Evidence of meeting #25 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was women.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Thank you so much.
All the presentations today have been extremely helpful, and we thank you all.
Now we're going to be going into a seven-minute Q and A round. The questions and answers will be within that seven minutes.
I want to remind committee members that we will be going in camera at 10:15 for a half-hour business session.
We will begin with Ms. Davies, who I understand is going to share her time with Dr. Morin. Right?
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for coming.
I'd like to ask Mr. Jeffery a couple of questions.
First of all, thank you for your excellent report. You paint a very grim picture, and that's what we need to hear: the reality of what's out there. I don't know if you can circulate your report and your recommendations, but it would be very helpful if we could get copies.
I want to ask what you think is coming down the line and what we can do. We know that the sodium working group was disbanded. I recall at the recent provincial health ministers meeting that there seemed to be agreement, at least among the provinces, to reduce the sodium level, and it appeared that the federal government was not on board. It went no further.
I want to ask you about this notion of voluntary versus a stronger approach. We've heard from Food and Consumer Products of Canada that we have to worry about consumer acceptance. It really concerns me that somehow we can understand that using seat belts saves people's lives, but people are killing themselves by eating so much salt and transfats and sugar, and we have to take a voluntary approach. I think the news from Quebec is very good in terms of what they do. I'd like to ask what you see in terms of what we can do at the federal level, particularly on the sodium front, to ensure we go beyond some sort of voluntary stance and we can actually mandate a reduction.
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
Certainly. On the first point, we'll be circulating, through the chair and the clerk, our technical brief next week.
We're not ideologically predisposed to a mandatory voluntary route. If it were a voluntary method that would deliver performance, then we would be behind that. My concern is that the voluntary approach is simply completely unworkable and that a bunch of sophisticated public servants and politicians will sit around for two or three years to prove that to everybody.
The sodium working group report made some carefully considered recommendations in July 2010, and we haven't really heard an answer to that from the Minister of Health yet. I remained hopeful, even as late as November last year, when the ministers were meeting.
My sense is that the group that was tasked by the ministers and deputy ministers to prepare this plan B were so desirous of getting the support of the federal Minister of Health that they stripped out almost all of the references to regulations and then provided it to the minister. She still said no.
I remember telling colleagues on the sodium working group that the first sign we would get that the voluntary approach isn't working is when companies refuse to provide information on their progress. It seems that's exactly what has happened; I just didn't think it would take so long. The minister said she didn't want to proceed with the plan because she didn't want to post the results online. That's problematic.
NDP
Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Thank you very much.
I will continue on the same topic. I would like to speak about sodium with Mr. Jeffery.
Do you agree that we should adopt the 18 recommendations of the Sodium Working Group? Do you think we should do it gradually? In order to reach concrete results on the federal stage, what would your strategy be? Should we adopt all 18 recommendations? Should we do it in stages? Which stages could be implemented in 2012?
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
I don't want to get confused about reports, but the sodium working group report published in July 2010 had 27 recommendations and six overarching recommendations. Some have been implemented, the softer ones, such as research and some of the public education.
There are some unambiguous recommendations for modifying food labels that simply must be done. It's great to have education campaigns about how to better use the food label, but everyone seems to agree that there are certain parts of it that are inherently misleading. The daily value for sodium has to be changed from 2,400 to 1,500. Almost everybody recognizes that, including the Institute of Medicine in the U.S. There is some confusion about how to interpret the daily value.
We've had discussions here and elsewhere in the U.S. Institute of Medicine about front-of-package nutrition information, which was one of our recommendations. A backbone of the sodium working group report and plan B was this voluntary system that is policed basically through transparency. It is the transparency that seems to be the stumbling block for the Minister of Health.
NDP
Dany Morin NDP Chicoutimi—Le Fjord, QC
Merci.
I fully agree with you. Considering that the Conservative government lacks leadership on this, and we know that even babies eat twice the recommended amount of sodium, we need to do something more on this issue.
You mentioned in your report taxing bad food, malbouffe in French, differently. It's a very complicated issue, considering the provincial--
National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest
It's a myth that we don't tax food. We plainly do. The Excise Tax Act spells out what's called the definition of basic groceries. Some foods, such as Froot Loops, are exempt from tax. Bacon is exempt from tax. Club soda, which is generally a healthful food, is taxable. The tax rules are basically based on these 1950s notions of what is a sensible diet, and they have to be updated. Nutrition science has changed dramatically since then.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I would like to thank all of our guests for appearing here today.
We've covered a broad range of issues that are definitely interconnected: ensuring that there is healthy food available; the labelling of food; and preparing food.
I was interested in looking at the presentation by Québec en Forme. You said that daily life has changed for parents and children since the seventies and eighties. One of the bullet points speaks to time spent preparing meals, which went from nine hours a week in 1986 to five hours in 2005. I found that interesting, and I just want to link that to the presentation by our witnesses from the Food for Thought program.
I am very pleased that you are here today. Of course you are from my home city of Saskatoon, and your program is run right in my riding. I'm very excited to have you here.
I'm also very interested in the guiding principles you've outlined and the fact that you promote the engagement of your participants in relationships that emphasize strength and that facilitate empowerment. Even the story you shared demonstrates that. I have had the opportunity to participate in this program, and I know full well the very good work that is done.
I want to ask just a few questions about the program itself. How many women participate in a class? How many classes do you offer, and how many women participate in a class?
Primary Health Manager, Saskatoon Health Region
Generally our programming goes from September to June. We run the programs weekly. I think we run close to 80 groups a year. The number of participants varies, because some are drop-in and some are sort of scheduled in advance if they require transportation. We average about 10 to 15 women at a session. That is a nice number to work with.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
You've said that the program runs from September to June. How long do participants attend the program? When can they start attending, and is there a specific length of time they participate before they perhaps move out of the program?
Primary Health Manager, Saskatoon Health Region
That's a good question. It is a prenatal nutrition program. We strongly encourage the women to engage with the program early in their pregnancies, and they can remain with us until their infants are six months of age. Then we assist them to move on to other resources that might exist in the community where they can receive similar support. So it can be that they are with us for a number of months.
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
You've highlighted that this is a program run in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Is it offered anywhere else in the province of Saskatchewan or in any other provinces?
Primary Health Manager, Saskatoon Health Region
There are 325 Canadian prenatal nutrition program projects across the country. The neat thing is that each program is given its own budget to work with, and the programs look very different from community to community, because what we do in urban Saskatoon wouldn't be appropriate for the far north of our province, for example, as things might look very different there. So across the country the programs are all quite different.
I can't remember what the first part of your question was.
Conservative
Conservative
Kelly Block Conservative Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK
You've mentioned that your goal is to provide support to prenatal women who are in high-risk situations. Could you describe for us some of the programs you have in place to encourage them to eat healthy?
Primary Health Manager, Saskatoon Health Region
Perhaps Donna would like to speak to some of the work we actually do in our Food for Thought program.
Nutritionist, Food for Thought Program, Saskatoon Health Region
I think just by its nature, cooking together as a group gets people interested, and discussions always take place during cooking sessions. Then we have time focused on education. We move to a different room outside of the kitchen. A lot of our sessions are focused on teaching how to read labels, how to grocery shop and plan for that, how to feed your children, and how to feed toddlers, which is a big thing.
I try to gear my conversations to what I see happening around me, depending on the age of the children of most of the women who are coming to our program, and to engage them in what they need so it's relevant for their lives.
Conservative