Health Committee on Oct. 19th, 2006

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

So how would you approach this issue of obesity? We've been told by our presenters across the board that the issue is that it's becoming a public health challenge, that between 36% and 60% of children are overweight in Canada and 26% are obese. What's your role in it, then?

[Cathy Loblaw]

I think our role is multi-fold. From the perspective of Concerned Children's Advertisers, our role is to make sure the codes and standards we have keep pace with health and social issues, of which this is a very important and dominant one. It's to go back to those mechanisms and systems we have to see whether there are places where they need to work more strongly, where they need to be advanced—

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Right. You've mentioned that Quebec and Sweden haven't seen an impact. Have you evaluated why they haven't worked and how you can move forward?

[Cathy Loblaw]

Not only have we not done that, but I don't know that such research exists. I think we come to the challenge that because of the multidimensional aspect of this issue, it's hard to isolate any single factor. So you look at Quebec—

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

But you've obviously done it on the issue of bullying, right? That's been mentioned, that bullying is an issue that has been addressed in terms of how you proceed or what mechanisms would work in advertising terms.

[Linda Nagel]

Advertising Standards Canada evaluates its codes all the time. We try to keep the code current; we try to keep pace with changing needs. The code had a major rewrite several years ago and, unintended, it appeared that bullying was not clearly covered. When this was discovered, an amendment was made to the code to include it.

Food advertising has more and more become a topic of interest, and whereas in the children's code, broadcast advertising is very well regulated in Canada because of the two pre-clearances, we wanted to provide additional guidance on food advertising, which is why the interpretation guideline was added. We continue to look at the environment. The world continues to change. Obviously we have a multi-sectoral, a multi-faceted, complex problem, and we're going to look again too.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

At what your role is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lunney, five minutes.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to go back to Catherine Thurm. You made an interesting remark earlier, that babies as young as six months, I believe, can recognize logos. You went on to make a statement about young children at a certain age recognizing...and you gave a number. Could you just repeat that for us? We don't have that in print, and I thought it was interesting.

[Catherine Thurm]

I said that children as young as six months can form mental images of corporate logos and mascots. Brand loyalties can be established as early as age two, and by the time children go off to school—by school age—they can recognize hundreds of brand logos.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

That's very interesting.

Now, we're talking about evidence here, and I've heard the comments about there being no evidence that advertising is influencing things. I just want to make reference to the presentation we had from the CMA earlier, as follows:

The average North American child is exposed to some 40,000 food advertisements a year, most of them for high-calorie, nutrient-poor “junk food”.

Billions of dollars are spent each year in North America on junk-food advertising specifically directed at children.

Recently, researchers in the US concluded that fast-food ads on television contribute significantly to this childhood obesity epidemic.

I take it that presenters here would disagree with that remark.

[Cathy Loblaw]

From the perspective of Concerned Children's Advertisers, we absolutely recognize that advertising has influence. It has influence on choice and on preference. That's why the systems are in place, to make sure that when you're talking to children, that influence is not taken advantage of, is not exaggerated, and is not misleading.

So we have not said that there isn't an influence; we've said that because there is an influence we have a very rigorous system in place, with very rigorous checks and balances and codes against it.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

I'll give you a chance in a second, but I want to put this on the table. It is a study by Labelle and colleagues, Laval University, with respect to Quebec. It examined the food advertising content on six French channels in the province of Quebec during a week in March 2002. The study found that 18% of the ads used familiar characters of children and showed that 75% of the foods most often advertised were high-calorie, low-nutrient foods, thereby not promoting healthier, balanced diets. They found several of the food advertisements were directly targeting children, given the time they took place, and so on.

Their conclusion? The so-called ban on children's advertising is too flexible and needs to be revisited.

You know, we can sometimes have regulations in effect that are called a ban, but when you examine them, they're not effective. For instance, this committee heard about fetal alcohol syndrome and labelling on wine bottles and alcoholic beverages. The labelling didn't make any difference anywhere. The labels are in micro print, and nobody can read them without a microscope, or with the colour, etc., they just don't appear. So there is a concern here.

It seems to me the consensus from at least three different presenters here is that the answer seems to be media literacy skills, teaching kids how to discern when highly deceptive advertising is coming their way. Asking a young child to see through that with their x-ray eyes, to see that they're being targeted, is sort of like child-proofing your kid on the street. Rather than get the bad guys off the street, we'll just teach kids how to recognize the good guys and the bad guys.

I have to say that I'm a little bit cynical about that kind of approach. Obviously there is a role here, and what we're doing doesn't seem to be effective.

[Cathy Loblaw]

I think it's important to note that it's not an either/or approach. We need to have, and to continue with, the regulation and the self-regulation, and we need to continue to look at ways to make it work smarter, whether that be in content or in mechanism. We also need media literacy education.

It's not an either/or. Absolutely industry has to take the first line of responsibility in terms of how we communicate, what we communicate, and where we communicate. We are very committed to doing that on an ongoing basis against all issues, against certainly the issue before us. Media literacy is also an important and very real part of how we have to educate children today. Even without advertising, children are exposed to so much in a rich media world today. There is a very important role for media literacy education, for giving them tools to be informed, to be critical thinkers, to construct and deconstruct.

So either/or, absolutely not. Together, as part of a strategy, absolutely.

[Robert Reaume]

May I just add something?

If you believe there are deceptive ads being run anywhere in the country, there are several actions you can take. We certainly don't endorse or encourage deceptive advertising of any sort. That's why we have a complaint mechanism with our self-regulatory code. That's why we have a competition law that prohibits misleading advertising.

So I have to take exception to your characterization of certain ads. I'd love to see them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I shall start with a comment, Ms. Loblaw. You said that childhood obesity in Quebec had increased threefold in the last years since the prohibition of publicity directed to children. It might be because they are still exposed during prime time hours to many commercial ads from the companies you represent: Cadbury, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Nestlé and Pepsi. There are many advertisements from those companies during prime time hours. You should be careful when you say that publicity directed to children has been eliminated. It is not directly aimed at them, but they are still reached by those commercial ads when they see them.

Ms. Thurm, I have a question for you. I would like to know who is financing your work and your research.

My last question is for Ms. Nagel.

Ms. Nagel, you told me that Canadian publicity standards were approved by the CRTC. If I am not mistaken, the last time they were approved by the CRTC was in June 1993. I would like you to send to this Committee the date, the place and the subject of the discussions that took place before the last amended document was approved in 1993.

[Linda Nagel]

Forgive me, but I'm not quite sure which document you are referring to.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

It is the last amended document. I am referring to the public notice issued on June 30, 1993 by Mr. Allan Darling which approved the amendments to the Broadcast Code for Advertising to Children proposed by your group, Ms. Nagel.

I would like to know when the public hearings took place and who approved those amendments.

[Linda Nagel]

Martine, can you help? I have no idea.

[Denis Carmel, Director, Public Affairs, Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission]

The CRTC has some of those documents; we could certainly send them to you.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Please, I would like you to send us the dates and the subject matter of those meetings. Thank you.

Ms. Thurm?

[Martine Vallee]

CRTC asked for the revisions you're referring to in 1991, because there had been a number of problems with compliance with the code. The commission had looked at the code and asked for certain revisions. As Mr. Carmel said, we can provide the documentation to you. As it turns out, there was a provision in the code that was not clear—I just don't know it off the top of my head—which was the cause of the non-compliance problems.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

If I understand this correctly it was never reviewed since the year it was agreed to, except for one part. It is even worse!

[Martine Vallee]

It was a technical issue concerning the duration of the ad; it wasn't clear. So that was the revision made to the code. It was an example of the commission having seen that there might be some problems with the code or the compliance of broadcasters in adhering to the code. We brought it to the attention of the Association of Canadian Broadcasters and Advertising Standards Canada to make revisions for the commission to review. We approved them.