Bill C-51: An Interview with Federal Minister of Health, Tony Clement
by author Terry-Lynn Stone

Q: Another consistent concern expressed by many readers is that they may become subject to the powers of inspectors through Bill C-51. How are they protected?

A: This is one of the things that we did with the amendments to the amendment that I tabled in June. As I said, all Canadians are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. They’re protected by the state of our reasonable search and seizure provisions that are found in our criminal law. These have not changed. But what I did was I imported them much more explicitly into the bill. And so under this bill, Health Canada will not have the authority to enter a home without a warrant. To believe otherwise is completely false. Health Canada will not have the authority to engage in unreasonable search and seizure. So that rumour is false, too. These rights are protected and they have to be. Health Canada officials have to exercise their powers reasonably and responsibly. That’s in the legislation.

Q: If Canadians take pharmaceutical drugs to treat disease—a cost to the health care system—they get tax relief. Yet if proactive Canadians take natural health remedies to prevent disease and save the health care system money, they’re denied relief. What’s your position on this?

A: Well, a lot of these are provincial decisions; it’s the provincial governments that have the ability to look at natural health products in this way. And I believe the Province of British Columbia, for instance, has been a real groundbreaker in this, in some areas. So I can’t step on their toes. They get to make those decisions. But what I can tell you, as a Federal Minister of Health, is that I do believe in greater consumer choice. People are turning to more natural remedies and this is something that, as long as health and safety is respected, should be encouraged. I’ll give you one example where I would like to see it encouraged. As health minister, I have instituted Canada’s first national cancer strategy. And, you know, I think there’s a real opportunity to ensure that we get input from the natural health products industry on our anticancer strategy, and to make sure that prevention and surveillance also includes the natural health products industry. So I’m on that page and I would like to see more of these things occur.

Q: According to Health Canada, 71 percent of Canadians regularly take natural health products. So why don’t you fully embrace this industry?

A: Well, I guess this is a little frustrating because I do embrace this industry. I do think it’s a legitimate branch of medicine and health care. I do believe we should encourage more consumer choice and more consumer options. And I believe that my bill, Bill C-51, actually does help get more natural health products on the store shelves. So that’s my intention, and I want to work with the industry. I want to see it blossom. There may be cases of bad apples. They are in the small, small minority. And the reason why, incidentally, Health Canada started to regulate this area of health care initially in 2004 was because of demands from the natural health products industry itself. They wanted to get rid of the bad apples. So I believe what we can do is restore our partnership and that’s exactly what I’m doing.

Q: When pharmaceutical companies spend millions of dollars on research for their products, they do so knowing they’ll recoup the money and millions more once the drug is patented. But natural health products can’t be patented. So isn’t it unreasonable to suggest the same type of research for health products?

Source: alive Special Web Exclusive