Evidence of meeting #103 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was products.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I would like to talk about the marketing of this kind of product. I'm not particularly familiar with the role of guarana, but this product seems to be legal, at least its use isn't restricted in Canada. But it's banned in the U.S.
Why isn't this product banned in Canada? Why can it still be obtained in Canada?
Barbara Lee Director, Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Department of Health
Guarana is a flavour that is allowed to be added to food ingredients. It's an approved ingredient as a flavour. It is actually not banned in the U.S. in these particular products.
In 2010, when the U.S. looked at these products, the companies voluntarily decided to pull all products that would be in energy drinks out of these products. That included guarana. It is not a question of banning. The companies chose to pull out all the ingredients that would have been in a traditional energy drink, one of which was guarana. Taurine is another. There are other ingredients.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
According to my sources, guarana is banned in the U.S. I will check my sources again. And if you could give me your sources, that would be good because it would prevent me from doing more extensive research.
The tactic was clearly to mask the quantity of alcohol and its effect, particularly the taste. So a larger quantity can be consumed more quickly. The same expression exists in English; the Americans call it
“blackout in a can”.
How is it possible to find this kind of product when its effects are being masked? I haven't even talked about product advertising yet. We just finished our study of Bill S-228. Advertising for this product is clearly aimed at young people. I have pictures of convenience stores in Quebec where the product can be found. Advertising is certainly not for older adults. The hope is that it will target young adults, but it clearly attracts young adolescents.
How is it that this kind of product is on shelves?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
Like most foods, as long as the general food safety requirements are met, along with additional requirements specific to that particular type of product, alcoholic beverages can be legally sold in Canada and they don't need to have a pre-market assessment or an approval from Health Canada.
At the federal level, Health Canada regulates alcohol under the Food and Drugs Act. It includes things like standards of identity for specific categories of alcohol, such as beer, cider, whisky, rum, gin, different types of spirits. It can include permissible ingredients that are allowed in those products, methods of manufacture, and certain labelling requirements, such as common name, quality, and alcohol by volume. The act also contains general prohibitions against deceptive marketing of foods, which also applies to alcoholic beverages.
On the other hand, the provinces are responsible for enacting laws and regulations regarding the sale and distribution of alcoholic drinks within their jurisdiction. Alcohol oversight is usually managed by the provincial liquor control boards or commissions. They can set out additional health and safety labelling regulations related to alcoholic beverages. They also have the authority to control accessibility through pricing, licensing of outlets, hours of operation, and setting minimum drinking ages.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.
My first question has to do with the information bulletin that went out.
I agree with the comments that Mr. Ayoub made about the timeliness of follow-up when we have this kind of incident happen. Quebec reacted quickly to put something in place. I know that the federal regulations have to go through due process and take some time, but who does the information bulletin go to? How will young people see that?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
In addition to the information update, we publish it on our website. We also did a number of tweets and used social media in order to target parents as well, because it is important that parents are receiving this information so that they can also discuss this with their children because they have an important role in terms of communicating this type of information to their teenagers.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Young people who don't make a habit of going to your government website and parents who aren't habitually following the tweeting of Health Canada wouldn't see the information. Is that true?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
Yes, there definitely are limitations with publishing information on websites. Using social media is one of our strategies in terms of trying to find ways of communicating with youth.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Is there no other mechanism? I know we've had incidents in Canada. For example, I remember when there was listeria in meat. There was an immediate Health Canada reaction to recall stuff, to get rid of stuff. Why was that mechanism not employed in this circumstance?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
In this case, the manufacturer took immediate action and ceased to manufacture the product.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Is it the only one that manufactures this type of product?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
The specific product that was implicated in this tragedy stopped being marketed, but there are similar products on the market that fall into this category of highly sweetened, high-alcohol, large single-serving drinks.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
I don't know the specifics of the incident because I didn't think the detail was there. How did this 14-year-old girl get hold of a high-alcohol-containing beverage? Did she purchase that herself at the store? What was the story there?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
It's our understanding that she didn't purchase it, that she had stolen the product from the depanneur.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
All right. That answers that question.
I see Alberta and Ontario don't allow these kinds of drinks. As I understand it, although maybe I'm wrong, you wouldn't be able to have those kinds of products in those two provinces. That would make me think they have regulations of some kind, so it should be quite simple to look at them, because they're working, and to copy them. Is that the case?
Director, Bureau of Chemical Safety, Food Directorate, Department of Health
This particular product was sold only in Quebec, but there are other similar products that are also on the market, and they are on the market across Canada. That's why we're here today to have this discussion about how to manage this further.
That particular product itself was very much targeted and marketed in Quebec.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Very good. Thank you.
I think my colleague Mr. Webber has one or two questions.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
Ms. McIntyre, in your presentation you talked about the size limit of containers and percentage of alcohol. You talked a bit about the caffeine percentage in drinks. I might have missed this, but the sweetness threshold in drinks is obviously something that you'll be looking at as well and testing for sugar content in determining what the threshold will be with sugar.
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
That's correct. We're consulting on two things. The second thing we're looking at is the threshold for sweetness.
Conservative
Len Webber Conservative Calgary Confederation, AB
All right.
The Canadian Association of Liquor Jurisdictions has indicated also that it will take industry some time to adjust to these new policies that you'll put in place. They are just asking that they have sufficient advance notice of the regulation changes so they can address their currently stored stock in these liquor jurisdiction warehouses. I'm just passing that on to you. You will hear that in your consultation as well.
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
Thank you. That is noted.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
My other question is about public education. We just got through looking at Bill S-228 to try to prohibit marketing of unhealthy foods to children. It seems to me that foods that are high in sugar or potentially high in alcohol would not be good for kids. Would you agree with that? If so, what type of public education campaign is Health Canada going to take on to make sure that children are aware of the hazards of these kinds of products?
Director General, Food Directorate, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
That's a good question. This is very much a product where there's aggressive marketing towards youth in the use of bright colours, the use of interesting names for the products, and the promotion of the word “guarana” on the label. There are a number of things. It's quite aggressively targeted at youth, particularly young females. It is an important consideration in terms of not only the regulatory side of making changes that would, in effect, prohibit the marketing of these products in their current format—although certainly that's going to be an important consideration in terms of mitigating the health risks associated with these products—but also the way in which they're marketed.
Of course, education is an important aspect of this. One thing we're doing is working with the provinces, working with key stakeholders, because it's more than Health Canada's role to work on education and getting those messages out there. We can do all that we can, but the more mechanisms and different ways of distributing this information we can get out there, the more impact we can have in terms of reaching those vulnerable populations about the risk of these products.
Conservative
