Health Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Gerry Harrington]

A quick comment.

I think you'll find that most industrial sectors are divided: there are companies that follow the law as a matter of course, and there are those that do not. The members of our association strongly believe that the more inspectors, the more enforcement staff that Health Canada has for enforcement of its regulations, the better. It's a level playing field. It's about the way we do business, so we're strongly supportive of ensuring that any piece of legislation regulating products in Canada has the required enforcement power behind it to ensure there's a level playing field out there.

[David Skinner]

And the resources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to all the witnesses today. I do apologize, I missed your opening statements, so if my questions don't quite jive, my apologies in advance.

Mr. Skinner, in your opening comments did you bring forward any amendments that you think might be appropriate for the bill? Did you make a suggestion?

[David Skinner]

Yes, we did. We made two proposals, one with respect to schedule 1 of Bill C-6. Rather than attempting to list all individual substances that may be found in the Food and Drugs Act, recognizing that from time to time new categories pop up and you'd be going back numerous times to make consequential amendments every time something changed in the other bill, as well as a conundrum that we face and are still discussing with the department on whether it's only the substances that are exempt or the full product, including child resistant packaging and so on, we've made a suggestion that rather than trying to list the substances and trying to catch them that way, a simple amendment would be to replace clauses 2 to 5 with an amendment that says that products regulated under the Food and Drugs Act would be exempt.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

You're aware that we've proposed an amendment to make it clear that natural health products would not be in. So you would add things like food and anything else that went in there, and that would be an all-encompassing one?

[David Skinner]

I don't think you even need to do that. I think the intention--and I believe it is possible within the “whereas” portions of the bill--is to make it clear for those who believe that natural health products, which make up 50% of our members' business, might be covered. The “whereas” portions of the bill could make it clear. Then simply within schedule 1 refer to “any product regulated under the Food and Drugs Act”, and that would cover everything that may come up subsequent to what our knowledge base is today.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much. That makes sense.

I want to ask Ms. Gue a question. We've heard a lot about this Proposition 65, and I was wondering if you have any evidence that Californians are more healthy now, since Proposition 65. I think it was started in the mid-1980s, and I was wondering if anybody has done studies to actually see if it has made a difference.

[Lisa Gue]

Actually, I think Kathleen referred earlier to a comprehensive review of Proposition 65 that she has offered to make available to the committee, so that will probably be of interest.

Broadly, Proposition 65 is located within a suite of policies that is designed to make California a leader in green chemistry initiatives, or the substitution of safer alternatives in manufacturing processes. Proposition 65 alone does not go as far, in fact, as we would like Canada to go.

It is two decades old now. It's a valuable experience, which Canada can learn from, frankly. We have the opportunity to now have a more targeted intervention, focusing on consumer products, whereas the scope of Proposition 65 was much broader. And we have the opportunity to couple labelling requirements with phase-out requirements in a way that will result in safer products, in a reduction of chronic health risks associated with consumer products.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I remember when we did our study on alcohol labelling we found that sometimes even well-meaning labels with the populations you wanted to attract didn't make a big difference. Are you saying we don't quite have any specific evidence on that yet? Is that what you were saying? I didn't get your answer quite clearly.

[Lisa Gue]

Labelling can be used to achieve different objectives, or used in pursuit of different objectives. With alcohol warnings, tobacco warnings, clearly the objective is to reduce the abuse of those drugs.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

That will probably make people healthier.

[Lisa Gue]

Right.

Consumer product labelling I think is in pursuit of a different objective, and that's to allow consumers the right to make informed decisions about the products they buy. I know if I were a consumer in California I would have a better chance of being able to avoid certain types of chemicals in the products that I buy than I do here. I can recount a frustrating experience I had last year when I tried to buy a couch and I was looking for a couch that didn't have brominated flame retardants in it, and there was no way for me to identify whether or not the couches I was looking at contained that product. The retailer didn't know, the supplier didn't know, the manufacturer didn't know, because there was no requirement.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I'm sorry, Ms. Gue, we're going to have to go on.

Ms. Murray, can you continue?

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

We're trying to balance the safety of Canadians, especially kids, with the importance of not overregulating and not having unintended extra costs for industries that are a competitive problem and so on.

One of the things I think is important is as much as possible we're harmonizing with other schemes so that companies are not having to do a different scheme of regulatory response and labelling with every jurisdiction they're selling to.

The other broad issue we're balancing is we've heard testimony from people saying there should not be more information on products because parents are not really capable of understanding all the different chemicals and making those decisions. So it's our responsibility to preserve them from having to make those decisions--government should be making those decisions--and on the other hand there's the right to know so parents can make the decision. That's the broad place we're looking at. What do we think conceptually? Having been a mom of three kids and having been someone who ate organically from the time I was a teen, I thought about what's in everything I bought for my kids, are chemicals a concern, and so on. I want to know. How do we balance this?

I guess I'm going to ask a couple of questions about the harmonization. How harmonized are these issues in the different countries in Europe? How can we proceed in a way that matches other schemes that will reduce the duplication and the transaction cost for business but still provide the labelling, the prohibitions, the precautionary approach that we think is in the best interest of kids?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. McBane.

[Michael McBane]

There's a lot of talk about harmonization from the department, and from other sectors. I think before we talk harmonization we must realize that Canada is in serious conflict with the European Union, where the World Trade Organization has gone to court over health and consumer protection. Europeans are trying to stop the adulteration of their meat with carcinogens, estradiol, which Health Canada secretly approves and won't show you the data upon which that is based, and won't even show the World Trade Organization. So harmonization with what? We have serious conflicts between the application and precaution in Europe, Africa, and Asia versus the United States, Canada, and Argentina.

Health Canada portrays this harmonization as everyone is in the same boat. That's not true. We have serious disagreements about the application and precaution. Most of the world does not want toxic chemicals in infant formula. Canada stops any moves to clean it up on behalf of the food industry, on behalf of the infant formula manufacturers. Harmonization sounds nice, but there's some substantive disagreement, and I think you've articulated the two conflicting camps: trust us, we're experts, toxic sludge is good for you; versus no, I'm going to choose based on what I know, and I don't trust the experts on risk.

So I'm with you. I'm a parent, and I'm with you, but let's get the legislation so we have the right to have that information.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

With due respect, I appreciate your feedback, but I'm also with the manufacturers and the sellers who don't want a different scheme for every jurisdiction. So my question is really whether Europe has kind of a single common approach, or there are countries in Europe we can harmonize with to reduce the complexity and transaction costs of business while accomplishing the other objectives I have and which you have picked up on.

[Lisa Gue]

Could I comment on that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Go ahead.

[Lisa Gue]

In some ways, that's an important implementation detail. If the committee and Parliament could see their way to giving the Minister of Health a clear legislative mandate to move in the direction of phase-out for categories of toxic chemicals and for labelling if those remain in products, then these would be the kinds of implementation details that Health Canada would address along the way. Certainly there are examples we can draw on from Europe through the globally harmonized system, although that applies to a smaller sector of product.

Very briefly, if you'll indulge me, Madam Chair, I also question how significant a barrier this actually is. California, a market of a similar size, has been able to implement stand-alone labelling requirements. Canada does require bilingual product labels, and the market responds. I think this would be the same.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Gue.

We'll now go to Ms. Hughes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

One of my questions is whether you're in favour of this, and whether you have concerns with the fact that clause 12 of Bill C-6 actually places the onus for conducting tests and studies of consumer products on manufacturers and importers rather than on Health Canada or another government agency, such as the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

I'm curious to get your feedback on that. I'm wondering if there's an issue, or if you have the sense that some of the companies might be bordering on the side of fraud because they want to get their product in, or whatever.

[Kathleen Cooper]

Could I respond to that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Yes.