Mr. Speaker, preventive medicine is very popular in Canada these days. With many acute care facilities closing it makes only good sense to do what we can to stop disease before it starts. Health foods, vitamins, nutritional supplements and alternative medical practices are tools to prevent disease. These are employed by many thoughtful citizens.
The health protection branch and international Codex proposals threaten those choices in Canada. For example, melatonin has now been banned. Is there any proven harm? No. Is there any proven side effect? No. Is there any proven impurity? No.
Reform's position on this issue is clear. An informed consumer is a far better judge of their health care needs than some distant bureaucrat in Ottawa. Our message is also clear to the health protection branch and to Codex. Get out of our faces.