Health Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[An hon. member]

What about recipe books?

[Mary Bush]

Recipe books? Actually, we have a communicator-educator piece and a piece on the web that goes a long way to getting a little more specific. We hear all the time, you know your fruit and vegetable recommendations? Who are you trying to kid? Nobody's going to eat that—nobody.

So what we're taking is the next step, which will show you how you could put yourself together over the course of the day to make what we're suggesting as the amount of fruit and vegetables you need to eat. Those extensions are part of what's been built in. I don't think we've gone to recipes.

[Élaine De Grandpré]

No, not yet, but it's a good idea.

[Mary Bush]

But there are wonderful recipe books out there, wonderful cookbooks that do build on all of this kind of....

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much. Your time has gone.

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ms. Bush, I must say that you’re good. You are convinced, but I’m not sure whether it’s of the right thing.

My recent dealings with Health Canada do not lead me to believe that the department is totally objective. Until now, representatives from Health Canada and the food industry are the only ones saying that the Guide is good. Specialists, physicians and First Nations people, as well as Métis and Inuit groups, have all told us the Guide is not good and that they’re not happy with it. You’re telling us it can no longer be changed.

The fact that at least four people on your advisory committee are in a conflict of interest—they work for the industry—and that those conflicts are not reported on Health Canada’s Web site is of great concern to me. Dr. Barr, Sydney Massey, Sean McPhee and Carolyn O’Brien are in a direct conflict of interest.

I don’t believe it’s very sensible to have industry representatives on that committee, but since there are some, why didn’t you invite national experts, like Jean Pierre Després from Laval University, to balance things out? Why didn’t you do that and why didn’t you take the advice of physicians and experts? Why are you trusting people who are saying what you want to hear? That worries me a great deal.

Ms. Doran, I would like to have the names of the people you consulted on the part of the document dealing with First Nations and the Inuit. They told us they weren’t consulted. We don’t believe they’re intentionally lying to us. I don’t know what’s going on.

Thank you.

[Mary Bush]

Okay, can I start?

What I'm really wanting to emphasize more than anything else is that everyone you've heard from saw a draft guide that went out for the precise reason that we wanted to hear from people on how this doesn't work. So all of the criticism is based on what went out for consultation and is now being re-looked at.

The second thing is, why did we not go to other experts? I think you need to appreciate that when I look at the experts we went to for the food pattern--and you say Dr. Barr, professor of nutrition at UBC, has a conflict of interest--

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Yes, she is a member of the International Dairy Foods Association. She serves on the advisory board for Shaping America's Youth, which is funded by Campbell's Soup, McNeil Nutritionals, Johnson & Johnson, Nike....

Do you want more?

[Mary Bush]

No, no. I have lots of them here.

Let me take a step back. I would say to you that in terms of our science underpinning this, the Susan Barrs, the Katherine Gray-Donalds, Stan Zeotkin at Sick Kid's, Valerie Tarasuk at U of T.... You're going to actually be seeing Valerie Tarasuk this Thursday. You'll want to ask her about her involvement in this process.

These are people who came to us, who are guiding us not from any vested interest. You're saying to me that they have done research and sit on an advisory board, so they're not objective, but in fact what we're looking for from these people is advice. It's very clear that we do the background, we do the work, we come forward, we take direction and advice. It's not to go back and add another product X or product Y, but rather to say, here's what you need to understand about the science that I understand and the perspective that I bring to the table. It's that range of perspectives that you really want in your advisory committee, and you do it by design, in fact. You do it philosophically, because you want to understand and garner from people a range of perspectives that aren't all aligned with your own.

I can only say to you that in the group that you see here, of the people back there, none of us in this business wants to produce anything but a food guide that meets Canadians' needs, that they understand, and that provides advice that, when followed, will absolutely provide them with the health and well-being and reduced risk of chronic disease they so deserve.

An earlier comment said that we seem to be preoccupied with nutrient adequacy. We are not. If I leave you with one thought, it is that the chronic disease prevention components of this guide are every bit as important to us as the nutrient adequacy.

You have a couple of options. You either put together a food guide that's going to provide the nutrients that you need to be healthy at a reasonable energy cost so you can maintain a healthy body weight, or you look up at your population and say, very generally, this is sort of what you should eat--have a little bit of this, more of that, and take a vitamin pill. Those are your options. We've chosen to provide a pattern of eating that will meet your nutrient needs, lower your risk of chronic disease, and allow you to enjoy eating from a range of foods and support your own health.

I can only say to you, with everything I am, that the process we've driven and the people who are advising us are there to provide us with a range of opinions so that we understand the various dimensions of this issue and can move forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, thank you very much. Without the cake and ice cream...that's the problem.

Ms. Davidson.

[Lori Doran]

There was a second question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay. We're very tight on time, if you can give an answer.

[Lori Doran]

I can tell you that the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, and the Métis Nation Council have been involved at all stages, the needs assessment through to the developmental stages and the consultation stage. With respect, I think Dr. Valerie Gideon, from the Assembly of First Nations, did say they were involved but that they weren't involved in a founding science piece. When questioned, she also said they didn't have the research to put forward a different science base for a pattern specific to the population.

I'd be happy to provide all of the names of the people who have been involved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Davidson is next.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the panel for being here today. Certainly your passion and your knowledge of the subject are very evident.

There were a couple of things I was going to ask, but I think you've just answered them, Ms. Bush. I think Madame Demers asked basically the same question. We'd received a lot of comment on the process and also on the content, but I think you've just made it very clear that the document that everybody up to this point has been commenting on is a draft. Am I correct in understanding that no one outside the department has seen what might be a final draft at this point?

[Mary Bush]

That's were we are.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay. Will there be any other consultation, or do you feel that the consultation is done and that you're now in a position to put together a final document?

[Mary Bush]

We're at the end of the consultative phase; we feel that we've done the consultation. You will be getting the details of who's been consulted and how we've gone about this. We are now just at the time of wrapping it up and putting it forward.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

We talked about the Inuit and Métis. Has there been consideration for other ethnic groups in this guide? I'm not sure we've talked about that today.

[Mary Bush]

No, you haven't, and I'm glad you asked.

I'd like to say that it's a very important issue for us. In fact, we did a multicultural needs assessment. One of the first things you learn is that language and pictures are what become important in making the information more relevant to various ethnic groups, so we're looking very carefully at how we could evolve the food guide to make it available in various languages. In the case of the 1992 guide, there were actually groups. One group in Toronto took the 1992 guide and did adaptations with pictures and different languages; I think it's available in about 28 different languages. We'd like to look at a mechanism that would enable us to platform that to a more national availability so that it's not regionally based. We are looking at mechanisms, but right now the food guide is going to be available in English and in French.

However, part of our movement into a web-based platform was to enable us to have graphics that were much more multicultural in terms of food. A bit of it was that the adaptation that allows you to create My Food Guide program allows you to pull culturally relevant foods into the various food groups.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I want to ask one more question before I run out of time here. It goes back to the cost of the food basket. I think Dr. Bennett brought up a good point about the cost of milk, for example, in a northern community. I thought you said it was based on the same food basket across the country, the same basics; maybe I heard that incorrectly, but if that's the case, then how do we promote that same food basket when it costs $5 here and $50 somewhere else?

[Mary Bush]

I'll start the answer by saying that I don't want to leave you with a misunderstanding. What I want you to know is that there is a standard. It's called the nutritious food basket, and it's put together based on the current food guide. It was done post-1992. It's used by people across Canada at the community and provincial levels to cost a basket of food so that you can get some sense, just for the very reason you're identifying, that the cost of food varies across Canada. If you go north, you know there are enormous costs associated with food--

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

So we know that this basket is going to cost you $50 somewhere, while it should cost you $5 somewhere else. Is there a suitable substitute that would be available in this area? Is there something like that built into it?

[Mary Bush]

Within the message platform of Canada's Food Guide, we try to provide flexibility so that you have the various food groups and you have a range of foods from which you can select. Indeed, seasonal foods are often much less expensive than out-of-season foods, so there's all that kind of flexibility built in.

But I want to let Lori tell you about the northern food subsidy program.

[Lori Doran]

This committee has heard from Fred Hill, from the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, on the food mail program, which is a program that subsidizes the cost of transporting nutritious perishable foods to northern isolated communities. That program does exist.