Finance Committee on June 4th, 2024

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Dzerowicz and all of you, for that debate.

Members, that was the debate.

Now we're going to be voting on clauses 199 to 202, 205, 206, 208, 210 to 212, 214, 215, 218 to 220, 222 to 226, 228 to 247—

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

No, Mr. Chair.

I agree with grouping the clauses in division 16 on which there are no amendments, but I request a roll-call vote for each of clauses 197 to 227, even the ones on which there are no amendments.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It's been requested that we have a separate vote for clauses 199 to 226, so we're going to have a separate vote for each clause.

I have MP Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm wondering if the analyst can help by referring us to the page number in the budget, because that's very difficult to find. We're referring to clauses, but the word “clause” does not appear in the bill. I think, when we say “clause”, we mean article or section, so it's hard to find. It's tiny.

Could we be directed to a section we're going to vote on?

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Davies, it's division 16.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Even that is hard to find.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Maybe we can get the page number.

While we're looking for that page number, go ahead, MP Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chair, if it will save us time, we can vote on the clauses in division 16 that have no amendments together. Personally, I want a vote on division 16, so I thought that was what you were doing before me speaking, a few minutes ago. For example, we could vote on clauses 199 to 202, 205, 206, 208, 210 to 212, 214 and 215 together, instead of voting on each clause separately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

I think that's what I read out, but I probably had more in there.

MP Ste-Marie is referring to division 16.

The page, MP Davies, is 525.

MP Ste-Marie has requested that we call the vote for the entire division 16, so we'd be voting on clauses 199 to 202, 205, 206, 208, 210 to 212, 214, 215, 218 to 220 and 222 to 226.

MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

We're going to go to a recorded vote on all those sections.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Yes—grouped all together, all those clauses. It has none of the clauses with amendments in there.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

I sincerely bring this to the committee. I don't believe that we've done a division on groups of sections before. I don't know if we've done a recorded vote with respect to large groups like that.

I have some challenges, from a democratic principle, with regard to our doing a recorded vote on large sections of clauses there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

It would have to be by unanimous consent, MP Lawrence.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Does no one else have concerns?

We're okay.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

All right.

Members, I read out the clauses that we will be voting on right now.

(Clauses 199 to 202, 205, 206, 208, 210 to 212, 214, 215, 218 to 220 and 222 to 226 agreed to: yeas 10; nays 1)

Members, now we are looking to group clauses 228 to 247, 249 to 268, 270, 272, 274 to 290 and 293 to 320.

(Clauses 228 to 247, 249 to 268, 270, 272, 274 to 290 and 293 to 320 agreed to on division)

As requested by MP Ste-Marie and MP Davies, we'll have debate and votes on clauses.... We going to start with clause 322. We're going to go through clauses 322 to 325 and then clauses 327 to 333.

MP Ste-Marie.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I do not have a firm position on division 31; I am not an expert in this area. We heard from several witnesses with opposing opinions and it is hard to take a position.

Some groups of witnesses said too much power is being given to the minister to do what the minister already has the power to do. Others said it is important to give the minister those powers in order to ban nicotine-containing products intended for sale. This evening, I received a letter from the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control saying that in order to combat tobacco use among youth in Quebec, we have to vote in favour of clauses 322 to 333. However, a lot of experts told us that what is proposed in division 31 is not the right way to achieve that objective. So opinion is divided.

Mr. Chair, I would like to remind the government again that these provisions should not have been proposed in a mammoth 660-page bill that amends a multitude of laws; this should have been proposed in a separate bill that the Standing Committee on Health could have studied by questioning experts in the field and taking the time needed. I am still going to listen to the arguments made by my colleagues, like Mr. Davies, but I am ill-equipped to make a good decision on the subject.

Right now, the letter from the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control is weighing heavily in my decision, so I may well vote in favour of these clauses. However, I object to how the government has gone about it, in order, I would say, to evade this fundamental question.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Ste-Marie.

I have MP Davies to speak.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

I want to speak just briefly to it. This is one of the few parts of the entire bill that we have concerns about.

First of all, I want to just state for the record that I was the health critic for the New Democratic Party for eight years, and in that time I was a passionate and strong proponent of tobacco-control measures. To me, the marketing to Canadians of a highly addictive carcinogen is something of first-order importance, and the propensity of the tobacco industry to find ever-more creative ways to find nicotine-delivery systems to hook the next generation of Canadian youth on their products is stunning.

Therefore, I want to state for the record that I am fully in favour of strong, robust and effective control on nicotine pouches and frankly on every kind of mechanism that big tobacco tries to utilize to continue to market their products to us.

By the way, I'm going to say again that, due to a lot of filibustering in this committee, we were not able to hear from a lot of witnesses, and I think that needs to be said for the record. I'm left to guess a little bit at the policy reasons behind this, because we never really did hear a strong, cogent argument from the government. However, what I've read in the media from the Minister of Health is that he would like these powers so that he could regulate nicotine pouches. The other example that was given, I think, for this committee was to facilitate emergency shortages of necessary products, and the example given was baby formula.

This section purports to give powers to the Minister of Health to, on his own belief, whether he or she is certain or not, basically make any decision that he or she wants to on whether or not a product is sold in Canada, including if it's used off-label or if it was originally intended for animal use. It also would allow the minister, just on his or her belief, whether or not he or she is certain, the power to exempt any product whatsoever from the provisions of Health Canada. Third, it would allow the Minister of Health to approve any product that he or she wanted to, if it had been approved by a foreign regulatory body.

To me, then, besides questions like what this has to do with dealing with medications that are targeted at animals, what mischief are we trying to get at there? I'm left guessing. However, what I will say, as I hone in on this and bring this to a close, is that these powers are too broad. The discretion of the minister is unlimited.

I was a lawyer in a different life, and I've been in Parliament for almost as long. I've never seen a section of an act that says that a minister of the Crown can act whether or not they are certain. I've never even seen that language.

Finally, I want to just comment briefly on the insertion of this in a budget bill. Now, again, I'm an equal-opportunity critic. I was here when the Harper government used omnibus bills in a very major way, and they started the practice of amending all sorts of legislation that had nothing to do with Canada's fiscal or economic issues, and they crammed them into a budget bill as a way to get quick passage.

Sometimes you can put extra things in a budget for various reasons. I think that may be used to some degree by a wise and judicious government if it has to legislate something quickly and if it's not too controversial. However, the habit has developed in this Parliament for governments to legislate, in all sorts of areas, issues that have nothing to do with this and that require further study. After criticizing the Harper government, the Liberal government came to power in 2015 saying they would not use omnibus bills. I guess being in opposition, as they were through that time, they saw the problems with those from an opposition point of view.

I'll just name a couple of the problems. I think my colleagues would agree, and some of my colleagues in the Conservative Party have commented on these. I think the Bloc Québécois and my colleague Monsieur Ste-Marie said this very well. Issues that require further study and stakeholder input at an appropriate committee are things that we are robbed of. It simply doesn't happen. We have a massive bill the size of a phone book—for anybody who can remember what a phone book was—and we didn't hear from a lot of the stakeholders about this.

In this latest budget the government amended legislation concerning natural health products with Vanessa's Law. They slipped that in the budget bill. They changed the definition of “therapeutic products” to include natural health products, which has huge ramifications for the natural health products industry, and that was done without any proper study.

In my view, while I'm extraordinarily sympathetic to the rationale behind this—I think it's well-intentioned, and I think the government is seeking powers here to do some good things—they're killing an ant with a sledgehammer. The legislation should be surgical, it should be targeted and it should amend the appropriate legislation, which, in my view, would be the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act or some other legislation. It should go to the health committee. They should hear from a broad array of stakeholders. They should study this bill, and then they should—

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

MP Davies, I apologize. I'm going to interrupt because the bells are ringing. It is for a quorum call.

If we have UC, we can continue, members. Is that okay?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Okay.

MP Davies, I apologize.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you to my colleagues for the unanimous consent.

I'll bring this to issue to a close.

I think the putative reasons given for this should be passed after that process, but to use a bit of a pejorative, slipping it in a budget bill is not the proper way to legislate. These powers amount to “let the minister do whatever they want if they think it's needed”. That is not an appropriate way to legislate powers, no matter how salutary or desirable the examples given might be.

For those reasons, particularly when we talk about products that go through a very rigorous process of being approved in Canada by Health Canada, this would allow the minister to exempt that, or to approve it if the FDA said yes or if any product is used off-label.

We had a little tiny flavour of the implications of legislating an area of off-label use. We know that many health professionals, from physicians to traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, use products off-label all the time, and they are regulated. They're regulated by the provinces and they're regulated by their professional bodies. To allow one minister of the Crown the discretion to change that on his or her belief, even if they're not certain, is not a wise legislative process. I just want to set that out.

I have some amendments. Perversely, I'm going to be seeking to amend these sections, and then I'll be voting against them. The reason for doing that is that, if they are going to pass—and I don't know what my colleagues are going to ultimately decide on this—then I at least want some guardrails and parameters in these sections. However, I will be urging my colleagues to vote against these sections because they are just far too broad and there just aren't sufficient guardrails.

My last point will be this: I heard the Minister of Health say that no health minister would use these powers in an unreasonable or irresponsible way. As the Muslims say, “Trust in Allah, but tether your camel.” I don't trust that. I don't think we should rely on giving unlimited unilateral powers to a single cabinet minister on the assumption that they will just never do it.

I could take a bit of a critical shot and say that I sat on the health committee with people who may be potential health ministers in this country in the future. I'm not so sure I would want to give powers to them—not these broad powers.

This is where I will conclude. People will remember when we had shortages, say, of childhood pain medication, like acetaminophen. We had shortages of ventilators, and we had shortages in this country of baby formula. There are ways that exist now in cabinet to use emergency measures, but there are two important guardrails. One is that it gets the approval of cabinet. The second guardrail is that those emergency measures are time-derated. Those are two important guardrails that exist now and I think ought to be at least considered if we're going to be making a change to that. I don't see those guardrails in this legislation.

Thank you for indulging me. I have only a few things I'm going to speak to in this budget. This is one of them, so I wanted to give a fulsome explanation of why I'm concerned about this area while being very sympathetic to the underlying issues that appear to underpin it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, MP Davies.

I have MP Ste-Marie. Then I have PS Turnbull.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I am very sympathetic to all of the arguments made by our colleague Mr. Davies. They are of real concern and they align strongly with my values, my principles and my positions.

Again, I object to the approach taken here.

I received a letter this evening. I had told you that it came from the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, but it was signed by several groups.

I want to take the time to read it to you so it can contribute to our consideration. I reiterate: I object to the process. I will not have the time needed to hear all the experts and reach a considered decision, because the government should have dealt with the subject in a separate bill so we have the time to do things properly.

I am going to read you this letter, which was sent to me as my party's finance critic and to my colleague Luc Thériault, health critic and vice-chair of the Standing Committee on Health.

The groups that signed the letter are the Quebec Lung Association, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health, the Heart and Lung Foundation, and the Canadian Cancer Society. Its purpose is to support clauses 322 to 333 of Bill C-69, so it could not be clearer. I will begin reading it.

We hereby wish to express our firm support for enacting clauses 322 to 333 of Bill C‑69 amending the Food Drugs Act. These provisions are crucial for protecting Canadian youth against new tactics being used by the tobacco industry, which could make nicotine products popular among young people. The shameless marketing by Imperial Tobacco of new flavoured nicotine pouches (“Zonnic”) last fall exposes major weaknesses in the present rules governing nicotine replacement therapies that are authorized as natural health products. Unlike the historical marketing of NRTs, Imperial promoted its “Zonnic” brand in a way that makes these pouches attractive to young people, in particular by using images of trendy young people in social contexts, catchy slogans and exotic flavours (such as “tropical breeze”), in candy-like packaging. Unsurprisingly, a number of organizations have observed that young Canadians are interested in this new product. They include the Ordre des pharmaciens du Québec which stated in January that “in pharmacies where they are floor stocked, they seem to be very popular, particularly among younger people.” That is what prompted the Ordre to recommend that all pharmacists operating in the province keep these products behind the counter. A few weeks later, the Government of British Columbia stepped in to limit behind-the-counter sales to pharmacies. The other provinces are leaving it to the federal government to establish guidelines for the sale and promotion of these types of nicotine products and at present, the federal legislation governing tobacco products and vaping products has no power to regulate nicotine pouches, like most new (and future) products containing nicotine that the cigarette manufacturers are working on. That is why we want to point out to you and the members of your party how advisable and how urgent it is for it to be able to protect young people against products like these. In fact, it is important to prevent any industry that manufactures over-the-counter nicotine products from starting a new wave of nicotine dependence as vaping did among young people, which would be a complete public health fiasco. This youth health disaster is the direct result of far too permissive initial oversight. A tobacco manufacturer marketing “Zonnic” pouches (supposedly intended for quitting smoking) through convenience stores—except in Quebec—changes things and calls for urgent action by the Minister of Health. The proposed amendments would enable the minister to prevent the tobacco industry from exploiting the various loopholes in the regulatory scheme for natural health products.

In its present version, clauses 322 to 333 of Bill C-69 let the federal Minister of Health step in quickly to regulate the sale, promotion and flavouring of nicotine pouches and other nicotine replacement therapies, or NRTs, to prevent undesirable use of these pouches that could harm users' health. An example is use by individuals who are neither smokers nor vapers but for whom the marketing kindled their curiosity about trying them recreationally. It is important to note that the ministerial powers introduced by C‑69, in clauses 322 to 333, do not operate to remove any natural health products from the market; rather, they allow the Minister of Health to introduce guidelines for the sale of products where the marketing of the products involves health-related issues and concerns. In those cases, sale in general would be allowed, but be conditional on compliance with certain criteria for which there would be consultations. In the cases that concern us, nicotine pouches and other natural health nicotine products that might emerge, these amendments represent an appropriate proactive mechanism for better oversight of products that create one of the most powerful dependences in the world, in addition to other risks to physical and mental health, particularly in young people. To conclude, as a health group that has fought against smoking and nicotine dependence for decades, particularly among youth, we urge you to support these amendments, which solidify the existing measures in Quebec and extend them to the other provinces. Sincerely …

The letter is signed by the groups.

Mr. Chair, I have taken up a lot of time reading the letter in its entirety. It is a letter signed by groups that promote health and oppose tobacco use, in which they use very strong language. As I said, I did not have time to hear every party with an interest in the division we are considering—that would have enabled me to reach a clear conclusion—because of the way the government has gone about it, to which I object. This is not the right approach; it is not the right way to do things.

Mr. Davies raised a lot of very important and very strong arguments and asked a number of questions about the minister's extended powers. This is a matter of considerable concern. Personally, I have to decide among the various points made by the various witnesses, the arguments made by Mr. Davies, and, I imagine, the ones Mr. Turnbull will be making. As well, I also have this letter, which contains some powerful arguments. Since I am not an expert in the matter, I choose to base my judgment on the associations I trust: the Quebec Lung Association, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health, the Heart and Lung Foundation, and the Canadian Cancer Society.

In light of the letter and the arguments made by those groups, I am going to vote for the clauses mentioned and possibly—very probably, even—for the suggested amendments, if they are moved. That has not been an easy decision to make and I object to how the government has handled this.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Peter Fonseca]

Thank you, Mr. Ste‑Marie.

Now I have PS Turnbull.