World Health Organization itself considers the marketing of unhealthy foods as one of the main contributors to obesity.

The NDP have strongly supported this initiative for a long time. In 2012, we introduced Bill C-430, which sought to ban any advertising specifically targeted at children under the age of 13. We therefore applaud the work that was done in relation to the Senate committee's 2016 report on obesity, which led to the drafting of this bill. This report showed that it is essential that we reduce children's exposure to advertising in order to address the issue of childhood obesity. That is an important issue.

Children are being directly targeted by food and beverage marketing. That is why this bill is so important. As the critic for families, children, and social development and the deputy critic for health, I am proud to be speaking on this issue.

I will point out that the committee should discuss the age threshold this bill sets for marketing to children. The only existing legislation on this subject is the Quebec law, which prohibits advertising directed at children under the age of 13, not 17, the age specified in this bill. The bill originally set the age threshold at 13, but after discussion, it was raised to 17. That will require further discussion.

This bill will have to harmonize with Quebec's law. We need to respect the provinces' jurisdiction. The bill should draw on Quebec's law, not contradict it. This bill will make it illegal to market a food or beverage directly to children, which obviously includes the way the labelling and packaging are designed. It also makes it illegal to offer or give gifts or surprises with the purchase of food or beverages.

Urgent action is needed to protect our kids. The numbers are frightening. According to this study, the number of obese children has tripled since the 1980s. It is critical that we take swift and early action on childhood obesity. An obese child is 20% more likely to struggle with weight problems in adulthood. Obese teens are an alarming 80% more likely, according to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

It is a well-known fact that childhood obesity has terrible effects on children's physical health, and the same is true of their mental health and social lives. Children with poor self-esteem can be in for a lifelong struggle. On top of all that, another harmful effect of childhood obesity is additional health care spending.

Indeed, as obesity rates increase, the associated costs also increase. Once again, the numbers are extremely troubling. The annual economic burden of obesity is estimated to be in the billions of dollars. It is unbelievable. The Senate committee put that figure somewhere between $4.6 billion and $7.1 billion annually in health care costs and lost productivity.

That is why the government has to put Bill S-228 to a vote. People should no longer have to wait to protect their children from the harmful influence of food and beverage marketing. Parents have enough to worry about without having to fight the influence of marketing on their children.

Francine Forget Marin, director of health promotion and research at the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, is certain that children are very vulnerable to advertising because they cannot distinguish between good food and bad.

Marketing directed at children influences their food preferences and eating habits. For example, they will have a tendency to want products that are adorned with a familiar logo or character, such as superheros or princesses. Young people even think that those products taste better than the same product in a different package.

The problem is that most of these advertised products are low in nutritional value. Research by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada showed that children see more than 25 million food and beverage ads on their favourite web sites every year. That is unbelievable. They are completely bombarded and led to believe that the food is good, but it is quite the opposite. More than 90% of the food and drinks advertised online are unhealthy. By limiting access to ads for young audiences, this bill seeks to prevent young people from adopting their parents' unhealthy eating habits by eliminating the problem at the source.

My team presented the bill to Jeunes en santé, an organization in my riding that works to protect and promote the health and well-being of children and adolescents. The organization's coordinator, Véronique Laramée, told us how important it is for messaging directed at young people to focus on healthy eating. For Jeunes en santé, making sure kids know that eating well is good for them and eating foods with lots of sugar and trans fats is bad for them is crucial. Jeunes en santé is to be commended for promoting healthy eating to young people in my riding.

Imagine a world where children are no longer bombarded by ads for products that are bad for their health. The time has come for the federal government to do something to support parents who are trying to make good choices. Children and parents need an environment free from the influence of food and beverage advertising, one that supports healthy, nutritious choices.

I want to congratulate the province of Quebec for its leadership in protecting children from aggressive advertising tactics. In fact, Quebec is the only province that already has legislation in place. Its Consumer Protection Act was passed in 1980. After an almost 10-year battle, the Supreme Court finally decided in 1989 that the Quebec law was constitutional. Since then, the Quebec law has had a very positive impact on the health of our children. According to a 2011 study, Quebec has the lowest rate of obesity among children aged 6 to 11, and the highest consumption of fruits and vegetables. This shows how important and useful legislation is.

There are very clear differences at the provincial level. I had the opportunity to meet with members of Quebec's Weight Coalition, who confirmed that there is a striking difference in children's exposure to advertising from province to province. It is time that the federal government remedy this situation.

Bill S-228 has been well received in Quebec, since it will complement the existing legislation. In that regard, Quebec's Weight Coalition reminded me that the exceptions in the Quebec law continue to pose a problem. The Quebec law still allows packaging and advertisements in store windows and displays, and of course, that marketing targets children in particular.

The time has come for the federal government to take action. Studies and research have been done and recommendations have been made, yet the epidemic of childhood obesity has still not been stopped. This bill is the first real step in the right direction.

Our children need to be able to make the right choices, and we need to be able to regulate advertising. If we want a healthy population, we need to act now in order to offer our children the greatest gift of all, the gift of health.

This bill makes the health of all of our children a priority and emphasizes the importance of having all the necessary tools to protect them. Quebec addressed this issue nearly 30 years ago. It is high time the federal government did the same.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was at the point of suggesting to my colleagues that they take time to read Bill S-228—about a five-minute investment of their time. They will notice that the bill, as currently drafted, is extremely vague and leaves too many doors open to unintended consequences. We do not know yet what constitutes “unhealthy food”. The definition is not identified. We should disagree with any categorization of any food as unhealthy or bad. If bad or unhealthy, it should not be defined as a food. As well, any food eaten in moderation can form part of a wholesome diet.

Bill S-228 does not provide specifics as to what constitutes marketing for children and types of marketing activities that should be restricted. The bill would likely prohibit an extremely wide range of practices in the form of restrictions on (a) advertising in traditional broadcasting, radio, and print; (b) online and digital content; (c) sponsorships; (d) sales promotions; (e) celebrity and character endorsements; and (f) the use of a brand name, trademark, or logo that is associated with or evokes thoughts of an unhealthy food.

If this is the case, the scope of the marketing revisions under Bill S-228 would likely have negative repercussions on many sectors of business: farming, food manufacturing, advertising, publishing, broadcasting, and retailing, including the small and medium-sized convenience store owners. At no time have we seen a bill before this House with such wide-ranging restrictions on communications and advertising of legal products.

Let me paint a picture of a Canada under this current bill, Bill S-228. A Canada under the bill would mean that youth would be exposed to beer commercials rather than candy bar commercials during the broadcast of Hockey Night in Canada. A Canada under Bill S-228 would also mean that youth could drive a car at age 16 or fly a plane at 15 years of age but still be subjected to restrictions on the marketing of food and beverages. What would happen to Timbits hockey and Tim Hortons summer camps? The very sports teams that keep our children active may struggle to exist.

The lack of differentiation of target audiences for advertising purposes exposes Bill S-228 to a potential constitutional challenge under subsection 2(b) of the charter. The majority of the court in Irwin Toy Ltd. v. Quebec noted that the advertising ban under Quebec's Consumer Protection Act was the least intrusive means, least intrusive on the constitutional right of freedom of commercial speech, including advertising, and was justifiable under section 1 of the charter because the advertisers were still free to direct their message at parents and other adults.

Bill S-228 would give broad discretionary powers to the cabinet to make regulations “setting out the factors to be considered in determining whether unhealthy food is advertised in a manner that is primarily directed at children, including how, when and where an advertisement is communicated”. We must ask ourselves if we as legislators are not abdicating our responsibility when allowing legislation as broadly drafted as is Bill S-228 to enter this House for consideration. The lack of details renders debate and public consultation meaningless, weakening the integrity of our democratic processes and institutions.

With this reversal of roles, with the Senate introducing legislation for consideration by the House, the House must now act as the chamber of sober second thought to reflect the interests of its constituents.

It is also surprising, as my fellow members will notice when they read the bill, to see what is left in the hands of government officials. The definitions in the legislation should be the subject matter of discussion and guidance by this House, not left to the care of others within the bureaucracy, who would be given very wide latitude to address the definition of unhealthy foods.

This would leave Canadian businesses vulnerable to the whims of a few unelected officials who may not appreciate the ramifications of their decisions. I reiterate, who will be impacted by this bill? It will be farmers, small business owners, manufacturers, advertisers, broadcasters, the very heart of job creation, all the way to small convenience store owners.

Our esteemed senators claim that Bill S-228 satisfies the health minister's mandate letter and that similar prohibitions in other jurisdictions, most notably in the province of Quebec, have worked to decrease childhood obesity levels.

It is critical to highlight that Bill S-228 deviates substantially from the Quebec model, despite the Prime Minister's instructions to the health minister in his mandate letter to her to promote public health by introducing new restrictions on commercial marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children, similar to those in Quebec. The bill targets children under the age of 17 rather than under 13, although it has been said that the age will be changed. In fact, I am advised that the original bill introduced in the Senate did provide an initial target age of under 13 years of age, which would be compatible with Quebec.

Bill S-228 will be masked as a means to fight childhood obesity. It will be seen as checking the box in the health minister's mandate letter. I believe the health minister would want to ensure that that piece of her mandate letter is properly addressed with evidence-based solutions. Bill S-228 illustrates the dangers of crafting health policies on the basis of dated and, quite frankly, incomplete data.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Phil McColeman, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I stand before the House to speak to Bill S-228, a bill that calls for changes to the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages directly to Canadian children under the age of 17.

Bill S-228 is meant to address childhood obesity. We can all recognize that childhood obesity is a legitimate public policy concern. As members of Parliament, parents, aunts, uncles, members of the community, we all want to see our children and youth thrive and live healthy lives. However, Bill S-228 is far from the solution. It is a distraction from the urgent need to explore the real causes of childhood obesity, namely, the lack of balance between diet, screen time, and physical activity.

Evidence does not support that marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages is the true cause of childhood obesity in Canada. Childhood obesity is a complex and multi-dimensional problem. A holistic approach that takes into account the full set of causes of childhood obesity would better serve Canadians in the interest of truly protecting our children from the negative impacts of obesity on their health and well-being, thus encourage long lives filled with healthy lifestyles.

The main issue I wish to address after reading Bill S-228 is where the evidence and science is that supports the very purpose of the bill. Statistics Canada data suggest that added sugar consumption has been declining over the past two decades. During the same period, obesity rates have continued to rise. This finding was extremely significant, considering the bill states in its preamble that there is widespread marketing of food and beverage to children and restrictions to the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children must be mandated to curb the rapid growth of childhood obesity in Canada.

I strongly encourage my colleagues in the House to read Bill S-228. It should not take them more than five minutes of their time. They will note that the bill as currently drafted is extremely vague and leaves too many doors open to unintended consequences. We do not know yet what constitutes unhealthy food.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Do you think these sugar-sweetened...? How can we educate our kids to avoid those sugary drinks? I know that Bill S-228 is coming, and I'm speaking on that, too. Besides that, how can we give the correct message to our youth or other people to avoid that 100% sugar juice and to eat more food?

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

moved that Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children), be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Mr. Speaker, it is my honour to stand here today as the sponsor of Bill S-228, the child health protection act.

I would like to begin by commending the hon. Senator Greene Raine for introducing this bill last fall, and for her tireless efforts to support healthy choices for our children.

This bill was grounded in the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology's own study on obesity in Canada, published in March 2016, and was debated by that committee during its review of the legislation.

It has long been established that advertising works. What I mean by this is that advertising is an effective tool for influencing potential customers' attitudes and behaviours. If this were not true, then advertising would not be a long-standing multi-billion dollar industry. This principle applies to all potential customers, including children. Now, more than ever, our children are exposed to a barrage of advertisements for unhealthy foods and beverages. It therefore follows that those who are marketing their products to children will be affecting children's eating decisions. In fact, recent trends confirm that this is indeed the case.

One in three Canadian children is either overweight or obese. We know that obesity is linked to chronic illnesses, such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers. During my career as a physician, I witnessed these trends first-hand on a regular basis. I noticed more of my patients who presented were overweight or obese, and I was seeing instances of heart disease and type 2 diabetes in younger and younger people. Public health data across many countries confirms that this trend is widespread. Alarmingly, whereas 20 years ago type 2 diabetes was a disease primarily of older adults, this diagnosis is increasingly being made in children. It is obvious that we need to take bold action now. Our children's health and lives are at stake, and they deserve better.

This issue falls squarely within the Minister of Health's mandate to introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children.

The extent to which our children are exposed to the advertising of foods and beverages that are high in sugar, salt, and saturated fats cannot be overstated. For example, according to a recent study of the 25 million online food and beverage ads that Canadian children see every year on their favourite websites, 90% are for unhealthy products. As a result, our children are eating fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended and more unhealthy foods and beverages.

Taking action today to restrict the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages means that we can help children have a healthy start in life, based on a foundation of healthy eating choices, and protection from the influence and manipulation of those who would market unhealthy foods and beverages to our children. Bill S-228 serves to provide such protection.

If Bill S-228 is to give our children the protection they deserve, it is imperative that, before being passed into law, we take steps to ensure that this legislation will withstand any legal challenges that may come about. This is why I will be introducing amendments to this bill.

The first amendment would change the definition of “children” from under 17 years old to under 13 years old. Although some stakeholders have expressed reservations with changing the age, it must be understood that there is a very real potential that this bill could be challenged in its present form under the law.

In recent months, as Health Canada has consulted with stakeholders, it has become increasingly obvious that any regime built on restrictions aimed at older teenagers would be subject to considerable legal risks associated with the restriction on freedom of expression under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These are risks I cannot ignore, because a court loss could jeopardize this entire effort. The proposed change will allow us to take bold action to protect our most vulnerable populations now.

There is a strong precedent for defining a child as under 13 years of age in the context of advertising restrictions in the province of Quebec. In fact, the Quebec legislation withstood a charter challenge and was fully upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. That clear precedent supports the decision to amend the definition of children to those under 13. However, I will not stop there.

Recognizing there is evidence showing the vulnerability of teenagers to marketing, as well as the experience in Quebec where industry shifted marketing efforts to teenagers when restrictions were imposed on younger children, I will move an additional amendment to Bill S-228 at committee. Specifically, I will move an amendment to require Parliament to conduct a mandatory review of the legislation, with a particular focus on the definition of children, within five years of the act coming into force.

The objective of the parliamentary review will be to monitor whether the lower age limit results in increased advertising to teenagers and whether any provisions of the act need to be adjusted to ensure the continued and full protection of our children.

I have also been informed that the Minister of Health has instructed Health Canada to invest significant resources over the next five years and to work closely with the health stakeholder community to ensure the necessary research is undertaken to determine whether new forms of advertising are impacting children and whether teens are being exposed to more marketing as a result of restrictions on marketing to younger children. I applaud the minister for her leadership in this area.

Through the parliamentary review of the legislation, the government will also be obliged to report publicly on compliance with the bill and on progress toward our common goal of healthier children of all ages. This work will ensure that, if necessary, we will have the data needed to support a broadening of restrictions at a future date.

While parents have an important role in choosing what their children eat, it is difficult for them to compete with or to completely control their children's exposure to marketing. Parents and caregivers deserve a supportive environment where children are not constantly targeted by unhealthy food marketing.

Bill S-228 is but one effort to tackle the epidemic of obesity and chronic disease in our country. If anyone doubts my resolve or the resolve of our government, he or she need only look at the comprehensive suite of measures we have under way. These initiatives range from restricting marketing to children; to new front-of-pack labelling to flag foods high in sugar, salt, and fat; and to a revamped Canada Food Guide.

One of the fundamental responsibilities of a government is to protect its most vulnerable citizens and few citizens are more vulnerable than our children. I expect that everyone in the House can appreciate how significant Bill S-228 is for the health of our children today and for generations to come.

We will not let up in the fight to reduce obesity and chronic disease. I ask all members for their support on this important issue.

[Dr. Jeff Critch]

Thank you.

Honourable members and invited guests, thank you for this opportunity to reflect on revisions to Canada's food guide.

Canada's food guide, which was first released in 1942 as Canada's official food rules, has been a pivotal document for both individual counselling and policy. As a representative of the Canadian Paediatric Society, the CPS, I wish to acknowledge our support of the government's commitment to review and enhance food policy in Canada, including ongoing assessments and revisions of Canada's food guide.

The CPS is a voluntary professional association representing more than 3,000 pediatricians, subspecialists, residents, and others who care for children and youth. The CPS is committed to advancing the health of children and youth by nurturing excellence in health care, advocacy, education, research, and support of its members. Our current strategic framework is guided by the principles of nurturing every child's promise, ensuring access to care, and achieving equity.

As professionals dedicated to improving the health of children and youth, we are acutely aware of the importance of healthy nutrition in optimizing children's health and development. We are also cognizant of the important influence that families and the food environment play in the quality and quantity of foods consumed.

Daily, we are confronted with the effects of poor nutrition on our children and youth. Non-communicable, nutrition-related chronic diseases place a staggering burden on Canadians and Canadian society. This is reflected by increased morbidity, increased health care utilization, decreased quality of life, premature mortality, and reduced economic productivity. Most important, these diseases are largely preventable and often begin in childhood.

It is through this perspective of maximizing beneficial impacts on the health of children and youth that I will focus many of my comments today.

The CPS has been following the current process for revisions to Canada's food guide. We are aware of Canada's healthy eating strategy, initiatives to reduce sugar consumption, and the nutrition north Canada program. The CPS has a history of working closely with Health Canada and other associations.

The CPS has been encouraged by Health Canada's process in revising Canada's food guide. Enabling significant public consultation and restricting the potential adverse influence of industry are positive components. Health Canada's proposed guiding principles are succinct, evidence-based, and comprehensive. The recognition of the importance of providing guidance in the Canadian context with the integration of the concepts of the socio-economic determinants of health, cultural diversity, and environmental sustainability is vital.

Specifically, we are supportive of the advice provided in the proposed guiding principles of encouraging water consumption, the regular intake of a diversity of fruits and vegetables, and increasing plant-based sources of protein. We are supportive of limiting the intake of processed and prepared foods high in sodium, salts, and saturated fats, as well as the avoidance of beverages high in sugars. We agree with recognizing the essential importance of food literacy and skills in selection and preparation. On an associated topic, we strongly support Health Canada's decision to prohibit the use of partially hydrogenated oils in foods.

It is our hope and expectation that the proposed guiding principles will be adequately reflected in the advice and tools developed by Health Canada in the revised Canada food guide.

There are, however, a few issues to highlight for specific attention. It is important that Canada's food guide continue to be framed as just one component of a national food strategy. Canada's food guide and associated tools must be evidence-based, address cultural variability, and allow practicality of use. It must remain a tool for policy development that can be leveraged to optimize food environments.

It is vital that implementation of the advice provided in Canada's food guide is inclusive of vulnerable populations, including those at risk because of age, literacy, finances, and/or culture. Tools need to be developed specifically to ensure vulnerable populations are reached. For children and youth, this may include formats designed for social media, web- and phone-based applications, and/or the school curriculum. These formats need to be multimodal and attractive for the users. Other groups that will need to be targeted include those consuming alternative diets, such as vegetarian, vegan, and/or gluten free.

Canada's food guide and the associated tools should enable individual users to understand nutrition quality and energy balance.

Youth will need to learn the skills to understand nutrition labelling. Portion size will be a key component to address. This is a complex issue and will vary based on age, gender, and food type. Related to this is the importance of ensuring that appropriate-sized portions are served in restaurants and other venues.

Stringent definitions of what constitutes healthy and unhealthy foods and beverages are vital to consumers and regulators. Specific advice around ways to increase fruit and vegetable intake is needed. This should include education around the benefits of fresh, frozen, and canned food choices when fresh foods are unavailable or more expensive.

Specific education and tools highlighting the beneficial role of adequate fibre in the Canadian diet should be developed.

Effective educational tools and messaging emphasizing the negative impact on health of processed foods high in sugar, salt, and saturated fats is important. Specific attention needs to be directed towards reducing sugar-sweetened beverages.

Consideration would need to be given to how best to present dietary advice in Canada's food guide. Central to this is the decision regarding whether to categorize based on food type, such as fruits and vegetables, grains, milk and alternatives, or in a manner similar to that utilized in the Brazilian dietary guidelines, in which categorization is based on the level of processing. While there are pros and cons to each approach, a hybrid system incorporating categorization by level of processing within each food type may be a useful model.

As outlined in section D of the proposed guiding principles, recognition of the impacts that food production, distribution, and consumption have on the environment is an important consideration. In addition to supporting health, food policies should promote sustainability of the food supply and minimization of the environmental footprint.

The CPS recognizes that industry plays an important role in shaping our food environment and economy. This role can at times be in alignment with favourable nutritional policy and at other times be contradictory to it. Nevertheless, to protect and promote optimal food environments, effective policies would need to be developed to promote optimal actions from industry.

Associated with this is the importance of protecting children from unfavourable influence from industry. To this end, the CPS supports measures to ban marketing of unhealthy foods to children, the use of taxation policy to discourage consumption of unhealthy foods, and the use of subsidies to encourage consumption of healthy foods.

Policies should also be designed to reduce and eradicate poverty, as this is tightly related to food consumption.

The CPS recognizes that many of these issues are being explored by the present government, such as through Bill S-228.

Policies and tools should encourage and facilitate communities and industries to embrace changes designed to improve the food environment. These would include banning unhealthy foods near and in schools, redesigning grocery and corner stores to present fruits and vegetables in a more attractive setting, supporting the proliferation of local farmers' markets, and increasing access to community centres and fitness facilities. It is hoped that such policies will foster a collegial atmosphere in which all stakeholders, including consumers, policy-makers, and industry, are committed to optimizing and strengthening the living environment for Canadians, that being a healthy population with a high quality of life, living in clean environments, and working in robust economies.

Government must leverage policy and, when needed, legislate mandatory and enforceable regulations on industry to effect the desired changes. We believe such activity can be achieved while enabling a strong Canadian economy. Importantly, Health Canada would need to maintain and enhance its commitment to monitoring the effects of implemented interventions to ensure that the desired changes to food consumption and food environment were achieved. To this end, sufficient funding and even expansion of the Canadian health measures survey on chronic disease and nutrition quality will be needed.

In summary, one of our biggest challenges will be using the knowledge and guidance provided by a revised Canada's food guide to effect the individual and societal changes necessary to maximize health benefits for all Canadians. Considerable thought will need to be invested in developing policy, legislation, tools, and messaging that effectively communicate key information on topics such as nutrient quality, portion size, and healthy, active living. Reaching vulnerable populations, including those separated by education, poverty, language, and/or culture, will need to be a high priority. Education, increased nutritional literacy, development of basic cooking skills, and improved food environments will be needed.

Despite these current issues, Canada sits in a relatively enviable position moving forward. We have some understanding of the magnitude of the problem facing us. We have some understanding of the root causes. We have a fair idea of where we want to be. We have evidence to guide us in making the needed interventions to effect those changes, but it won't be easy. For any complex problem, altering human behaviour and environments can be challenging. There can be inertia to change. There can be opposition to change. Interventions will need to be varied, multi-focal, and integrated. Interventions need to be effective, evidence-based, and inclusive.

Disenfranchised and vulnerable populations need to be specifically targeted. Fortunately, Canada is a country rich in financial, intellectual, and human resources. We have shown a willingness and we have a capacity to effect favourable change for all Canadians. We have a responsibility to do so. Health Canada has been engaged in this process and their continuing leadership is vital.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I appreciate the motion, but you kind of hijacked my agenda. Before we go to that, I just want to go through the things we have to do before we get to a new subject. If that's okay with you, I'll just go through those things.

We still have a few meetings before the pharmacare study is finalized. That's when we come back. We are going to have Bill C-326, drinking water guidelines. It has already been referred to us, so we have to fit that into our schedule sometime. I think it's April, or we have 12 months to do that one. We have to do a study on drinking water before April. Then we have private member's motion M-132, on federally funded health research. We have to do that within a year, just so you know.

We have, coming sooner or later, Bill S-228, which is going to be really interesting. That's food and beverage marketing to children. We have Bill S-5 which is anticipated to come. That's on tobacco packaging. It is going to be another interesting one.

Those are just things we have to do, and then we should talk about a new subject, as Mr. Davies has proposed. Actually, indigenous health was the next one on the priority list that we originally established way back when we had 17. We knocked it down to priorities and that was the next one, along with home care and palliative care, and organ donation, after that.

Now I'm going to go back, and I'm sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Davies—

[The Chair, Liberal, Filomena Tassi]

I call the meeting to order.

Today, we are looking at Bill S-228, Doug Eyolfson's bill.

Does anyone have any issues with this bill?

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Given that you've already estimated $1.8 billion in potential costs for your members just to comply with this new set, are you worried about further compliance costs based on Bill S-228?

[Michi Furuya Chang]

Yes. With regard to marketing to kids and Bill S-228, you are correct. It's received first reading. Our position on that, and our concern, is this division of unhealthy versus healthy foods. I can tell you as a dietician and as a nutritionist that we believe in overall healthy eating patterns, and on healthy and unhealthy eating patterns and healthy and unhealthy lifestyles, one food in and of itself should not be deemed or categorized as healthy versus unhealthy. That's the foundation of our position on the marketing to kids bill.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

It's my understanding that Bill S-228 has already passed the Senate and is at first reading in the House of Commons. That in particular talks about unhealthy foods and is very generic. Do you have concerns about throwing that into the mix? I imagine packaging is a form of advertisement. I'm sure many would say that even where it's placed on a shelf is a form of advertisement.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

In reference to Bill S-228, it actually says the advertisement of “unhealthy foods”. First of all, there's no definition of “unhealthy”. In your market, where you might say, having higher sugar content coupled with nutritious minerals and other nutrients...it's a question of what is healthy. Some people might say cheese is very healthy, but again, it depends on your interpretation of what's healthy and what's unhealthy. Does that create a lot of certainty for your industry?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

I'm going to interrupt you, because I don't know how much time I have.

This was something that I think Mr. Fergus brought up. We were asking questions of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association.

What is the difference between the proposed S-228 and Quebec's advertising law?

[Tom Kmiec, Conservative, Calgary Shepard, AB]

In your presentation you also mentioned advertising. You made reference to Bill S-228, as have other witnesses before the committee who brought forward their views on it. You mentioned that your industry is regulated, and you have standards that you abide by.

Do people who are members of your association target children for advertising? How do you treat children aged zero to 12, and then 13 to 18?

[Jim Goetz, President, Canadian Beverage Association]

Thank you very much for inviting me here once again to present on behalf of the Canadian Beverage Association, which represents the non-alcoholic, non-dairy beverage industry.

We believe it is essential as a supercluster-identified sector that we engage with the government and Parliament to help create Canadian jobs, encourage economic growth, and drive investment. CBA members generate employment for more than 60,000 Canadians at better-than-average wages. Beverage industry salaries are, on average, 26% to 38% higher than the average for all manufacturing industries across the country. We contribute over $500 million in tax revenue to the federal government and an additional $400 million in provincial taxes.

We are a leading partner of small business in Canada. The sales of our members' products through grocery stores, food service vending machines, and convenience stores support tens of thousands of independent jobs and hundreds of thousands of retail and food service jobs.

I'm pleased that the MPs on this committee come from the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and Prince Edward Island. As an industry, we have a connection with each of your regions. For example, our members work with farmers to source sugar beets from Alberta and buy corn from Ontario. We purchase apples from B.C., Quebec, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, purchasing from 350 apple growers in Quebec alone. Our aluminum cans come from Whitby, Ontario. We employ people at distribution facilities in the Northwest Territories, and some of North America's largest manufacturing and distribution facilities are located in the 905 region.

Our members are making significant capital investment in Canada, bringing new technologies and efficiencies into the sector, such as having the largest fleet of hybrid trucks in North America. All the while, we employ well-paid, hard-working, middle-class Canadians. Our innovation is not limited to investment in our businesses. We also invest in strategies that will help support better health outcomes for Canadians. Launched in 2015, our industry-led “balance calories” initiative aims to reduce the calories consumed by Canadians from non-alcoholic, non-dairy beverages by 20% by 2025.

Very shortly, the Conference Board of Canada, our partner in our balance calories initiative, will be releasing our second report on the impact of our initiative. We expect that this report will show at least a 9% decrease in calories—calories being sugar—in our products since 2015. This means that in just 11 years our industry has already removed 29% of the calories that Canadians consume from our beverages. This is unprecedented in the food and beverage industry. As shown in the Ads Standards 2016 compliance report on the Canadian children's food and beverage advertising initiative, we have a positive record as an industry in adhering to our guidelines on marketing to children, which ban the marketing of our products to children under the age of 12.

The beverage sector shares the government's vision of building economic growth and benefits in Canada through innovation in the agrifood sector and throughout the food and beverage value chain. However, our members are concerned about increasing barriers to growth, including financial risks that impact our members on a daily basis, and speculation around a sugar tax and significant regulatory changes. The changes to front-of-pack labelling and CFIA regulations alone, according to Industry Canada, are estimated to cost the food and beverage sector over $2 billion over the next several years.

Coupled with those expenses, we understand that an economic impact analysis of the severe restrictions on advertising inherent to Bill S-228 commissioned by the Association of Canadian Advertisers shows a multi-billion dollar impact on GDP and revenues for Canada's struggling media industry and sponsorship of amateur sports, cultural events, and community giving; lost tax revenues for Ottawa and the provinces; and tens of thousands of job losses.

The CBA and its members recognize that obesity poses a critical challenge to individuals, public health, and government resources. At the same time, Statistics Canada data shows that the consumption of calories from beverages in Canada has continued to decline as obesity rates, unfortunately, have increased over the last 20 years. Proponents of a tax on our industry often point to Mexico as a success story, but the data coming out of Mexico's own reports is demonstrating that this is not the case. It shows that obesity has continued to rise. The revenue from the tax has also continued to rise, and 60% of that revenue is coming from Mexico's poorest households. We also know that there have been 11,000 job losses up and down the value chain. These are not the markers of a successful health or tax policy.

The Mexican tax also applies to a broad range of products, not just beverages, so even with that broad array of products targeted for taxation, there are no positive health outcomes. Why would anyone think that a narrow tax on products that supply 4% of calories to Canadians would make any difference?

What we are asking government and your committee to do, Mr. Chair, is quite simple. Protect our jobs and investment in Canada by ensuring regulation, policy, and taxation measures are principle-based, science-based, and equitable. Recognize that the Canadian beverage market is already evolving in a positive and significant way, and refrain from implementing any targeted attacks on a single industry.

In conclusion, the beverage sector has built its success on science, evidence, and innovation, and we continue to be encouraged by a chance to work with a government that understands the importance of public policy that works for Canadians and not against Canadians or Canadian workers.

Thank you.

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

I have another question for Mr. Chera.

You have members in Quebec, right? Some convenience stores from that province are members of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association.

In Quebec, we have long had legislation that prohibits the marketing of certain products to minors. I can buy chips and chocolate bars at a convenience store close to my home.

I assume that the intent of Bill S-228 is the same. I can't imagine it being any different. Are you aware of the situation in Quebec? How can those two objectives be combined? I am talking about selling products, but without marketing them to young people.

[Satinder Chera]

No. We've been very clear that in terms of controlled substances, the rules are very clear, and we support the government's initiatives to ensure that they don't fall into the hands of minors.

With respect to Bill S-228, my observation is this: what impact will it have on retailers? It's an obvious question. We're just making the observation that we don't know to date if there will be any implications for employees. That's the question we've received from our members, and it's one that we've asked the government.

[Satinder Chera]

There are two things. I would say when you look at Bill S-228 on its own, it's pretty broad language. Again, it's not clear to us that any rules coming out of that legislation, enabling the legislation, would not be foisted upon retailers so that retailers would be ultimately accountable under whatever rules come out of that.

Then when you take Health Canada's current review on marketing to kids in conjunction with that, the concerns obviously are what impact this is going to have at the store in terms of layouts. Our members invest in ensuring family-friendly state stores. Will this legislation force them to change the store layout? What will be the cost of that investment? In addition to that, in terms of some practical considerations, for example, will their employees be able to handle certain products or not? Again, it's not clear to us.

The legislation is very broad, and then when you have this consultation with next to no acknowledgement that these products are sold in convenience stores, the concern obviously is that our channel is being passed by and that people are going to realize at the 11th hour that this is actually going to have an impact on small family-run operations.

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

When you come to the finance committee, those are the areas that I would much rather have a little more detail on. How can Canada step out, especially when considering there is so much focus on this area?

I'd like to move to the Canadian Convenience Stores Association—again, thank you for being here today—and Bill S-228. It has received first reading, so obviously it hasn't come up for formal debate at second reading.

Will this apply not just to the store owner and where they place products? Most of us would remember saving our pennies and nickels to buy gum and other candies, and they're at the lowest place on the aisle where of course kids can then see them. Is that what you're concerned with, or are we talking about the manufacturer of potato chips, etc., having to plain-package their bags or at least do it to have no cartoon characters?

Lastly, does advertising for those products generate enthusiasm and push people into your stores? Can you elaborate a little on that?

[Satinder Chera]

The bill itself has passed in the Senate now, I believe, and is waiting for first reading in the House of Commons. If you take Bill S-228, along with Health Canada's review of marketing to kids—we're putting those two together since the government is reviewing both in parallel—I guess our concern is with the unknowns.

As we read the legislation, it's not clear to us that at the end of the day retailers would not be held accountable for any contraventions of the act. Certainly, from the perspective of our members, one of the concerns is.... For example, we talk about limiting advertising for anyone under 17 years of age. One of the practical concerns is that if you have an employee who is 17 years of age, will they now be prevented from handling certain products in their stores? Also—

[Raj Grewal, Liberal, Brampton East, ON]

Thank you.

You spoke about the marketing to kids in terms of Bill S-228, which is going to the Senate, I believe, at this point. You were saying that it would have a negative effect on your members in terms of how it almost feels as though the bill is designed to make things much more difficult for small convenience stores. Can you comment further on that?

[Satinder Chera, President, Canadian Convenience Stores Association]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for the opportunity to present the convenience channel's recommendations for the upcoming budget.

Let me first start by acknowledging the measures announced this week by the government relating to small businesses, particularly around rate reduction, which we had recommended. I'm very happy with the series of announcements that have come out this week. The remarks we put out earlier this week on those measures are in your kits. I'm certainly looking forward to working with all parliamentarians, including the Minister of Finance, to provide additional feedback as we get it from our members.

I'm going to speak directly from our slide deck, which is in the kit you have before you. The first four slides really give you an overview of the convenience retail channel in Canada.

Let me start with the number of convenience stores throughout the country. I'm very proud to represent a channel that, through over 27,000 retail locations in the country, provides goods and services to Canadians in urban, rural, and remote parts of the country. I also want to take the opportunity to thank many of you who helped us and supported us on national Convenience Store Day at the end of August, when we raised over $80,000 for the Children's Wish Foundation to help children in need.

In terms of employment, we have a nearly even split between full-time and part-time employment among the 27,000 locations. Approximately 234,000 jobs are directly attributable to the retail locations across the country.

As you see on the slide on taxes collected by convenience stores, our channel collects over $22 billion in taxes for all levels of government in Canada. It's something that certainly, as one of my members said, “We don't get paid to do this”, but we do it. It's an obligation that we take very seriously.

This takes me to the first issue I wanted to raise with the committee, credit card fees. That is on slide 5.

Our members use a number of methods to collect dollars from their customers, most notably credit cards. I think I've spoken to this committee before about the fact that Canada has among the highest credit card fees in the world, ranging anywhere from 1.5% to 4% per transaction. We certainly would like to see these fees come down. We believe that if other jurisdictions such as Europe and Australia can bring them down to 0.3% or 0.5%, Canada can certainly do the same.

We support Minister Morneau's review of credit card fees. Our understanding is that his review will conclude at the end of this year, and it's certainly our hope that, in time for the next budget, there will be some good news for retailers with respect to those fees.

On slide 6, in terms of some of our regulatory concerns, there are two bills currently in Parliament that are of concern to us. One is Bill S-5, which is the vaping and plain packaging legislation. We are very worried that this legislation will make the illicit tobacco market even worse while adding additional costs to small-business retailers, and at the same time doing very little to correct the unfair advantage vape shops currently have vis-à-vis convenience stores when it comes to selling vape products.

On slide 7, I want to highlight that as the largest channel for selling age-tested products, most notably tobacco and lottery, our members take their responsibilities very seriously. We have training modules in place that our members take on an annual basis. It was our channel that abided by Health Canada's rules on e-cigarettes, preventing them from being sold in our channel.

On slide 8, you will see some of our specific concerns and the feedback we received from our members with regard to plain packaging. Most notably, at the very end security concerns have been highlighted by our members, as well as increased costs to their businesses. Again we want to impress upon the committee and the government that our channel should not be an afterthought with some of these policies, but that in fact they will have a serious impact on them.

On slide number 9 we highlight the illicit market in Canada, which is fairly big. I would note that the government's marijuana policy specifically does not recommend plain packaging and also recommends low levels of taxation, which is counter to what you find with the tobacco policies that are being advanced. Certainly we believe that action needs to be taken on the illicit market first and foremost, to bring it under control, before Bill S-5 is looked at.

Slide number 10 looks at vaping, specifically providing for a level playing field, which we don't think currently exists in the legislation.

Moving on to slide 11 and 12, with regard to Bill S-228, which is currently moving into the House of Commons, there are serious concerns around the downstream implications for our members. For example, will employees under age 17 now be prevented or prohibited from handling products such as a box of chocolates or a bag of chips? These are some of the concerns that our members have. Will they have to change the layout of their stores to abide by the rules that could be coming as a result of this legislation? Again, there are a lot of unknowns, and the feedback we're getting from our members involves questions on the government's intent on this front.

I would say that our channel is committed to working with the government and all parliamentarians to ensure that there is a wide selection of goods available in convenience stores. In certain communities, convenience stores are the only game in town.

One of the things we have recommended in the past—and we will continue to do so—is to provide targeted tax relief, including measures that can help convenience stores to carry fresh fruits and vegetables.

On my final slide, committee members, you will see our list of recommendations. The issues I've just spoken to are provided in more detail on the left-hand side of your kits.

I would be more than happy to take any questions you might have. Thank you very much.

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

moved for leave to introduce Bill S-228, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children).

Mr. Speaker, it is my great pleasure to rise in the House today and a introduce Senate public bill, Bill S-228, the child health protection act, which seeks to amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages to children. I would like thank Olympic gold medallist Senator Nancy Greene Raine of British Columbia for her tremendous work on this issue, as well as our Senate colleagues, who unanimously passed this bill last week.

The rapidly increasing rate of childhood obesity has become a matter of national concern in Canada. The World Health Organization's commission on ending childhood obesity found that there is unequivocal evidence that the marketing of unhealthy foods and beverages has a negative impact on childhood obesity, and it recommends that any attempt to tackle childhood obesity should include a reduction in the exposure of children to marketing.

As parliamentarians, it is our duty to stand up for those who are most vulnerable in our society, and no group is more vulnerable than our children. The protection of children from the manipulative influence of marketing of unhealthy food and beverages is predicated on a pressing and substantial concern and calls for a federal legislative response.

This bill is that legislative response, and I ask all members for their support.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Message from the Senate

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Liberal, 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).