Thank you, Chair and members of the committee, for hearing from local corner stores as part of your budget bill deliberations.

On behalf of Canada's 22,500 convenience stores, which employ 180,000 people in communities across the country, we would like to speak to provisions in Bill C-69 that would fundamentally alter our businesses and impact adult customers who shop at their local corner store. These same stores and gas stations not long ago were deemed essential services by government during critical pandemic times and were celebrated and recognized for our role in helping keep Canadians safe.

Of immediate concern with the passage of C-69 are changes to the Food and Drugs Act presented in clause 326 in the BIA that would give the Minister of Health unfettered powers to apply precision regulation to therapeutic products. This captures a number of different products, but most relevant to convenience stores are nicotine replacement therapies, NRTs, including nicotine pouches, which are currently sold in our stores to adult customers.

I want to be very clear with committee members. Convenience stores support stronger regulations for NRTs, including nicotine pouches. Not long after the products were approved for sale by Health Canada, we issued guidance to retailers encouraging them to put the products behind the counter and to age-gate the products just as we do for traditional tobacco.

We are also open to other regulations, including marketing restrictions, labour limitations and even increased penalties for retailer non-compliance to ensure these products are used as intended by adults and for cessation or transition purposes.

However, we do not believe that providing sweeping unilateral powers to the minister over a process that is typically apolitical is the appropriate path to better regulate NRTs, and it would set a dangerous precedent for other products that may be sold in our stores or any retailer of a therapeutic product.

Rather than contemplate removing these products from our stores without any evidence to suggest convenience stores are the source of these products for youth, we would like to work with the regulators to ensure these products are used as intended by adults.

Tobacco users want to purchase reduced-risk products from the places where they purchase their cigarettes. Being able to retail these in our stores allows adult consumers an easier option to make that choice.

We have seen recent public policy failures that have arisen when removing nicotine products from our stores under the auspices of curbing youth access. Both B.C. and Ontario made changes to the availability of vape in convenience stores, limiting or removing some or all of these products from our retail establishments; there remains no data to suggest that this has resulted in fewer youth using the product. In fact, online illicit sales of these products continue to grow at an alarming pace.

Further, the removal of these products from our stores and concentrating their sale ultimately favours the illicit market and illegal websites. In fact, there are dozens of illegal, unapproved NRTs for sale online, sold without age checks, without taxes paid and containing unknown ingredients. It is our understanding that these sites are already the primary source of youth access to nicotine pouches, yet there is no plan to address this threat and online harm to young people. We can all agree that the proliferation of products available to youth online, including dangerous products like LSD gummies, should be an urgent focus of government.

To conclude, we are in favour of treating NRTs and their gum and inhaler equivalents just as other tobacco and nicotine products are treated. We agree there should be clear regulations applied to nicotine replacement therapies, including age restrictions, locating the product behind the counter and both marketing and flavour restrictions. However, far-reaching ministerial power that would allow for significant changes in the absence of evidence or input from government officials, experts and stakeholders is not the appropriate tool to regulate NRTs or other therapeutic products.

For that reason, CICC is requesting that the text outlined in clause 326 granting these precision regulation powers be deleted or that the ability to determine where the product is sold, something that is typically a provincial responsibility, be excluded from such regulatory powers.

I would be pleased to share our proposed amendment text in writing with the committee.

Thank you.