Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
It's certainly a privilege to appear before this committee. I've known several of the members for some time. I knew Mr. Blaikie's father a long time ago, when I was in Manitoba, so it's a delight to be here.
I'm in a rather enviable situation, in that my colleague, Michael Bernard, from Humane Society International, and I are here somewhat together. Since probably 2018-19, our organizations, along with a larger group of stakeholders, including Cruelty Free International and the Animal Alliance of Canada—we representing industry and Mr. Bernard with Humane Society International—have been able to come together to reach an agreement on principles for the implementation of a ban on cosmetic testing on animals in Canada.
We were able to come together on basically three principles: one, that it would mirror the ban in the European Union; two, that it would be implemented within the context of the Canadian regulatory framework for these products; and three, that it would actually be drafted by Health Canada and advanced by the government, so that it was sure not to have any unintended consequences; the regulator would ensure that it would be workable; and we could all come together and advance it, of course, as a government bill.
We're pleased to say that about two years ago, we were able to get all those details worked out. We worked with Health Canada officials in drafting the principles. They've shared with us, following the introduction of the budget bill, these provisions for amending the Food and Drugs Act. They have shared the details with us. We've had a chance to meet with the minister's office here, the legal staff, and together we have a joint letter that we've provided to the committee, which Mr. Bernard will be sharing with you and reading. We've been able to come together, industry and animal advocacy groups, to advance this particular cause. We're quite proud of that. We would certainly commend the inclusion and passage of these important amendments to the Food and Drugs Act through this bill.
We're not coming here as adverse stakeholders. In fact, we've been working very closely together, the whole group of us, for some time with Health Canada towards these amendments. I would be remiss, though, if I didn't mention one piece of this puzzle that we are still hoping will come to the attention of Health Canada, which is that Canada is a major exporter of cosmetic products to China. For some years, China has been one of the only countries in the world that has specifically required animal testing on cosmetic products that are imported into China. After much lobbying by international industry, they amended their regulations. They provide an exemption to that unnecessary animal testing if those imported products have a government-issued GMP certificate.
Regrettably, most governments don't issue that. We approached Health Canada a couple of years ago. We worked with its officials. We developed a potential program that would allow for our dozen or so exporting manufacturers in Canada to take advantage of that. We thought we had worked through all the details. All these facilities are currently inspected by Health Canada, with either a drug establishment licence or a natural health products site licence, or they are ISO-certified. We thought we would get it. However, Health Canada sort of said, “Not our problem.” Well, if it's not their problem, whose is it?
Currently, those products are being exported to China with a band-aid solution that the governments of Quebec and Ontario offered. We wanted to just flag that today. Despite the good intentions of the bill and all the work and the commitment that's there, there's still this piece that we need Health Canada to address. Granted, it is administrative, but we wanted to flag it with the committee today.
Mr. Chair, as I said, my colleague Mr. Bernard and I worked very closely together on this, and we're very glad. It's taken some years. We appreciate that COVID has taken time and delayed the drafting and presentation of this legislation, but I think that jointly we all strongly recommend to the committee that it be approved as part of the budget bill.