The House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motion at second reading stage of Bill C-368 under Private Members' Business.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank all my colleagues for their support and for speaking to Bill C-368, but I want to remind people how we arrived here.
There seem to be some forgetful folks. Even though I am thanking the NDP for its position, I would like to remind people how we arrived at this place. We are at this point with natural health products because of a budget implementation act, Bill C-47, which was passed for budget 2023. The authority for that came from a promise made by the leader of the NDP in March 2022 to form a coalition, a supply and confidence agreement, with the Liberal government, which meant carte blanche. It was going to support every budget and every budget implementation act that it had not even seen, discussed nor been party to. It gave that power to the Liberal government, and that is why we are here today.
While I appreciate the NDP's revisionist history on this, it is the reason this change happened in the first place. I am glad it is supporting this bill, which would take the legislative framework back where it was with the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper and where we had the best natural health product regulations, framework and industry in the world. There is no need to tamper any further with the natural health product industry.
I want to talk about freedom of choice in health care, as this is a huge issue. Over 80% of Canadians, and I suspect it is even more, are using natural health products. This is about that freedom of choice and losing that choice. I believe the Canadian Health Food Association, the Natural Health Product Protection Association, the Direct Sellers Association of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business when they say that the changes being proposed by the Liberal government, through Health Canada's changes to the definition of therapeutic products to include natural health products, is going to kill and stifle business. I believe them when they say that because we have a nine-year track record of the government doing nothing but harm to the economy of this country. The government is going to continue to do it to this beautiful, wonderful industry that gives Canadians the choice they need to look after their own personal health.
Finally, I want to thank all the Canadians who have reached out to members of Parliament in a very active campaign to let MPs know how important this is to them. I want to thank the mothers out there who look after their families. I know my wife is the same way. She had a full-time job on top of her full-time job of raising the family while I was here in Ottawa. She wanted to help our kids, to help our family and to keep us healthy. She wanted to make sure we had the best possible health outcomes that we could have. I want to thank all the women who make up the largest part of the workforce and the entrepreneurship in this beautiful industry. The fact that there was not a gender-based analysis on this is striking.
I want to thank the seniors and those with chronic conditions who are scared about losing their access to these health products. When these organizations I mentioned before said that they are going to lose these products, I believe them. These seniors believe them, and these people with chronic conditions believe them. This is how they manage. This is how they cope with their ailments, and we should be enabling and empowering that, not scaring away investments, businesses and opportunities.
I want to thank the wonderful people in the industry. I want to thank the beautiful people I have met from coast to coast who are part of this industry. I have never met a group of people who are more conscientious, more thoughtful, and more creative and innovative. I want them to know that I am very thankful for the work they do.
For those who are going to be voting in favour of this, we are going to be voting on this next Wednesday night in a recorded division. I want to thank my colleagues for sending this to committee so that we can hear from the experts and from Canadians about this because this was snuck through in Bill C-47. The Liberal government is doing it again, right now, with Bill C-69 in this place. It is making even more changes to Health Canada and giving it more powers. Why are we not talking about this in a separate piece of legislation so that we can actually have a proper debate about it? Now we are, with Bill C-368.
It is time to pass Bill C-368. It is time to get back to basics. It is time to get back to making sure that Canadians have access to the health products they deserve. I want to thank my colleagues who are brave enough and who have the courage to do what their constituents want them to do, and vote for Bill C-368.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise. My colleague from Peterborough—Kawartha talked about this being Groundhog Day, and it seems as if we are talking about this particular topic over and over again.
My colleague from Ottawa Centre, who spoke just a minute ago, was talking about the safety of these products. It is interesting, because the reason any health warnings were found about these products was that inspections were already conducted by Health Canada. Therefore, by grabbing more money from the small and medium-sized businesses that are actually producing natural health products for the benefit of Canadians, these changes are not going to make those inspections any better or any more frequent. I find that a bit fascinating.
The other thing that is absolutely fascinating is what we have on the opposite side of the House. We have a government that had a crazy experiment, a wacko experiment we might say, to actually decriminalize opioids, which we know failed miserably. Without the Conservatives on this side of the House actually stopping the Liberals, they were on the path to wanting to legalize drugs like meth, crack, cocaine, amphetamines and fentanyl here in Canada, in our backyards, in our school grounds, in front of businesses and in front of residences all across this country.
Thankfully, there was an incredible intervention by team Conservative. We were able to make enough interventions so that people realized how bad of an idea this was. The crime, chaos, drugs and disorder that have happened across this great country have been unfathomable. It is certainly something that Canadians need to bear in mind when we talk about the incredible want on the NDP-Liberal side to take away natural health products.
I know that many of my colleagues spoke about this previously, but I do think it bears repeating. When we look at the multitude of issues that have come before this House in the last two and a half years since I have been here, the issue that people have written to me the most about and approached me the most about, just walking along the street, in our own backyards, is really related to natural health products. Canadians have made it incredibly clear that they do not want the government interfering, as it wants to do, with their natural health products.
I know some of this is a bit repetitive, but I think it bears repeating. We know from statistics that over 80% of Canadians use natural health products on a regular basis. I listened with great interest when my colleague from Peterborough—Kawartha talked about how the impacts of the changes the government is on the road to making, without the intervention of Bill C-368, are a harm to female entrepreneurs. That cannot be said enough in this House.
We hear that Conservatives are against women and Conservatives are against women's rights. We hear this every single day. It is actually quite nauseating. We actually understand that, on the opposite side, the NDP-Liberal coalition members are the ones who want to undermine the health, well-being and financial success of female entrepreneurs. We know that 80% of businesses in the natural health products sector are small businesses, and 50% of these businesses are managed by CEOs who are females.
There is no better way for people to ensure their success in this world than to be their own boss. When someone is the master of their own destiny, that creates a security and a need for nobody else. From my perspective, my wife and I have been married almost 34 years. She is a female entrepreneur. When I look at her success and the satisfaction it brings her to know that she certainly does not have to rely on me and that she is incredibly successful, that is the kind of thing I would want for my daughters as well, and for any entrepreneur in this great country. They should be able to say they are the master of their own destiny.
When we look at the regulations that have also been brought in, the member for Ottawa Centre went on and on about safety, etc. I know he was not at the health committee when this happened, so maybe we can cut him some slack based on that. Interestingly enough, the chief medical adviser for Health Canada was at the committee and talked about some of the disinformative statistics that the member spoke about previously. When we pressed the chief medical adviser for Health Canada on where the statistics were, the answer we were given was “Oh, you can look them up in the database.” Of course, doing our due diligence, we attempted to do so. The conflated numbers they actually presented in no way, shape, or form reflect reality.
When we begin to look at this, the safety of natural health products is beyond reproach. Are there oftentimes difficulties in manufacturing? Yes. Health Canada, to its credit, has discovered some of those things, which is important. That happens in many different industries where the manufacturing process is studied to make things better by doing this, that or the other thing. That will be important to continue, but is it necessary to attempt to kill small and medium-sized business-based enterprises in this country? When these regulations continue, if the rest of our colleagues do not realize the importance of Bill C-368, what will happen is that this industry will die. Then what will happen?
We know that 80% of Canadians use these products on a regular basis, and they will continue to use them. When they continue to use them, that means they are going to have to buy them somewhere else, other than from the great Canadian industry that we have, which we know is incredibly safe. The regulations that exist here in this country at the current time, barring the changes that the NDP-Liberal costly coalition wanted to make in the last budget, are the envy of the rest of the world. We have heard that. We did much research on this last year, when we went through all this foolishness before. Australia said it wanted to adopt what Canada is doing because it is so great. The regulations are absolutely incredible. When we tell them that the costly coalition wants to meddle with the regulations, they ask why we would want to do that, as we have a great system now.
We look at increasing the cost of products by 50% to 75%, and we see 20% of small businesses in Canada having to close. We see some of the other kind of ridiculous regulations, such as increasing the label size to put more warnings, words and cautions, etc. The anti-plastic crew over here is increasing the amount of plastic that is going to have to be used to do it, at a cost of about $200,000 per product. It has often been said that this is regulation looking for something to regulate, as well as looking for another way to fuel the Liberals' ridiculous spending.
Let us look at another industry, the prescription drug industry. I know some of my colleagues briefly talked about this. We know that the prescription drug industry harms seniors every year. The cost to the Canadian economy is about $2 billion every year due to the harm created by prescription drugs. Do we hear the NDP-Liberal coalition saying that we need to have more regulations related to that? No, we do not hear that.
I think the other thing we need to know is the reason the government is going after this. The reason, of course, is related to an easy target to get more money to fuel its spending, which is costing Canadians greatly. We know that more and more Canadians, sadly, are going to food banks. We saw Food Banks Canada's 2024 report that came out showing that 50% more Canadians feel financially worse off compared to last year and that 25% of Canadians are experiencing food insecurity.
This is a bill to fuel the government's spending habit, which is a sad commentary on a government that is out of ideas and out of time. We will continue to see these things, which will negatively affect the health of Canadians and their confidence to make the right decisions about their health care at the right time on their own terms.
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Madam Speaker, I am thankful for the opportunity to discuss Bill C-368 with respect to natural health products, and its potential impact on the ability of Canadians to have confidence in the natural health products on their shelves.
Canadians expect the products that they buy in Canada to be safe for use and consumption.
This includes the natural health products we use every day, such as vitamins, herbal medicines, sunscreen, toothpaste and hand sanitizer.
I want to acknowledge the importance of natural health products. They are something that many of our constituents use for their own well-being. I have heard that from many of my constituents as well. There is no question that natural health products are lower-risk than prescription drugs, but the reality is they are not risk-free. They can actually cause serious harm in certain circumstances. In particular, if not manufactured properly, natural health products can contain unsafe levels of ingredients or be contaminated with other substances that can be harmful. They can also be advertised or labelled in a misleading manner.
Take, for example, probiotics. While they are low-risk and in fact beneficial in many cases, these products as a whole are not without risk. Over the last six years, there have been six reports of sepsis associated with one brand of probiotic, the majority of which were in premature infants, and five of which had an outcome of death. That is why postmarket safety surveillance is so important.
In fact, between January 1, 2022, and December 31, 2023, Health Canada received 930 adverse reaction reports where a natural health product was suspected of being responsible for the adverse reaction, with the majority, 692, reported as serious.
Consumers trust these products to contribute to their health and well-being. That is why we need to ensure that natural health products can be used safely and that they are not the subject of false claims.
However, Conservatives want to take us back to a time when we can recall a contaminated tube of lipstick or head of lettuce, but not a contaminated vitamin or supplement.
Now I want to talk a bit about the subject of the bill, Bill C-368, which is Vanessa's Law.
In June 2023, Vanessa's Law, or the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, was extended to include natural health products. This action was taken to correct a gap that was left in 2014 when Vanessa's Law was initially passed for other health products. This law gives Health Canada the additional tools to take swift action if marketed products are deemed unsafe. As it stands now, Vanessa's Law gives Health Canada the authority to mandate product recalls and label revisions for unsafe natural health products where there are serious or imminent risks to the health and safety of Canadians.
The tools afforded by Vanessa's Law are important for the well-being and safety of Canadians. They protect Canadians, but not at the cost of hurting Canadian businesses. In fact, there should be no impact on businesses that are following the rules in manufacturing and selling to Canadians products that are safe. These authorities are used only if a company should refuse to co-operate in taking voluntary action to mitigate a serious health risk, as is the typical practice for other lines of health products and food.
Bill C-368 seeks to repeal the expanded powers granted by Vanessa's Law, which would prevent Health Canada from recalling dangerous products or adding warnings to labels when companies refuse to do it themselves.
The government can mandate recalls of other health products, as well as food like produce in grocery stores that is contaminated with E. coli, but with Bill C-368, Health Canada would not have the authority to require the recall of a natural health product contaminated with E. coli, which could be equally dangerous to the lives of our constituents.
Should not users of natural health products also be afforded the confidence that the products on the shelves can be used safely? Adopting Bill C-368 would leave the health of Canadians in the hands of industry to decide when it is appropriate to issue a recall or update the label with new warnings. There is just no reason for natural health products to be exempted from Vanessa's Law.
One of the main sources of problems comes from cases of deficient manufacturing practices that result in product contamination.
Before Vanessa's Law was applied to natural health products, Health Canada did not have the power to enforce recalls and had only a limited ability to remove dangerous natural health products from the market.
The concerns I am expressing today are not about theoretical risks. Since 2018, there have been over 300 voluntary recalls of licensed natural health products for safety issues. For example, during the pandemic, when hand sanitizer use was at its highest, Health Canada found toxic chemicals like methanol and benzine in these products but had to rely on voluntary action from companies to remove these products from the market. Other examples of product issues resulting from unsanitary manufacturing conditions include contamination with bacteria, fibreglass and other foreign materials.
Should we really rely solely on the goodwill of industry to recall a product contaminated with fibreglass or toxic chemicals?
In 2021, the independent commissioner of the environment and sustainable development highlighted Health Canada's lack of power to recall natural health products as an important gap. The commissioner reported that contaminated natural health products remained available to consumers on store shelves for many months because Health Canada could rely only on the goodwill of companies to undertake voluntary recalls. Between 2021 and 2022, Health Canada inspected 36 importers and manufacturers of natural health products and found high levels of non-compliance with safe manufacturing practices. Issues were identified in all 36 sites inspected, ranging in severity, with 42% requiring immediate action.
Issues requiring the Vanessa's Law authorities go beyond product quality problems. For example, in 2021, Health Canada conducted an online surveillance study of health claims made by natural health products and found that more than 1,600 authorized natural health products made illegitimate cancer-related claims in their advertising. Think of the impact this could have on a cancer patient who is looking for relief and puts their trust solely in a product that cannot back up its claims. This is unacceptable. In fact, it is dangerous.
Canadians expect better, and they deserve better. Bill C-368 would roll back the protections of Vanessa's Law, exposing Canadians to unacceptable risks. This includes potentially allowing unsafe products to remain on the market longer and subjecting natural health products to a different, less rigorous set of rules than all other health products and food. It puts the power to determine actions in the most serious cases of health risks in the hands of industry and not the regulator. Is that what we want?
I submit that Canadians would expect more from their government. They expect that the government is able to take action and remove natural health products from the market when they are deemed unsafe, just like it can remove a shipment of contaminated lettuce or cough medication.
Some members have raised concerns about how the extension of Vanessa's Law could impact the availability of natural health products. I want to stress that product availability will not change with Vanessa's Law. Unsafe products will be removed more quickly from the market, but safe products will continue to be available. Compliant companies and products will not be impacted.
It is not just about recalls. Vanessa's Law authorities also allow the court to determine a more appropriate fine or penalty should a company be convicted of an offence related to a natural health product that poses serious health and safety risks to Canadians, creating a legitimate deterrent for non-compliance. Canadians are counting on us to safeguard the marketplace from unsafe products.
We need to ensure that those who buy natural health products are able to have confidence in the safety of those products. We are talking about public health and safety here.
It is too important to leave to chance. It is too important and time-sensitive to rely on voluntary compliance. Vanessa's Law gives Health Canada the authorities it needs to take immediate action to remove unsafe natural health products from the marketplace if a company refuses to do so voluntarily. It is an important tool that strengthens the market and the reputation of the industry in Canada, as it helps ensure that these widely used products are safe.
I encourage all members to vote against this bill.
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Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-368. I would like to thank the member for Red Deer—Lacombe for bringing it forward for the House's consideration.
The reason I am very pleased is that the issue of natural health products has garnered a lot of attention in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford. I have had a lot of constituents and local businesses approach me concerning this issue in particular. I am pleased to be able to stand here, as their elected representative, and let my constituents know that I will be supporting the bill at second reading.
I was also very pleased to be able to add my name as a joint seconder to the bill. To fulfill the wishes of my constituents, I will be voting to send it to committee for further study.
What are we talking about when we say “natural health products”? I have always thought it a weird thing that they are regulated under a statute such as the Food and Drugs Act. They are not really a food, nor are they a drug. They occupy a special place for many people. We must face that humans have had relationships with natural health products dating back thousands of years. Many of these products have a very special place in human history, and a lot of cultures have very long relationships with them.
Today, in the modern world, natural health products often come in a variety of forms, such as tablets, capsules, tinctures, solutions, creams, ointments and drops. There is quite a large variety for people to pick and choose from. They are often made from plants, but they can also come from animals, from micro-organisms and from marine sources. They include vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines, traditional medicines, probiotics and other products, such as amino acids and essential fatty acids. They are found in many everyday consumer products.
Let us come to the bill in question, Bill C-368. As shown in the summary, it would amend the Food and Drugs Act to provide that natural health products are not therapeutic products within the meaning of that act and, therefore, are not subject to the same monitoring regime as other drugs.
Before we get into the substance, we need to take a little history lesson on how we arrived here. I want to say that both Conservatives and Liberals have run into trouble when trying to regulate natural health products. In fact, the previous government, under Harper, learned this lesson very quickly back in 2008 when it introduced Bill C-51. That was also an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act. Under Bill C-51, the term “therapeutic products” encompassed a range of products sold for therapeutic purposes, including drugs, medical devices, biologics and natural health products. In the end, because of an election, that bill was never adopted. However, I believe the Harper government at that time learned its lesson because of the uproar that came in response to Bill C-51, and it did not attempt to change Canada's regulations for natural health products again while in government.
What the Harper government did do, in 2014, was introduce Bill C-17 to amend the Food and Drugs Act. It was also known as Vanessa's Law. This introduced a definition for the term “therapeutic product”, but what was different this time was that the definition was worded in such a way that it did not include natural health products, within the meaning of the natural health products regulations.
We then fast-forward to the present Liberal government and Bill C-47. That bill, in a clause buried deep within a budget implementation act, again amended the term “therapeutic product” to make sure that the exemption from the natural health products regulations was actually removed. This has caused much of the uproar we see today.
I want to point out, as I said in my intro, that natural health products have a long history of use in Canada as low-risk, affordable methods of promoting well-being. It is very important that I stand here today and say unequivocally that they must remain accessible to all Canadians. I am proud to be a member of a caucus, the NDP caucus, that has long supported an appropriate regulatory category for natural health products to certify their safety and efficacy based on sound evidence, as well as to ensure that they are widely available for those who use and value them.
It is unacceptable that the changes to the regulatory regime under the Food and Drugs Act was snuck into a budget omnibus bill, because it did not allow for proper study. I am glad to see that, because Bill C-368 is a stand-alone, quite simple and easy-to-read piece of legislation, from reading the room, it should have enough votes to send it to committee. We can then have the proper study; hear from Canadians and businesses that sell natural health products, the practitioners involved in this every day; and, finally, get the proper scrutiny that this issue so richly deserves.
I do not want to spend too much longer speaking to the bill, but I want to talk a bit about the people in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford who took the time to write to my office, phone me personally and come into my office. In particular, I want to recognize a few of the local businesses. Essential Remedies, Benoit and Associates Health Education, some holistic health practitioners, the Community Farm Store, Botanical Bliss, a certified homeopathic practitioner, a naturopathic physician and Lynn's Vitamin Gallery all took the time in the summer of 2023 to come into my office. We had a great round table discussion. It lasted well over an hour. It was really enlightening for me, as their member of Parliament, to hear their views on this subject and learn a little more about why it is so important.
Yes, my immediate family definitely uses natural health products, and I know that many friends and relatives in my immediate vicinity also use them. However, to hear from professionals who work with clients every day about why this issue is so important was particularly enlightening for me. It is also important to note that 71% of Canadians, which is a very big number, have used natural health products, such as vitamins and minerals, herbal products and homeopathic medicines. Therefore, it is important that, when the NHP community speaks to their elected representatives, it represents a very clear majority of Canadians. Based on a proper cross-sampling of the correspondence that I, like many other members, have received, I know that they want their elected representatives to treat this issue with the seriousness that it deserves and give the bill full scrutiny.
Finally, I want to congratulate the NHP community and industry, which have been very actively engaged on this issue through their work. I really want to single out the local businesses in my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford and the constituents who live on Vancouver Island. I congratulate them for their advocacy, for stepping up to the plate and for engaging me as their elected representative, because it has worked. I am proud to say that, in this place, as their elected representative, I will be pleased to vote to send Bill C-368 to committee.
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Madam Speaker, this bill amends the Food and Drugs Act to provide that natural health products are not therapeutic products within the meaning of the act and are therefore not subject to the same monitoring regime as other drugs.
First of all, I would like to announce that the Bloc Québécois will vote in favour of the bill at second reading, essentially to hear from experts in committee on the best way to regulate natural health products.
This bill follows what the government surreptitiously introduced in a schedule to the 2023 budget, through Bill C‑47. There has always been a distinction between drugs and natural health products, and that was a good thing. It seems obvious that natural health products, commonly abbreviated as NHPs, differ from drugs in many ways. We are not saying that they are all harmless; people should ask their pharmacist before consuming any such products. We also acknowledge that NHPs could interact with other medications. However, these are precisely the reasons why we need to examine these products and determine the best way to regulate them.
What the Bloc Québécois wants is to be able to verify whether the decision to subject NHPs to the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, or Vanessa's Law, is definitely the best way to regulate them, or whether it places an excessive administrative burden on these products. Relatively speaking, these products present lower risks and have a different impact on health than traditional pharmaceuticals.
As the saying goes, sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Regulations could have the opposite effect to what we are trying to achieve, which is the well-being of Quebeckers and Canadians. The fact is that there are some 91,000 NHPs, 75 of which have been specifically analyzed. After checking certain sampled products, it was concluded that, since 2014, Health Canada has not been doing its job in terms of guaranteeing safe products. The government tried to gain credibility by using a bazooka to kill a fly. That is a reasonable conclusion.
The decision to subject NHPs to Vanessa's Law follows a series of recommendations set out in a report by the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development. In that report to the Parliament of Canada, the commissioner notes that the government does not have the legislative authority to compel NHP companies to identify unlicensed products and take appropriate measures to prevent them from being sold in Canada; identify unauthorized activities and take appropriate action to ensure that product labels and advertisements meet product-licence conditions; obtain the information it needs to verify and ensure that these products are no longer for sale in Canada; and force a recall or impose terms and conditions to mitigate the safety risks associated with these products.
Canada's natural health products regulations allow for licences to be cancelled to prohibit the sale of a product or to have it seized. However, there is no provision allowing the minister to force a product recall. Prior to Bill C‑47, recalls were therefore voluntary. Moreover, the environmental risks are not included, so there is some data missing.
As legislators, have we done everything we can to ensure that there is a balance in terms of access to NHPs to guarantee free choice for consumers? Have we done everything we can to ensure that when Health Canada approves products, it does its job and does the necessary inspections?
One of my colleagues, the member for Montcalm and Bloc Québécois health critic, asked whether an impact study had been done on the industry and on small and medium-sized businesses, concerning the recovery costs required. He 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 products are tested or inspected throughout its mandate? These are questions that need to be asked. Where are the numbers on how many adverse reactions there have been to natural health products in 17 years? What are the numbers for adverse reactions to pharmaceutical products? We did not get an answer on that either. We know that even though they are approved by Health Canada, pharmaceuticals can sometimes have very serious side effects. However, that is no reason to disqualify them or discredit an entire industry.
It is just a matter of doing the work, carrying out tasks and responsibilities and making sure that things are done well. That seems obvious to me.
What we see here looks like a government uninterested in working to ensure the well-being of its people. Instead, it wants to pass on a hot potato before it gets burned. For a long time now, the government's inaction on many issues has been on full display. It does not know how to work the machinery of government, so a one-size-fits-all solution often seems like the easiest way around the problem. In reality, it is a very poor option.
We have to respect people's intelligence. To properly protect them, they need to be adequately informed. They do not need to have decisions constantly made for them. No one is forced to use an NHP. Consumers who buy these products have already looked into their effects. The role of legislation and regulations is to provide them with a proper framework.
My grandfather used balsam fir gum. He used it for a good part of his life and died at the age of 103. Was this natural health product approved? Probably not. Was it dangerous? Obviously not. He lived for over 100 years. It was not a dangerous drug either. To some extent, if we let the government have its way, balsam fir gum will probably fall out of use, and my grandfather would have been deprived of his traditional remedy, which had supposedly cured him of consumption. One day, after years of searching, he found it again on the shelves at his pharmacy, in capsule form. The midwife who had supplied it to him back in the day had died. This is why NHPs deserve a legal, responsible, credible and rigorous approach. People should be able to opt for a safe, natural solution with components that are recognized and identified, and whose effects are known and accessible to all doctors and practitioners.
Here, we vote on laws. We are not experts, but we need to act responsibly and with humility to put in place the proper legislative provisions. That is what must guide our decisions. That is why Bill C‑368 is now necessary. It must be sent to committee so that the parliamentary work can be done. If the government had been a bit more transparent, if it had held the necessary consultations, if we had all worked together to find a way to move forward without harming an industry that Quebeckers and Canadians have the right to access, then we would not be here today discussing this issue.
Unfortunately, the government has not held any consultations to date. The federal government has rather cavalierly dodged many debates on this topic, when the purpose of debate is to turn ambiguous questions into clearer, more appropriate directives. That is exactly why we are going to vote in favour of Bill C‑368.
The information I shared in my speech provides ample justification for Parliament to refer this bill to committee. A genuine assessment of the situation is needed given the government's claim that 88% of the 91,000 natural health products are substandard or use misleading labelling. Such a claim requires verification, since the methodology used is flawed. Indeed, the products were verified after problems were reported, and were then identified as substandard. However, this approach grossly inflates the data and raises reasonable questions concerning the methodology used. In our opinion, a randomized approach would be preferable.
Need I remind the House that we have the right to do substantive work to ensure that we are making the right decisions, voting for the right things and passing legislation in the public interest? Need I remind the House that we cannot be sloppy or try to get rid of things or hide the flaws that we did not bother to tackle, things that were swept under the rug because it is easier that way and makes us look good? It is a fairly common technique used by the current government to jump to hasty and ill-considered conclusions, only to impose drastic, rigid rules, where there are often more losers than winners in the end. The Liberals just want to be able to say that they did this, that and the other thing, that they passed this bill and that bill, and they are great. They want to say that they delivered. There was a problem with NHPs, and they passed legislation. It is not enough, but that does not matter. Fisheries are being closed. The government is not listening to those who work in fisheries. Entire villages are facing a socio-economic dead end. It does not matter, as long as the Liberals look good. They say they are going to save the biomass, but they are not saving anything. It does not matter, because announcements have been made. They pass laws and set up legislative procedures to interfere in provincial jurisdictions. It is full steam ahead. Are their solutions correct? Are they being applied consistently? No, but that does not matter.
What matters is that they passed legislation, that they spread their tentacles where they did not belong. That is the way to gain control of everything. They announce funding that is appealing to the provinces that have become so strapped for cash over the years—
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Madam Speaker, there is a joke going around that says, “It's not knowing that a politician can be bought; it's knowing how little they'll let themselves go for.” For a member of the NDP caucus right now thinking that this is the misery they are suffering in the polls, the misery they are suffering nationwide, which is the same misery Canadians are suffering, this is all they managed to get out of the supply and confidence arrangement with the government today.
It is not a pharmacare program. Health care is actually a provincial jurisdiction. It should be delivered by the provinces. The bill would simply be adding contraceptives and some diabetes measures into it. I guess, on the surface of it, that is a good thing, but to the tune of $1.5 billion. If viewers watching at home actually believe this is all it is going to cost them, I will remind them that the government bought a $7 billion pipeline and built it for about $40 billion. Therefore, if history is any predictor of the future when it comes to what things cost under a Liberal-NDP coalition, then they should be looking at least to that example if not more.
To us, as Conservatives, the issue is one of provincial jurisdiction. I come from Alberta, and this is a very important issue to our province and to our premier. This is just another intrusion into provincial jurisdiction. We think that, during these financial times, when Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, pouring more fuel on the inflationary fire is certainly not going to help. It is another financial albatross in the making, which Canadians cannot afford and are not willing to pay for.
It is not just me saying this, and it is not just Conservatives saying this. John Ivison eloquently stated in a piece that he published back on February 29, when the bill or this notion first came out, that this is “the woebegone child of a loveless Liberal-NDP marriage.” This is basically what we are dealing with.
It has become clear to me that the bill before us is basically the cost of keeping the NDP support for this Parliament under supply and confidence, and the coalition partners can take this until October 2025. It was supposed to be October 20, but it is going to be extended by another week to make sure that certain people here get the financial benefits they think they are entitled to. However, it just goes to show that there is only one serious opposition in the House, and that is the Conservative Party.
The NDP is not an opposition party but a willing accomplice to everything that the Liberal government has in its agenda. Its members have been witting partners in creating a massive inflationary deficit; setting restrictive policies towards, for example, lawful gun owners and natural health products, which they signed up for two years ago without even knowing they were going to vote in favour of that in Bill C-47 last year; impeding upon provincial jurisdiction time and time again, which is, of course, front and centre with this piece of legislation; continuing to cover up for the government's scandals, covering for it at committee and also here in the House of Commons; introducing soft-on-crime legislation or supporting that soft-on-crime legislation, which has turned our justice system into a revolving door; sending Canadians to food banks en masse, at a couple of million visitors, which is up over 300%; allowing housing prices to skyrocket; and neglecting our military to the point where our soldiers are basically relying on food donations while they are in Ottawa for training. I could continue, but I think members get the gist of what I am trying to say.
It is bad enough that NDP members backed budget after budget and shut down our work to hold the government to account at committee, but they are telling Canadians that they are doing their actual work as an opposition party. Well, they cannot have it both ways. They cannot be in opposition while they support everything that the government does. I do not buy it, and neither do Canadians.
A December 2023 Leger poll indicated that only 18% of Canadians listed the establishment of a national pharmacare program as a health care priority, and the promise was not included in the 2021 Liberal platform. Canadians did not vote for a party promising pharmacare, yet here we are, thanks to an NDP party that is keeping this weak and basically lame-duck government in office. It is no wonder that some provinces are already saying publicly that they are choosing to opt out.
Let it be known that the absence of the NDP as an opposition is also keenly felt in other areas. Just last year, as I was mentioning, the NDP-Liberal coalition passed Bill C-47.
I do not suppose anybody in the NDP was told, when they signed on to this supply and confidence agreement back in March 2022, that they would be asked to regulate natural health products in the same way as therapeutics, but they did it anyway. As a matter of fact, they made that commitment a year before the bill was passed, and it is going to basically shut down our supplements and natural health product industry when they are classified and rebranded as pharmaceutical drugs.
What did the New Democrats do when this came up for debate? They backed the budget instead of forcing the government to remove those four little clauses from Bill C-47, the budget implementation act. They had a chance. They could have flexed their muscles and said they were not going to support the budget implementation act unless the government removed them, but no such request was forthcoming, and the bill passed. It has caused unforeseen chaos in the natural health products and supplements industry across this country; consumers, of course, are rightly worried. In response, I had to table my own private member's bill, Bill C-368, to reverse these changes. This is just part and parcel.
New Democrats say one thing to Canadians but actually do another. Could anyone imagine such a thing as being the House leader of the NDP, for example, standing up and saying time and time again how much one does not like omnibus legislation, and yet gleefully passing Bill C-47. The NDP House leader has said this for the 18 years that he and I have been in the House together. However, he told the government that New Democrats would continue to pass every budget and every budget implementation act henceforth after March 2022. He cannot have it both ways. He cannot stand up and say New Democrats are going to hold the government to account while continuing to give it the keys to the house to do whatever it wants.
In the case of natural health product governance and regulations, New Democrats tell Canadians they are against omnibus legislation and that they are keeping the government accountable. However, as I said, they voted for Bill C-47, threw that industry into turmoil and then criticized me for giving them an off-ramp on the Bill C-368 debate last week. I was giving them a pathway to redemption, and all they could do was basically blame Stephen Harper for the mess that the country is in. I cannot even make this stuff up.
The most common questions I get from Canadians are these: When are we going to have an election? Who believes anything anybody in the NDP has to say anymore, when their actions are completely 180° opposite from what they say with their words?
It should also be highlighted that the bill was introduced with no public consultations whatsoever, which comes as no surprise to Conservatives. This piece of legislation has been pushed from a government with a terrible record on transparency. It is a government that regularly rushes massive changes with little regard for those people the changes may impact. It talks about the intended consequences, but it never fully understands the unintended consequences of the things it does, which is why we are in the mess we are in today.
The Conservative position on Bill C-64 is that the Liberals know this project is an expensive boondoggle. That is why they abandoned it in their 2019 election promise. Even former finance minister Bill Morneau noted in his book that a single-user system would cost an additional $15 billion a year. We cannot believe the $1.5 billion number, and that is why my colleagues here on the Conservative side and I will respect provincial jurisdiction and vote against this piece of legislation. We encourage New Democrats to change their ways before their party actually fades into oblivion forever.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-368, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, natural health products.
In a time when we are seeing more businesses close than open each month and when business insolvencies are skyrocketing, the last thing we need to be doing as Parliamentarians is putting higher costs and more red tape onto the backs of small business owners in the natural health sector.
I have heard from small business owners across Canada that the government has turned its back on them. They simply cannot keep up with the higher costs and burdensome red tape that the Liberals, with the support of the NDP, keep piling on them. According to Statistics Canada, more businesses closed than opened in December, and this is the fifth time in six months that this was the case.
On January 1, the government increased payroll taxes. In February, insolvencies rose 58.1% year over year, according to the superintendent of bankruptcy. In March, the senior deputy governor of the Bank of Canada called the lack of productivity in Canada's economy an emergency. On April 1, the government hiked the carbon tax by 23% and, just last week, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business reported a drastic decline in both short-term and long-term business competence, with both dropping by 5.4 points in their monthly business barometer.
What does all of that have to do with natural health products? Last spring, the NDP-Liberal government passed Bill C-47, which allowed Health Canada to regulate natural health products in the same way as therapeutic synthetic drugs.
Canadians depend on natural health products, which include vitamins, protein powders, probiotics and even fluoride-free toothpastes. Members can think of the young guy in the gym taking a supplement or the mom who uses eastern medicine and frequents the local Chinese herbal medicine shop. Those are the people Health Canada is going after.
As a British Columbian, I would be remiss if I did not mention that, at the same time the government is trying to prevent our teenagers from getting the supplement powder they want, it has legalized possession of fentanyl, which led to record deaths from illicit substances the very same year, over an argument about stigmatization in British Columbia.
After nine years, Canadians can see clearly that there is no common sense in the approach that the government is taking for natural health products. The changes made will reduce choice, increase costs for consumers and drive businesses, investment and product development out of Canada.
What is exactly changing for natural health products? First, Health Canada is implementing new regulations that treat natural health products the same as over-the-counter synthetic drugs, placing significant red tape on the small- and medium-sized businesses that produce and sell these products. This will result in fewer options for Canadians, pushing consumers to foreign online retailers, where consumers may have no idea where the product came from or what, in fact, is in it. Second, Health Canada is introducing new fees on licensing, manufacturing, labelling, importing and packaging that could cost a business more than $100,000. I looked up cost of those fees before my speech tonight. There is a licensing fee of over $20,000, a site amendment fee of close to $5,000, a class III product license application of up to $58,000 and a product license amendment of up to $23,000.
I have spoken to owners of health food and supplement stores in my riding and across Canada. They are terrified about what these changes will mean for their businesses and their customers. These new fees and regulations will mean fewer products at higher prices on their store shelves, potentially depriving consumers of the benefits they rely on for their health and well-being. For many stores, these changes could mean they close entirely.
Mike Bjørndal is a buddy of mine. We went to high school together. He left a stable job. He started a small business with a few other partners in the natural health food supplement industry. Mike told me directly that if these changes go through, they are moving their shop to America, reducing their taxes paid in Canada and shutting their doors. That is the consequence of what Health Canada is doing right now.
Then, there is the Vanderwall family. Mrs. Vanderwall runs a side business of supplements, which adds a little to her husband's income, just to get by with their seven kids. They rely on the current regulatory framework to pay their monthly bills.
The natural health product industry continues to introduce new ideas and improve products. However, higher licensing fees would discourage companies from investing in research and development, meaning fewer new products being developed or manufactured here in Canada. Natural health products play a crucial role in addressing unique health concerns that conventional medicine may not adequately address. Higher fees would invariably lead to fewer options, and consumers would be forced to turn to pharmaceutical alternatives or products that are not made in Canada.
I referenced the alarming statistics on business insolvencies earlier, and these changes are only going to make things worse in an industry that generates billions of dollars in economic growth in Canada. Given all that, I am very proud to stand and support the member for Red Deer—Lacombe's bill, Bill C-368, to repeal specifically sections 500 to 504 of Bill C-47 and to restore the status quo on natural health product regulations. As he mentioned in his speech, under the current rules, the government can already have a stop-sale order provision. It has seizure provisions and inspection provisions, and it already pre-authorizes the products on Canadian store shelves.
Health Canada's 2019 summary report, “Adverse reactions, medical device incidents and health product recalls in Canada”, highlighted that of the 96,000-plus adverse reactions filed, only 3.8% were related to the natural health sector. We know that these products are safe and that existing regulations are sufficient.
Since last spring, my office, like the member for Richmond Hill's, has heard from literally thousands of people who are concerned about what the government is doing and about the increase in red tape it is suggesting through these regulations. Instead of saying that we need these regulations because of the growth in the industry, I would point out that his constituents, like mine, are simply scared of more government overreach that is going to impact their economic well-being and the viability of their businesses.
No matter where one goes in Canada, on every main street, in practically every single shopping mall in our country, we are going to have a natural health or supplement-style store. These stores provide valuable products that keep Canadians healthy and that improve our mental and physical well-being. The last thing we should be doing right now is attacking those very businesses that millions of Canadians rely upon.
With that, I implore everyone in this chamber to support this legislation and to stand behind our small businesses and our wealth creators who provide real and adequate services for Canadians under the existing regulations.
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Madam Speaker, I said earlier, in thanking the member of Parliament for Red Deer—Lacombe, that we support this legislation. We support Bill C-368 for a number of reasons.
I want to start by saying that, as are over 70% of Canadians, I am a consumer of natural health products. I use those products, as 70% of the population does. This includes vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines and probiotics. Many Canadians use traditional medicines, such as traditional Chinese medicines or indigenous medicines, as well. There are a wide variety of products on the market.
As has already been stated, the reality is that we have a very robust natural health product sector that is carefully regulated in a way that ensures that the products are of good quality. That is why, when we look at the natural health product sector, we see so many Canadians consuming them and, at the same time, we see no side effects or downsides to the consumption of those products.
It is because the products are effective. If they are not, we stop using them. I have tried a number of products over the years. Some work really well; others, not so much. As consumers, we have that ability to distinguish and make sure we are choosing products that are appropriate for us.
This is not the pharmaceutical sector. These are not prescriptions that are given out. I have a family doctor who is very good at sometimes suggesting products that are not part of a prescription, but simply a suggestion. He has turned out to be right every single time about the kind of products we can take.
As an example, there is magnesium, which is a vitamin product. My friend from Red Deer—Lacombe mentioned it earlier as well. Some of us are on flights back and forth across the country, travelling 5,000 kilometres twice a week, every month. My colleague from North Island—Powell River is in the same situation. We are going around this planet every month in terms of the amount of time we spend on airplanes, getting back to our constituency to ensure that we are serving our constituents and then coming to Ottawa to do the important work we do here.
The reality is that, when we are doing this, we are in a cramped space. We need to ensure we take magnesium if we want to avoid leg cramps. My doctor was the one who suggested it, and ever since then, I have made sure that I take the appropriate product. It makes sense. I know you agree, Madam Speaker, even though you do not have as far to go when you go back to your constituents.
There is a wide range of products that are available and that make a difference. For consumers who find that their products just are not up to speed, they can change, try another product or simply decide they are not going to use something anymore.
What is already a flourishing and effective sector was diminished by the government incorporating into Bill C-47, an omnibus legislation, these clauses that simply put natural health products in a completely different situation. They are heavily regulated with costs, which a number of speakers have already indicated were absolutely inappropriate. Ever since I have been here, and certainly for years before that, the NDP caucus has decried omnibus legislation.
We saw this under the former Harper Conservative government. We see this under the current Liberal government. There are massive budget implementation acts that are 700 or 800 pages. Incorporated within them are really what I call poison pills. Certain clauses are put in there that ultimately serve as changes in legislation. However, then we can see they have regulations that are not part of Parliament's purview or the government's purview, and they can actually have detrimental impacts.
This was the case with Bill C-47. This was tried before with Bill C-51 under the Harper Conservative government.
The government tried to, very heavily and inappropriately, apply additional regulations to natural health products. That was pushed back on, but with Bill C-47, as omnibus legislation that led to the regulatory changes, we are in the situation that we find ourselves in now, and that has to change. That is why we are supportive of Bill C-368.
What it would do is provide for the kinds of hearings at the committee stage that would allow us to really determine the full extent of how the existing sector is regulated effectively and how detrimental these changes are, both those suggested in Bill C-51 a few years ago and those currently in Bill C-47, to the industry itself, which is a Canadian success story, as well as the impact on consumers who are using these vitamins, probiotics and homeopathic medicines effectively and potentially finding it more difficult to access these natural health products because of the actions of Health Canada and the actions of the government.
As such, it makes good sense to take Bill C-368, to put it in place, to have those hearings, and then to determine what is appropriate. It is very clear that those regulatory changes were absolutely excessive and have had a profound negative impact.
What we are saying is that the government, through Bill C‑47, is taking action with Health Canada without holding consultations and without conducting an impact study or a management fee study. As my colleague mentioned, this means that small businesses that market natural health products are now subject to a regulatory framework that is far better suited to the pharmaceutical industry.
The pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in North America. It makes huge profits, which is why the NDP is pushing for pharmacare. In countries with pharmacare, pharmaceutical companies have been forced to lower their prices. The case of New Zealand, where the price of some pharmaceuticals has dropped by 90%, is often cited.
These pharmaceutical companies are extremely powerful. It makes no sense to establish a regulatory framework that puts small businesses, which are safely selling a whole line of products to smaller markets, on the same footing as big transnational pharmaceutical companies that are raking in huge profits. That is why the government's approach was inappropriate. It was inappropriate to include this small provision in omnibus legislation that is several hundred pages long. The consequences of this regulatory change are unclear, which has led to the outcome before us today.
It is clear to the NDP that this bill is important, because it was unacceptable for that provision to be included in an omnibus bill. It was unacceptable for the former Harper government to do that, and it is unacceptable for today's Liberal government to do the same.
Thanks to the bill introduced by my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe, we have the opportunity to correct the mistake that was made and to really look at this provision's impact on the natural health product industry. We have the opportunity to determine the financial impact and the impact on consumers. We have the opportunity to see the full impact of the decision that was made last year to include this provision in an omnibus bill. The NDP has been very clear in this regard: We support the bill and we look forward to the important discussions that will take place in committee.
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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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Madam Speaker, I am honoured to speak before the House today to discuss an issue of paramount importance to the health and safety of Canadians, which is the safety and the availability of natural health products, also known as NHPs.
In order to make the natural health products market safer for consumers and support Canadians in making informed choices, last year our government expanded Vanessa's Law to include NHPs. Doing this allows the government to act when serious health and safety risks are identified, such as the ability to require a recall if products are unsafe. Our number one priority is to keep Canadians healthy and safe. Bill C-368 would remove the government's ability to ensure the safety and the efficacy of these crucial health products. Passing this bill would mean that the government could mandate the recall of a tube of lipstick or a head of lettuce, but not a contaminated supplement. That is why the government will be opposing this bill.
I am aware that some members of the opposition may be supporting this bill. We look forward to it going to committee, if that is the case, to further cover the points I am about to cover. My remarks today will delve into the vital role that NHPs play in the lives of Canadians, the current landscape of NHPs and the need for greater oversight of NHPs to guarantee public safety.
Before proceeding further, I must highlight the exceptional engagement from the community of Richmond Hill on this matter. Our office has received over 1,200 communications, including emails, petitions, phone calls and pamphlets from constituents who are deeply concerned about the regulation and the safety of NHPs.
Since 2020, I have also met with the Canadian Health Food Association, which represents many NHP small business owners in my riding. One of those businesses is Platinum Naturals, whose team I met with this past February to hear their important feedback and their concern with respect to the impacts of the NHP regulations on their business. This overwhelming response from my constituents underscores a national discourse on the necessity of a regulatory framework that ensures the safety of NHPs and that supports small businesses operating in the industry, as well as respects the autonomy of Canadians in their health management practices.
As I delve into the implications of Bill C-368, I want to first focus on the vital role NHPs play in the lives of Canadians, followed by the current landscape of NHPs and, lastly, the need for greater oversight to guarantee public safety.
NHPs, which include vitamins, minerals, herbal remedies and daily-use products like toothpaste and sunscreen, are part of our integral health care practices. Their popularity is undeniable, with the number of authorized products in Canada skyrocketing from around 50,000 in 2004 to over 200,000 today. This demand underscores the critical importance of ensuring these products are not only effective, but also safe for Canadian families.
It is fundamental to understand that although NHPs are lower risk, they are not without risk, especially if products are contaminated, advertised in a misleading manner or used improperly. As much as NHPs offer potential health benefits, the risks associated with substandard or improperly labelled NHPs underscore the need for appropriate oversight.
I will now highlight the previous and the current legislative landscape of NHPs.
In Canada, NHPs are regulated under the Food and Drug Act, and specifically under the natural health products regulations established in 2004. A pivotal moment in Canadian legislative history was the enactment of the Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act, also known as Vanessa's Law, in 2014. This introduced improvements in Health Canada's ability to collect post-market safety information on drugs and medical devices and to take appropriate actions, such as issuing a mandatory recall when a serious risk to health care is identified. However, NHPs were not yet incorporated under the scope of this law. As a result, for close to a decade, Health Canada's ability to take action on NHPs when health and safety issues occur has been limited.
This lack of equivalent safety power for NHPs has compelled Health Canada to depend on voluntary intervention by industry, which has not consistently worked in the past, to protect Canadians against real health and safety risks.
A significant shift in NHP regulations was marked by the adoption of Bill C-47 in 2023, which incorporated NHPs under the scope of Vanessa's Law. This empowered Health Canada with enhanced authorities to better protect consumer safety, such as by recalling unsafe products from the market and mandating label changes where serious harm to health is identified. This goes into my third point, which is the pertinent need for greater oversight of NHPs.
Between 2021 and 2022, Health Canada conducted inspections to assess the regulatory compliance of 36 NHP manufacturers and importers. All of the inspections identified compliance issues ranging in severity, with 15 of the 36 sites reporting issues serious enough to be considered non-compliance. Between 2021 and 2023 alone, there were also 100 voluntary recalls of licensed NHPs due to safety concerns, including contamination risks and the presence of harmful substances. These figures are not mere statistics. They represent potential harm to Canadian families and highlight the need to have stronger tools available to protect consumers from serious health and safety risks.
With all that said, it is important to consider the crucial need for oversight of NHPs as we consider the implications of Bill C-368, which could significantly alter the government's ability to regulate the safety and efficacy of these important products. As the NHP market has grown significantly over the years in Canada and continues to grow, we continue to support access to a safe NHP marketplace for Canadians to maintain and improve their health. The extension of Vanessa's Law to NHPs underscores this commitment.
As we navigate this conversation, let us prioritize the safety and trust of Canadians in their health product choices and ensure that the regulatory mechanisms in place are equipped to address the complexity of the NHP industry.
I am thankful for the opportunity to voice these considerations on behalf of my constituents in Richmond Hill and Canadians everywhere who rely on NHPs for their health and well-being.
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moved that Bill C-368, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (natural health products), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today and talk about the changes that have been made to Canada's natural health product regime by the Liberals, with the support of the NDP and the Greens, in the budget implementation act, Bill C-47. For Canadians watching at home, what is Bill C-47 and what happened? Last year at about this time, Bill C-47 was passed in the House of Commons. This is a budget implementation act. It is supposed to only change the law insofar as what the budget policy of the day is talking about. However, somebody snuck a few clauses into the bill that changed the definition of “natural health products” to be the same as that of therapeutic products, such as drugs that require a prescription and have a drug identification number. That is the problem.
The underlying problem with all that, for folks watching at home, is that the industry was not consulted at all about these particular changes. As a matter of fact, I do not remember a single member of Parliament debating that during the budget implementation act debates. I do not remember it coming up at committee. Nobody from the industry was called to the committee to testify about these issues. It was only several months after the bill had passed that people began to wake up and realize that Health Canada was proceeding with its self-care framework, because it had these new-found powers under Bill C-47.
That basically goes back to Health Canada now trying to get care and control of natural health products to the same effect that it has with therapeutics. However, if we go back to 1998, the health committee in the House of Commons issued a report with 53 recommendations. It basically said, in no uncertain terms, that natural health products are not therapeutic drugs. I will remind everybody in this House that this happened under a majority Chrétien government, so there would have been a majority of Liberals on that committee at the time. That is the conclusion they drew, and that was the template going forward.
If we fast-forward to 2014, when Vanessa's Law was passed, there was a lot of debate and discussion at that particular point in time. Again it was reaffirmed that natural health products are not therapeutic products and are exempted from Vanessa's Law. Then, if we fast-forward to 2021, the Auditor General's report came out. The Auditor General was very critical of Health Canada's ability to properly manage certain aspects of the natural health product regime, particularly when it came to looking at post-market monitoring, testing samples of the products that were on the shelves and so on.
Most importantly, in that report, the Auditor General took the strange step of actually taking 75 products. These were not random products off the shelf in Canada; these were 75 products that were deemed problematic from the beginning. The Auditor General used that for a false narrative that somehow natural health products in Canada are unsafe. I can assure everyone that this is simply not true, but Health Canada, nonetheless, is using this information to claim that it needs the powers under Vanessa's Law. What would that entail? Health Canada would now have a self-funding methodology, so it could apply massive amounts of licensing fees and product registration fees to a very small industry, when we compare it to the size of the pharmaceutical industry. According to everybody in the industry, this would likely cause a massive loss of products and a lot of chaos. The primary impact, for Canadians watching at home, is cost.
For those who do not already know, people should know that Canada is already the most regulated natural health product industry in the world. As a matter of fact, Canada's brand on natural health products is better than that of the United States, Mexico and virtually anywhere in the world. Our products, manufacturers and exporters already had in place, prior to Bill C-47, the best regulatory reputation out there. We are a growing industry in this country. The industry is growing so fast, in leaps and bounds, because of the proper regulation that existed prior to Bill C-47, whether in terms of our producers, manufacturers or distributors, as I said.
However, under the new self-care framework, Health Canada started out with these new site licences. People might not know this, but manufacturers, packagers and distributors have to have something called a site licence from Health Canada. They cannot conduct business without a site licence. This was free up until Bill C-47; with the new proposed regulations coming into force, the initial site licence fee was going to be $40,000 per year. I think it has been negotiated with the industry down to $20,000 a year.
Just imagine if someone has a traditional Chinese medicine establishment, or is doing Ayurvedic medicine or homeopathy, and has to get a site licence fee of $20,000 every year. Everybody, basically, in those three parts of the natural health product industry has already said that this is going to shut them down. It is a very onerous fee. There would then be a new product fee. For any new natural health product that one wanted to bring to the market, it would be upward of $4,000 to get one's natural product number. If someone buys their vitamin C, they go to the store and there is a little natural product number on it. There are about 50,000 natural products registered in Canada right now. If someone is going to bring a new product to the market, it will cost them an additional $4,000 per product. In that particular year, if one has a site licence and a new product, one is looking at $24,000 before one even gets anything coming in for revenues.
If a person is practising traditional Chinese medicine, and if somebody needs a new remedy and the practitioner needs to import some of the ingredients from China or someplace else in the world, they are going to bring those products in and be paying thousands of dollars to get a product registered in Canada. One might be in the market to sell only 10 bottles to a client that has a need for a very specific thing. This is going to basically kill traditional Chinese medicine practice in Canada. Of course, the right-to-sell licence that Health Canada is bringing in for each product will be over $300 per product, so now one is dealing with thousands of dollars every year for this industry. It is going to kill innovation. It is going to stifle growth. It is going to basically drive the innovation and product development out of Canada.
What is the impact? The industry experts are saying that up to 70% of products that are currently on our shelves in Canada with a natural product number on them, and it is very important that they have that natural product number, will be likely disappearing in the years to come when Health Canada implements the self-care framework. Three out of five manufacturers, retailers, practitioners and distributors say that they will actually have to close their doors. We are basically losing approximately 60% of the industry if Health Canada goes ahead with implementing the cost recovery fee program for the natural product industry. The job losses are direct and indirect. People may be interested to know that right now about 54,000 people in Canada are directly employed in the natural health product industry. They figure that about 66% of those jobs will be negatively impacted once the self-care framework is brought in.
One would think that the Prime Minister, being the self-professed feminist that he is, would have actually done a gender analysis on the impact of Bill C-47 when it comes to natural health products, but there was no gender-based analysis. One might be surprised to know that over 80% of the consumers of natural health products in Canada are women, as well as 90% of practitioners, such as homeopathic doctors and so on. Well over 50% of the micro-businesses are female-owned in this particular industry, and 84% of direct-to-customer sellers are women. This is very important. It is a very important industry to women in Canada, and we are going to lose these businesses.
It is too bad, because we are already, like I said, one of the safest and most well-regulated environments around the globe when it comes to natural health products. Over 80% of Canadians, according to the most recent information that we have, are users of natural health products. Of those 80%, when one asks them how satisfied they are with their natural health products, over 99% say they are very confident that the natural health products that they acquire from the shelves in Canadian stores are safe and healthy and work for them. That is true. One will find that across the country. I have been travelling across the country and can say without any hesitation whatsoever that Canadians are very concerned about losing access to the only part of their health care system that they have care and control over, which is natural health products.
For those who are interested, Deloitte has done an audit on some of the findings that Health Canada has been using. It has claimed that over 700 people over a two-year period were adversely affected by natural health products, but if someone actually digs down into the data, and it is Government of Canada data, they will find that only 32 people over three years were actually affected. Unfortunately there were three deaths, but if one takes a look at the other factors associated with those deaths, all of those people were also taking prescription drugs at the same time. There is a lot more misinformation out there right now that is attacking the industry unnecessarily.
We certainly should not be making a hasty decision in this place by bringing legislative changes in the back door like we did with Bill C-47.
I want to talk a little about consumer protection because I think this will be the argument the government will use. Members may also not know this, but if one buys products online from outside of the country, those are not necessarily regulated in the same way. In fact, I can guarantee they are not regulated in the same way they are in the Canadian marketplace. They will not have that natural product number on them.
One can buy a 90-day supply. Right now, Health Canada allows one to buy a 90-day supply. It can be shipped in with Amazon, or any number of these direct-to-customer purchasing apps or opportunities out there, and it will all be unregulated by Health Canada. They very likely will not have a natural product number on them.
These are marketed to Canadians on social media, such as Facebook, and through other types of marketing methods, and Canadians are buying them. Umary is an example. It is made in Mexico and marketed as a natural health product to seniors. Seniors are buying this product up, but it contains diclofenac, which is a prescription drug. This is the problem, not the industry within the borders of Canada.
Health Canada, in its attempt, would do the opposite of what its intended results. It is going to drive the businesses through regulatory burden costs and overhead. Businesses are going to say they can go operate in Mexico or the United States far cheaper than they can operate in Canada. They are going to be down there in the same environment selling direct-to-customer over the border with 90-day supplies. Health Canada is going to lose care and control over the quality assurance Canadians have come to depend on. It is not good for consumers at all.
I should let people know who are watching Health Canada already has incredible powers. We are going to hear some members of Parliament stand up in this place to debate this bill and say that Health Canada has no mandatory recall when it comes to natural health products. However, I will list some of the powers one might not know Health Canada already has. It already has the ability to issue a stop sale, and it does that from time to time. A stop sale order will go out, and that means that all that product on all the shelves in all the stores in Canada has to immediately stop being sold.
Health Canada does have the power, if it chose to implement it, for personal use import at the border. If it wanted to take a look at what was coming across the border, it would be a great place for Health Canada to start looking for opportunities to keep Canadians safer. It has the ability to seize. It has seizure provisions already in the legislation and regulations, which means it can seize any product from any of the points along the line, from manufacturing through packaging through distributing at the retail stores. It already has seizure capabilities in the law and regulations.
Health Canada can revoke the site licence for any manufacturer, any packager, any labeller or any importer. It already has the power to revoke that site licence. It has the ability to mandate a label change. If there is a health concern brought up from the Canadian public, it can investigate and then can tell the manufacturer or the labeller they need to change the label to reflect some health concern or some other information. It can do that.
Health Canada can inspect any site that has a site licence. It can go automatically into a manufacturer. It can go into a producer anywhere where a site licence is required. It can go in and conduct an audit anytime it wants. It can inspect any product off the shelf. It can take it, send it to the lab and do a verification check. It approves every natural product number being sold on the shelf right now. Nothing is sold without its pre-authorized consent. As well, it can revoke a natural product number anytime it wants.
That is already an immense amount of power. It does not need more. When we hear about the mandatory recall, that is simply a red herring. Health Canada already has an immense amount of power.
When something is defined as a therapeutic drug, that also subjects them to $5-million-a-day fines. There is nobody in the natural product industry who can afford a $5-million-a-day administrative penalty fine. Health Canada would unilaterally, without an ombudsman, without any process to appeal, have the ability to basically shut this industry down at its earliest whim or convenience. It is already causing a chill in the industry. It is driving businesses away from Canada.
We need to stop this. Canadians need to call their Liberal MP, their NDP MP or their Green Party MP and tell them to change how they voted on Bill C-47. They need to get them to vote in favour of Bill C-368. Let us get this bill to committee. Let us have an actual proper consultation with the industry. If there is something that needs to be changed, we can at least have an honest conversation and Canadians can be involved in a transparent way.
Passing this bill through the back door, tucking it into a budget implementation act, is shoddy law-making and shoddy policy-making. It flies in the face of everything we have done to this point. I encourage my colleagues to vote in favour of Bill C-368.
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moved for leave to introduce Bill C-368, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (natural health products).
He said: Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce my private member's bill, which would amend the Food and Drugs Act. This bill would reverse the changes made by the NDP-Liberal government in its omnibus budget bill, Bill C-47, earlier this year. It would return natural health products to the status quo, ensuring these products are not classified as therapeutic products, like synthetic drugs, and are therefore not subject to the same regulatory regime as other drugs.
Previously, natural health products were classified separately from pharmaceuticals due to the minimal risk they pose to their users. However, after the NDP-Liberal coalition passed Bill C-47, bureaucrats in Health Canada can now implement their self-care scheme, which, according to the Natural Health Products Protection Association, will reduce choice, increase costs for consumers and drive businesses, investment and product development out of Canada.
The existing regulations already keep Canadians safe. As such, I urge all members in this House to listen to their constituents and the overwhelming amount of correspondence they receive and vote for this bill.
After eight years, enough is enough. It is time to undo the damage done by Bill C-47, kick out the gatekeepers and save our supplements and vitamins.
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