Thank you, Mr. Chairperson, for another opportunity to appear before the committee in its examination of childhood obesity. We appreciate being part of these important discussions and again would like to commend the committee for taking on this important topic.
My name is Debra Bryanton. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's food safety directorate.
As we're here to support Health Canada, I will keep my remarks brief. In September I briefly reviewed the CFIA's role in enforcement and compliance regarding the nutrition labelling regulations and today will provide some further details on that role, with the aim of clarifying the two distinct roles that Health Canada and the agency have with respect to nutrition labelling.
As Janet noted earlier, Health Canada is responsible for setting food labelling regulations and policies respecting consumer health, food safety, and nutrition. CFIA is responsible for enforcing those regulations, as well as for setting non-health and safety labelling provisions; for example, those that serve to inform consumers and prevent misleading practices.
As the committee is aware, the CFIA verifies compliance with 13 federal acts and their respective regulations, including the Food and Drugs Act. We work in partnership with other stakeholders to carry out this mandate, and of course one of our key partners is Health Canada.
Nutrition labelling regulations became mandatory for large companies as of December 12, 2005, and will be mandatory for small companies by December 12, 2007.
CFIA has taken a staged approach to the implementation of these regulations. Our initial enforcement approach focuses on increasing the awareness of industry, particularly in their role of making the nutrition facts table available and accessible in their application of the regulations. We also apply an appropriate level of enforcement action on products that include nutrients of greater public health significance--for example, trans fatty acids, saturated fatty acids, and sodium--and we follow up on foods that are mislabelled. We also investigate complaints, and we work closely with industry associations to achieve voluntary compliance where possible.
After December 12 of this year, when all companies will be expected to comply with the nutrition labelling provisions, our approach will continue to be educational in nature, similar to how it was with the larger companies in the first year, in assisting the smaller companies to implement the regulatory requirements in their first year of implementation.
The CFIA's role regarding the issue of childhood obesity is complementary to that of Health Canada's. We will continue to support Health Canada and our health partners in tackling this issue and other important public health concerns.
I would now be pleased to answer any of the committee's questions.