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
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
We have to then make a list of what are standardized products, right?
President, Beer Canada
No, those are in the food and drug regulations. Beer is a standardized product. For anything labelled as a beer, you know exactly what's permitted for use in its manufacturing. It's in the food and drug regulations, as it is for whisky, vodka, wine, ciders, and liqueurs. There are non-standardized products, which Four Loko and the other one would be part of. Tied with the high sweetness, that might be the right A-mix that Health Canada could use.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
I have another question for Dr. Laliberté.
You spoke of caffeine. Now, as we know, caffeine is not a legal additive per se but it can be present if it's serendipitously added as a result of flavouring from some natural product. Are you saying the caffeine that does make it into these products is at a level that is problematic?
Emergency Physician and Toxicologist, McGill University Health Centre, As an Individual
Unfortunately, Mr. McKinnon, I don't have a lab to test all those products, so it's just as a general concept. What I'm saying is that if we're strict on caffeine in its chemical form, and we're not strict on guarana, then we're basically not being consistent.
Caffeine is what we call an adenosine antagonist. It acts on the adenosine receptors. Well, my adenosine receptors and yours don't really sense a difference between chemical caffeine and caffeine from a natural source. Given the fact that anywhere on the plant the concentration of caffeine can vary quite a bit, from 2% up to 8%, and there are actually guarana extracts that can go up to 15%, that's a variation that's about fivefold, or even more. I'm not accusing any company here or anything like this; I'm just looking at the current regulation, and I see an imbalance between the two, given the fact that I suspect that guaranine—guarana-containing caffeine—probably doesn't end up in that drink just by pure random chance.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Thank you.
I think I have time to sneak in one more question.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
This concerns single-serve containers. There's been a lot of talk about how we should specify regulations in terms of container size and so forth. I'm thinking that if we do that, an entrepreneur with some initiative will say, “Hey, why don't you try our new party pack?”, and they'll sell it in two-litre bottles instead. I guess I'm wondering if the whole single-serve container concept is something we should look at or abandon.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada
If you go to a liquor store or you see any of our products—a bottle of whisky, a bottle of rum, a bottle of vodka—they're not single-serve containers. We're not having any problems with those in that sense. I think anytime you have a container that encourages people to drink everything that's in it because you can't close it back up and you can't store it, that's an issue.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
So if we had big containers, this wouldn't be a problem?
President and Chief Executive Officer, Spirits Canada
It depends on how they're marketed. It depends on what the intent of them is. I think it's going to be a struggle to find that answer.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Okay, thanks very much.
That completes our session for today with our witnesses.
I want to thank you all for the information you provided, and also for the excellent briefs you provided. You each had a brief for us that we can refer to. I want to thank everyone again for their participation.
I do have a little bit of committee business, just to tell you about changes in our schedule, but I'll release the panellists now.
It's not complicated. If you go to your schedule, we were to have the minister on May 7. The minister's not available on May 7, so we're going to have organ donation witnesses on May 7. We had a meeting scheduled for May 21. The House doesn't sit that day because it's Victoria Day, so we're not going to have that meeting. On June 4 we were going to have the organ donation report; we're going to do the premixed drinks report. On June 6 we were going to have the diabetes draft report, but we are going to have the food guide witnesses.
If you have any questions, let me know and I'll help you with them.
With that, thank you very much.
The meeting is adjourned.