Thanks very much, Chair.
I think it's very important to know.... To me, it would appear that the NDP-Liberal government wants to kill a fly with a sledgehammer. The question then remains, what does the data actually tell us? We've heard this number of 700 thrown around.
Oddly enough, when we asked this of the Health Canada officials last time, they said that we can find it ourselves on their website, which, quite frankly, is impossible. It's not possible. We tried to do that.
That is also why industry asked a very well-respected company, Deloitte, to do a deep dive into the potential adverse events associated with natural health products. I can tell you for certain that they would be happy to table that at committee. Second, they were nowhere near this insane number of 700.
I'm a bit disheartened by my colleague, Dr. Powlowski, saying that he's not interested in supporting the motion. He's been a very data-driven guy.
What's there to hide from? If we ask for data and 698 of the 700 supposed cases are all about somebody misreading a label, that's very different from 698 cases of liver toxicity, which Dr. Hanley mentioned. It wasn't 698 cases, but he mentioned cases of liver toxicity, as did witnesses here from SickKids, who said they knew that kids had been harmed. We asked, which kids? How many kids? What was the harm? What was the substance? Once again, there was no answer. My colleagues across the floor were attempting to say that we're being mean to witnesses. Well, you can't come to committee, not be prepared, make egregious claims and not provide the data. That's what we're here to do. We're here to make decisions and understand the actual metrics that, if they exist, should be a part of the knowing.
The context and the actual data will allow this committee to make better decisions. If there are claims out there, show us what they are, provide the data, provide the substance, provide the date and provide the outcome. That is not a difficult ask.