- Member of Parliament
- Member of the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians
- NDP
- Vancouver Kingsway
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 59%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $153,893.57
- Government Page
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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Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today and speak in favour of the wonderful bill introduced by the great member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley. I think the bill is so pivotal and engages so many important concepts about our democracy.
When I was first elected 14 years ago, in 2008, I sat down with my young staffer, Sam Heppell, and we talked about bills to be introduced in the House. I asked him what he thought should be the first bill I introduced as a private member. Without flinching, he said, “Lower the voting age.” I said, “Really? Tell me why that is an important bill.” He said, “Well, tell me. Are you a democrat?” I said, “Yes I am.” He said, “That is the only reason you need.”
In listening to the debate and listening to my colleagues on the Conservative side there is a fundamental difference in what the proper characterization is to give to voting in a democracy. I just heard a Conservative colleague refer to voting in this country as a privilege. I disagree. Voting is a right. It is a right of citizenship. I think that is where we start this debate.
The truth is that in a democracy, if we really have government by the people for the people, if we really have values of democracy that we uphold to the world on the global stage, that means we give to our citizens, without discrimination, the right to have a say in who their government is and what laws govern them. That is democracy. When we have barriers that seek to take away that right from certain citizens based on different attributes, that is where I think this debate starts.
The truth is that the history of the franchise in Canada is one of constant movement. This country started off with giving the vote to white males of a certain age who owned property. I think it was over the age of 21. Then it became white males over 21 regardless of whether they owned property. Then it was white males over 21. Over the years, it has been expanded to women and to indigenous people. At one time, based on one's race, one could not vote in this country. If one was of Japanese or Chinese ancestry, one could not vote in this country. Ultimately, of course, we lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. The history of the franchise as democracies evolve is one of constantly expanding the right to vote.
Why is this an important bill? New Democrats have stood in the House and outlined literally a dozen or more different reasons. This is a time of low voter turnout. I have just added up the percentage of every federal election since 2000, and we have an average of 63% turnout. That means about four in 10 Canadians do not even cast a ballot. That number has been steadily declining over the past century. The numbers in provincial elections and municipal elections are actually appalling, where the percentage of democratic participation in this country sometimes is in the high teens or low twenties.
In this country, we have a crisis in our democracy that we, as parliamentarians, ought to address. One way to address it is to expand the voting age to a portion of our population that has been discriminated against purely because of their age. It is the arbitrary drawing of a line without any regard to ability.
What are the benefits of lowering the voting age? First of all, it would increase participation. Research is absolutely clear. We should lower the voting age and combine that particularly with a strong program in our high schools where we educate our young people of the obligations of citizenship and teach them how our democracy works, without any regard for how they vote but just that they should vote. If we can get young people to vote in the first election they are capable of voting in, they are like to be voters for life.
The chances are good of an election happening for a 16-year-old or 17-year-old in grades 10, 11 or 12. We have a three in four chance that there is is going to be an election while they are in high school. We can use that crucial time to start establishing that positive record of voting in our democracy.
Sixteen-year-olds and 17-year-olds have the longest view of any citizen. The issues that are important for them may be different from those for someone who is 80 or 90 years old. They are looking 80 years into the future, yet we are preventing them from having their say in the issues that will affect them probably most profoundly.
I also think young people show a responsibility and, as never before, are engaged in our democracy. I have met 17-year-olds and 16-year-olds, frankly I have met 14-year-olds and 15-year-olds, who are engaged politically, interested in the world around them, informed and would cast an absolutely informed and responsible vote. It pains me to say this but contrarily I have met 50-year-olds who are completely disengaged from the political process, and we would never think of preventing them from going to a ballot box. The idea that some people have raised that 17-year-olds are, by some definition, not qualified to vote is applying a standard to 17-year-olds that we would never apply to anybody else.
We have already outlined that many 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds work and pay taxes. The American Revolution was fought in part over the rallying cry of “no taxation without representation”. We take money off a paycheque of a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old, willingly. Conservatives do this. Liberals do this. Then we turn around and tell those people they have no say in how that money is spent. Frankly, that is absolutely unacceptable.
We allow 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds, in many cases, to drive, to serve in the military, to shoot a firearm, to buy ammunition and to marry with consent. They can join political parties and vote in political leaderships, just like 14-year-olds, 15-year-olds and 16-year-olds do in the NDP, and I am sure under 18-year-olds did in the recent Conservative leadership.
To wrap things up, I will just say this is an excellent idea. Let us engage people in our democracy. Let us support this and make Canada's democracy flourish in a better way.
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