Health Committee on April 18th, 2018

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Dr. Strang, we talked about clause 5, which gives the Governor in Council authority to make regulations to determine whether unhealthy food is advertised in a manner that is directed at children. Can you speak to the criteria that should be used to determine whether marketing of a food is done in a manner that is directed at children? What criteria would you use when you look at an ad that would lead you to say “this is for children”?

[Dr. Robert Strang]

As key points, we need to look at Dr. Hammond's comments on the set of vehicles that are used, as well as the criteria on what constitutes an unhealthy food. We have a range of expertise that needs to be brought to bear. Health Canada is hopefully going to have a robust engagement with experts as they develop the regulations in this area.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Okay, thank you.

You may have alluded to this, but I wanted to get a definitive answer. Do you think Health Canada's restricting the focus to television and digital media marketing is sufficient, or should we also be expanding it to other avenues of advertising?

[Dr. Robert Strang]

From a public health perspective, we should be looking at all ways in which children are marketed to. Certainly there are regular media, social media, digital media. We have to look at the Internet. There's product placement, in-store placement, and sponsorship. If we're going to have the maximum impact on improving children's health, we need to have the maximum impact, as Dr. Hammond has said, and be looking at restricting marketing in all ways that children and their parents are marketed to.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

Senator, I come back to you. You made reference to this act that was passed 20 years ago in Quebec. Is that right?

[Nancy Greene Raine]

I think it was in 1982 or 1980.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Then it's been 38 years.

[Nancy Greene Raine]

Yes, and the Quebec government used the Consumer Protection Act, which is quite different from the Food and Drugs Act.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

You had said that there is decreased consumption of junk food and increased consumption of fruits and vegetables in children in Quebec since that law came in. Are you aware of any tracking of improved health outcomes, such as in rates of type 2 diabetes in younger people and these sorts of things?

[Nancy Greene Raine]

That's not my field of expertise. From discussing it with the people involved in the obesity issue in Quebec, I know they are still working on the issue. It's by no means solved, and they welcome this legislation because it expands the amount of advertising that....

What happened in Quebec was that because the legislation prohibited advertising, which was really traditional advertising—radio, television, and print ads—the revenue, the investment into marketing, moved into other areas. As a result, the impact wasn't as broad as they had hoped. They welcome this legislation to complement their legislation.

[Dr. Monique Potvin Kent]

If could just add to that, one of the issues with the Quebec legislation is that it's not specific. It doesn't target unhealthy food and beverage ads; it's just all advertising. It says you cannot can't target ads to children under the age of 13.

As a result, because of the way their legislation is drafted, kids see quite a bit of food advertising in Quebec. It's just not targeted at them. They see a McDonald's ad, but their McDonald's ad is the guy in his office eating a breakfast wrap, and that's not a child-targeted ad, so it's okay in Quebec. That's why it's so important that we get the regulations right for the entire country in this new piece of legislation.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

If you're going to, as I say, restrict the ones that children might be exposed to, would you favour restrictions by time of day, the type of programming? Both? Neither?

[Dr. Monique Potvin Kent]

I think we need to approach it from a variety of angles. I think it means definitely restricting food and beverage marketing on any kind of child-targeted station, such as a children's specialty channel like YTV and that type of station, but you also have to look at the number of kids who are going to various sites. This is because you have to get that family programming. It's really hard if the audience.... If you just do an audience threshold approach, and in Quebec, say, the audience threshold is 15%, for instance, even that is too high in some instances, particularly when we're looking at digital media. Because there are so many media options online, there are very few websites that actually hit that number, so it's important to also look at the number of children who are going to various sites. Once we hit 25,000 Canadian children, that could then trigger the law, as opposed to just using the audience threshold.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

All right. Thank you very much. I only have about 20 seconds left, so I thank you all very much for your testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Go ahead, Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Who will determine the definition of “unhealthy” food? I know we're having some discussions about the food guide and front-of-package labelling, and I think this bill also is trending towards that. Is unhealthy food going to be defined by Health Canada in conjunction with the food guide? What would have been the discussions on that?

[Nancy Greene Raine]

The discussions were really quite broad. Once I realized that the World Health Organization and the Pan American Health Organization were looking at how to define what is unhealthy, specifically towards the targeting of advertising to children, I realized there's a lot of research happening and lot of knowledge coming forward, and as long as the best practices are recognized at a worldwide level, I am comfortable adding the “unhealthy”.

I appreciate that if you want this bill to stand up to any court challenges, you have to narrow what you are prohibiting. From my discussions with the Minister of Health and the officials, and seeing the work being done in Health Canada, I became very comfortable that we can define this. It will be defined in regulations.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

One thing I can see happening is that juice, for example, under the proposed rules for front-of-package labelling, would have a label on it. Chocolate milk would have a label on it. A kids' yogourt drink would have a label on it. My interpretation would be that none of those products could be advertised towards children. Is that correct? Am I incorrect?

Orange juice, obviously, would have higher levels of sugar in it, yet many parents would think that a glass of juice in a day would be quite acceptable. What do you think?

[Nancy Greene Raine]

I understand where you're coming from. There's nothing to prevent the marketing of these products to parents. Kids coming and nagging the parents to buy them things because they're getting the marketing messages that make them desire sugar-sweetened drinks or drinks like fruit juice, which are naturally high in sugar, is what we're trying to prevent.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

You wouldn't be able to advertise a drinkable yogourt a kid would have. I don't know if they advertise it to kids nowadays.

[Nancy Greene Raine]

I haven't seen any drinkable yogourts that aren't full of sugar.

I would like a kid to come home and say, “Mommy, I'm thirsty”, and turn on the tap and have a glass of water.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Yes.

[Nancy Greene Raine]

That's not what's happening.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Dr. Hammond.

[Dr. David Hammond]

May I speak to that?