Evidence of meeting #79 for Health in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was product.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Out of the 53 recommendations, where are we with them?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
On the 53 recommendations, the majority of them were pretty much addressed, with the exception of cost recovery. Cost recovery is one that's outstanding. The committee at that time recommended that the government look into it and take an approach to make sure we consult with industry to develop a cost recovery system.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Why have you only started to ramp up on it in the last nine years? Is it capacity? Is it personnel? Is it cost? What is it?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
With regard to what, exactly?
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
You said you've started to ramp up on the recommendations in the last nine years. I believe it was Ms. Hollett's....
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
The 53 recommendations were to create an entire framework for natural health products, a set of regulations. That's been done.
Conservative
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
That's been done. I think the comment that Ms. Hollett was making was specifically on one part of the inspections. There was a promise to increase inspections. That's started a bit.
What we're at right now is the phase in which.... When the regulations came in, in 2004, we had maybe 50,000 products, maximum.
Conservative
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
Now we have about 200,000. We have over 800 facilities. There's been a large increase in the industry. In order to ramp up further on inspections, for example, we need additional resources. There are other places where we need additional resources. Part of what we're seeking is for some—not all—of those costs to be borne through cost recovery.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
How many small businesses would you say are in the industry?
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
It is your testimony that you've done about 5,000 consultations. Is that correct?
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
In terms of the percentage, it's a bit difficult to know the exact number, but we estimate at least 60% of the businesses in the natural health product space would be small and medium-sized—
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health
It's 63% of 6,000.
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
Okay, thank you.
I've been elected for about eight years, and I have to say that this is probably the topic that I've received the most mail and the most feedback from my constituents about, asking me to make sure we're standing up for consumers and standing up for small businesses. What the industry is telling us is that it wasn't so much a consultation as it was, “This is what we're going to do.” The ones I've talked to, at least, feel that their feedback wasn't heard or wasn't taken into account. They also say that they have regulations and that there isn't the capacity for Health Canada to really enforce them or follow suit with what they're promising.
What would your feedback be for that, or your answer to what the industry is saying?
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
On the consultation space, if I look at all the health products that Health Canada regulates, I think the natural health products sector is the one that has the most consultations. Through the associations, we've had technical briefings; since 2016 we've had over 4,500 consumer and health care professional consultations; and in 2019 alone we met with 70 different companies one-on-one. There has been an incredible number of consultations.
I understand that the cost recovery regime is challenging, and I think everyone can have their opinion on that, but I think the one thing that you cannot say is that we did not consult. We are absolutely open to feedback and dialogue.
I wanted to say that we're all in this for the same purpose. We want people to have—
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
You want people to be safe, but you also want people to be listened to.
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
—access to those products and we want them to be safe, effective and high quality. That's exactly what we want.
We use these products every day. As people have said, 73% of Canadians use these products. That 73% was back in 2010. We know that's increased. Through COVID, we know that people have even more interest in terms of having access to products that they select to help maintain their health. We're absolutely there.
Again, we've done tons of consultations. We will continue to do those consultations to get feedback. The labelling is an example of how we put something forward, we got feedback, we made modifications and then we moved forward. We took those into consideration.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Sean Casey
Thank you, Dr. Sharma.
Next up is Mr. Jowhari, please, for five minutes.
Liberal
Majid Jowhari Liberal Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome to our witnesses.
Thank you, Dr. Sharma. I know you had an international commitment and you changed that on short notice. This shows commitment to the topic at hand and respect for our committee, as well as care for Canadians and their safety. I thank you for that.
A lot of conversation is being had around cost recovery and portrayal of cost recovery as a tax, not only on small businesses but also, ultimately causing an increase in the price. Therefore, it's another level of tax on the consumer during this inflationary time.
I would like to submit that I see cost recovery as implementation of the regulation, empowering Health Canada to ensure that the products being consumed more and more by all Canadians are safe products. I see cost recovery as actually ensuring the safety of the products and Canadians. When cost recovery comes into effect in April 2025, the burden of that cost is with the taxpayers regardless. Health Canada has to go through all of these regulations to ensure that people are kept safe—whether it comes out of taxpayer money from another bucket or through implementing these fees. As you mentioned, not all of the fees are being taken into account.
I understand there were two pilot inspection programs that the department did. The results are very interesting.
I would like you, for the next three and a half minutes, to spend some time explaining those two pilot programs and how they support us in ensuring safety through what is called cost recovery, and ensuring that Health Canada is empowered to ensure the safety of the product and Canadians.
Thank you.
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
I will start with the advertising, then I'll turn it over to Ms. Hollett for the GMP inspection.
The first pilot we did was in 2021. We conducted that pilot project to proactively monitor advertising. What the pilot did, through an AI tool, was to look on the web for advertising of natural health products that involved the word “cancer”. There's a prohibition. For certain serious diseases, you can't advertise or label a natural health product to treat or cure that disease. Cancer is one of them. When we did that, we found 3,800 cancer claims. Out of those claims, 63% were not appropriate. They were for treating or curing. They were, for whatever reason, misrepresenting their product with respect to their claims about cancer. That was one. Again, it's a snapshot.
We also just completed another one for other diseases. However, we just finished it. We're looking through the data, as well. It's on depression, obesity and other issues.
There is an issue around companies representing that their natural health products do things that we know they aren't allowed to claim and that, certainly, they can't do.
Liberal
Chief Medical Advisor, Department of Health
The cost recovery will involve increased resources to do that type of surveillance—to look for that and, when those issues arise, to follow up on those advertising complaints. We now have provisions if we need to levy fines or penalties when companies are not compliant. We have the authority to do that as well.