Health Committee on Nov. 19th, 2024

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

I think it's important to stress for the record that of 350 cases, 347 were voluntary recalls, and three were companies that were non-compliant with the voluntary recall and essentially are no longer in business. I think it's important for the record to state that.

I want to come back to you, Ms. Callard. There were two things you said in your testimony that I thought were very interesting.

First, similar products in the United States have the label that they are not FDA-approved. In Canada, they seem to be approved by Health Canada, and the Zonnic example is one of them. Is there anything we can learn from the U.S. example?

Second, you talked about an integrated nicotine framework, which, as we go through the witness testimony, is something that is clearly lacking. What do you think that would look like at the national level?

[Cynthia Callard]

I think it would be a shift of the responsibility for dealing with.... It would be an expansion of tobacco, vaping and all other nicotine products. It would be integrating the protection of public health from inducements to non-users to use the products and regulating them as cessation or harm reduction products at the same time, so that there is consistency in how they're dealt with. It would essentially be a way of regulating the industry, as opposed to regulating the product.

Fundamentally, it could look very much the same as it does now, with a similar approach to regulation, but we also need to modernize our regulations. The precision regulation approach, to me, as someone who is used to the fact that it takes years and months to get a new idea across.... The idea of being able to move swiftly with interim regulations or precision regulations is very important.

I don't have time to go into all those things, but the fundamental change would be bringing all aspects of nicotine into one regulatory basket with the same decision-makers responsible.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Could you come back to my first question, about the U.S.?

[Cynthia Callard]

It's interesting. Zonnic products are sold as Velo products in other parts of the world by British American Tobacco. They're sold as a recreational nicotine product. They're sold to youth. They're advertised on Formula One racing cars. They're advertised on social media. They receive very much the same kind of heavy promotion that cigarettes did in the last century.

The only reason they're sold as smoking cessation products in Canada is that it was the only route to the market available to the company. British American Tobacco could not sell them legally in Canada unless it could convince Health Canada they should be approved as an NHP. This happened not under the current health minister, but the previous one. When we asked the department why it let this go through, it was explained to us that the whole process of approval is very depoliticized, that there is very little potential for the minister to intervene, and that these are scientific assessments done by a board that looks only at the evidence.

Truthfully, this is not my area. I'm just reporting this as hearsay—

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

[Cynthia Callard]

It was not one where those other policies and things came in. It's just a very discrete checklist: “Does this meet this test?” and so on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Callard.

Next, we have Mr. Moore, please, for five minutes.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chen, we had the Minister of Health here some time ago, and we were talking about the mobility of those who are small business owners in the natural health field. He seemed to minimize the impact of this legislation and not recognize the impact, perhaps, on the Canadian economy of Chinese medicine practitioners. As you pointed out in your comments, there are 60,000. Virtually all of them represent what we would call a small business in Canada.

Can you speak a bit to how investment could flow out of our country and into other jurisdictions, where there is even less regulation and less safety, should this bill not pass?

[Pierre Chen]

As I mentioned, if this bill doesn't pass, that means higher economic costs, and it will be harder for us to apply for NHP licences. A couple of us importers—these are all mom-and-pop shops that are importing these herbs—have already talked about how we're going to have to go south and we're going to have to sell on eBay and Amazon, and they're not regulated. There will be more of us. There are already people selling. If you go on Amazon right now, there are already Americans selling health products across the border.

Because we are here, it's easier for Canadian consumers to buy NHPD-regulated products that have labelling and a voluntary recall process. It's harder for them to buy online, but if we're not here, the only option is online, where none of these regulations are in place.

The U.S. FDA requirement right now is just a nutrition label. That's all we need. There's nothing else. It's cheaper and it's easier, and we don't need to go through the NHPD.

Remember, we're selling herbs here, so we could just not apply and not make any health claims. That's another option. That means even less regulation.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Yes. Thank you.

We heard recently from a small business owner who testified on Bill C-368. He said that if the legislation doesn't pass, Health Canada's new regulations on natural health products will cost his natural supplement business $500,000.

What are your thoughts on the cost? You used the expression “mom-and-pop”, and that certainly characterizes many of these businesses in my own riding. These are small businesses serving our communities. When I hear of a compliance cost at that level, it is a cause for concern, especially hearing you speak about the ability to move elsewhere and to conduct your business differently.

Can you speak a bit to the cost aspect?

[Pierre Chen]

Most of us keep around 1,000 licences. We don't import 1,000 different types of products, but that's because there are different practitioners and they need different things. When they ask for something, we would try to get it to them within a month or two. We would have that licence ready because it takes about three months to half a year to prepare that licence.

Most of us have a licence ready for that, and that's where all the costs come from. It's for us to be ready for required products that we might or might not use. That would drive it up to $50,000.... Having 1,000 licences, you're looking at $100,000 just to upkeep a licence that you might or might not use.

[Rob Moore, Conservative, Fundy Royal, NB]

Obviously, that would have a profound impact on a mom-and-pop type of small business.

You mentioned in your brief the impact that the punitive regulations could have on parts of the Canadian agricultural sector. I think that's something we probably haven't heard enough about. You mentioned it a bit in your opening statement. Could you expand a bit on the impact on the Canadian agricultural sector?

[Pierre Chen]

In Ontario, the Ontario Ginseng Growers Association has registered 150 growers, and all of the ginseng they grow is used by Chinese medicine practitioners. Ginseng is mainly a Chinese medicine herb. That whole sector would be destroyed.

In Saskatchewan, there are 30,000 acres of land for producing the natural herbs that we use and prescribe. All of that would be destroyed, because we wouldn't be able to afford to buy them anymore, even if they're grown in Canada. That's just Saskatchewan. For other provinces, I don't have the exact numbers right now. For all the prairie provinces that are planting herbs that we are prescribing, that would all literally be gone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Chen.

Next we'll go to Dr. Powlowski, please, for five minutes.

[Laila Goodridge, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB]

Did he do the sound check?

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I'm sorry, Dr. Powlowski. Hold on for just one second.

Colleagues, we're going to suspend for about three minutes to make sure that Dr. Powlowski's sound quality is okay, and then we're going to go to him.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

I call the meeting back to order.

I give the floor to Dr. Powlowski for the next five minutes.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

I have to say, I'm a little perplexed by Mr. Julian's argument, which is that the industry is already virtually 100% compliant since there have been only three cases where there was a request for a voluntary recall and the company refused to do so. In his opinion, why do we need this law at all?

It would seem to me a rather dangerous way to govern, saying that most people are in compliance, so why do we need the law? Do we say that about speeding around schoolyards? You can say that most people actually slow down around schoolyards, so you don't have to have any kind of law to prevent people from speeding around schoolyards.

I would like to ask this of Ms. Hoffman specifically.

This law is all about applying Vanessa's Law to natural health products. That's it. It's removing that protection for natural health products. Within Vanessa's Law, there are a whole bunch of different things.

I've heard that amendments are being considered that would water it down and take away some of the protection of Vanessa's Law. I wonder which of these we can do without. Is it the requirement for hospitals to report adverse reactions? I think we need that one. Is it the ability to recall? I think we need that one. Is it the ability to apply higher, more severe forms of punishment? I think we need that one. Is it the requirement to change labelling, if required? I think we need that one. Is it the requirement that a natural health product producer might be asked to do more research into their product? I think we might need that one.

Is there anything in Vanessa's Law that you think we could do without if we want to amend this?

[Carolyn Hoffman]

I can speak very clearly to what we have shared today around Vanessa's Law and our concerns: the issue around being able to recall, the issue around requiring or compelling a label change, the issue around compelling additional tests, and the issue around hospitals being required to report serious NHP adverse reactions. Those four I can speak very clearly to.

Our position is that they should be maintained and/or Health Canada should have the ability to bring forward the necessary regulations to enable those requirements.

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Chen, thank you for coming in.

I certainly appreciate the fact that a lot of the medicines you use are herbs like ginseng, ginger and things we use in our everyday lives. Why do we need to regulate these?

However, you spoke about the economic harms of this legislation. Again, I'm a little perplexed by that. This is about the application of Vanessa's Law to natural health products. There is nothing about cost recovery. There is nothing about the cost of a product licence in here. I'm not sure exactly how you figure it will cost companies a lot of money if, in fact, they're compliant. Yes, if you are fined by the ministry for violating Vanessa's Law, there is the possibility of increased punishments. However, I don't see anything in this law that is going to affect the profits of most companies.

[Pierre Chen]

Part of the change in the law.... There was cost recovery. It does cost money to apply for an NHP. That's where the numbers come from. There are—

[Marcus Powlowski, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Mr. Chen, but I don't see anything in this law talking about cost recovery.

[Pierre Chen]

If you have a copy of my slides, there is a section with a source. In that, there's a link that directs you to Health Canada, which has that. You can refer to that.

Vanessa's Law refers to a risk profile, as I mentioned earlier. When you look at the risk profiles—you're an MD yourself—for things like clozapine or any type of steroid drugs, those are not the same as ginger or honey. How much Vanessa's Law application do you want on your eggs? That's basically what you have to consider.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Mr. Chen.

Thank you, Dr. Powlowski.

Next, we're going to Mr. Doherty for five minutes.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

I'm going to cede my time to Dr. Ellis.