Health Committee on April 30th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Dr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you both for coming today.

First I'll ask both of you your opinion on this.

For a number of years, the forms of alcohol you can buy have been changing. I'm still old enough to know that all you ever got in a 12-ounce bottle was beer. Then, I think in the 1980s, they started announcing what they called “coolers”. Now there are more and more of these drinks for adults that are various combinations of different liquors and lots of sugar and fruit flavours.

Has the development of these kinds of drinks contributed to the development of this product we're talking about today?

First I'll ask Mr. Sacy.

[Hubert Sacy]

Yes, I will try to answer you as well as I can.

It is true that the industry is adjusting its product in order to reach new customers—mainly women, for instance, for whom they have created some very easy-to-drink products. This is okay as long as the product is fair and honest. When you have sections in various state-owned, government stores....

You know, the different between a government-owned store and a grocery store is extremely simple. If you go to an SAQ or an LCBO store, you know you're buying alcohol, because that's all they have. When you go to a grocery store, you may go to buy chocolate or milk or a newspaper or whatever, and—oh, by the way—there's also alcohol.

The place is quite important in itself, because the place sells itself to the customer: “here there is alcohol”, and anything you can buy here, except the bag, is alcoholic.

That's one item of clarity and clarification. Number two is, it is true that it's more convenient to have already-made sangria. That's right, but when something starts as something useful and turns with time into something that becomes dangerous, then we should act on it. We can find some boundaries that will set the record straight again for the consumers.

We're not talking here about the prohibition of alcohol; we're just saying that it should be framed appropriately, controlled, whether by the place or by the product or by the promotion or by the price. The four Ps of marketing should apply here.

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

Thank you.

Ms. Paradis, do you have anything to add to that?

[Catherine Paradis]

While the alcohol industry has been extremely creative in recent years, I also think the government and its public health and public safety officials have made it easy for them. The industry has been given much more space, places, times, and locations to offer and sell us all their products. People can now have a beer while they are doing yoga or running a marathon. Alcohol is available everywhere you go. We have to rethink this.

As a result of some of our laws becoming more lax, we now have a society that some people consider “alcogenic”.

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

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Sacy, you made reference to this, that when it's a liquor store, you know it's liquor because that's all that's there. You have it in grocery stores now, and I know it's become more and more popular. In all the provinces there's a move to adding some of these alcoholic products to convenience stores, to grocery stores.

We heard that this young girl who died had stolen this bottle from a convenience store. It might be assumed that she would have been more noticed had she been in a liquor store, because she's not supposed to be there.

Should there be a move to taking these products back out of the grocery stores into liquor stores, or should at the very least the liquor in these stores be in a special section that is not accessible to children?

Mr. Sacy.

[Hubert Sacy]

If I may, I will try to answer you on this.

If you want to be assassinated, just say so and promote the idea.

In Quebec in 1977 or 1978, wine was made available overnight, going from the 400 SAQ stores to 13,800 grocery stores, and it didn't create any problems in that regard. Why? It's because wine tastes like wine; beer tastes like beer.

Of course, when we talk about these products that don't taste like alcohol, this is the reason they should be at least limited to the state-owned stores, because all they sell is alcohol, on the one hand.

Second, this young woman would have never gone to a state-owned liquor store. They never go there anyway. Why? It's not because the grocery stores are horrible guys who sell to minors and have no social conscience. They don't go there because they have nothing to do there. They can't even walk three steps before being kicked out. When you go to a depanneur or a grocery store, you may go there to buy any other thing.

On the other hand, let's face it. Everywhere on planet Earth when there is research on drinking patterns and drinking habits, all research starts at the age of 15. If you ask people “who drinks, how much do you drink, etc.”, all research starts at the age of 15, not because it's legal to buy alcohol at the age of 15—it's illegal everywhere—but everybody knows that one way or the other, at the age of 15 most of them have already tried alcohol, either because an adult bought it for them, or they stole it, or whatever. It's just that they have access to it, and this is why they need to be protected.

Last but not least, and it's quite important, when we talk about a reasonable price—we said $1.70 and Catherine said $1.71, but let's not discuss one cent, for we can settle that wherever you want—the main thing is that the price should be fair.

Please, let nobody tells us that if we increase the price too much we will have contraband and booze-levying, etc. It is true, but what we're talking about here is the minimum price; we're not talking about raising the price of all products. Just never go below what we are talking about

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your time is up. That completes our round with this panel.

I have one question for Dr. Paradis. What is the difference between ethyl alcohol and malt alcohol?

[Catherine Paradis]

Malt alcohol is produced from the fermentation of malt from grain, while ethyl alcohol is what we currently know as spirits. They are different types of alcohol that are subject to different types of excise tax.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Where does the ethyl come from?

[Catherine Paradis]

I think I would have to ask my colleague in the back from Spirits Canada to answer that more precisely. I'm not the chemist here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

That's good. Anyway, I want to thank the panellists for their contribution today. We're going to suspend for a couple of minutes, and then we'll have our third panel in place.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll resume our meeting on premixed drinks.

On our third panel we have from Spirits Canada Jan Westcott, president and chief executive officer, and C.J. Helie, executive vice-president. From Beer Canada we have Luke Harford, president, and as an individual we have Dr. Martin Laliberté, emergency physician and toxicologist, McGill University Health Centre.

We're going to start with Spirits Canada with a 10-minute opening presentation.

[Jan Westcott, President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm Jan Westcott, the President and CEO of Spirits Canada. To my colleague, C.J. Helie, our Executive Vice-President, go all of the hard questions, just so we're clear.

Thank you very much for taking time to hear us. We'd like to share our views and experiences related to the sale of certain beverage alcohol products, products somewhat loosely referred to as highly sweetened, high-alcohol beverages sold in single-serve containers for immediate consumption.

Spirits Canada is the sole national organization representing Canadian spirits manufacturers, marketers, exporters, and consumers. Spirits Canada members adhere to a strict industry code of responsible advertising and marketing. Our code of conduct was recently updated to explicitly include all forms of digital activities, including social media sites. Our social responsibility code is rather comprehensive and deals with all aspects of the business, including those related to mixing or promoting alcohol with energy drinks, therapeutic claims, or appeal to youth.

We have provided the clerk with some copies of our entire code of conduct for referral by those interested.

The issue, of course, is that not all alcohol producers or marketers adopt such high standards of behaviour. In fact, some companies view themselves as market disrupters and build their entire business plan on bringing products into the market that push the envelope, and then choose to advertise and promote them in a manner inconsistent with established norms of socially responsible behaviour.

I'd like to begin my detailed comments with the issue of caffeine and its association and use in beverage alcohol.

Unlike the case in many other jurisdictions, products described as either caffeinated beverage alcohol products or alcoholic energy drinks have not been a significant health or safety problem in Canada.

Almost a decade ago, Health Canada, alcohol manufacturers, and provincial liquor boards came together to adopt a range of measures within their respective spheres of responsibility and competence to address this emerging health threat at its very inception. I won't go into all the collaboration and hard work and good will demonstrated by all parties in that challenging period, but I think it's important to summarize a few of the key outcomes.

One is that Health Canada banned the sale of alcoholic energy drinks in Canada.

Two, the Canadian Association of Liquor Jurisdictions—all the liquor boards—and individual liquor boards adopted a maximum voluntary limit of 30 milligrams of caffeine per serving in any alcoholic beverage. To be clear, no caffeine whatsoever can be added to an alcoholic beverage in Canada unless any level of caffeine is due to the use of an ingredient with naturally occurring caffeine, such as chocolate, coffee, tea, carbonated beverages such as a cola—the classic rum and cola, for example.

Three, we undertook education and server training efforts to discourage the self-mixing by consumers of energy drinks and alcohol by individual consumers in their homes or in bars, and we forbade the use of any of our brands in any joint promotion with an energy drink.

The results of these measures have been very effective. Laboratory testing of products reported in the media as caffeinated alcohol products has shown them to contain very little caffeine whatsoever.

It seems clear, however, that there have been a number of beverage alcohol drinks available in Canada in recent years that convey the impression that they are in fact alcoholic energy drinks. It's also clear from our perspective that CFIA and provincial regulators chose to take very little enforcement action against such false and misleading claims, despite numerous representations by both us and other interested parties.

Canadian consumers have seen on liquor board shelves—and more typically private store shelves—products using the same brand name and imagery as energy drinks, products with labels and packages with performance claims such as “a source of energy”, or have seen claims that a company's alcoholic beverage had “the kick of an energy drink” on a corporate website.

The unfortunate consequence of the lack of effective enforcement against such false and misleading claims, in addition to the fraud perpetrated on the consumer, is that its effect has been to undermine concerted communication efforts to warn consumers of the health risks associated with the mixing of energy drinks with alcohol.

The presence of such products on the shelves of liquor stores conveys the impression that alcoholic energy drinks are in fact legal and authorized for sale in Canada and thus safe for Canadians to drink. They're not.

Many health officials have identified a distinction between products such as Four Loko and...I'm just going to call it the Freddy, because I'm not going to say that here, versus other higher-alcohol products with relatively high sugar levels.

As we have just discussed, and contrary to some media reports, it is not the elevated levels of caffeine that are the real concern.

World-renowned icewines, Canadian icewines, and many spirituous liqueurs also have elevated sugar and alcohol levels but do not raise elevated health risks.

We should perhaps take a few moments to talk about the manufacturing processes used to produce these products, the ones that are of concern to health officials.

Historically, the only cost-effective method on a commercial scale to produce pure and more concentrated alcohol.... By the way, my colleague from the CCSA misspoke a bit. Ethanol is ethanol is ethanol. It doesn't matter whether you make beer first, whether you make wine first, or whether you make spirits. We in fact start with beer. Ethanol is ethanol.

Historically, the only cost-effective method on a commercial scale to produce a pure and more concentrated alcohol than that obtained solely through the fermentation of grapes, fruits, or cereal grains, which is our case, was distillation. You couldn't do it any other way except distillation.

However, with the very considerable incentives to have products classified as either a beer, a cider, or wine, for policy purposes manufacturers have looked to mimic the effects of distillation through other means, and they've been very successful in achieving this. Producers can now treat their fermented base goods to one or more non-traditional additional processes, such as reverse osmosis, crystallization, ion exchange, centrifugation, and ultra-filtration, to obtain a neutral, higher-alcohol product.

To this concentrated alcohol base, any flavour compound whatsoever can be added to produce a final beverage product, so a product like Four Loko or FCKDUP is born and, because it is at least ostensibly malt-based, is provided access to corner stores and, in some markets, to grocery stores, benefiting from a much lower tax and minimum price than those imposed on spirits products, the latter having been produced through distillation.

In Quebec, rather astonishingly, these products were actually subsidized by the government through a reduction in that province's specific tax on alcohol that was made available to smaller-scale local producers.

We note with sorrow that the Government of Quebec's own expert had advised them in 2015 to eliminate the subsidy, noting that “the specific tax on alcoholic beverages was implemented to take into account the negative externalities that alcohol consumption”—over-consumption—“can engender and such externalities”—people using them improperly—“exist for both small and large producers”. Whether you're a big producer or a small producer, how the consumer is using the product doesn't change.

Hopefully, now that the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled in the recent Comeau case that such protectionist schemes are unconstitutional, Quebec will withdraw such financial support for products like these.

At this point in the brand creation process, a producer would have a product that would normally be classified—at least in Canada—as a “flavoured malt beverage”—a “beer blend” under Quebec's alcomalt regulation.

The most dangerous health and safety issues associated with brands like Four Loko and FCKDUP are largely linked to corporate decisions that followed the creation of the “liquid” itself, as I described above.

First, there was the very unfortunate decision to package the product in a large-volume, single-serve, non-resealable container that encouraged immediate consumption of the entire contents, a package that contained more than four standard drinks. In Canada, we define a standard drink as one that contains 17.05 millilitres of pure alcohol, whether that alcohol comes from beer, wine, or spirits. Moreover, the recommended daily limit under Canada's low-risk drinking guidelines is for no more than two standard drinks for women, and three for men. Thus, a single container designed for immediate consumption contained more than the daily limit for either a man or a woman.

In closing, I wish to address the tragic circumstances related to the death of the young Quebec teenager. Details are still scarce, but we do wish to extend our sympathies to the family and friends of Ms. Gervais.

There were a number of errors that may have contributed to the final outcome, including by the producer, who now admits it was a mistake to introduce a product such as FCKDUP into the market; those retailers that not only listed the product, but in fact showcased and promoted the product in huge displays at deeply discounted prices; and, the provincial regulator, which chose not to enforce the relevant sections of the liquor advertising regulations that prohibit advertising that induces a person to consume alcoholic beverages in an irresponsible manner.

We have four specific recommendations—this keeps changing—as follows.

One, Health Canada should prohibit the use of the brand name of an authorized energy drink by any alcoholic beverage.

Two, in recognition of the opening of new sales channels outside liquor boards, Health Canada should formalize by regulation or industry guidance the maximum 30 milligrams per serving of caffeine in alcoholic beverages.

Three, all beverage alcohol labels and packages sold through private sales channels, including manufacturer on-site stores, should be subject to provincial regulatory review prior to entering the market.

Four, the elimination of exemptions for small producers for all federal or provincial health or safety regulations or policies should be eliminated. We note with concern, for example, that some differentiated health and safety standards have been proposed by Health Canada for smaller-scale recreational marijuana producers.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you.

Now we go to Beer Canada, with Mr. Harford.

[Luke Harford, President, Beer Canada]

Thank you, and good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.

My name is Luke Harford. I am the president of Beer Canada, the national voice of beer. I appreciate the opportunity to appear here today to provide input into the committee's study on premixed drinks combining high alcohol, caffeine, and sugar content.

As members of the committee are aware, Health Canada, on March 23, 2018, issued “a notice of intent to amend the Food and Drug Regulations to restrict the amount of alcohol...in highly sweetened alcoholic beverages sold in...single-serve container[s]”. Beer Canada is working alongside Health Canada to assist through the consultation process and will be making a submission by the May 8 deadline.

My comments today are drawn from what at this point we plan to submit to Health Canada.

Health Canada's proposal, as outlined in the notice of intent, attempts to address products that we believe could have and should have been restricted—or even prohibited—under existing provincial policies and regulations. For example, one of the alcohol beverages that triggered the notice of intent was being advertised on billboards and in stores as having four drinks in one can. As my colleague at Spirits Canada mentioned, Quebec currently has laws in place that prohibit the advertising of alcoholic beverages that induces a person to consume alcoholic beverages in an irresponsible manner. I have copies of one of the displays on a bus shelter that was advertising the product in question.

The Government of Quebec has also taken additional action. As noted in the notice of intent, Quebec has announced proposed legislative changes to ban the sale of mixed malt-based products with more than 7% alcohol from private stores. The product I referenced earlier, which was being promoted as having four drinks in one can, had an alcohol concentration of 11.9%.

Health Canada has made it clear that it does not intend to propose regulations that would inadvertently capture liqueurs, dessert wines, and other sweet alcoholic beverages sold in resealable containers. We have looked at a variety of attributes that, when combined, will address Health Canada's goal of reducing the health and safety risks associated with high-alcohol, highly sweetened beverages sold in single-serve containers, without inadvertently capturing non-problematic products.

Beer is generally low in sugar and alcohol content. The sugars derived from malt and barley and other grains provide the energy source the yeasts use to create alcohol and carbon dioxide during fermentation. The low-sugar characteristic is one of the attributes that will be used to define beer objectively under the modern definition of beer, which the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is committed to bringing forward by an amendment to the food and drug regulations this spring. This is an amendment that we have been working on with the government since 2013 and we hope to see completed by the end of the year.

The amended definition of beer will stipulate a maximum sugar threshold of 4% by weight for products labelled, packaged, advertised, and sold as beer in Canada. The sugar content, or sweetness of a product, is not necessarily a problem in and of itself. There are products that fall under a regulated standard of identities, such as icewines and liqueurs, that have high levels of sweetness and that have been produced, marketed, and retailed responsibly for generations. Health Canada acknowledges this in its notice of intent by proposing to tie the alcohol strength restrictions to other attributes, such as container type.

We are suggesting that Health Canada could exclude most of these traditional products by restricting the amount of alcohol in products that are over a certain sweetness threshold and do not fall under a standard of identity in the food and drug regulations. Given these conditions, Health Canada's approach could be to restrict the amount of alcohol in non-standard alcoholic beverages over a certain sweetness threshold, and that are sold in a single-serve container, without unduly restricting non-standard beverages that do not promote over-consumption or appeal to youth. Health Canada has advised that the product that triggered the notice of intent contained approximately 10% sugar. It may make sense to establish an alcohol-restriction threshold at this level of sweetness.

Health Canada aims to restrict the amount of alcohol in highly sweetened alcoholic beverages sold in single-serve containers, and is therefore looking for input on what level to set the alcohol strength restriction to. There has been some indication that Health Canada may look at establishing the restriction based on the number of standard drinks in a single-serve container.

A standard drink is an academic concept, a mathematical construct based on a 341-millilitre bottle of beer at 5% alcohol by volume. Internationally, there is no common, standard drink definition. In Canada, it's 13.5 grams of alcohol. In Australia, it's 10 grams. In the U.K., it's eight grams, and in the U.S., it's 14 grams. In Japan, it's 20 grams.

It is a reference amount of alcohol that provides the foundation for low-risk drinking guidelines for education. It says nothing about how an alcoholic beverage is typically consumed, and it assumes that the alcohol in every alcoholic beverage is consumed in the same manner and digested at the same rate.

An alternative approach would be to restrict the amount of alcohol permitted in a single-serve container to a maximum of 30 grams of alcohol. For comparison, the product that triggered the notice of intent contained roughly 53 grams of alcohol, so 70% more. At a 30-gram maximum, the 568-millilitre container this product was sold in would have had 7% alcohol, not 11.9%. In combination with narrowing the focus to highly sweetened and non-standard alcoholic beverages, these regulations could identify the maximum alcohol content permitted by size of single-serve container—so a range of different container sizes.

There has been some discussion on applying the restrictions only to malt-based or grain-based products. Setting a restriction based on the source of alcohol will be insufficient. It will restrict innovation among responsible manufacturers while being easily circumvented by those that are not. Alcohol can be extracted from a fruit-based product in much the same way as it can be extracted from a grain-based product. Cider and wine are examples. Health Canada will find itself no further ahead by setting a restriction based on the source of alcohol in a product.

It is Beer Canada's opinion that the products that triggered the notice of intent are already addressed or would more appropriately be addressed under provincial policies and regulations. Highly sweetened products are not a problem in and of themselves. For this reason, Health Canada is looking to combine high-sweetness attributes with additional criteria when setting a restriction on alcohol strength. In addition to sweetness criteria, the regulations should apply only to non-standard alcoholic products. This will prevent the regulations from capturing icewines, liqueurs, and other such products.

Bringing together the attributes of an alcoholic beverage being highly sweetened—for example, 10% sugar content—non-standard, and packaged in a single-serve container, the regulations could restrict alcohol strength to a maximum of 30 grams per single-serve container. Beer Canada believes that these attributes in combination will help to achieve the regulatory objectives of Health Canada.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you.

Now we will go to Dr. Laliberté.

[Dr. Martin Laliberté, Emergency Physician and Toxicologist, McGill University Health Centre, As an Individual]

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank you and the members of the committee for giving me the opportunity today to share my views and concerns on the topic of premixed drinks combining alcohol, caffeine, and sugar.

I'd like to introduce myself. I am an Emergency Physician and Medical Toxicologist. I work at McGill University Health Centre in Montreal. I'm an assistant professor of medicine at McGill University. I'm a consultant in medical toxicology for the Quebec Poison Control Centre. I'm also a consultant at the coroner's office for the Province of Quebec. I'm the past president of the Canadian Association of Poison Control Centres. I appear today as an individual. The opinions expressed are personal.

The Government of Canada should be commended for addressing the health risks associated with the use of premixed drinks combining high alcohol, caffeine, and sugar. These drinks are associated with an unacceptable risk of toxicity when used by young people. The topic of alcohol abuse in Canada—more specifically, alcohol abuse in teenagers and young adults—is both complex and concerning.

The negative consequences of alcohol abuse in teenagers and young adults are very well documented. Impaired driving, risky behaviour, physical violence, and injuries from falls and motor vehicle accidents are just a few examples. Alcohol abuse has a long and unfortunate track record of leaving behind broken relationships, broken families, and broken lives. Every emergency physician I know across this country can testify to the negative consequences of alcohol abuse. We are in front-row seats to witness their occurrence.

Alcohol is everywhere in our lives. Wine is served at family reunions. Beer is available at sports events. Cocktails are enjoyed at social gatherings. Champagne is the symbol for celebration. As a result, inevitably, teenagers and young adults will sooner or later be exposed to alcohol, with a majority of teenagers experimenting with alcohol long before reaching the legal age for drinking. The question isn't whether or not teenagers will use alcohol; the real question is when and how they will. We must collectively take appropriate action to delay drinking in teenagers for as long as possible. We must also educate young people on drinking responsibly, with moderation.

Mixed drinks with high alcohol content are very unlikely to help us achieve these goals. Many emergency physicians, including me, feel that the growing popularity of mixed drinks with high alcohol content represents a significant public health problem, and their increasing prevalence on the Canadian market should be a cause for concern. Every year, thousands of teenagers and young adults are admitted for alcohol intoxication in emergency departments across the country. As you have heard, in 2017 alone more than 2,300 were admitted in the province of Quebec only, with one-fifth of them less than 18 years old. Although it is currently not possible to precisely evaluate the proportion of the emergency department visits that are related to the use of mixed drinks with high alcohol content, it is very likely significant.

The problems associated with mixed drinks combining alcohol, caffeine, and sugar have already been well identified by many experts here today. Let me summarize them again in six points, using plain language, describing the typical container: one, the can is too big; two, there's way too much alcohol in the can; three, the high sugar content masks the taste of alcohol; four, the can is too cheap; five, packaging and labelling is appealing to teenagers; and six, marketing strategies target young people.

The combination of large volume and high alcohol concentration means that the total amount of alcohol in each container is excessive. The amount of alcohol in one container can be equivalent to four standard drinks. That's enough alcohol to induce inebriation in an inexperienced drinker. The ingestion of two or three containers will send a teenager to the emergency department. The high sugar content and flavouring additives are appealing to young people and will mask the taste of alcohol. The sweet taste will exacerbate the tendency of rapid and uncontrolled drinking by young people with no drinking experience.

These drinks are inexpensive and widely available. They can usually be bought for less than $5.00 per container, allowing easy and affordable access to alcohol for young people. Containers are made colourful. They are designed and labelled to maximize the effect on young people, using high-impact and provocative language. Marketing strategies targeting a young crowd were set up by the industry with few ethical considerations. The use of social media and the Internet, as well as advertisement on university campuses, are just a few examples.

Mr. Chairman, last October I was asked by CBC in Montreal to do an interview on the dangers of combining drinks with high alcohol content, and energy drinks with caffeine. I wanted to see for myself if these products were available and easy to buy, so I took a walk from my house to the convenience store in my neighbourhood. There, I bought a can of approximately 600 millilitres of a mixed drink containing 11.9% alcohol, and I paid $3.99. That store is located approximately 200 metres away from my 11-year-old daughter's school.

These drinks present a high risk for the young population, and the negative consequences are highly predictable. I would go as far as saying that the risks they present are unacceptable.

With regard to caffeine, we know that mixing caffeine with alcohol should be prohibited, and promoting their simultaneous use should be strongly discouraged. When mixed with alcohol, caffeine will energize the drinker. It will increase the desire to drink, increase the pace of drinking, and it will make the drinking experience more pleasurable. As a result, more alcohol will be ingested when used with caffeine, and the risk for harm will be increased.

While it is already illegal under the Food and Drugs Act to add caffeine in its chemical form directly to alcoholic beverages, the use of natural sources of caffeine such as extracts from the guarana plant are permitted and largely unregulated. It should be reminded that all plant extracts cannot be assumed to be safe just because they are natural.

I would like to propose the following amendments to the food and drug regulations.

One, the volume of a non-resealable container and its alcohol content should be limited to the equivalent of one standard drink.

Two, a minimum selling price for drinks containing alcohol should be established, with the objective of limiting access to teenagers.

Three, packaging and labelling of drinks containing alcohol should be regulated, with the objective of promoting responsible drinking.

Four, publicity and marketing activities for drinks containing alcohol aimed at teenagers should be prohibited.

Five, the amount of caffeine from natural extracts in drinks with alcohol should be regulated and monitored as well.

If you would allow me, I would like to take a few minutes towards the end of my intervention to talk to you about kind of my baby project, to a certain extent, when I was president of the CAPCC, a project called the Canadian surveillance system for poison information. As I stated previously, I was past president of the Canadian Association of Poison Control Centres.

My years at the head of the organization taught me the importance of product safety as well as post-marketing surveillance. Consumer products should be designed with safety in mind, and once they are put on the market, every effort should be made to collect information looking for possible risks for human health or safety.

Although not considered consumer products under the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, the same principles of safety and surveillance should also apply to mixed drinks with high alcohol content. An effective post-marketing surveillance strategy must be built on access to reliable information from different sources. That is not currently the case.

It's currently not possible to precisely evaluate the number of calls to Canadian poison centres or emergency department visits across the country that are related to the use of mixed drinks with high alcohol content. This information is just not currently collected.

Data collected by Canadian poison centres can be a valuable source of information. Poison centres have an important role in detecting and responding to major time-sensitive public health problems. Surveillance systems are required for post-marketing surveillance of consumer products like the one we are discussing today, as well as a very long list of others, including pharmaceutical and health products, controlled substances, industrial chemicals, as well as agents of concern for criminal acts and terrorism. Poison centre data is not currently aggregated, analyzed, and interpreted at a pan-Canadian level.

In fact Canada is the only G7 country that does not have an a national poison centre surveillance system that can provide evidence-based data to inform prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. Let me reassure you that help is on the way. The Canadian surveillance system for poison information initiative was established in 2014 through collaboration between Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Canadian Association of Poison Control Centres. The surveillance system is currently being developed and will eventually offer the possibility of generating data in real time to better protect Canadians.

I would respectfully ask the members of the committee to take action in order to ensure that the Canadian surveillance system for poison information initiative is appropriately funded and sustained over time.

Once again, in conclusion, I would like to say that the Government of Canada should be commended for addressing the health risk associated with the use of mixed drinks with high alcohol content. I'm actually quite confident that your committee will have the leadership to take all the appropriate actions to better protect young Canadians.

Thank you very much for your attention.

I am ready for your comments and questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much to all of you for your presentations. They are very helpful to us.

Now we're going to go to our seven-minute round, starting with Mr. Ayoub.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the four of you for being here.

It is unfortunate that there had to be an accident for us to examine this issue.

We have listened to your testimony today, and to that of specialists and people from the industry. The more testimony we hear, the more we realize that the problem is much more serious that it seems at first glance. As you said, alcohol is present in our society, every day, and in every way possible. Not only is it present, but it is also promoted, and that includes various things such as our behaviour and gathering habits.

Ms. Paradis, who spoke earlier today, essentially said in concluding her presentation that the availability of alcohol to a large extent encourages excesses and uncontrolled consumption. I would like to draw a parallel. Our committee considered a bill to control the consumption of another product, tobacco. During our study, we discussed neutral packaging for cigarettes. It clearly says that cigarettes ultimately kill smokers. Alcohol is not necessarily deadly, but it can kill people more quickly than cigars and cigarettes can. And yet, although it is illegal to sell these alcoholic beverages to young people, they are on convenience store shelves and are readily accessible, whereas cigarette packages are hidden behind the counter and are not accessible to young people.

I don't know whether you also think that access should be reconsidered or that further precautions should be taken. People in the industry, whether they are from Beer Canada or elsewhere, defend their position. As one might expect, they want to make sure they have the right products in the right places. But why are these products so readily accessible to young people? You talked about young people stealing these products to consume them. If they wanted to steal cigarettes, it would be much harder.

Don't think that availability is an important problem? Mr. Westcott, Mr. Helie, and Mr. Harford, what are your thoughts on the availability of these products?

Mr. Laliberté, I will have another question for you later on.

[C. J. Helie, Executive Vice-President, Spirits Canada]

Thank you for the question. I will answer in English.

The fact that this product was stolen is obviously a specific occurrence, but it can happen that there is theft in liquor stores owned by government agencies as well, so theft is a problem. The issue, of course, is that as a retailer you should take measures to ensure that those risks are minimized. The corner store market in Quebec doesn't do that great a job at securing the product. They have put in these huge promotional displays of products like these, which are easily accessible to anybody walking into the store. We have a program of educating private retailers who sell our products to ensure that proper security measures are taken.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Okay, you have a program like that. And they're aware? They're applying the program?

[C.J. Helie]

We don't sell in corner stores in Quebec.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

No, no.