Health Committee on Nov. 2nd, 2006

[Jean Harvey, Interim Executive Director, Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada]

For CDPAC, we have done some looking at this issue, because, as you say, we're concerned about it as well. We do see it as one piece. You were talking about the multi-pronged integrated.... This is one piece of it.

Just to let you know, CDPAC has done a background paper looking at marketing and advertising to children, and I brought a few copies along, in French and English, for the committee to consider. We wanted to let you know that we've done some looking at this, because we're concerned as well.

We don't feel that we know exactly how to do it yet. That's why we're suggesting we need to put this consensus panel, or what have you, together, so that we can figure out what to do and how to do it right. So we need to gather the evidence together, look at it, look at what Norway has done, look at what Sweden has done, and look and see what the results from Quebec are so that we can figure out how to do this. Let's get on with it and do it. If it's going to have an effect, let's roll with it. But we need to gather the evidence and do it properly first. That's why we think we need this consensus piece brought together with all the experts.

[Stephen Samis]

Just to add to that, I will follow up on one point that Jean made.

I was at a meeting last week where there was a representative of the Department of Health in Norway present talking about the work Norway is doing in this area. They're really moving forward and have developed a lot of evidence behind their platform to address this. So if we can find that information from that person in Norway, we'll be happy to pass it on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Madame Demers.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Good afternoon and thank you for being here. Today's meeting has been extremely interesting.

Mr. Samis, I would like to know if you received funding from Health Canada. If so, your subsidy has just been renewed, because you said all of the right things about the Canada's Food Guide. You seem to be quite happy with it. You and your 7,000 members were consulted. I imagine that you have seen the final draft.

Can you tell us if the final draft of the Canada's Food Guide reflects the concerns of the physicians, the groups or individuals who appeared before the committee? If so, do you feel that all of their objectives have truly been met?

Ms. Isman, I would like to know if the Canola Council of Canada agrees with the recommendations that were made by the Trans fat Working Group.

[Stephen Samis]

I would say that the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada does not get funding directly from Health Canada, per se, or the branch within Health Canada that's responsible for the food guide.

We do receive a little bit of support from the Public Health Agency of Canada--

[Jean Harvey]

For projects

[Stephen Samis]

For projects. It's project-specific work. There is no ongoing operational funding that's prvided to the alliance...but for specific work.

The Public Health Agency of Canada has provided a little bit of funding for the next Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada conference, which is coming up next week here in Ottawa--I believe $50,000.

With respect to the food guide--it's a very good question--I haven't seen, nor has CDPAC seen, the final version of the food guide. But we were encouraged by what we saw first time around. Many of the members of CDPAC had issues and concerns with various elements of the food guide. Each of us had an opportunity to meet with the branch at Health Canada responsible for that and bring those concerns forward. We believe that we were listened to and heard. We'll be very interested to see the next version of the food guide that comes out.

I think what we were coming here to say is that we believe that the consultation process has been fair and inclusive. We were responding to concerns that were raised earlier at the committee about the consultation process, per se, and the extent to which organizations like ours and our member organizations have had the opportunity to feed into the food guide in its next iteration. We haven't seen the next version of it, but we have been satisfied that the consultation process has been open and that we've been able to feed information to it.

[Jean Harvey]

Just to follow up, it was open to all Canadians, and they have consulted with more than 7,000, I think, as you heard from people who were here before.

And another thing is that we see the food guide as a tool to help with underpinning the healthy eating piece. We don't think that the food guide is going to cure obesity. It is a tool to be used as a piece of that, again, with the multi-pronged approach.

[Barbara Isman]

The council supported in principle the goal of the transfat committee, which was to reduce transfat consumption.

With respect to the recommendations themselves, we are of the opinion that our industry will not be harmed at the levels that are proposed. However, we do have a problem with this being legislative, rather than a recommendation. We have a problem because...people don't understand that there are a couple of ways to eliminate transfat. One of them is through healthy products such as canola. Another way to eliminate transfat is by importing palm oil from--obviously not from Winnipeg, but for these products, if we brought in a ban, we wouldn't be allowed to develop our own industry; the food companies would be forced to import palm, and palm has more than 50% saturated fat, compared to 7%, so essentially we would not be doing anyone a favour.

We have said we will develop the industry. The food companies have told us that if we grow enough of it, they will make the change, and that's the direction you are seeing KFC moving now.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

The Kentucky Fried Chicken Chain will soon be using canola oil.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Mr. Fletcher, do you have a quick question?

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I'd like to thank the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada for presenting. I know that Canada's government has worked very closely with many of your stakeholders on things around heart disease and cancer control and so on.

However, my questions this afternoon are for the Canola Council. There have been a lot of questions and comments made about transfats, and canola is going to be a big part of the solution there. In fact, canola was discovered at the University of Manitoba, and we're very proud of that.

Could you expand a little bit on the capacity of industry to meet the new demands of canola? It seems counterintuitive that if the government were to put regulations in place, it would presumably increase the demand for canola and thereby help your producers, but you're telling the committee the opposite; you're advocating for the opposite.

I would like to explore that a little bit more from your perspective, just so we're very clear on the will of the canola producers.

[Barbara Isman]

Thank you.

I know it sounds counterintuitive. I'm going to go back to palm. If you had brought the transfat ban in this year, for instance, the result would have been that the food companies would have elected to put palm oil into their products in order to meet the ban.

As we grow our industry, we're now up to about 15% of that 13 million acres; 15% of it is high-stability canola. If you consider bringing that regulation in three years from now, we're probably going to be more capable of making with farmers the kinds of transitions that are necessary to grow this product.

It may be a function of time, but our observation is that time is on our side in a non-regulated environment as well. We've been told that the key to having these companies use the product is not regulation; the key to having them use the product is for us to have the supply available. We've doubled each year for the last three years; we expect that within another five years, approximately 25% of our crop will be high-stability canola.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Go ahead, Mr. Samis.

[Stephen Samis]

Mr. Chair, if I could I'll just briefly speak to that.

In my day job, in my real paid job, I'm the director of health policy for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. As you know, we co-chaired the transfat task force, and I just wanted to respond to one thing.

The transfat task force took all these considerations into account in coming up with these recommendations, which is why we suggested the two-plus-two approach. It was precisely to facilitate our canola industry in the country. The two-plus-two approach is that we take two years to develop the regulations and then up to two years for those regulations to come into effect.

What we've been hearing from the seed growers is that they need a regulatory signal so they can plant enough crops in the ground to ensure that by an x period of time, there will be sufficient supply to meet demand for our canola crop. These issues are addressed in the report of the task force that went to the minister, and I would urge the committee to take a good look at that.

The other problem we have is that if we don't come up with a regulated response, what we'll end up with is that those foods for which it's hardest to get the transfats out won't change, and second, we will start to see a differentiation between cheaper foods that are full of transfat and more expensive foods that are transfat-free, which is only going to disadvantage low-income people even further. We're already seeing that with respect to margarine.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

We just heard from the seed producers who made the claim that they support your position, but we just heard, 30 seconds ago, the opposite opinion. I assume that you represent seed producers.

[Barbara Isman]

We represent all the canola growers in Canada. But I need to be clear about this. Whether the regulation is brought in or not is not a burning issue for us. It's something we would rather not see happen, but regulation is not in any way, shape, or form going to determine whether the farmers choose to grow that product. Price will determine that.

We represent 100% of the production, and those farmers would prefer non-regulation. But if it comes in, and it may well, we are certainly going to try our best to be the solution to the greatest extent possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

If the committee would allow the chair, I just have one quick question on this, because this is the deal. We have the Canola Council saying let's not regulate, and we have the other side saying let's regulate. But I am wondering, since we're seeing such a change in the marketplace--consumers are moving away from transfats if they know they're there and if they identify them--would a solution for the committee be to have in its report that a significant label that is easily identifiable by consumers would be put on a product if it had transfats in it so consumers would have knowledge of the choices they're making? I am wondering if that would be an option that you'd see as being plausible.

[Stephen Samis]

I think the more health information we provide consumers, the better. And I think CDPAC and the Heart and Stroke Foundation would agree with that.

In the latest “Tracking Nutrition Trends VI Report”, put out by the Canadian Council of Food and Nutrition just this fall, the results show that 34% of Canadians still don't know that transfats are worse for their health than saturated fats. So there's a lot of education that still needs to go on with the public if what we're going to do is put that label on there. A lot of Canadians don't understand that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

So you'd have to put it on with a skull and crossbones. Is that what you're saying?

[Stephen Samis]

Yes, but I still don't think it will eliminate it. You're still going to see transfats in a tremendous number of food products across the country, including those that aren't labelled. Forty percent of Canadians eat outside the home, and in restaurants and food service, they aren't subject to a label. So I don't think that's really going to get at the issue entirely.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to Ms. Keeper.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada for their presentation. I really appreciated the recommendations.

I would like to ask you a question about the aboriginal population. We've heard many presenters, and one of the pieces of information I found startling was that you see childhood obesity in the infant stage. You can start detecting it in infancy.

I notice that you make recommendations about breastfeeding and that sort of important factor. One of the other facts was that a lot of obese children are also malnourished and that there is a high correlation between low socio-economic status and obesity and that obesity contributes to cardiovascular disease. A lot of startling information has come out of this.

Within the first nations and Inuit health branch, I am sure that there's some partnership or some relationship you have. We have just had the cancellation of the tobacco control strategy, which had just recently been implemented, and it's not nearly as new as the tobacco control strategy for Canadians. We also have maternal health programs for which funding is frozen. So how critical are health promotion programs to addressing this issue, especially in a population at risk?

[Stephen Samis]

I would say that the health promotion programs are very important, particularly with respect to first nations people, and particularly with respect to first nations people on reserve.

Aboriginal people, Métis, and first nations people who are off reserve often fall between the cracks, because nobody--neither the federal government nor the provinces--really knows how to deal with them.

Programs are important, and I think we need to take seriously the health concerns of first nations people. By pretty much every measure, their health outcomes are much worse than those of the mainstream Canadian population, and that fact really does need to be addressed.

The federal government has a role to play there directly under the first nations and Inuit health branch of Health Canada, which does both health promotion and health services delivery to first nations people.

[Tina Keeper, Liberal, Churchill, MB]

You mentioned people falling between the cracks, so I would like to go back to another one of your recommendations, which is number six, on surveillance capacity. I'd like to ask you to elaborate on how you feel the federal government can play a role in terms of surveillance capacity.