44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 29, 2024 11:00AM
- Apr/29/24 12:32:28 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would not want the member across the way to mislead because of the Conservative spin on this particular issue.
At the end of the day, no government has invested more, historically, in health care than this government has. That was prior to the commitment of $198 billion that was announced in the last budget. No government has invested more in mental health or has highlighted the issue of mental health more than this government has.
To make some sort of false accusation that the government has been dropping the ball on recognizing the importance of mental health, when, historically, we have outshone any other national government on the issue, I think, does a bit of a disservice. I am very proud of the way in which we have advanced and continue to advance the importance of mental health, today and into the future.
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- Apr/29/24 12:35:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague, in particular, for pointing out the health care transfers in the budget. As the opposite member knows, mental health is health. The $200 billion that we have dedicated in transfers to the provinces will address this.
I wonder if the member could elaborate a bit on how that $200 billion, those very high and historic amounts of transfers going to the provinces, will help Canadians deal with the health care challenges they are facing.
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- Apr/29/24 2:36:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, every life lost to the illegal toxic drug supply, every overdose and every family experiencing the loss of a loved one, is a tragedy. Our focus working with the B.C. government on its exemption request is on saving lives and providing health care.
Harm reduction is health care. Treatment is health care. Prevention is health care. Enforcement is also part of the plan. We continue to work with law enforcement in the provinces. Conservatives continue to divide.
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- Apr/29/24 5:28:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, despite the good intentions of wanting to create health programs and build housing—all good things—I would like to know, on a scale of one to 10, what number best reflects the federal government's contempt for interfering in Quebec's jurisdictions.
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- Apr/29/24 7:32:53 p.m.
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I want to know what my colleague uses in terms of natural health products.
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- Apr/29/24 7:33:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for bringing this bill forward. It is truly a critical bill, and I hope everybody listened to his speech, which outlined everything.
If I could, I have sort of a two-part question for him. The first is why. Why would the Liberals do this? Why would they want to demolish an industry that is so important, in particular, like he said, to women, but also for so many families who rely on their vitamin D, vitamin B12 and magnesium. These are things that are very critical, especially for people who may not have access to a doctor because we have a health care crisis in this country.
I am curious about what the member thinks about that.
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- Apr/29/24 7:34:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my friend and colleague from Peterborough—Kawartha is exactly right.
Generally speaking, when we see something being changed in a manner like this, we ask, “Who benefits?” Who benefits from this? Health Canada would actually have the ability to charge whatever fees it wanted in order to regulate the industry. Can members imagine the power to actually generate revenue in such a way? Who knows what pressures they are getting from other outside actors. Lots of people have speculated about who they think is putting pressure on Health Canada to do this.
As I outlined in my speech, Health Canada has lots of power. If it needs a little more resources to do inspections post the products' getting to the shelf, or if they need a little more help at the border, those are reasonable conversations we could have.
This industry is $3 billion a year in Canada. This is how much Canadians rely on these products for their own health. It is the health care prevention that keeps people out of the hospital and out of our health care system. This is the beauty of it. It is something that gives people the ability to make personal health choices. They have the freedom to make those choices for themselves.
If Health Canada needs more money to do something, this industry generates $150 million in GST revenue every year. There are plenty of resources if they need a few more people to do something. They can simply go talk to the finance minister, rather than taking the underhanded approach of going—
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- Apr/29/24 7:35:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, does my colleague not find that Health Canada is using a bazooka to deal with a credibility problem it had, revealed by the Auditor General's report?
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Madam Speaker, I will begin my speech this evening with two images. The first is that the cure is worse than the disease. The second is that we should not use a bazooka to kill a fly, but rather the appropriate tool, in other words, a fly swatter.
The government is being sneaky about it; that is the worst part. That is the story behind Bill C‑368. The government introduced this provision under the radar, in an annex to budget 2023, in Bill C‑47. From day one we have always made a distinction between natural health products and drugs, and rightly so. In the drug industry, in the pharmaceutical industry, people may have to bear the recovery costs, but they have 20-year patents. They are able to break even. What is more, there are no taxes on drugs.
The government makes a lot of money in taxes on natural health products so it can afford to pay for an inspection service that will guarantee the effectiveness and safety of natural health products. When we met in September, everyone agreed that consumers deserve to have effective products that are safe. Health Canada has to do its job in that respect.
What did the Auditor General's report reveal? First, in my opinion, there was a minor methodological problem. Rather than proceeding randomly, products, places and companies were targeted where problems were known to exist. Obviously, if problems are already known to exist, the audit will reveal a high percentage of problems.
There are approximately 91,000 natural health products. Of that number, 75 were analyzed in a targeted way, leading to the conclusion that Health Canada has not been doing its job to ensure product safety since 2014. That is what was found after checking the sampled products. Health Canada was caught with its pants down, so to speak. It played tough, tried to assert its credibility and brought out the big guns.
As legislators, we have always wanted to ensure that there is a balance when it comes to natural health products and access to those products, in order to guarantee free choice for consumers while also ensuring that when Health Canada approves products, it does its job after the fact and inspects those products. From 2004 to 2014, 53 recommendations were made. In September, when we heard from Health Canada representatives and the chief scientist, we realized that the answers were not credible.
I asked whether an impact study had been done on the industry, on small and medium-sized businesses, concerning the recovery costs required. I was told that it was based on Treasury Board guidelines. I imagine that the Treasury Board's main interest is getting its money's worth. What kind of service is it going to provide when, after all this time, and with all the taxes generated by the industry, it has not even been able to ensure an audit or any inspections throughout its mandate?
There are a few problems today. I asked the chief scientist how many adverse reactions there had been to natural health products in 17 years. I asked her to provide the numbers. We have yet to get an answer to that question. I also asked her what the numbers were for adverse reactions to pharmaceutical products. She replied that she had some numbers, but she still has not provided those either.
We know very well that, even though they are approved by Health Canada, pharmaceuticals can still sometimes have very serious side effects. However, that is no reason to discredit the entire industry. We are just doing our job and making sure that we do it properly. Contrary to what people might think and what the government tried to have us believe, the shell game that I am talking about, the one in Bill C‑47, happened in June, when we were voting on the March 2023 budget. Now we are getting letters and the public is starting to find out about this.
As legislators, we do not have any say over the regulations. We vote on laws. Regulations are then drafted on how the legislation should be applied. The problem is that we need Bill C‑368 to be sent to committee so that we can do our job as parliamentarians and look into the regulation that was brought in under which natural health products are now considered therapeutic products under Vanessa's Law.
It is very clear that we would not be where we are today if the government had been a little more transparent, if it had carried out the consultations it needed to and if it had worked with everyone to find some common ground to ensure that no harm would come to an industry that Quebeckers and Canadians have the right to have access to by choice. Natural health products are not forced on anyone through a prescription. No one is forced to buy them. When people choose to buy them, it is because, in a way, they have educated themselves.
It is true that they can pose risks, and it is also true that people have to follow their pharmacist's instructions. There are interactions, true. However, these interactions are between drugs prescribed by a doctor versus a pharmaceutical product that I am going to buy. We are not trying to trivialize anything, but just because there are a few bad apples in one industry does not mean that the entire industry should be discredited. That would undermine small and medium-sized businesses, which want to sell safe products. Their main motivation is people's health.
We would not be here if there had been a bit more transparency and if the people who came to testify in September had the courage to point this out to us. When they were told that their cost-recovery model was modelled on the pharmaceutical industry, they did not say one word, as if we would not figure out Bill C‑47's sleight of hand at some point. They took the entire model from the pharmaceutical industry and transposed it to the natural health products industry without allowing us to debate it. That is why there were two meetings on this. It was to get information about the problem.
There have been no more consultations so far. That is why we are going to vote in favour of Bill C‑368. We want to ensure that the legislator, who never has access to the regulations and can never review them through legislation, brings this to committee. There we will be able to work on it and find a balance regarding the government's claims that 88% of the 91,000 natural health products are deficient and have misleading labelling. This is a serious methodological bias that does not reflect reality, because in 2015, a randomized study showed that more than 90% of products were fully compliant. What happened in the meantime, then?
Maybe if the people at Health Canada did their job and carried out inspections, and maybe if they sent people their criteria, guidelines and information about where they want people to focus so that, during production, they can be certain that the product is okay, we would not be here today. The Bloc Québécois will indeed vote in favour of the bill.
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