Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm here to address division 31 of the bill, which includes changes to the Food and Drugs Act.

As I give my opinion to this committee, understand that I'm of the opinion that the messaging by the government, the Minister of Health and Health Canada on this issue is actually fraudulent to the Canadian people.

This is because I watched a video by the Minister of Health in which the stated reasons for these changes were to protect vulnerable youth from nicotine products, such as flavoured vaping products and nicotine patches that aren't approved for their age group. In May, Health Canada held a stakeholder meeting and used baby formula as an example. What if we have a baby formula shortage? We have to have a workaround to allow it to be imported.

Health Canada basically said it needs the power to respond to unanticipated events, like supply chain disruptions and to gaps. They also said they need to address the unintended use of drugs. I say this is fraud, because the powers it's seeking don't address any of these issues.

One of the powers is to basically exempt food and drugs from fundamental safety provisions in our act and regulations. The Minister of Health will be able to exempt a food or drug from our protection against fraud. This means that a drug could be marketed to the Canadian populace, both by Health Canada and by the manufacturer, with fraud in not protecting us against adulteration—and we mean adulteration whereby there are substances in the food or drug that are dangerous. This should exempt us from being sold drugs that are manufactured in unsanitary conditions, but it will exempt them from any part of our safety regulations.

That's not going to protect youth from nicotine products and it's not going to solve any supply disruptions for baby food.

The next power is for the Minister of Health to be able to prevent and even criminalize the promotion of the off-label use of any drug. Well, that has nothing to do with protecting youth from nicotine products. Surely “drugs” doesn't include prescribing flavoured vaping products to youth. This measure is also not going to address any supply chain problems.

The power that is totally unexplainable is that the Minister of Health can basically take steps to make sure that humans can't access veterinary products and can prevent the off-label promotion and use of veterinary products.

Why are we talking about veterinary products when we're talking about youth using nicotine patches, or access to baby formula? It makes zero sense at all. The minister will be given the power to approve drugs for use in the Canadian population that were not assessed by our drug approval experts at Health Canada.

A “foreign entity” is defined so broadly in the bill that it could include organizations like the World Health Organization. It doesn't have to be a regulatory body of a country, and there are no standards set, so this could be a regulatory authority of a third world country that doesn't have the resources to do a proper analysis. If a foreign entity approves a drug, we don't even need an application. The Minister of Health could just approve a drug and circumvent our experts at Health Canada.

How does that address the stated purposes? It doesn't. Not a single one of the powers in division 31 will give the minister a whit of ability to address the stated purposes, and that's how we know there's a bit of fraud here.

The real purposes are not being addressed by the minister or Health Canada before this committee, and the crazy thing is that the Food and Drugs Act already contains too much power to address the issues that Health Canada and the Minister of Health are telling you they need to address.

Let's just talk about nicotine products. Under paragraph 30(1)(a), the minister could make regulations saying if you add any flavours, that's adulteration. Under paragraph 30(1)(c), they can set whatever purity standards they want to deal with that. Under section 30.1, the minister can make any interim order—it's law for a full year; it just has to be approved by cabinet within 30 days—solving any issue.

Health Canada and the minister take the position—and have for decades—in section 9, the section preventing fraud in the act, that it's fraudulent if you promote a drug for an off-label use. I can tell you that in my law practice I have seen case after case in which Health Canada has gone after individuals and companies for promoting off-label use. Under section 27.3—