- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 58%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak in support of Bill C-252, which has the laudable goal of prohibiting food and beverage marketing directed at children of materials that are unhealthy and damaging to their health. This legislation is long overdue.
By way of a background, Canada's New Democrats have been advocating for a ban on unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children for many years. In 2012, over 10 years ago, the NDP member of Parliament for New Westminster—Burnaby introduced legislation to expressly prohibit advertising and promotion for commercial purposes of products, food, drugs, cosmetics or devices directly to children under 13 years of age. One can tell already from that short list that the bill was more ambitious than the one we are discussing today, which deals only with unhealthy food and beverages, but it dealt and engaged with the very same concepts before the House today.
In 2016, as has already been heard in the House, Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced the child health protection act. It was called Bill S-228, and that legislation would have banned the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages primarily directed at children under 17 years of age. A bit later I will touch on how this bill has reduced that age to 13, and of course, under 17 would have been more ambitious. As I will advocate in my remarks today, it would have been preferable.
Health Canada held an online consultation in 2017 to seek feedback on restricting the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages to children. That was over six years ago. That consultation was open to the public, health organizations, industry and any interested stakeholders.
At the House Standing Committee on Health at that time, the Liberals unfortunately amended Bill S-228 to reduce the age limit from under 17 years to under 13 years old. They also added a five-year legislative review, which is a prudent measure.
According to UNICEF Canada, the proposed age cut-off of 17 was more likely than a younger age threshold to protect the most vulnerable from the harmful impacts of marketing. While there are different interpretations of children's evolving cognitive capacities, research suggests very strongly that not only are teens exposed to more ads than younger children and remember them better, but also that they have more means. Teenagers who are 15 and 16 years of age often have more expendable or disposable income, act in a more unsupervised manner and are more likely to purchase unhealthy foods than children under 13, yet I think, due to pressure from the industry, that threshold was reduced to 13.
Although Bill S-228 did pass third reading in both the House and the Senate, unfortunately that bill died on the Order Paper due to a Conservative filibuster in the Senate prior to the 2019 federal election. That has left us where we are at today.
I would also comment that the Liberal government has made a number of commitments since it was elected in 2015 that remain unfulfilled on this issue. The former Liberal health minister, in her 2019 mandate letter, was directed to “introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children”. That was never followed through with.
The current health minister's 2021 mandate letter instructed him to support “restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children.” I suppose it can be said he is supporting that, in the sense that the government side is supporting this legislation, but we must remember there has been no action from the government. This is a private member's bill we are dealing with here, not a government bill.
What is the result of the inaction? It is not benign. Each year, the Canadian food and beverage industry spends over $1.1 billion on marketing to children. This marketing appeals to children through product design, the use of cartoon or other characters, as well as fantasy and adventure themes, humour and other marketing techniques. Clearly these techniques work, with there being children as young as three years old who are brand aware and can recognize or name food and beverage brands.
This marketing to children means that over 50 million food and beverage ads per year are shown on children's top 10 websites alone. Their personal identifying information is collected from websites and apps for the purposes of further targeting online marketing. Children in Canada are observing an estimated 1,500 advertisements annually, just on social media sites alone, and nearly 90% of food and beverages marketed on television and online are high in salt, sugars and saturated fat. That is what we as policy-makers are faced with in the current situation.
Let us look at the facts. Poor nutrition and unhealthy food and beverage are key contributors to poor health in children. Good eating habits and avoidance of unhealthy food are key preventative elements of health policy. There is strong agreement among leading Canadian pediatric and allied health organizations that the impact of food and beverage marketing is real, significant and harmful to children's development.
Marketing to children has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years. Today it is a seamless, sophisticated and often interactive process. The line between ads and children's entertainment has blurred with marketing messages being inserted into places that children play and learn. Marketing of food and beverages to children in Canada is largely self-regulated by the same industries that profit from the practice. Research reveals that these voluntary measures are not working. Numerous studies have found strong associations between increases in advertising of non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity. One study by Yale University found that children exposed to junk food advertising ate 45% more junk food than children not exposed to such advertisements. In Canada, as much as 90% of the food marketed to children and youth on TV and online is unhealthy.
Three-quarters of children are exposed to food marketing while using their favourite social media applications. Again, the majority of those ads is for unhealthy foods that are ultraprocessed and beverages that are high in saturated fats, salt and sugar. This does not just affect children. Canadians are the second-largest buyers of ultraprocessed foods and drinks in the world, second only to the Americans. The result is that nearly one in three Canadian children is overweight or obese. The rise in childhood obesity in recent decades is linked to changes in our eating habits. Overweight children are more likely to develop health problems later in life, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
Children are uniquely vulnerable to marketing manipulation until the point that they achieve two specific information-processing skills. The first is the ability to perceive the difference between commercial and non-commercial content, and the second is the ability to understand the persuasive intent behind advertising. Before the age of five, most children cannot distinguish ads from unbiased programming. Children under eight do not understand the intent of marketing messages, and they believe what they see. By age 10 to 12, children do understand that ads are designed to sell products, but they are not always able to be critical of these ads.
Canada needs to get in step with other countries in the world. Other jurisdictions have since adopted similar legislation, including Norway, the United Kingdom and Ireland. By the way, my Conservative colleague was questioned about Quebec earlier and the impact of their legislation, which has restrictions on advertising to children.
Here are the facts: Quebec's restrictions on advertising to children have been shown to have a positive impact on nutrition by reducing fast food consumption by 13%. That translates to 17 million fewer fast food meals sold in the province and an estimated 13.4 million fewer fast food calories consumed per year. Quebec has the lowest rates of obesity among five- to 17-year-olds in the country, as well as the highest rates of vegetable and fruit consumption in Canada. That is relative to every other province. Now, it is true that childhood obesity rate are rising everywhere, but I think the effect of this marketing is quite clear, which is that it has slowed the rising obesity and unhealthy consumption of food marketing in Quebec, partially at least because of their early and, I think, progressive adoption of legislation before the House now.
I would also point out that Quebec has prohibited all commercial advertising targeting children under the age of 13 since 1980, so it is very clear that it is the time for the rest of the country to get in step with this. I think most of us in here are parents, have siblings who are parents, or maybe intend to be parents at some point. Certainly, we were all once children. It should be non-controversial to say that marketing of unhealthy products to our children in this country should be something that we are vigilant on and that we should act to prohibit. I urge all my colleagues to support this legislation before the House today.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to congratulate my hon. colleague for this bill, which we will be supporting.
My question concerns the age. My colleague referred to Senator Greene Raine's bill from 2016, which would have prohibited marketing to children under 17 years of age. At that time, the Liberals, her colleagues, at the health committee amended that bill to reduce the target age from 17 to 13. According to UNICEF, the proposed cut-off of 17 was more likely than a younger age threshold to protect the most vulnerable from the harmful impacts of marketing. We know that teens are exposed to more ads than younger children and that they remember them better.
Is my colleague interested in watching to see if the food manufacturers target more ads at 14-year-olds to 17-year-olds, and does she agree with the NDP that we have to be very vigilant to protect those children as well from this kind of marketing?
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Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a true privilege to rise in the House and speak on behalf of the great people of Vancouver Kingsway to reflect their realities in the House and urge policies that I think will be of great impact and assistance to them. I think what they would first want me to point out to the House is that at this point in history, we are facing difficult economic times. People are really struggling, and that is very much the case in Vancouver Kingsway.
The prices for everyday staples such as food, gas, rent, energy and utilities, and for cars, are up. People cannot find affordable housing. This has been a crisis for many years in the Lower Mainland and Vancouver, but it is particularly acute now. I think the word “crisis” is not a hyperbole to describe a situation where people cannot find a secure, dignified and affordable place for themselves and their families.
I would point out on housing that, of the many financial issues facing people, some are foundational, and I think housing is one of them. Housing anchors us in our community and it is what connects us to our neighbours. It is that from which we launch our connections to school and work, where we build relationships with neighbours and where we express ourselves as people. When we cannot find affordable housing and when we are constantly having to move because of renovictions and rising prices, that is destabilizing in a manner that is truly profound.
Wages are not keeping up with price inflation, and I am going to touch on this a bit, because I think understanding the true causes of the current economic situation is vital to getting the policies that will address them correctly. This is particularly difficult for those on fixed incomes. Many of us who are working have access to regular salary increases, but seniors or those who are at the lower income levels, especially if they are not unionized, often have to contend with these dramatically rising prices with fixed incomes. It is important for the House to recognize how difficult that situation is for them.
Food bank use is up. We are hearing reports that families are even reducing their meals. Can members imagine that in a country as wealthy as Canada, a G7 country, in the year 2022, citizens actually have to reduce their calorie intake because of the economic situation?
I just want to mention small businesses. In my riding of Vancouver Kingsway, we are really powered by small businesses, and small businesses are having a particularly difficult time as well. Their input costs have gone up, and although they are raising their prices, there are limits to how far they can go. I think it is particularly important for us as a federal Parliament to craft policies that recognize the difficulty that small businesses are facing and that acknowledge the vital importance that small businesses and medium-sized businesses have in our economy. Let us craft policies that are responsive to their needs so that we can empower them and provide the context and opportunities they need to grow.
The causes of the current situation are varied, and we have heard a sample of them in the House. Some in the House blame government spending. Others say this is the result of government deficits. For us in the New Democratic Party, we believe that if we look at the data and look at the actual evidence before us, it is clear that the current situation is the result of several factors. For one, there are clearly supply chain interruptions that really took off when the COVID pandemic hit in early 2020. They clearly have played an important role in driving up the price of goods. We also have the war in Ukraine. Whenever we have a major global destabilizing event like this, there are inevitably negative economic ripples, and I think it must be acknowledged that this is playing a role.
However, I think uniquely in the House, the contribution the New Democrats are bringing to this economic discussion is one that, frankly, the Conservatives deny and the Liberals ignore. It is the impact of corporate price increases. In other words, it is the gouging that is going on by the corporate sector in many cases. The greedflation that is being caused has to be acknowledged, I would think, as not only a major cause of the current economic travails that are affecting our country, but the major cause of them.
In my view, and in the view of many economists like Jim Stanford, corporations are using the cover of macro-events, such as the global issues around supply chains and the war in Ukraine, as an opportunity to drastically increase their prices and blame that on other factors. I think that is quite clear. If we asked any worker in this country if their wages have gone up by 7% this year, we would find out very quickly that the current economic situation is not caused by a rapid increase in wages. If we go to a store and see the prices on the shelves, we will find out very quickly what is causing the increase in prices.
Let us look at this with a bit of a sectoral analysis. The oil and gas industry last year racked up $140 billion in profits in one year alone. It was the highest profits in a year on record for the oil and gas sector. We have the FIRE industry, the finance, insurance and real estate industry, where profit margins, which I will talk about in a brief second, have gone up by a factor of threefold. We also have the food monopolies. There are three major food chains in the country, and their profits have increased dramatically, in some cases by an additional $1 million per day. One of those companies, Loblaws, outperformed its best years ever in both Q1 and Q2 of this year.
While Canadians are suffering and struggling, those corporate sectors are prospering like they have never done before. That is an economic imbalance the New Democrats believe has to be acknowledged and addressed.
I want to speak just for a moment about profit margins, because some apologists for the corporate sector deny this reality. They say that profits are up because input costs are up and that profits are in line with what is normally expected. That is empirically wrong. If we look at profit margins, which are not about gross profits but the percentage of profits these sectors have made, invariably they are up dramatically in almost every major sector in this country. That speaks to companies that are taking advantage of the current situation for their private interests.
If we do not get the diagnosis correct, it is very difficult to get a proper treatment. The Bank of Canada is attempting to treat the current situation by offering the solution of increasing interest rates. Unless I have missed it, I have not yet heard a word from the Bank of Canada about how we address or curb excessive corporate profits. Their approach is an outdated one. Basically, they want to use the club of interest rates as a cudgel to pound down inflation.
When we raise interest rates, as they are doing, there are obvious economic impacts and we see what they are. It increases the cost of housing. It increases mortgage rates for all those hundreds of thousands or millions of Canadians who currently hold a mortgage that is going to come due. They will pay more. Of course, if we increase mortgage rates, there is a derivative effect: We end up impacting and increasing rents, because landlords who own properties and have to pay more on a mortgage need more in rent. Raising rates also increases the cost of loans and credit cards. In other words, what they are trying to do is suppress employment and wages, and I think that is improper.
Bill C-32 is worthy of support because it has some salutary benefits. It would remove the interest on the federal portion of student loans and apprentice loans, something the New Democrats have long called for. It has the Canada recovery dividend too, which would make banks and life insurance groups pay a temporary, one-time 15% tax on taxable income over $1 billion over five years.
We want this legislation to pass but we want much more. We want to see the Canada recovery dividend extended to big box stores and oil and gas companies and want a permanent surtax on the profits of the oil and gas industry. We want to see the government finally go after the offshore tax evasion that costs to the tune of $30 billion, and we want to see employment insurance reform. Furthermore, we want policies that help working Canadians, not the big corporate sectors that the Conservatives and the Liberals have been favouring in the House for decades.
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- Oct/6/22 3:45:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a pleasure to serve with the member on NSICOP. The motion is, I think, very well crafted. It identifies the problem in a very pithy way, and it identifies four concrete solutions. I suppose there are always things to add, and the Conservatives could have added an amendment if they had wanted to.
In terms of inputs, what we are talking about here is plain gouging. It is my assertion that corporations, including food companies, are using the supply chain problems as a cover to gouge consumers. There is no question about that, because their increases bear no resemblance whatsoever to any of the input costs, including wages, which is usually the single largest component of any product, like a food product. They are gouging agricultural producers as well. It is certainly not our farmers who are reaping the benefits of these prices. It is the food companies themselves. That is why we are zeroing in on them.
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- Oct/6/22 3:32:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, once again I am pleased to rise in the House and bring the voice of the people of Vancouver Kingsway to this chamber, particularly as we discuss this very critical and important New Democrat motion that would make such a difference to so many Canadians' lives across this country.
I might add that I am going to be sharing my time with my hon. colleague from Timmins—James Bay, who will once again provide the powerful view of people from northern Ontario.
In short, this motion calls on the government to recognize that excessive corporate profits fuel inflation. It would force CEOs and large corporations to pay what they owe by closing tax loopholes. It would request the Competition Bureau to launch an investigation into the behaviour of chain grocery stores, and it would support the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in its investigation of high food prices and obscene profits in chain grocery stores.
The context in which this NDP proposal arises is very important. People in every corner of this country are frustrated and hurt that they are paying excessive, historically high prices for their food while the huge food chains are making massive, unprecedented profits and their CEOs in particular are getting huge bonuses off the backs of hard-working Canadians.
After seven years in government, the Liberals are still protecting the profits of the wealthiest in this country by refusing to toughen the Competition Act to punish corporate CEOs who are gouging consumers and, in this case, also agricultural producers.
For their part, the Conservatives played their role in the current crisis when they were in government by cutting the tax audits of the wealthiest Canadians and prioritizing excessive CEO profits over the interests of working men and women. The Conservatives refused to toughen the Competition Act when they were in government as well.
Only the NDP members are standing in this House fighting for the people who are suffering from these high prices. We will continue to pressure the Liberals to make sure that the wealthiest CEOs in the largest profitable corporations in this country pay what they owe and stop the price gouging that they are inflicting on people.
Let us review some of the basic facts. It is absolutely crystal clear that the inflation being experienced today is greedflation. It is not caused by governments or deficits. It is not caused by workers' excessive wages. It is caused by excessive prices. In particular, it has been caused by price gouging by corporations who have used the cover of the pandemic and the war to jack up prices and, in turn, their profits.
Let us review the facts. In August of this year, the price of the grocery basket rose 10.8% in one year, more than twice as fast as people's wages. Where did that come from? As people pay the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket since 1981, the Sobeys' CEO has been given a total compensation package of $8.6 million in 2022. His increase is more than 15.5% over 2021. While a quarter of Canadians, which is nine million Canadians plus, are cutting back on food spending, a necessity of life, Metro's CEO boosted his company's profits to $275 million just in the last reported quarter, which is 9% higher than the same point in 2021.
I am going to stop here just for a moment. I am sure members are noticing a pattern: 9%, 15.5% and 10.8%. These are all numbers over the inflation rate of 8% today and they are all caused by CEO increases, massive compensation increases and price gouging by food producers. Do we wonder where inflation is coming from?
While Canadians pay the price for rising food prices, billionaire Galen Weston, chairman of Loblaw, has increased dividends to shareholders from $118 million to $125 million, just in 2022. Who is paying the price for this? A new survey shows that nine out of 10 Canadians are now tightening their household budgets because of continuing high prices. Another survey found that 23.6% of Canadians have had to cut back on the amount of food that they buy. Imagine that. Almost one in four Canadians is reducing their caloric intake in this country while rich, wealthy corporations make massive profits and reward their corporate masters for doing so.
Despite a slight deceleration in the rate of inflation recently, food prices continue to rise at a rate of over 10.8%, so in 2002 Canadian families are expected to pay almost $1,000 more for groceries than in 2021. This is a crisis. This is a problem. People are being hurt every day by this price gouging.
What do the Conservatives say? They say to cut the deficit and cut taxes. That is their solution, but they refuse to say a word in this chamber or outside the chamber about the cause of this problem being corporate greed. Why? It is because the Conservatives are the party that represents Bay Street and the party that represents large corporations and CEOs in this country. While they claim to support the little guy and working people, their silence on issues like this speaks volumes.
For the Liberals' part, they claim to care as well, but their policies, in truth, on these economic issues are really no different from those of the Conservatives'. While people are paying the price for the biggest increase in the grocery basket in over 40 years, we find ourselves at this juncture in history.
What is the NDP saying we should do about it? We are saying, let us take action. That is because we know it is not people's wages that are causing the cost of living crisis, but again the obscene profits being made by corporations and CEOs. Indeed, corporate profits, along with prices, have reached their highest share of Canadian GDP ever, and now I am talking about across all sectors. Corporate profits have increased by $22.9 billion this year, which is about a quarter of the increase in costs to consumers.
The contrast between these profits and people who suffer the price gouging is not new. As far back as 2018, Loblaw, run, again, by the billionaire Weston family, admitted to participating in a cartel from 2001 to 2015 with other major grocery chains to artificially inflate the price of bread. This potentially, what I would call, prima facie criminal practice is reportedly still under investigation by the commissioner of competition.
If someone stole a load of bread in this country today, the person would have been tried, convicted and punished by now, but when billionaires defraud millions of Canadians, it takes years to even investigate. That is under the legal scheme that has been devised by successive Liberal and Conservative federal governments over decades and decades. Therefore, it is no wonder that corporations are price gouging. They have been given the green light by Conservatives and Liberals for years. Where is the penalty? The Conservatives, who like to talk about being tough on crime, do not seem to be too tough on Loblaws right now.
The commissioner of competition recently called for greater enforcement of Canada's competition laws to combat rising prices, and he noted the federal government is ill-equipped compared to other countries. For example, under European competition law, companies can be heavily fined for abusing their dominant positions in the market to exploit consumers, including the imposition of unfair purchase prices.
Recent cases handled by them include pharmaceutical companies that raised their price of off-patent cancer drugs, of all things, by a percentage in the hundreds, and Gazprom, which has been accused of setting unfair prices for gas. These companies will take advantage of crises, even of cancer patients and people suffering from the Ukraine war, to gouge and pad their profits. It is time the Liberal government put an end to this.
The NDP stood in this House today and moved a motion to do exactly that. It will be interesting for Canadians to see how these two parties vote on this, because that will tell the tale. It is easy for them to say they support working people, but we will see who stands up in the House, attacks these corporate profits and stands up for working people when this motion is voted on.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and support this bill at second reading, Bill C-252, which would amend the Food and Drugs Act to prohibit marketing foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children's diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are under 13 years of age.
Poor nutrition and unhealthy food and beverages are key contributors to poor health in children. Good eating habits and avoiding unhealthy food are key preventative elements of health policy, not only for our children but for generations to come. New Democrats have been calling for a ban on junk food advertising targeted at children for many years. We believe that it is wrong to let wealthy corporations manipulate our children's eating habits, particularly to the detriment of their health.
New Democrats want every child in Canada to develop a healthy relationship to nutrition and the foods they consume. We are calling for the establishment of a national school nutrition program to give every student access to healthy, nutritious food and to make healthy eating a daily lesson for our kids.
The data is clear. Numerous studies have found strong associations between increases in advertising of non-nutritious foods and rates of childhood obesity. One study by Yale University found that children exposed to junk food advertising ate 45% more junk food than children not exposed to such advertisements. In Canada, as much as 90% of the food marketed to children and youth on TV and online is unhealthy.
By way of background, there is strong agreement among leading Canadian pediatric and allied health organizations that the impact of food and beverage marketing is real, significant and harmful to children's development. Marketing to children has changed dramatically in the last 10 to 15 years as well. Today, it is a seamless, sophisticated and often interactive process. The line between ads and children's entertainment has blurred with marketing messages being inserted into the places that children play and learn. Three-quarters of children in Canada are exposed to food marketing while using their favourite social media applications.
Canadians are the second-largest buyers of ultraprocessed foods and drinks in the world, second only to, of course, the Americans. To give members an idea of how epidemic this problem is, nearly one in three Canadian children is overweight or obese. The rise in childhood obesity in recent decades is linked to changes in our eating habits. Overweight children are more likely to develop health problems later in life, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
Canada's New Democrats, as I have said, have advocated for a ban on unhealthy food and beverage marketing to children for a long time. In 2012, my colleague from New Westminster—Burnaby introduced legislation to expressly prohibit advertising and promotion for commercial purposes of products, food, drugs, cosmetics or devices directed to children under 13 years of age. As members can see, this is a much broader prohibition that would protect our children not only from unhealthy food but from being preyed upon by multinational corporations who would take advantage of their youth.
Quebec has prohibited commercial advertising that targets children under the age of 13 since 1980. Other jurisdictions have since adopted similar legislation, including Norway, United Kingdom, Ireland and Sweden. Quebec's restrictions on advertising to children have been shown to have a positive impact on nutrition by reducing fast food consumption by 13%. This translates to 16.8 million fewer fast food meals sold in that province and an estimated 13.4 million fewer fast food calories consumed per year. Quebec also has the lowest rates of obesity among five- to 17-year-olds as well as the highest rates of vegetable and fruit consumption in Canada.
In 2016, Senator Nancy Greene Raine introduced the child health protection act that was S-228. That legislation would have banned the marketing of unhealthy food and beverages in a manner that is primarily directed at children under 17 years of age, a higher age than this bill would set. At the House Standing Committee on Health, the Liberals amended Bill S-228 to reduce the age limit from under 17 years old to under 13 years old and they added a five-year legislative review.
Although Bill S-228 passed third reading in both the House and the Senate, unfortunately that bill died on the Order Paper when Parliament was dissolved for the 2019 federal election. Again, Bill C-252 is similar to that Senate bill, with the following key differences. Again, the current bill would set the age that would prohibit advertising at under 13 years of age, where the Senate bill was under 17 years of age. There is also a change in definition. The current bill says, “no person shall advertise foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children’s diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are under 13 years of age.” The Senate bill just said, “no person shall advertise unhealthy food in a manner that is directed primarily at children.”
Finally, of course, this bill before us today has, once again, a five-year review that would focus on whether, after this bill became law, there was an increase in the advertising of foods and beverages that contribute to excess sugar, saturated fats or sodium in children's diets in a manner that is directed primarily at persons who are 13 to 16 years of age.
I want to pause for a moment there and make a comment on that. There is a healthy debate on this bill about what the proper age should be set at. Again, the Senate bill was more ambitious and said not to let advertisers advertise to children under 17. This is under 13, and one of the concerns, of course, is that advertisers, who are extraordinarily sophisticated as we are talking about large multinational multi-billion dollar conglomerates that make a lot of money peddling chocolate, sugary beverages, etc., to children, will instead shift and focus their advertising on 14- to 17-year olds. I think this is a healthy way to compromise, by having a study that would monitor it carefully to see if, in fact, that does happen, because if it does then this House could then adjust our legislation in five years on an empirical basis to cure that mischief.
The previous health minister's mandate letter did direct her to “introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children”. The current health minister's 2021 mandate letter instructed him as well to support “restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children.” The Liberal 2021 platform pledged to “Introduce new restrictions on the commercial marketing of food and beverages to children and establish new front-of-package labelling to promote healthy food choices.”
We are happy, then, to see this legislation before the House. Unfortunately, it is done through private members' legislation and not, as stated repeatedly in the mandate letters and in the Liberal platform, by the government itself. No matter; as long as it passes, that is what is important. However, it is curious that the current LIberal government has not kept its word in its mandate letters and in its platform, and introduced legislation itself.
Industry organizations, including the Association of Canadian Advertisers, the Canadian Beverage Association, Food and Consumer Products of Canada and Restaurants Canada, have called legislation like this a “significant overreach”. They claim that legislation like this would lead to serious consequences for the economy. On the other side of the coin, Canadian pediatric, child advocacy and other health experts are strong supporters of this bill.
New Democrats want to stand unambiguously on the side of child health and welfare, not corporate profits. We want children to develop a healthy relationship to nutrition and the foods they consume, rather than being manipulated by sophisticated marketing campaigns, especially when it would affect their health.
Over 120 organizations and children's health advocates across Canada have called on the current government to restrict food and beverage marketing to kids. The Stop Marketing to Kids Coalition is governed by 12 steering committee member organizations. They range from the Heart and Stroke Foundation to the Childhood Obesity Foundation, the Canadian Dental Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, Diabetes Canada and Dieticians of Canada.
The pervasive marketing of unhealthy foods is a contributing factor to the growth of childhood and adolescent disease. Sex and gender differences come into play in the design of and responses to these marketing strategies, contributing to the perpetuation of stereotyped behaviour and generating disparities in food choices and health. This particularly hurts girls.
Studies have demonstrated that this intervention, as is presented in this bill, would result in both overall cost savings and improved long-term health outcomes, with the greatest benefits of all to the most socio-economically disadvantaged.
Let us do this for our children.
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