Health Committee on April 25th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll call the meeting to order.

Senator Greene, if you would like to sit at the table, we'd like to have you.

Welcome to meeting 102 of the Standing Committee on Health, pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, February 14, 2018, we are studying Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children.

For witnesses to help us through the clause-by-clause, we have, from the Department of Health, David K. Lee, Chief Regulatory Officer; Karen McIntyre, Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch; and Hasan Hutchinson, Director General, Office of Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Health Products and Food Branch.

We're going to go right to clause-by-clause.

First of all, we're going to skip clause 1 for the time being. That's the title clause, but we'll return to that and the preamble.

(On clause 2)

We'll go right to clause 2, where we have amendment Liberal-1.

Dr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is that healthy food you're eating?

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

It is very healthy food, yes, cheese and fruit.

The amendment would read as follows.... The first one is actually in the preamble.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

No, we're not doing the preamble. We're doing clause 2.

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

It's clause 2, my mistake.

What clause 2 does is replace line 32, on page 2, with the following:

Whereas it is widely acknowledged that market-

It also adds after line 40 on page 2 the following:

Whereas it is necessary to review and monitor the effectiveness of this Act, particularly in light of new forms of advertising—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Excuse me, but I think you're on Liberal-3.

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

I'm reading Liberal-1.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are you? We have Liberal-1 for clause 2.

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

My apologies, I was given this in the wrong order.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

No problem.

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

Liberal-1 says that Bill S-228, in clause 2, be amended by replacing line 8, on page 3, with the following:

“children” means persons who are under 13 years of age;

The reason for this is that basically there have been some precedents, and the original wording of “under 17 years of age” might cause some confusion and may perhaps have a charter challenge, with the precedent in Quebec. The reason for this change is that this be aligned with a clause that would likely be charter compliant.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Dubé, you have a comment.

[Matthew Dubé, NDP, Beloeil—Chambly, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, I am pleased to be standing in for my colleague Mr. Davies. The last time I replaced him, I asked experts in the field about it, and they actually said the opposite. If we really want to protect children….

As I said the last time, I wouldn't have wanted to hear this when I was a teenager, but let's be honest, a teenager is still a child within the meaning of the bill. Dr. Potvin Kent's comments come to mind. She said that a teenager was still influenced by society and didn't have quite the same capacity as an adult. That is precisely why they aren't allowed to smoke, or vote before the age of 18. Jurisdictions have different views on the matter. For instance, the legal drinking age in Ontario is 19, but 18 in Quebec.

Nevertheless, one thing is very clear. If we truly want to make a difference and encourage healthy habits, what we have to take into account, in passing this bill, is advertising that markets unhealthy foods as “cool”.

I want to quote Dr. David Hammond, who also spoke when I was replacing Mr. Davies, last time. He said, “There is no question whatsoever that if the age limit were increased to 17 and below, the marketing restrictions would be more effective in terms of public health outcomes.”

I'm certainly disappointed, and I will be opposing this amendment because I think that at the end of the day, we want to reach the broadest audience possible—and it's habit forming. As much as we say that we want young people to vote because they will continue to vote because it's habit forming, I think the opposite is true as well when it comes to bad habits. In the same way that we don't want teenagers to start smoking, I think we also have to look at that angle when it comes to nutritious food and the types of things that are being advertised to children.

The last point I want to make, Chair, as part of this debate, is to say that when we look at some of the challenges that this type of legislation will have in terms of being as effective as possible, I think the lower the age threshold is, the more loopholes there are that can be exploited in terms of allowing for a broader range of advertising, the times of day of TV shows, and things like that. I think it's safe to conclude that the objective that we should be seeking as parliamentarians is better achieved by opposing this type of amendment. I'll perhaps ask our colleagues what they believe is the public health outcome that will be achieved—or rather, not achieved—by proposing this type of amendment. Perhaps I would direct that question through you, Chair, to Dr. Eyolfson.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are there any other comments on this amendment?

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

Thank you.

I'll simply respond that although I agree that in principle it would be most suitable to have the age of 17, again, there are concerns that this would be subject to a charter challenge, and therefore, the entire bill could be rendered invalid and struck down. There are provisions that later will allow for monitoring, in that, if there is increased advertising to the 13 to 17 age range, this can be reviewed.

Right now, we thought this was the greatest chance of this bill actually having success and not being struck down by the courts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

I see no further comments, so I'm going to call for a vote on Liberal-1.

[An hon. member]

Can we have a recorded vote?

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

(Amendment agreed to: yeas 8; nays 1)

(Clause 2 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 3 agreed to)

(On clause 4)

On clause 4, we have three proposed amendments here.

First is CPC-1.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

This is to clarify the meaning of “unhealthy foods”. We did hear testimony on Monday from our friends from Quebec who have a lot of experience in this area that unhealthy food is “food that is high in saturated fatty acids, sodium or sugars in a manner that is directed primarily at”, so that is the proposed amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Could you just say that again?

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

It's intended to clarify. We had a lot of discussion about what is unhealthy food and who determines what's unhealthy food. We had great testimony from our witness from Quebec on Monday, who has a lot of experience in this area and said that it's clear that it is food that is high in saturated fatty acids, sodium, or sugars. That's what the amendment is about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Is there any debate?

Dr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I appreciate the intent of this, however, the term as originally worded is “unhealthy food”, which focuses on the scope. It's expected that there are going to be changes in science and different definitions being made, so this is to be defined in the regulation. That way it can be responded to and altered much more quickly when these changes in science come about, as opposed to having to put this through more legislative changes every time there's new science.

I will be opposing this.

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

Could I ask our officials about their interpretation of “unhealthy food”? I can understand, from a legislative standpoint, that “unhealthy food” would be good for you folks in crafting regulations. However, what Ms. Gladu here has mentioned ties in with the front-of-package labelling. I just wonder if you could provide some comments. Mr. Eyolfson just stated that he would be against that, but just reading between the lines of what Health Canada has proposed for front-of-package labelling, I'm just wondering if you can provide us some commentary on that.