Madam Speaker, on February 20 I raised a question in the House for the first time on a subject of great value and importance to many Canadians, that is their right to use herbs and other natural products for health and/or medical reasons.
What these people are suggesting is quite simple. They are saying Health Canada in its health protection branch is being non-consultative to the extent that it ignores the freedom of choice of Canadians.
The parliamentary secretary will suggest as he did on February 20 that products which are sold must be safe and effective. He will talk about Ephedra and how some people out west had a bad reaction to it, but he will not talk about pharmaceutical drugs which each and every day put people into emergency rooms at great cost to the system because they are not safe for the intended user.
This issue is really about miracles of magic when through the wonder of the health protection branch something that grows in the garden or swims in water is no longer a food but becomes a drug, a drug that may be restricted or not accepted at all. What is a dietary supplement south of the border is a drug in Canada. What has been used for hundreds of thousands of years with positive effects is banned in Canada. What is naturally occurring and at worst innocuous is outlawed by nameless faces in the name of good medicine in Canada.
In all of this we have lost sight of the consumer. Regulatory mania and cost recovery are driving this. Health Canada is putting the onus of proof on the individual consumer. Yet who is speaking for the consumer?
It should be noted that British Columbia is investing more than $5 million to found a centre to apply alternative health products and procedures. Because of the influx of people from the Pacific Rim there is a realization that their ways, although we do not know why, are safe and beneficial. We know this to be the case because for thousands of years their methods have in fact worked. Yet the health protection branch says: "This is all news to us. Prove it".
I am suggesting that consumer rights are greater than bureaucratic rights. I am suggesting that bureaucrats should accede to the right of Canadians to access natural products they believe to be of benefit to them.
I am urging the minister to speak for Canadian consumers and not for business interests, rule makers and multinational corporations.
On a parallel point, last Saturday the Globe and Mail carried an article on the apparent power of prayer to improve the condition of the sick. Why this treatment works on a scientific basis, who really knows. Perhaps I could suggest the health protection branch should investigate and regulate this too.
I realize this is really stretching the comparison. Yet why regulate daffodil bulbs, oil from parsley and lily of the valley, all of which grow in my garden? If I believe that consuming these will in a natural way correct a medical problem I might have, what does it matter to the health protection branch if perhaps like prayer they can in fact have a beneficial effect on my particular case?
I have a prescription for Health Canada. Perhaps a dose of sense and sensibility before those two things are regulated would persuade the minister to rethink his department's position.
What is effective such as daffodil bulbs and prayers may not always be scientifically quantifiable.