Evidence of meeting #138 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
You also testified that you received inspections from four different agencies. Could you share with us which agencies?
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
We are regularly inspected by an international GMP agency called SGS. That is entirely voluntary on our part. We are also inspected regularly by The Kashruth Council of Canada. Again, that's entirely voluntary on our part. We are also inspected by both Ecocert USA and Ecocert Canada, which are two organic certification companies.
All of those are voluntary because we, as a company, like many companies in our industry, try to meet and exceed standards.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
Are those inspections on a monthly basis or an annual basis to keep your certifications?
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
The organic ones and the SGS one are annual. The kosher one is quarterly. Those are physical, in my building, going through paperwork and actually walking through my facility, talking to my people and inspecting.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
How long do the inspections normally last? Is it a day?
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
It's anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.
NDP
Peter Julian NDP New Westminster—Burnaby, BC
The vast majority of companies in the natural health products sector, as you know, are fully compliant. When there has been a voluntary recall, they have complied. We have heard of three cases where companies did not comply. From what I understand now, all three of those companies no longer exist; they're no longer in business because other tools have been used.
Have you ever received a voluntary recall notice, or have you ever had Health Canada express any concerns about any of your products?
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
We have had Health Canada come in and question us regarding labelling. We have had Health Canada come in and question us over a name issue. However, both of those were, if I recall correctly—I am aging—in the 1980s, long before the NHPD existed, and they were resolved to Health Canada's approval. That's the wrong word, but Health Canada was happy in the end, based on legislation that existed back then.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mr. Thuna.
Thank you, Mr. Julian.
Next, we have Mrs. Goodridge, please, for five minutes.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank all the witnesses.
I really appreciate the conversations that we've been able to have here today. It's actually been really interesting because it's not necessarily on the subject at hand. It became on the subject at hand because the government decided to use a very blunt tool.
I'm just going to walk us back a little bit. In November 2023, it became known, and was called out, that the government was allowing nicotine pouches to be sold to kids, as has been pointed out by many of our witnesses, basically on shelves beside candy. The Minister of Health got all puffy and made a big deal, saying that this was absolutely unacceptable. However, Imperial Tobacco said that it simply applied to Health Canada and got approved.
It sounds to me like this was a situation where Health Canada could have intervened and chose not to, rather than “let's completely rewrite the entire natural health products piece”. Then it took 10 months before it actually came up with regulations, and the regulations don't actually deal with nicotine. As has been suggested by my colleague from the Bloc, instead of potentially having just a specific carve-out piece, it's been “Let's try to bankrupt a $13-billion industry.”
Mr. Thuna, you've been talking about how Health Canada hasn't come into your business since the 1980s, and 30 or 35 years ago was the last time you heard from Health Canada in your business.
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
We communicate with them regularly.
Conservative
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
That's correct.
From the conversations that I've had with colleagues—and I've had many—it's entirely commonplace for companies to say that. Health Canada is viewed as dropping the ball when it comes to enforcement for companies that actually care about the industry and care about enforcement.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
As you've been sitting here, listening to the testimony.... Every one of the witnesses who are bringing up their concerns about nicotine pouches being sold to kids is correct. I think this is something that is deeply concerning to just about everyone sitting around the table. As our addictions shadow minister, I don't want to see children getting addicted to a substance that we know is addictive, but I also don't want to see good products, which people sometimes use to help cure themselves of their addiction, removed from the products available to them as a direct result of this.
Do you think that Health Canada should be doing more when it comes to inspections or using any of the other tools they have at their disposal?
General Manager, Pure-lē Canada, As an Individual
Not only do I think they should do more, but I think they should actually do something.
My personal experience is that Health Canada does not use the tools at its disposal, yet waits until something is in crisis or near crisis mode and then pulls out the jackhammer.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Dr. Moore Hepburn, do you think that a 10-month delay from the time these pouches were on the shelves to the government finally acting was responsible?
Medical Director, Child Health Policy Accelerator, Hospital for Sick Children and Associate Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto
As a practising pediatrician, what I can offer to the committee is that it's important that we have the complex and complicated conversation about how we're going to regulate nicotine more broadly and how we're going to maintain and preserve access to nicotine replacement therapy for those individuals who need it, while simultaneously restricting access to new and novel threats. I think that is a broader conversation that's important for the public to have.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Okay, but I'm asking you a very specific question. It took 10 months for the government to actually do anything to prevent kids from being able to access these products. Do you think that was fast enough? Would you have preferred it to be sooner, yes or no?
Medical Director, Child Health Policy Accelerator, Hospital for Sick Children and Associate Professor, Department of Paediatrics, University of Toronto
I think everybody, looking through the retrospective scope, would have preferred that the products not have been approved as they had been. Obviously, any time the products were available is too long a period of time.
Speaking to the speed at which government can and should act is outside my area of expertise.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
That's fair enough.
My next question is for Ms. Patel.
The Minister of Health previously worked for the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Is that correct?
Policy Analyst, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada
I'm aging myself here. When that happened, I was still in high school, so it's been quite a while.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Mrs. Goodridge. That's your time.
Next is Ms. Sidhu, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being with us.
My first question goes to the Canadian Lung Association.
Ms. Butson, do you think the government should be able to use an injunction to stop the actions of non-compliant companies if there is any immediate risk to human health?
Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Lung Association
Are you speaking directly to recalls? Could I just get a clarification on that?