Mr. Chairman, I will do my presentation in French.
Ladies and gentlemen of the committee, thank you for your welcome today.
My name is Corinne Voyer, and I am the director of the Coalition québécoise sur la problématique du poids. I am accompanied by my colleague Clara Couturier, who is our organization's research analyst in public policy.
The Coalition québécoise sur la problématique du poids is a project of the Association pour la santé publique du Québec. The coalition's mandate is to demand changes to legislation, regulations, and public policy in order to encourage the development of environments that favour healthy lifestyle choices and that contribute to preventing obesity and weight-related issues and chronic disease. The Weight Coalition is supported by around 450 partners, half of which operate in the realms of health and research, municipalities and schools, or in the areas of the environment, nutrition, and physical activity.
The Weight Coalition would first like to express its support for Bill S-228 and for the objectives set by Health Canada's overall strategy for healthy eating.
In Canada, 60% of adults and almost one third of children are overweight. The extent of the problems linked to obesity and chronic diseases has major consequences, not only on the health of Canadians, but also on the overall economy and on provincial health care systems. Urgent action is therefore required to implement a variety of prevention measures. The science is clear: poor diet contributes to the development of obesity and of a number of preventable chronic diseases.
For a number of years, advertising for food and beverage items intended for children has caught the attention of health professionals, researchers and, more recently, the Government of Canada. Advertising influences dietary behaviours, knowledge and preferences among children. The great majority of products directed at children are of poor nutritional quality and contain elevated levels of sugar, salt and saturated fats.
The Weight Coalition recommends the following four courses of action for the federal government.
First, use the Quebec act that prohibits commercial advertising directed at children and use the application guide of that act in order to specify what constitutes advertising directed at children under 13 years of age.
Second, for unhealthy food and beverage items intended for children, limit the use of trade marketing strategies using packaging, containers and displays in windows and on shelves.
Third, as a monitoring measure, require large food and beverage companies to disclose the amounts they spend each year to target children and teenagers.
Fourth, establish a program to oversee advertising directed at teenagers from 13 to 16, who are largely targeted by and sensitive to those strategies.
In Quebec, the Consumer Protection Act has banned commercial advertising to children 13 years old and younger since 1980.
Before the age of 13, the cognitive and social development of children does not allow them to grasp the persuasive intentions of advertisers or to exercise critical judgment. Children can be manipulated and are vulnerable to the advertising directed at them. When the Quebec act was tested in court, the judges recognized the cognitive vulnerability of children of that age in terms of advertising messages, as well as the unethical character of this commercial practice.
To define advertising directed at children, the Quebec act considers three criteria: the nature of the product, the way in which the message is presented, and where it is presented.
Given that the Quebec act targets all products, not just food items, it has exceptions including shop windows, shelving, containers, packaging and labelling of food products. This is why marketing strategies directed at children still exist in Quebec grocery stores. Federal legislation should fill those gaps created by the exceptions set out in the Quebec act.
If you consult the guide to the application of the Quebec legislation, you will notice that it details legal criteria that make it possible to determine whether an advertising message is directed at children younger than 13. The guide considers platforms like television, the web and cell phones. Logos, mascots and sponsorship are also considered as advertising messages that may well target children.
Since the current bill seems to exempt sponsorship from the banned advertising practices, the Weight Coalition recommends reducing the potential harm of this exemption by authorizing only sponsorship provided in a way that does not generate the interest of young people, sponsorship, therefore, that is considered to be discreetly mentioned.
In addition to being inconsistent in terms of the mission of some organizations, it seems contradictory to expose children to advertisements for unhealthy food and beverage items, if we want to encourage physical activity.
We also want to draw the committee's attention to the importance of criteria to define what constitutes an unhealthy food item. If the legislation were aligned with the strategy for labelling on the front of the package, as proposed by Health Canada, it is critical that the daily quantity of food items directed to children be adjusted.
Since 2009, the Weight Coalition has been pointing out commercial practices that seem to be contraventions of the Quebec legislation on foods and beverages. Those complaints are sent to the Office de la protection du consommateur, which has responsibility for enforcing the act in Quebec. A number of the allegations have ended up as guilty pleas on the part of the large companies, some of which currently take part in the Canadian self-regulatory program.
Here are some examples to illustrate how the legislation is applied in Quebec.
In 2015, Coca-Cola, the owner of the Fanta brand, was found guilty of having violated the act because of its product placement and sponsorship in a play area in an amusement park. The water games area was completely decorated in the colours of the drink brand and featured characters with bottles of Fanta in their hands. The characters were placed at a height that made them easily seen by the children. In addition, they were located next to the mechanisms that operated the jets of water. I even brought some photographs that I can distribute. Some pictures show the play area before the advertising was withdrawn and others show the area after Coca-Cola withdrew its advertising.
In 2017, Kellogg Canada admitted doing advertising directed at children on its website. The complaint dealt with puzzles and colouring activities based on the brand's children's characters. Underneath the drawings was a blue banner carrying the name of the cereals and also of the company. In addition, Kellogg provided kits for organizing birthday parties, with hats that you could print bearing the brand's characters and focusing directly on children.
In conclusion, I will say that there is a clear consensus on the need to prohibit advertising for food and beverage products that have little nutritional value and are directed at children. The government has the duty to protect children from commercial influence exercised through food advertising. In the food industry, self-regulation, through the Canadian Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative, that was launched by Advertising Standards Canada, is clearly unsatisfactory, whereas the Quebec legislation has definitely demonstrated its effectiveness.
Given the prevalence of Canadians who are overweight, and the international recommendations on limiting advertising directed at children, Canada must immediately champion strategies that will have a major impact and that will allow Canadian children to grow and develop in a positive dietary environment that will encourage them to make healthy food choices.
Thank you.