Madam Speaker, it is always a true honour to rise in the House of Commons to speak, especially on behalf of the residents of Peterborough—Kawartha and, of course, the many Canadians across this country who rely on natural health products.

I want to give a big shout-out to my colleague from Red Deer—Lacombe for bringing forward the bill. Could we have a round of applause, please, for my colleague? Members are tired at this time of the day; it is hard to rally them. However, this is a big one. Maybe they need some vitamins. Maybe that is what they need to put a little pep in their step, and that is exactly what we are talking about today.

We are talking about things that almost every Canadian uses. Maybe it is their toothpaste. Maybe it is their deodorant. Maybe it is their vitamins, melatonin, magnesium, protein bars or Chinese herbal medicine. These are things that many Canadians rely on every single day of their life to help manage their health and to help them live a better, more fulfilled life. Sadly, these products are under attack.

I got elected in 2021. There have been two instances of extreme correspondence to my office. One was regarding the invocation of the Emergencies Act. The second was regarding natural health products. It is unbelievable the correspondence that has come through my office about this. People are asking why the Liberal-NDP government would want to attack natural health products. Why would it want to go after those and make it so that business owners who offer these products, these vitamins and supplements, can no longer function?

Let us break it down and talk about what the bill is and why Conservatives are very excited to support it, as well as my colleague, as I mentioned, for putting it forward. In summary, the enactment of the bill would amend the Food and Drugs Act to provide that natural health products are not therapeutic products within the meaning of that act and are therefore not subject to the same monitoring regime as other drugs.

This is for people at home, and I always think about my sister, who watches this and asks, “What does that even mean?”. It means that people's prescription drugs or big pharma or opioids, which are a massive crisis in this country, are subject to regulations and are self-funded by Health Canada. Natural health products have very strict regulations as well, but the bill before us in particular would ensure that they are safe and able to continue to be available in the stores where they are sold.

What Health Canada has tried to do is, again, kind of like Groundhog Day in this place, because it is the same everywhere with overreach. Health Canada wants to go into the pockets of the micro-businesses, often operated by women, and say that they are going to have to pay the government more money. Health Canada wants to decide what the business owners do with their products and will ultimately bankrupt them and force the products out of Canada.

I am going to provide some quick stats for members. Natural health product businesses contribute $5.5 billion to the Canadian economy and $2.8 billion in taxable revenue. Eighty-two per cent of Canadians use NHPs, and I bet that number is actually low. Over 80% of businesses in the sector are small or medium-sized. Producers of 70% of the brands have indicated that they will need to withdraw products from the market. We can start to see that if the private member's bill before us were not introduced, this would be detrimental to the industry, based on the Health Canada policy that was put forward.

Fifty per cent of small businesses in the sector have a woman CEO. One in five businesses is contemplating shutting down due to the proposed changes. One in five businesses is considering exiting Canada. According to Statistics Canada, women are much more likely to purchase natural health products to manage their health and wellness.

We all know we have a health care crisis in this country. We have folks lining up to get to see a doctor, and they do not have access to a doctor, so for many people, accessing natural health products is a big thing. I think every member of the House can stand up and tell a story of where natural health products have made a big difference in their life.

I want to read some testimonies from correspondence I have gotten, because it is critical in this place that we elevate the voices of the people who are outside the House, the people who elected us to be here to elevate their voices. These are some of the messages I have gotten about the Liberal-NDP policy that would overreach and would ultimately decimate the natural health product industry. Thankfully the bill would be able to protect them, and that is what we are really talking about today.

The first piece of correspondence reads, “Recently, I saw your post regarding the Liberal government going after natural health products next. Truly, I was not shocked that they would go after NHPs [as many people refer to them] because really there isn't much left for them to have their hands on. I use natural health products for a number of reasons. I do not support the tax of NHPs.”

Here is another one: “many people including myself use products such as iron, calcium, B vitamins, vitamin C, and I find it appalling that the government thinks that these products should be taken off the shelves in Canada. They obviously only want big pharma products available to Canadians.” We know the mess that big pharma has created in this country. I always will take any opportunity I can to tell people at home to please watch Dopesick. The opioid crisis and addiction crisis in this country really paint a picture of how government and big pharma destroyed the lives of so many people.

Another message says, “The new proposed laws concerning NHPs is very damaging to the future of my business. We have been in business for 20 years..., and have approximately 7,200 clients in that period of time. During that time, we haven't had a single problem related to safety and efficacy of the herbs that we use. We currently use 485 separate herbs. As you well know, the vast majority of these herbs are spices and edible plants that any consumer could grow in their own garden. How is it that Health Canada could stop the people's access to their medicinal properties? Many of these clients wish to use this mode of health care, which keeps pressure off local hospital rooms and the medical systems, which are already overloaded and backlogged.”

The message goes on to say, “There are many small businesses in Ontario like mine, possibly hundreds of businesses which contribute well over $100,000 a year in HST and source deductions. Our business has five people on payroll. I feel that if these new bills are enforced and erode their ability to both buy and sell herbs, it will force us out of business.”

The same message asks, “Has anyone bothered to do a total cost/risk/reward analysis to see what the actual benefits are to the constituency, the economy, and health outcomes in the long haul?". It concludes with this: “I hope that Health Canada will come to the realization that their current direction and implementation of the bills will...be a sad day for Canadians.”

There is a very interesting point in there, because when we talk to the Canadian Health Food Association, we learn that there was not proper consultation ever, and we have seen this across the board in so many areas with the current government. It is just overreach, and I guess I always come back to this question: Why?

It is pretty simple. If the Liberal-NDP government overspends and recklessly spends, which we have seen, and let us take the arrive scam app, which should have cost $80,000 and cost a minimum of $60 million, or a green slush fund that cost a billion dollars, then it has to make that money up. It is just basic math. The government does not have any money; it has taxpayers' money, but wait. If it does not have enough money, who is it going to go after? The Liberal-NDP government will go after the little guy, which is what it does over and over again.

Small businesses are the heartbeat, 98%, of the economy, and they are being trashed, destroyed and decimated under the Liberal-NDP government, and these are the women-owned businesses. I want to just touch on this, because Jules Gorham is the director of Regulatory Affairs for the Canadian Health Food Association, and she gave very powerful testimony at the status of women committee, which I sit on. A big piece really jumped out at me, and I think this is a real take-home message because we have a government and a Prime Minister that are clearly fake feminists, and there is a Liberal mandate for a gender-based analysis on things they do. Guess where the Liberals did not do a gender-based analysis?

This is from Jules Gorham's testimony at committee:

Unfortunately, it's a well-known fact that women have been historically neglected in research. There is a scarcity of data on women. Health Canada's latest regulatory reform on [natural health products] is yet another example. Prior to publishing its proposal on cost recovery fees, Health Canada did not conduct any analysis on the impacts to Canadians, including a gender-based analysis. They left it to business owners to do the math and decide if they can afford to stay in business.

This is despite having a mandate saying that the Liberals would do a gender-based analysis. They do not put women first. They do not put Canadians first. They put their big government first, and—

Michelle Ferreri

$469,988.00