Mr. Speaker, I want to thank all of my colleagues who spoke in the House tonight, in the second hour of debate on Bill C-224. As has been mentioned, this is the second Parliament I have tabled this bill in. In the previous Parliament, it was Bill C-368. It passed at second reading in this place, but it was not unanimous. It went through the committee process in the last Parliament, but it died on the Order Paper with the prorogation and subsequent election.
Now we have a new Parliament, and I was very fortunate to get drawn in the first tranche of private members' business. I was more than happy, on behalf of the 80% of Canadians, some 30 million, who use natural health products on a routine basis to improve the quality of their lives at a time when it is hard enough in this country to make ends meet, to get by, to find a doctor and to look after oneself. It seemed pretty straightforward and easy for me to get behind this cause.
Not only am I a user of these natural health products myself, but I know that so many friends and family members also do the same thing. All my constituents in Ponoka—Didsbury, which in the previous Parliament was Red Deer—Lacombe, have been very supportive of what I have done. I have travelled across the country to meet with health store owners, various stakeholders and Canadians on a regular basis about this. It is a very important issue, and I am glad that we are having this conversation today.
As members may recall, in the previous Parliament, the definition of “natural health products” was changed in Bill C-47, which was a budget implementation bill. Nobody knew this was coming. It was underhanded and sneaky. That was the approach of the previous government in the previous Parliament. There was no consultation with the Natural Health Product Protection Association or the Canadian Health Food Association. Nobody even knew it was there. As a matter of fact, there was basically radio silence for about six months, until somebody figured out that those four little clauses in that bill had been passed and subsequent changes to the self-care framework were being implemented by Health Canada. That is when the lid kind of blew off the whole process and people started getting involved.
To take us back to where we were, this is not some wild west, non-regulated area of responsibility. Natural health products have been very highly regulated in Canada for a long time. As a matter of fact, IADSA, the International Alliance of Dietary/Food Supplement Associations, not therapeutic drugs but dietary food supplements, basically had Canada's regulatory regime ranked as the gold standard around the world. We were exporting these products because importers and agencies from around the world trusted that made-in-Canada label and the natural product number. This was a solution in search of a problem, and it blew up in the government's face.
There is no reason at all that natural health products should get caught up in the clutches of Vanessa's Law, a very important piece of legislation and work. We need to treat natural health products for what they are. They are a stand-alone category, and my bill seeks to take us back to where we were prior to Bill C-47. I made one small adjustment to the bill in this Parliament to exempt nicotine, because I believe many people would think it reasonable that nicotine should be managed completely differently and separately from natural health and therapeutic products. I am looking forward to my colleagues having that debate, should this bill get to committee.
I want to thank my colleague in the Bloc Québécois. I think he was a little upset that I did not include the amendment to deal with recall. I know that is going to come up again in the debate, should this bill get to second reading.
Before I conclude, I want to extend some thanks, if I can be permitted, even if I go a bit longer. I want to thank the Natural Health Product Protection Association, specifically Shawn and Teresa Buckley, for their continued advocacy for freedom of choice for Canadians on this issue and so many more. I thank them so much for the work they do. To the Canadian Health Food Association, particularly Jules, Sonia and Wenjing, I thank them so much for the work they do in advocating on behalf of retailers and the entire industry, the producers, retailers, everybody.
Most importantly, I want to thank Canadians who are watching right now. As I said, 80% of Canadians use natural health products, and they support their own right to choose their health outcomes. They were the ones who signed the cards we all got, signed the petitions, wrote the emails and made the calls to MPs' offices. They have changed the tide of the debate in this country, and the House should be responding to them.
I am very much looking forward to the continuation of this bill as it goes through the legislative process. I want to thank everybody who has been supportive.