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.
C.J. Helie
We're spirits. We sell in private stores in British Columbia, in Alberta, in Saskatchewan. We advise retailers about what kinds of risks there are of having our products on—
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I see what you are saying. In rereading what the retailers from Quebec said, I can see they had no choice but to sell and promote the product, since their competitors were doing it. As I see it, this all points to a need for much stricter regulations in order to protect young people. As to adults, they are consenting and can purchase products, but I am more concerned about young people.
C.J. Helie
Every corporation has choices to make in terms of how importantly they value different aspects of their business. Retailers have a choice to list a product or not list a product. They have a choice to put it on promotion or not put it on promotion. None of that is forced on them. It's a choice.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
It's a choice, and there is maybe a lack of intention there to apply the good rules.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
How much do you invest in awareness and prevention?
Retailers and associations do not talk about this much. As you said yourself, it is not always applied and it is done on a voluntary basis.
Mr. Harford, what does your industry do to raise awareness, whether among the public or among your retailers?
President, Beer Canada
There are two things I would like to say to that. I think a constant theme for the committee as it does its investigation will be this: there's no single silver bullet that will solve all the issues. It will be the way in which the regulations, the educational system, the policing system, and the industry all co-operate together to create a safe environment and prevent harmful use of beverage alcohol.
On the question of availability, it's exactly the struggle I have with this investigation, because there are rules in Quebec that should have been deployed to address this situation and stop those products from being marketed the way they were marketed. That just didn't happen. Federal food and drug regulations will have a really hard time addressing a manufacturer who's going to produce and market products like that. The industry could do whatever it wants.
They're not members of ours who produce those products. They're not members of Spirits Canada either. It will take a real collaborative effort, if you will, for government, industry, parents, and educators to all get together to address these issues, which are going to happen. They have to be approached aggressively but with the understanding that there will still be a need to collaborate and work together.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for their testimony.
My first question is for you, Mr. Westcott, or possibly Mr. Helie. It has to do with the premixed rum and colas that exist today. How many grams of alcohol are in those?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada
Generally speaking, they are 7% alcohol or less. Most of them are 5%, 6%, or 7% alcohol. That's the norm in the cooler business.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada
Yes, one serving.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Okay.
I really agreed with the point that was made that the can is too big. There is no way we should have four servings of alcohol in a single-serving type of can, especially when health regulations say that the daily maximum for women is two and for men three.
I don't know why there is not gender equality there, Jan.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
You might want to take that one up.
Mr. Westcott, there was a suggestion earlier that when you buy a Coke, there is nutritional information on it. When you buy Clamato juice, there is nutritional information. But when you buy a rum and cola a Caesar, there is no nutritional information. There was a suggestion that we update the regulations so that those things would fall into the same nutritional information that you normally get on other foods. What do you think about that?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada
Part of the reason that beverage alcohol historically has not been subject to this practice is that, when we make our products, they go through what you call substantive transformation. So the things that go into the product are not necessarily what the consumer experiences when they come out. There's been a long-standing practice of treating them differently. Those are perhaps things you should look at, but to be perfectly honest, these are not issues that anyone has brought forward to us in the past regarding any products that we produce.
These issues tend to come up when you have...and we're only talking about three, maybe four companies. As Luke said, they're not our members. They're not his members. They're not members of the wine industry. They're not members of the established industries. In fact, I would go so far as to say they are actually marketing companies, in many cases. They have attempted to, in many cases, mimic our products for policy reasons. The policy reasons are that if you are a wine-based or grape-based product you can be sold in a lot more places and you pay a lot less tax. So people try to create things that are like our products to obtain those benefits, and they go too far sometimes.
We have been complaining about these products for six, seven, eight years because they do damage the business. They harm consumers, and it's unfortunate that we have a casualty that brought us here today. But this is not a large group of people. We have been making coolers in the wine business and the beer business and the spirits business for decades. We had some initial issues because they were new products, but we basically managed those and we worked very hard to make sure they didn't fall into the hands of young people and that we didn't market towards them. We worked hard at that.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
We've not seen any instances of that.
There was testimony from Health Canada today talking about the guarana that is put in as an additive, and their information was that there was an insignificant amount of caffeine. Is that your experience, or do you think there is different information? I'll give that to Dr. Laliberté, and they we'll go around.
Emergency Physician and Toxicologist, McGill University Health Centre, As an Individual
It's actually very interesting because guarana is a plant, and, as you can guess, the plant can grow in different ways. It can be big, it can be small, it can contain a lot of caffeine or less caffeine, whether you actually take the seeds or the roots or any part of the plant. In fact, guarana, the guarana seed, usually contains more caffeine than coffee beans. It's actually been known for centuries in South America to be an energizing substance. They say it's guarana extract, so it's natural, and so there is no problem. We put it in a drink, but, in fact, we haven't run any tests.
Emergency Physician and Toxicologist, McGill University Health Centre, As an Individual
Exactly.
I think we're actually putting our heads in the sand with this. Saying that this is not caffeine, it's guarana would be the equivalent of saying this is not morphine, it's opium. And that could actually be proven to be dangerous.
C.J. Helie
I noted in our testimony that if a product is listed by a liquor board, it has a maximum 30 milligrams of caffeine per serving. So in a single-serving container, the maximum is 30 milligrams.
Conservative
C.J. Helie
No, that includes guarana and all naturally occurring caffeines whether it comes from coffee, tea, cola, or anything else.
