Finance committee  I do think it's a reasonable assumption that in the current economic environment, Canadians will seek to use the Internet, given that the impacts of the changes will be less choice and increased costs. It is the modern age. People are seeking information on the products they buy, the products themselves.

Finance committee  They may find some of those products unavailable. Those that remain could be impacted by upwards of 20% to 40% on the shelf.

Finance committee  The cost-recovery proposal is estimated at about $51 million, which is a complete recovery of the existing budget. That's what the cost-recovery plan has been based on.

Finance committee  Yes, I think that's a fair assessment. The budget that Canada uses to regulate natural health products is the largest budget anywhere in the developed world to manage natural health products. We already have the largest bureaucracy overseeing the regulation of natural health products.

Finance committee  I think that's a fair conclusion.

Finance committee  Yes, we have spoken extensively with that community. I think you're representing, similar to our conversations, their deep concern. I think providers of any class of products that are based on such a traditional modality in application and base of use would see these as particularly troubling.

Finance committee  Yes, I think we would support precision regulation that is directed specifically at the issues. Again, our concern here is the broad, sweeping powers that are particularly apt to be used in a way that is not appropriate. There are methods and ways to adapt the current regulations to target those issues that you highlighted, and we would be supportive of that.

Finance committee  Not particular to Bill C-69, but in a similar vein to an unchecked ministerial power, that's what we're seeing on cost recovery. I'd comment that through our analysis, we've seen that the impact of several of these regulatory and legislative updates is that at a minimum, one in five of these Canadian brands is looking to exit the country.

Finance committee  No, it did not.

Finance committee  Thank you for the question. I will defer to Ms. Gomez.

Finance committee  I think this speaks to one of the concerns we have. Health Canada has made some recent attempts to denigrate and demonize the natural health product industry with comments around safety that are yet to be founded in facts. In a recent Standing Committee on Health, they raised some concerns around safety and certain statistics.

Finance committee  I wish I had a simple answer to that. I'll answer it with a couple of different points. Our concern is that these changes will lead to unchecked powers for the minister. Those unchecked powers have some significant implications. We're living in that situation through cost recovery right now: Industry isn't being consulted and Canadians' concerns about how they choose to access these products and incorporate them into their lives aren't being listened to.

Finance committee  Even in a world-class system, there should be continued review and scrutiny of improvements that could be applied. I don't think we're opposed to those discussions, but those discussions should be transparent. They should be done through proper analysis and through proper debate at committee, none of which has taken place here.

Finance committee  There's some work that could be reviewed around the lower-risk categories of products and how those are reviewed. There are some redundancies in the system today, some overlap between different departments and some additional work that could be done on proof of evidence that comes through some of the work done by Health Canada.

Finance committee  As far as we know, yes, that's correct.