Health Committee on Oct. 21st, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

So you don't want an answer?

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I do. Let me finish, Madam Chair. I have seven minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay, I'm just clarifying it.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Where is the voluntary plan for industry and for restaurants? Why not reduce salt voluntarily in 80 foods available on grocery shelves by 20% to 30%? Why not a big public relations campaign? Why not a labelling system that people actually understand and know what to do with?

What did you do between 2007 and 2008, when a whole year went by and there's not one record of the committee doing anything? Why, in the spring of 2009, was your objective to identify measures and mechanisms to continue to advance the strategy's development work during the summer months? What kind of an action plan is that?

I want to know where the plan is. When are we going to see it? Why can't you kick-start something now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We have three minutes, and I'm going to be strict with the time.

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

Very good.

Let me first of all address where we are with the plan.

We do have these three subcommittees, as I've mentioned, that are working very hard to develop the three components of what will be the strategic plan, one of which, as you pointed out, has to do with the need to have a very strong education and public awareness campaign.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

In two years, that's where we're at? You're talking about a three-pronged approach that might do some public education? Why isn't it up and ready now? What did you do between 2007 and 2008? What did the working group do? Anything? Were there any meetings?

[Samuel Godefroy]

Absolutely, yes.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Why is there no public record of them? Where are the minutes? Do you want to table them? How many groups were involved--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Wasylycia-Leis, you have to be polite enough to let them answer at least one of your questions; otherwise I will not recognize you next time.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

I thought I had seven minutes to use as I saw fit, Madam Chair.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

You're using them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to answer that question?

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

First of all, let me just say with respect to the posting of the meetings, they are all on our website as well. All of the meetings have been posted here, and we're just working on finalizing the minutes from the last meeting, which just happened two weeks ago.

With respect to the working group, I think you mentioned, between 2007 and 2008, there's no record because what happened in 2007 was the announcement by the minister. The actual working group did not come together until early 2008, and what was done in that very first period was, as I mentioned in my introductory remarks, the initial assessment stage. Again, as I mentioned as well, we did put together the information with respect to sodium. We did do a review of what was happening in other countries and we had organized our public consultation and our expert consultation as well.

Unfortunately, the consultation did get delayed. It was originally planned to happen in the fall, a year ago, and it got delayed by about five months into the beginning of this year, at which time we brought in experts from the U.K. and from the EU and got their best experiences, and it built upon that.

What we have come up with is I think a very clear strategy in the three different areas, and we are developing those three areas right now.

As Dr. Godefroy has pointed out, the actual working out of the targets and how we get to the targets with a Canadian approach has proved to take a lot more analysis than we had originally planned. I think that what we have in terms of timelines in the mandate of the sodium working group were far too aggressive for the production of a strategic plan.

These groups are working quite hard right now and--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you. I'm sorry, we're just about out of time--

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

Could I just--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

--and I gave you over your time. I know you want to say something, so quickly just go ahead.

[Dr. Hasan Hutchinson]

Yes, what I was going to say is that we certainly are taking very much a rigid project management approach now and we do hope we will have a draft of the plan by December for discussion at our next meeting on December 3 and 4.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Wonderful. Thank you.

Dr. Carrie and Ms. McLeod, I believe you're sharing your time. Okay, Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here on such short notice and also for the good work you're doing.

I was a little startled on some of your statistics. I remember 16 years ago, when my son was born, looking at baby food and the high content of sodium and sugar. I remember that my wife and I chose to make our own baby food. What impresses me, though, since then is that the industry has seemed to take an approach to remedy the situation.

I was quite happy to hear that you've talked to industry and talked about voluntary reductions, because I think that's probably one of the fastest ways we can react. I have spoken to industries that have already taken steps to decrease the sodium in their foods. But I was wondering if you could give the committee some background information. Why is sodium added there in the first place? What can replace it? That is the first question. Second, what are the challenges that industry will face by decreasing the sodium levels? Could you be fairly brief?

Thank you.

[Samuel Godefroy]

There are several purposes for the addition of sodium. Sodium content has a technical effect in the food. In fact, the amount of sodium or salt that can be present in dough to make bread, for example, is fundamental in order to give a particular characteristic to the bread. In fact, if you reduce sodium too much, you may end up with bread that is essentially not what consumers can expect to be bread. It affects the viscosity, if you will. There are also additions that are mandated by food safety. Sodium and salt actually contribute to the preservation of the food.

There are a number of additives, particularly for preservation purposes, where the salts used for the additive have to be sodium salts. There are several reasons why sodium is added. Of course, there is the flavour, which is essentially the palatability of the food and the acceptance of the food by consumers.

All of these elements are contributors to the challenges when somebody starts undertaking reduction efforts.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Are there safe alternatives to salt?

[Samuel Godefroy]

There are some alternatives. That is essentially the challenge, to assess the safety and also the accessibility. It's also a fact that in a lot of instances—and that's based on best practices elsewhere, known internationally—some of the alternatives are not cheap and will of course have an effect on the affordability of the food.

This being said, it doesn't mean that there aren't options for reduction. There is research that has been done in order to contribute to the reduction of the sodium content while at the same time maintaining the acceptability of the food and also ensuring that the technical effect exerted on the food is still preserved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mrs. McLeod, would you like to go ahead now?

[Cathy McLeod, Conservative, Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, BC]

Thank you. I guess our time is quite short, so I will throw about two questions and hopefully there is enough time to answer them.

First, to build on my colleague's comments around baby food—and of course it's back in my history also—with the reductions that have now been made, with an infant at six months, nine months, or a year, if they have a diet that consists completely of prepared food, will they be within an acceptable range of sodium intake? So I guess my first question is, have we met the need to protect our youngest citizens?

Second, many of us have said right now that we believe that Canadians are very well aware, but I'm not sure that's quite the case. I'll use my assistant as an example. It took him one meeting at the sodium working group to be shocked and checking labels. I think we have a lot of work to do. It's actually not difficult work. Is the labelling and public messaging, which is quite simple, actually, happening right now?