Health Committee on March 28th, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Ms. Goodridge, you've made reference to a further amendment. The debate is presently on an amendment.

It's abundantly clear that we're not going to get all of the way through clause-by-clause today. I might suggest that after today's meeting and before the continuation, you could consult with the legislative counsel to get the wording, details and all of the legalities of what should come forward to encapsulate what you want to do. That's probably the most efficient way to proceed.

With that friendly suggestion, do you still have a question that you want answered?

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

Well, I guess it still stands as to whether this is the right section to put in an exclusion such as that.

[David Lee]

It's a little hard to comment in the abstract, but I point to the exemption power already in place in the Food and Drugs Act, so you wouldn't need to duplicate that. That's available across the act.

Having said that, I think the intent of being able to prescribe foods points to a regulatory discussion about what's included and what's not included.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Go ahead, Dr. Kitchen.

[Robert Gordon Kitchen, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, as we go into it more, I'm getting more and more confused. I hate to say that, but the conversation of “prescribed” is there, and who's making that prescription aspect? I think part of my thoughts may be solved by what Dr. Powlowski suggested. If you can provide for us those parameters, because we're not going to get through this today, we could at least have a chance to review that and understand that a lot better.

There are obviously concerns in the sense that I get this is on advertising, and it's dealing and looking at advertising as we look at it, but my colleagues have mentioned our milk products and what great value they are for our youth, for bone structure from the multiple vitamins that are provided by it. Then we look historically. We've seen butter, which at one point was said to be bad, and now we're realizing that science is saying that's not the case anymore, and everyone has jumped from margarine to butter.

Perhaps some of those industries might want to advertise for youth. I just want to make certain that they aren't being restricted in that manner. I think that if we can maybe get that provided, it would be of assistance to us.

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

Certainly we can do that, and the intent is not to confuse anyone through the process, but obviously in clause-by-clause the details can be re-detailed.

What we're saying is that the proposal is to put something in at the level of legislation that's enabling the restriction of the marketing of certain products to children. There are already provisions at the level of the act to make exemptions. All of those would be defined by the Governor in Council through the regulation-making process.

What is in and what might be out, what the parameters are and how things are defined are all operational questions. Again, there's a very well-defined process for regulation-making, as we all know, that involves all of the considerations to make sure not only that you can have the health rationale for this, but also that there is a cost-benefit analysis done, and we look at intended and unintended consequences. There has to be a very rigorous and fulsome consultation process that's open to everyone, so the guardrails are up on that in that process, but certainly, if there's a desire to have parts of the act support the development of the exemptions, we can provide that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

We have Mr. Davies and then Mr. Thériault.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm having a bit of difficulty over exemptions, because of the wording. It says that the proposed text would be:

Subject to the regulations, no person shall advertise prescribed foods that contain more than....

Everything is going to be allowed, except what is prescribed not to be. I'll just put that out there. I'm not quite sure what exemption we meet other than when it comes to exemptions to the definition of advertising.

In terms of the foods, there should be no exemptions, because we're going to be listing a positive list. I'm envisioning a schedule of prescribed foods that you can't advertise. If it's not on the list, you can advertise it.

My question really is to help us understand what the prescribed foods would be. You've made an indication like we're not going to have KitKat or Coca-Cola, etc. Can you give us an example? You must have some idea. What will we see on this list, when we say “prescribed foods”? I think you've said, Dr. Sharma, that they are categories, so give us a flavour of what that list may look like.

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

Again, obviously a policy would have to be developed and the regulations would have to be developed, but, as an example, it's something that we use in front-of-pack labelling. We define what “high in” is for products, and there's a percentage of those nutrients in those products. Again, we want to take a look at it to make sure that whatever those categories might be, they are appropriate for children, because this is focused specifically on children.

Again, it's the advertising, so butter is an example. I'm not sure how many butter advertisements directed specifically at kids there might be, but if there is, for some reason, a product that's captured in that and there's a case to be made for why that should not be included, there are provisions for exemptions.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Perhaps I could fill it in a bit. Are we talking about “prescribed foods that contain more than the prescribed level of sugar”? It said “prescribed” twice—“prescribed foods that contain more than the prescribed level”. Or, are we talking about foods that contain more than the prescribed level of sugars?

In the latter you don't need to have the “prescribed foods”. You're just going to be setting levels—no food that contains more than “blank” amount of sodium, or whatever, shall be advertised for children. In this case the “prescribed” is said twice. You have a list of foods and the amount of prescribed....

Again, I want to know what's in your mind when we say what kinds of foods will be prescribed. It's not just the constituents; it's both.

[David Lee]

Yes, that's correct. It's a double “prescribe”, and that's intentional. “Prescribed” ingredients means we go to the levels, and the regulations can do that now. That's the operation of that word.

In terms of foods, it's exactly what Dr. Sharma just said. The policy envisages that it would not be appropriate for all foods to fall under this policy. It invites the Governor in Council, when we make regulations, to study which those are, but it entitles the Governor in Council to make those regulations.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I see it now. There could be foods that would otherwise exceed the prescribed levels of sugars or saturated fats that the government chooses not to list, because of some of the reasons referred to by my colleagues.

I understand. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Mr. Thériault, you have the floor.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Chair, I thought I had understood. I wanted to ask the same questions as Mr. Davies, but now I believe I didn't understand at all.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

The legislature's greatest fear is that regulations never be subject to its review.

I've been listening very carefully to witnesses. I understand very well that we want to prevent advertising that would have a negative impact on children's eating habits. I get that. That said, I would have liked some examples, but none were given. I think there should be examples.

You use the word “foods”, but to us, foods are not a component. You use the word “regulatory” twice. The first time I read it, what I understood was that foods that are allowed on the market will not be prohibited, but those exceeding the level defined by the regulations will not be allowed in advertising to children. That was my initial understanding. However, after hearing your explanation, I no longer understand what I thought was simple to understand.

You introduced a list of nutrients that would be part of a regulation. In addition to the list of nutrients that, depending on the regulation, would be acceptable or not, these would have levels that would need to be regulated. In other words, I'm being asked to really go in blind in my role as legislator. I wouldn't want to face the foods that end up there.

For example, in Quebec, there was a milk commercial aimed at kids. I guess the consumer protection agency got no complaints about it. That's how the system works in Quebec: You need to file a complaint. Under Bill C‑252, things would not work that way, which would be a step forward compared to our system in Quebec.

Be that as it may, at one point, we had a milk commercial aimed at children. Are you telling me that a commercial like that would not be allowed?

Give us some concrete examples so we can relate. You're being too theoretical, too abstract right now. Reassure the legislators a little bit.

I, for one, was very satisfied with the original wording. Why isn't the government satisfied with that wording and why are they now introducing this amendment, among others?

I'd like to understand that first. Then you could try to answer my questions, if they were clear.

We're trying to figure this out.

[David Lee]

First of all, on the issues with the current wording, we're concerned about being able to enforce it with wording around children's diets, for example, that will be hard for us to understand. There's a lot of interpretative room in there. That was some of the original concern.

In terms of the way the prohibition will work as we add regulations, there are clear categories we have talked about in public, like salty snacks and sugary drinks. There will be very broad categories whereby the whole intent of the policy is that you're not trying to get children to tell their parents to buy these. Those would be laid out.

It may be that there are some exceptional foods that we don't consider suitable for the policy. From broad categories, we do have quite a bit of definition around the main foods we want to target.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Do you have any examples?

[David Lee]

Salty snacks and sweet candies all tend to be high in sugar or sodium. We'll go by the ingredient, but we can also see the categories that we are really concerned about.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Wouldn't those foods, for example, be a problem?

[David Lee]

I would offer those as examples.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Let's consider a food in which one of the three components, saturated fat, sodium or sugar, exceeds the established level, but there's an acceptable level of the others. Would that food be prohibited?

[David Lee]

Potato snacks for children with a high amount of salt may be a very strong example. There are many examples of those.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Okay.

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

An example would be where you would have a very small quantity of something. Let's say if you have a type of jam, it might actually be high in natural sugars, but you have only a very small portion of that. You normally don't eat a tub of jam. That might be something.... That's just an example.

The idea is that you would be able to define what the product categories are and what the levels are. Certainly, with nutritional science changing, those also change. As science develops.... If you put something in at the level of the act that says “high in”, what that “high in” is would have to be defined at the level of the act.

This enables us to make regulations to define what those products are for advertising directly to children.

The idea is not to have a whole series of exemptions. The idea is to have categories of foods and then levels of nutrients that this would apply to across the board. An exception would just be an exception. It would be a rare instance where there is something you would have to exclude from the prohibition.