Evidence of meeting #47 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was food.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute
As I mentioned, we don't specifically market or advertise, but we're certainly aware of initiatives such as the children's food and beverage advertising initiative. I'm sure more can be done.
Industry is cooperating to try to work with guidelines. There are industry supporters of the organization Concerned Children's Advertisers. I think work like that can continue in order to promote healthy choices.
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
It's an interesting question, and certainly there have been some companies over the years that have done some useful things. I think putting nutritional information on your website is a good thing for people who have the energy, enthusiasm, and savvy to get it.
There's kind of a limit to what industry can do without regulations. They're not going to do something that's going to hurt their bottom line. I don't think any amount of educating the McDonald's CEOs will convince them to switch to whole wheat buns, for instance. That would be important.
Some companies have done some important things recently, or at least have announced plans to. Walmart in the United States, which is a much bigger player in the grocery market there, has said they're going to set specifications for their suppliers to reduce the amount of sodium and trans fat in those products if they want them to be sold in their stores. I don't know who's going to monitor that. One of the distinctive things about that chain is that they don't share their sales data with ACNielsen, so it would be difficult for anybody on the outside to evaluate whether they're succeeding. However, at least it's a positive sentiment.
Director, Québec Coalition on Weight-Related Problems
The agrifood industry has a part of the solution in its hands. What we would like to see is more responsible marketing. For instance, the labelling on this bottle of Coke says that it contains 110 calories. You might be forgiven for thinking that the total content has 110 calories. However, in very small print, down below, it says “per 250 ml”. This bottle contains 591 ml. We need more transparent labelling, where all of the calories are indicated, rather than only a part of them. The consumer must not be misled in this way. If we did even that much, that would be an important gain.
Vice-President, Public Policy and Government Relations, Canadian Diabetes Association
It's a very good question. Unfortunately, necessity is becoming the motherhood of invention. Given the increasing rates of diabetes, the food industry has had to be more reactive to the community.
We're partnering with the food community to try to develop diabetes-friendly options in food. I think talking about good and bad food is not the right way to approach it. There's nutrient-poor, high-calorie food, and there's not.
I think folks living in Canada are looking for practical solutions, not sort of philosophical debates on this. I think there's a responsibility for us to work with that industry to create healthy options for people and to provide them with the information they need.
As an association, we're trying to develop that and work with the food industry to provide that. Unfortunately, given the rise in prevalence, it's become almost a demand.
Conservative
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
I think Coca-Cola provides a good example to illustrate your point. I remember being in a debate in another building on Parliament Hill six years ago. The chair had a can of Coke with her and she pointed out to me that it had 39 grams of sugar in the 355 millilitre can. It stuck in my mind.
I noticed recently that those cans of Coke now have 42 or 43 grams, so they have a little bit more sugar in them than they did five years ago.
I don't think anybody at Coca-Cola could have imagined that sugar would help people's health prospects, but they're making their drinks with lower-sugar sugars.
Conservative
NDP
Carol Hughes NDP Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON
Thank you.
I want to comment again on Mr. Jeffery's documentation. He indicated a while ago how Canada's sodium reduction strategy really needs to be implemented. When we were at committee on sodium, the industry was saying that the taste of Canadians is different from the taste of those in the United States, and that's why they were reducing the sodium intake slowly over time. I certainly would be interested in hearing some of your views on that. We know the sodium in certain products in the United States is much lower than what it is here.
There was some mention a while ago about the voluntary sign-on in the U.K. I'm wondering if there was an incentive attached to that when it was implemented. Then I go back to Mr. Jeffery's document that speaks about the school nutrition programs, and I know those have been dear to our hearts with the NDP, because Olivia Chow was one who started this in the city of Toronto when she was on council there. She spoke to you at a recent conference in Ottawa on that.
But when I look at the document on page 10, it says “Last month, the U.S. Department of Agriculture proposed strict binding new nutrition standards for foods to qualify for the more than $14 billion in federal government subsidies for school foods.” I'm just wondering if you could elaborate on that as well.
I'm going to leave you with three questions. I think that's going to probably do my time.
I think it's important to talk about the school programs, and it's important to talk about whether there are incentives and how these incentives promote the fact that we have companies that will probably buy in as well.
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
In terms of using the traffic light system in the United Kingdom, there really weren't any incentives. One of the situations that arose is some food companies were using their own monochrome system—just one colour—and they're called GDAs, guideline daily amounts, while other companies were using the traffic lights, so it created a situation where they could test to see which is more effective. I think the evidence showed that the traffic light was more effective.
In terms of sodium and whether Canadians like saltier food than Americans, I don't think there's any evidence to demonstrate that. Some of their products are saltier than ours, some of ours are saltier than theirs, and we have roughly the same sodium intake, which is too high. It needs to come down, and we need a comprehensive strategy, or regulations, to bring it down.
I wanted to touch on the point about the food tax reform. One of the things that's not well known among people who aren't low-income is that the Canada Revenue Agency has a system whereby they issue rebates to low-income people. The idea is to compensate for the financial burden of paying GST. If you're a single person and you have a $20,000 annual income, you get something like $600 a year to compensate you for the GST we've been paying. It works out to about $95 for food, but you have to pay it on other things too. The formula for that low-income tax credit could easily be changed to offset the effect of reforms to food taxes. It could even be reformed dramatically to help reduce poverty, reduce food insecurity.
The bottom line, it seems to me, is that there's a chronic problem with the way foods are taxed. Sometimes we're taxing fruit and vegetables while exempting bacon and lard, and it just doesn't make sense to me.
Conservative
Associate Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
On this question of incentives, in the U.K. there was a traffic light labelling initiative that was voluntary and the more recent restaurant nutrition disclosure. The main incentive in both was publicity. Essentially the government had a large public awareness campaign and publicized the names of the restaurant chains that came on board. There was a lot of positive consumer response along with that.
In the background they have been stating that they would try the voluntary approach first, and if not they would move to mandatory regulation. So it goes to that dynamic between regulation and voluntary efforts for trying this first. There is an incentive to cooperate.
Conservative
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Madam Chair, I would simply like to go back to part of a reply that Dr. von Tigerstrom gave earlier. It's not that I want to point to a contradiction, but I'd like to know how this fits in with something we heard here in Parliament.
As you know, we studied a bill that sought to add more nutritional information to menus. In your testimony, you stated that the negative impact on restaurant owners who used more detailed menus was approximately nil or completely nil. But when we studied the bill, restaurant owners were fiercely opposed to additional constraints that would force them to provide more detailed menus with nutritional information. So, can you explain this apparent contradiction to me?
Associate Professor, College of Law, University of Saskatchewan
It is perhaps a bit of a contradiction, in the sense that restaurant owners have expressed fear that there will be an impact on their revenues. The evidence I've seen doesn't support that. Of course, the evidence is partial, so it's possible that some types of restaurants will be affected and not those that were studied, but there doesn't appear to be strong support for that fear.
Rather than affecting overall revenue, it will likely shift it to different types of products. That's what the studies I have seen suggest.
Bloc
Luc Malo Bloc Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC
Thank you. I have no further questions.
Excuse me, go ahead Mr. Jeffery.
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
Sometimes companies are just resistant to any regulation, and no matter what it is they just line up against it. In the United States they will be mandating this type of labelling for all restaurants. Some studies have demonstrated that the impact was very small in some neighbourhoods. But the real reason for objecting is because those companies essentially don't want to respond to informed consumer choice if they don't have to.
If you go to a restaurant, care about calories, and don't see anything you want to buy on the menu, you'll go to another restaurant. It's really about having informed choice, and they are often resistant to informed choice.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Thank you so much, Monsieur Malo.
I would like to thank the committee for being here today and giving your very insightful comments. We decided to do this in committee because of childhood obesity and the concerns we have about that.
I will ask my colleagues to remain at committee. We'll go in camera for just two minutes, and I will dismiss the presenters now with our grateful thanks.
[Proceedings continue in camera]