Go ahead, Mr. van Koeverden.
Evidence of meeting #60 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #60 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Mr. van Koeverden, I am advised that we need to deal with the amendments in the order in which they've come forward. The reason for that is that, if we consider G-3, it would render CPC-2 and CPC-3 effectively defunct. We wouldn't be able to deal with those if we dealt with them in the order you are proposing.
Yes, you're within your rights to move an amendment, but unless we move them in the order that they are seeking to amend sections in the bill, we will not be in a position to consider these amendments that have been properly put forward to the committee.
No, we're not going to move to G-3 until we hear whether CPC-2 and CPC-3 are going to be moved. Then we can go to G-3.
Do we have a mover for CPC-2?
Go ahead, Mr. Jeneroux.
12:50 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
I want to close a loop, first. I'm happy to move this, but I want to close a loop on the conversation that we started—I guess I started this.
I think this has been helpful and, in my opinion, again, there will be people who will come back and will look at this. I only disagree a little bit with my colleague Mr. Davies when it comes to the advertising of the drippy doughnut and that at the rink. I think he's right. There won't be a big chocolate doughnut there at the rink, but there will be other aspects, and I'm worried that will start creeping into some of the regulations.
It would have been nice to have a yes-or-no answer on some of this, but, that being said, you didn't have to allow the conversation, Mr. Chair, so I appreciate your allowing the conversation to happen.
That being said, I'll move CPC-2.
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you.
CPC-2 is now before the committee, and it is in order and admissible.
Is there any discussion on CPC-2?
Do you have a question, Mr. Thériault?
12:50 p.m.
Bloc
12:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
The adoption of amendment CPC‑2 has been moved and I asked if there were any comments or debate on it. Would you like to speak? No? Fine.
As no one wishes to speak, we will now proceed to the vote.
(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])
That brings us to CPC-3.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
12:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you. I'm now going to rule on the admissibility of CPC-3.
Bill C-252 amends the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit food and beverage marketing to persons under 13 years of age. CPC-3 proposes to direct the content of advertising, which is not contemplated in the bill. As House of Commons Procedure and Practice, 3rd edition, states on page 770, “An amendment to a bill that was referred to Committee after second reading is out of order if it is beyond the scope and principle of the Bill.”
In the opinion of the chair, the amendment introduces a new concept to the bill that goes beyond the scope of the bill; therefore, I rule the amendment inadmissible.
Unless there is a challenge to the chair, that brings us to G-3.
I believe that Mr. van Koeverden was interested in moving that. It is moved.
The debate is now on amendment G-3.
Are there any interventions? Does anyone wish to speak to G-3?
Go ahead, Ms. Goodridge.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The original piece of legislation was very clear that this was for people under age 13. This is now adding a conversation around “or older but less than 18 years of age”, which goes against some of the conversation we were having earlier.
Could we get some clarification from our witnesses as to what the impact of this would be?
12:55 p.m.
Chief Regulatory Officer, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
To clarify, if it's helpful, the original proposal was “at 18” in the earlier round of discussions on Bill S-228. There was a motion to bring it down to 13, but in doing so, there was a discussion that the department really wanted to be careful to make sure that advertisers didn't move from 13 years old up into that range of just below 18, which is still a vulnerable population. That's where the range comes from of up to 18. It's just to keep that monitoring and making sure the advertising doesn't turn around to target that group.
12:55 p.m.
Chief Medical Adviser and Senior Medical Adviser, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
To add from experience in other international jurisdictions, for example, when limitations were made on advertising during certain hours, there were then increases of advertising just outside of those hours as well. We know that teenagers are also vulnerable to advertising. As Mr. Lee has said, this isn't for a prohibition, but it's to make sure there's a marker there that we continue to monitor for any unintended effects of the restrictions on the younger age group.
12:55 p.m.
Conservative
Matt Jeneroux Conservative Edmonton Riverbend, AB
Maybe this question might be out of scope of what you guys can answer, and just say so if it is.
Is it targeted, because of the high school age. Are we looking at primarily high schools? In most provinces, 18 is still the age of high school kids, so that would then be targeted to the education system more so with gymnasiums and whatnot.
Is that how you see the intent of this?
12:55 p.m.
Chief Medical Adviser and Senior Medical Adviser, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
The intent at the level of the act is not really speaking to place. It's really about directed advertising, targeting certain age groups.
Certainly, in the teenage population, the bulk of what teenagers would see in that type of advertising tends to be television or online. That's really the intent. There may be other places, but, certainly, when you're looking at the focus of the types of information that they consume, 95% to 97% of the foods that are advertised in those venues to teenagers specifically are in the category of added salt, fat or sugar.
12:55 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you.
It's a good moment, I think, to focus on this clause, because this is the review clause that compels the government to do a review of the impact of this legislation in five years. For a lot of the concerns that were expressed today, including from my Conservative colleagues, there will be an opportunity at that point to determine whether or not this legislation has missed the mark, has oversprayed its effect or has been applied in a way that is concerning to people.
On this one, as well, the specific amendment here, which I support, is calculated at drawing the department's attention to see whether or not these marketers—again, I'm going to emphasize that these are sophisticated marketers with a lot of money—adapt to this legislation by instead focusing their targeted advertising to children who are 14 and up. By the way, they are still children.
I personally think that 13 is too young for this. I would have liked to see the age be higher, because I don't know that there is a whole lot of difference between marketing to a 13-year-old and to a 14-year-old.
What this amendment would do is.... It just says let's make sure that we look and see whether the advertising industry and the manufacturers of unhealthy foods are shifting in their advertising instead, not just to kids aged 13 to 16, but actually up to 18, which I think is smart.
I want to conclude by saying there was specific testimony on this that I wanted to read. Again, it's from Dr. Tom Warshawski. I asked him whether or not, with this legislation, we should be thinking about kids older than 13. He said:
You're right about the unique vulnerabilities of adolescents. They have discretionary income, they have less supervision, and they have unique drivers in terms of their social relationships. With adolescence comes a shift in affiliation from the parents to peers. Peers become very important. There is also a need for immediate gratification, which adolescents demonstrate, so they are particularly vulnerable to marketing....
We would, again, like to see the protection expanded to this group. One of the things we discussed with Health Canada is that if and when—and hopefully it's going to be soon—we get the protection for kids under the age of 13, we look to see how marketing has shifted. It could be sort of a game of whack-a-mole: You inhibit marketing to kids under the age of 12 or 13, and then all of a sudden it increases toward adolescents. What happens to that marketing? What does it do to the purchasing behaviours?
The first step is to get it for the younger children, and the next step is to really keep an eye on what's happening with adolescents.
I think this is a really good amendment, because it carries the age up from 16 to 18. Let's carefully monitor it to see what happens.
1 p.m.
Conservative
Robert Gordon Kitchen Conservative Souris—Moose Mountain, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I apologize, because I wasn't here initially when there were discussions on this earlier.
What I've heard today is talk about how this legislation is there to deal with advertising to children under 13. I've heard a lot talk today about how great the preamble is, how expansive it is and how it touches on so many things. However, the preamble only talks about 13- to 16-year-olds. It doesn't talk about 18-year-olds.
The reality is that, as doctors, we recognize that age level. At 16.... Every child is different. I get that aspect of things. Everyone is different. However, in all my years of practice dealing with adolescents, at what point in time do you declare someone mature enough to make decisions?
We've had a number of motions that have basically been taken away because the chair feels they aren't part of the committee and it's new information.
We're looking to increasing this to the age of 18. That is not what the parameters of this legislation were about, but now we're looking at expanding it to look at an aspect of the advertising that may come about along those lines.
My concerns are that, if we're going to stay within the parameters, if anything, in this legislation it should be “older but less than 16 years of age”. Otherwise, we are expanding into an age group which, at 16, can drive. There's an argument by many colleagues in the House of Commons that they should be able to vote, yet we turn around and we want to see what's being advertised to them.
The confusion is there. If we want to be consistent in the legislation and we want to have Canadians turn around and start to get trust back in us, as parliamentarians and the government, we need to be concise in what we do and not leave it open so that somebody down the road can come in and, using a regulation, make a change in the legislation.
I'm wondering if you can expand on why that is. Why are we going to that 16 to 18 category? Why is there the need for that?
March 30th, 2023 / 1:05 p.m.
Chief Regulatory Officer, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
Eighteen was originally stated in the first proposal, Bill S-228, and at that time, the frame, I think, was established really on who would be susceptible to advertising. When it was proposed to be brought down to 13, the monitoring became very important because we didn't want to see the dynamic that the advertising would turn around and....
This is just monitoring, and I take it the outcome is that Health Canada comes to committee, to Parliament, and gives the results so that you can see the trends and see if there needs to be any kind of adjustment at that time. The value of the monitoring is just to report in on what the advertising trends will be for those age groups. It wouldn't be determinative of any further change. It would really provide more evidence.
1:05 p.m.
Chief Medical Adviser and Senior Medical Adviser, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
Perhaps, Mr. Chair, if I could also add....
Some of it is also based on the logistics of the datasets and the surveillance that is being done. A lot of the categories do include, when you're looking at the monitoring of advertising, the group between 13 and 17. It also helps, in terms of the parliamentary review process that will happen in five years, to collect data that then is comparable to data that we have as well, if we include 13-year-olds to 17-year-olds. Again, it's part of the monitoring process. It's not making a judgment call on a 17-year-old versus a 16-year-old, but it's saying that we would be interested in what would happen to all advertising for anybody who would be a child.
1:05 p.m.
Conservative
Laila Goodridge Conservative Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for that clarification.
I think that this is a concerning piece because it adds and introduces another concept in that we have not been able to hear directly from witnesses on this particular piece of the legislation, because it is part of an amendment and not part of the original bill. I do understand that this was discussed when it was in its previous iteration, but it was changed in its previous iteration. We're getting into this unique space where sometimes we hold up the previous iteration of this bill as the gold standard, but at other times it was changed. We're not comparing like to like; therefore, we're adding in some complications.
I question whether this is necessarily something that should be in there going forward. How doable is it to have that, and what's the difference between advertising to a 17-year-old and to a 19-year-old? It might not be much different, so that's part of the piece where I think we get into a bit of a challenge. With regard to marketing to kids, a 17-year-old single mom or single dad is probably going to be looking at different advertising and have different algorithms by which advertising is directed to them than a 17 -year-old who is primarily concerned about finding Slurpees at 7-Eleven and finding out what the $2 day is so that they can bring their four-litre milk jug—that they've hopefully cleaned out—for the $2-Slurpee day.
Yes, it was a big social media trend. You could fill up any container you wanted with Slurpee. It wasn't directed at kids. It was directed at people in general, but primarily what I saw on social media was teenagers filling up four-litre milk jugs. It was not an Ontario thing. This was probably just an Alberta thing because we have jugs of milk rather than the weird bags, but I digress.
I think it's worth noting because at no point was that advertisement, from my recollection, specifically geared towards kids. It didn't look kid-like. It was very much in words, and it was advertised inside a convenience store—from the advertisements that I saw. This becomes a question of whether advertising works on that age versus what the intention is. It can be very different at that age.
