Mr. Speaker, I hope that you had a good summer. I certainly did.
I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill S-228, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act by prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children.
I would like to begin by thanking many individuals and groups for their ongoing efforts on this bill. First, I would like to thank Senator Nancy Greene Raine, now retired, for her years of service and her ongoing commitment to the health and well-being of Canadians, particularly the health of children. I would also like to thank members from all parties and the many witnesses for their passion and expertise.
Basically, Bill S-228 seeks to prohibit food and beverage marketing directed at persons under the age of 13. The bill's introduction in the House is rather timely because its objective can be found in the Minister of Health's mandate letter. Although this bill is well intentioned and seeks to combat childhood obesity, many stakeholders and witnesses expressed their concerns about the scope of the bill and its potential unintended consequences.
Similar legislation already exists in Quebec, which is often cited as an example. Quebec passed legislation in 1980 to ban advertising aimed at children aged 13 and under. To be clear, while it is true that Quebec has one of the lowest obesity rates in Canada, that is not necessarily a consequence of the ban on advertising targeting young people.
At a committee meeting, I asked witnesses from Quebec's Weight Coalition whether the obesity rate went down after Quebec passed the legislation. One witness replied as follows:
The Quebec act, which dates from 1980, was not passed to reduce obesity, but for ethical reasons and because of the vulnerability issues involving all forms of advertising. In terms of data on obesity, we were unfortunately unable to measure them in the past.
This comparison was repeated over and over again during consideration of the bill. However, someone who is rarely quoted is Ronald Lund, who appeared before the committee and told us that Quebec's obesity rate is quite similar to that of the rest of the country.
He said, “In fact, in terms of how fast it exploded and where it is today, the rates of obesity and overweight[edness] in Quebec are basically not statistically different from the rest of Canada.”
I think it is off the website now, but one can still find the link on Quebec's Ministry of Health's own website. It talks about the great increase since 1978 and adds that the good news is that rates there are not significantly different from those in the rest of Canada. Despite a homegrown test, the obesity rates in Quebec are not dramatically different.
Therefore, when we approach Bill S-228 and talk about the legislation, I am just not sure that it is going to work, though I am firmly behind its premise that we want to reduce obesity in children, as we know that childhood obesity is a predeterminate of very chronic disease as they get older.
Certainly, I think there are some problems with the bill, and I am going to address several of those.
First, there was an allusion to the definition of healthy food not being nailed down. At committee we talked about making the definition potentially the same as for front-of-pack labelling, where things high in salt, sugar, or saturated fats would be considered unhealthy. However, that could not be agreed upon, and there is currently no agreement about the definition.
The Liberal government is content to leave that to the regulations, but I think we can see the same problem with regulations that Health Canada is having when considering the Canada food guide and front-of-pack labelling. For example, there are situations where apple strudel would be considered healthy but cheese would not be. Therefore, I really think that not having a definition of healthy food is a weakness in this proposed legislation.
Second, if we are trying to make sure that children under the age of 13 are not exposed to the advertising of whatever we determine unhealthy food to be, the enforcement of that is going to be extremely difficult. For example, as per the conversations we had, does that mean television ads after nine o'clock at night could potentially be allowed to advertise some of these things? The problem is that there are parents who are not parenting well or are allowing their children to stay up past nine o'clock, and so we cannot really be sure at any point in time that we would not be targeting that audience. What about signs? What about billboards? I mean, there would not really be an opportunity to enforce this without a huge number of people basically policing all forms of media.
We know that things put in place by the Liberal government have not been well enforced and we expect to see further ones. For example, with the forthcoming marijuana legislation, clearly there was an effort made to restrict advertising to make sure that it did not appear to be cool to smoke marijuana. However, the government did nothing with enforcement with regard to the huge number of T-shirts and other paraphernalia that exist. The Senate brought an amendments, which were not accepted. Again, there is no enforcement. With respect to Bill S-5, the proposed tobacco legislation, we know that enforcement activity is needed when people who are not authorized to produce and distribute are doing it. However, the 60% cigarette contraband rate in Ontario, for example, and I think 30% or 40% across the country, shows a lack of enforcement. Therefore, I really think that this proposed piece of legislation would definitely have difficulty with enforcement.
Also, do we really need to have the government telling us what we can and cannot eat? I am all about personal freedom and individual accountability. When I was growing up, we had all the sugared cereals. We had Tony the Tiger, Froot Loops, Lucky Charms, Alpha-Bits, and I consumed all of those, along with toast dipped in maple syrup. My mother made us bologna sandwiches. However, I can tell members that there was not a lot of obesity, because we were all outside running around and playing. Therefore, if the government really wants to address obesity, I think the call to action should be to get young people active again. When I was growing up, there was a federal program in place called ParticipACTION, which was designed to get people out and running around. I certainly think that would be more effective in achieving results.
Members can see from my earlier testimony that many people from Quebec are saying that the rates there are not different from those in the rest of Canada. Therefore, this legislation is not going to have the impact we would want it to have.
As well, the senator who introduced this proposed legislation is a multiple Olympic champion. She was fit, and even in her senior years she was driving fitness activities here on the Hill. However, I would point out that she did choose in her career to advertise Mars bars, and I do not think anyone thought it was a problem for an athlete to do that. However, she had the personal freedom to choose that, and now she wants to remove that personal freedom from other athletes who may choose to do that. I certainly am able to exercise, eat occasionally at McDonald's, and eat chips from time to time. It is a balance. I think it is a question of moderation.
Therefore, for all of the reasons I have cited, including the difficulties in enforcing the proposed legislation, the fact that I do not believe the legislation would work, and the government's interference where I believe there should be personal freedom, individual accountability, and good parenting, I will not be supporting this legislation.