update on Bill C-51 by Helke Ferrie in Vitality Magazine

[Guest guest]

Update on Bill C-51

http://www.vitalitymagazine.com/julyaug_08_billc51update

July 2008

 Summary of Panel Discussion and Strategies for Further Protest

by Helke Ferrie

 

 

 

On June 26th, the Consumer Health Organization of Canada hosted an event in

Toronto for the purpose of providing expert information about the proposed

federal bills C-51 (to amend the Food and Drugs Act) and C-52 (to amend the

Hazardous Products Act). The speakers were:

 

* Lawyer Shawn Buckley of the Natural Health Products Protection

Associationwhich is spearheading the protest against both these Bills due to his

experience in defeating Health Canada in court several times

* Dr. Shiv Chopra, the former Health Canada scientist who spent more than three

decades working to stop harmful drugs, like bovine growth hormone, from entering

Canada’s food supply

* Mike McBane of the Canadian Health Coalitionwith three decades of experience

in stopping similar Bills when proposed by previous governments. The event was

streamed live onlineand filmed by a professional documentary film company for

future availability.A surprise guest was MP Olivia Chow (NDP) who joined the

rally prior to the OISE event and informed the attending crowd that any petition

containing 25 or more signatures, by law, must be read out in Parliament by the

MP to whom the petition was addressed. The more petitions, the less likely there

will even be time to pass a publicly contested Bill into law. The text of the

petition can be downloadedor obtained by contacting MP Chow’s office.

 

Hot off the press was my book on these bills, entitled What Part of No! Don’t

They Understand? Rescuing Food and Medicine from Government Abuse – A Manifesto

(ISBN 978-0-9731945-8-6). Fifty percent of the proceeds from book sales will go

towards fighting Health Canada and the government in court and in parliament to

stop these Bills. It will soon be available in bookstores (present ISBN) and is

presently at The Big Carrot, or call Kos Publishing at 519-927-1049.

 

Each speaker shared their experiences with Health Canada’s determined regulatory

corruption which interfered with those scientists who tried to obey the Food and

Drugs Act (Chopra); the government’s blatant disregard for the law in

administering that Act (Buckley); and the history of Health Canada’s efforts to

deregulate drug and food safety in the interest of industry profits by resorting

to secrecy (McBane).

 

Their consensus was that the current Food and Drugs Act and the Hazardous

Products Act are totally focused on consumer safety, but government policy has

ignored these acts for decades. C-51 and C-52 are designed solely to remove that

“old-fashioned” safety focus which Health Canada in its own publications sees as

not sufficiently “industry-friendly”, and “too exclusively focused on safety”,

as quoted by McBane. These Bills would get drugs to market faster with little or

no safety requirements, initiate direct to consumer advertising, stop research

designed to find alternatives to drug therapies, and systematically eliminate

the natural food and therapy industry in favour of Big Pharma. Minister Clement’s recent assurances that this is not the intent are contradicted by the

wording of the Bills as well as the wording of his own proposed “amendments. "

 

For hazardous products the safety standards would also be relaxed, not

strengthened, and they would proliferate, rather than be regulated to reduce

their currently known dangers. The core problem identified by the speakers was a

shift from risk “assessment” to risk “management. " The former assesses risks

with the view to stop the use of harmful products; the latter calculates how

many dead bodies are acceptable to allow the product to remain available.

 

Especially important was the speakers’ warning that even though C-51 did not

make it into Second Reading, primarily because the NDP blocked its debate,

before parliament adjourned on June 20th, bill C-52 did make it through Second

Reading a few weeks earlier and was sent to the Standing Committee on Health.

Just before Parliament adjourned, a motion was put forward by MP James Rojette

PC (Edmonton-Leduc) and passed, stating: “That, [if] at any time the House

stands adjourned during June or July, the Standing Committee on Health …. has a

report ready, when that report is deposited with the Clerk, it shall be deemed

to have been duly presented [to Parliament].” This signals exactly what it

states: fast-tracking C-52 over the summer when it is difficult to get the whole

spectrum of opinions to be heard as witnesses.

 

Should C-52 make it to Third Reading in September, and maybe even become law,

then C-51 can be added to C-52 as a Schedule, due to the inter-relatedness of

the two acts. We could wake up to find both bills are law and that C-51 was

snuck in without further public discussion. Risk “management” would be the law

of the land (not just current corrupt policy, which is at least vulnerable to

often successful legal challenge), and our food, medicines, and environment

would be at the mercy of Big Pharma and Big Agriculture – without our ability to

choose.

 

My book contains an action kit against both Bills. My websitehas a short version

available (Home Page – alert button).  Email Consumer Healthfor cards to hand

out to MP’s on the barbecue circuit and for mailing. It is essential to keep the

heat up during the summer to ensure the Harper government does not force these

bills on us by stealth, or there will simply be no limit to the toxic waste the

government will force down our throats and into our environment.  

 

 

 

 

Bonita Poulin

 

Canadian Coordinator

GLOBAL RECOGNITION CAMPAIGN

Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

and other Chemically Induced Illnesses, Diseases & Injury

affecting civilians and military personnel

www.mcs-global.org 

More coordinators needed!