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Results: 1 - 15 of 144
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Mr. Wappel, I take great interest in the bill you have proposed because I take great interest in the health of Canadians.
I want to be clear on something. Earlier in your comments you suggested that 30% of the food dollar is spent away from home by Canadians. This doesn't mean Canadians eat away from home 30% of the time. I think that would be a mistake. If I understand the stats right, Canadians eat away from home one out of ten meals, and there's also the stat that they skip one out of ten meals, so they're eating the eight other meals at home. So if we have obesity problems, if we have diabetes problems, it means people aren't properly preparing their own meals. The restaurant industry is not necessarily what should be targeted.
If I understand your bill correctly, you're not just targeting the restaurant industry, but the biggest problem seems to be with the restaurant industry. I think we have a challenge here. Even the menu you've provided doesn't do what you claim. It does for four items, “Lifestyle Choices”; it doesn't do it for all the rest of the menu. They've provided the information for the healthy ones but not for the others. I guess they could go through all of them. I'm not sure how much research would be involved and who's going to pay for it. I do take great offence at Mr. Geffery's providing it to you, though.
I think it's important for us to discuss things here as members of Parliament with the information and knowledge that we have. I know you haven't met with the restaurant industry; you didn't see any need to seek them out. A lot of restaurants in my riding have contacted me. A lot of chains have contacted me. I have a great concern about this bill the way it's proposed. I also think some consumers may make the wrong decision. When you suggest that the menu options on the menu board should just have the number of calories per serving, it's misleading in a lot of places.
I'm also a big fan of something Mr. Merrifield said earlier, ParticipAction and encouraging people to have healthy lifestyles. I don't think ParticipAction--the last time I saw the program anyway, when I was a child--actually did what it needed to do for children. I think that idea is great, the concept, but the program was actually inhibiting to children who were slightly overweight because of the way they were ranked. It needed to be redeveloped and remodelled, and not cancelled. That would have been a better way to deal with it.
So my question is, could we not come up with something that would offer a better incentive for healthy meals? Could we not come up with something like the idea I mentioned at the last committee meeting, for example, the removal of perhaps the PST and the GST--or HST, depending on which province you're in--on healthy meal choices to encourage people to choose those healthy meal choices in restaurants?
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
They're only eating outside of the home one out of ten meals. Let's be clear.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
On that point, I think I've been in a couple of fast-food chains that have provided this information on a board off at the side, not on the menu board. Your bill talks about the menu board, which is very different from providing this type of detailed information on the side, if you want to go and research it. But I've seen it in some places.
So I'm not saying that certain things are impossible. I'm suggesting that the way your legislation is drafted...to put the information on the menu board is very difficult, particularly if you look at the number of options already there. For example, think about the number of different types of muffins a store may have--it won't be just one. They won't all have the same content; they vary depending on what's in them. I know that as a baker. You know that as a researcher, having done the research for this bill. I think we have to look at this.
The other question I have, though, is--
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I thought I had ten minutes, Madam Chair.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I thought it was ten, ten, and ten, and then it went to five.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I apologize.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I can't help but pick up on Ms. Dodds' comments about how important it is that we talk about nutrition and how important it is that we educate Canadians. I was out for dinner on Friday evening with some friends of mine. Their youngest child is in senior kindergarten and had just gone through two days prior what was healthy and what wasn't healthy. I was quite amazed by how much he could grasp, and what he could decide about what he wanted to order based on what was healthy and the food groups that were covered.
I think this is key for Canadians' health, educating them on what the choices are and making sure they make the right choices and have the right information in front of them. I'm sitting here through this hearing today and I'm trying to understand. If I understand the Denmark legislation, it restricts transfat to only two grams in 100 grams of fat or oil. Maybe you can tell me, Mr. Gould, how many grams of fat are in an average serving of french fries.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
So the 100 grams of product, is that a serving of french fries?
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
And just for discussion sake, do you know what the calorie content of that would be for that same 100 grams?
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
No, but my point is that there's a lot of discussion out there by a lot of different experts in different health fields, and people pick up different magazines. You need to count calorie content, you need to count fat content, you need to look at size of servings, and you need to have a good understanding of it all, because you can make some very ill-informed decisions on what to eat in a day if you haven't taken into account the basic food groups and the different nutrients that you have, or the way we, as Canadians, prepare product.
I'm a big fan of potatoes. I'm also a big fan of french fries. But I have to balance that out in my day with everything else that I'm eating to make sure that I'm not getting too many calories or not too much fat, so that I can have the green salad at the other meal to go with the french fries that I had at the meal prior. Like I said, I'm a big fan of french fries. I'm not trying to be critical. I'm trying to say there has to be that balance in how we eat.
I think when we focus in only on one part of it... And I don't think we should allow large volumes of transfat, by any means, in our food. McDonald's said that it was going to reduce by half its content by 2003--not get rid of it, not eliminate it; the study I read just said reduce by half. I'm not sure if they've done that or not. They're not here to defend themselves, so I don't think it's fair to say they did or they didn't. But I think there needs to be a lot more discussion by this committee before we make any recommendations or decisions, because you said your early results of research were inconclusive.
I'm wondering how much research each of these companies does--I think it's probably volumes of it--to try to make changes and to make switches and to make these things happen. I'm not sure how to average that, Mr. Gould. I don't know if you have any ideas, or maybe Ms. Dodds.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
I understand that, but even Denmark didn't say “No transfats”; they said “two grams per 100 grams of fat”. To get to 100 grams of fat consumption, that's pretty high for an average consumer to end up with two grams. Certainly the more we can do to lessen that amount of transfat we consume every day is important, but I also think it's important that we have Canadians make healthy choices as they go forward.
What I'd like to see is, for example, when the province was talking about adding the PST back onto meals under $4, I talked to a number of people who said “Why can't we have healthy meals where we take the GST and PST both off and we promote them as healthy meals in our different organizations and places?” A lot of people have turned to fast food. A lot of people have turned to prepared food because people are busy. Lifestyles have changed. I think we need to really promote that, and the healthier the food product is that we can get on the shelves and out to the consumers, the better we are.
So I'm not saying don't eliminate transfats. Certainly the more we can do to eliminate transfat is great, but as a Canadian, I'd like to see Canadians have a better understanding of everything they're eating together and certainly understand the need to have that balance in their diet.
I'd like Ms. Dodds to maybe just comment on Canada's Food Guide and how we promote that, and how we get that information out to Canadians.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Following up on Mr. Martin's point, how do we get more products on the market that have no transfat? Certainly we can pass legislation, and that can have an immediate effect, as Mr. Holub said. But I think it's important that Canadians know that those choices are already out there, such as New York Fries and hopefully others.
What is the resistance to our doing that? I understand that it's not just about labelling. Ms. Dodds said it's about the entire approach. I'm really concerned about the research that needs to be done by some companies and the time element for that. I'd like to hear from Agriculture Canada as well, because of the impact on other industries, which was raised earlier. At the same time, I'd like to see us promote the health of Canadians and educate them.
I think Mr. Martin is quite correct, as is our chair and others, that a large part of the population won't read labels. So how do we make sure that they have those same avenues out there? That is why I go back to my healthy meal promotion. It would encourage people to choose healthy meals because they would cost less. It would be targeted directly at the poor of our society.
Mr. Holub, you've been doing research for a long time. How long would it take to get these companies to do the research and to make the necessary changes so that they can deal with the taste of the product? I'm not an expert on this by any means, but I know that there are research labs and all these other places. I'd just like to get an idea of how we could have an educational campaign and maybe a legislation change at the same time. What's the timeframe to implement that? I think it's important that we deal with the health of Canadians in all the ways we can as quickly as possible.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
Mr. Holub, I don't think that's really fair. Mr. Gould from New York Fries has already done that. I have relatives who work in the food industry. I know they do research on a regular basis for lower fat, lower calorie foods, what's going into the food, how do they take certain things out of the food, how do they comply with Health Canada. Maybe that person from years ago doesn't exist in today's market any more.
My question is, what is the time element to test a food? That's what I'm after. Is it a year? Is it six months? Is it three months? What's the time element to make those kinds of changes? Maybe Mr. Gould would be better to answer that, because you just did the research in your institution. I don't know.
View Susan Whelan Profile
Lib. (ON)
So 2006.
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