The House of Commons passed a private Liberal bill this week by a vote of 208 to 115 to ban the advertising of junk food to children.According to Blacklock’s Reporter, advertisers argued the ban would result in an annual cost of one billion dollars in lost revenue.“It is a practice we want to see stopped,” Liberal MP Patricia Lattanzio (Saint Léonard-Saint Michel, QC) said in the Third Reading debate on the bill. “Action is necessary,” she added.“Inaction will mean our children will continue to be manipulated by this multi-billion dollar industry,” said Lattanzio. “Relying on powerful multinational companies to self-regulate and reduce their targeting has only been proven unsuccessful.”Bill C-252 An Act to Amend the Food and Drugs Act would provide the department of Health with additional authority to limit advertising aimed at children under 13 for foods that have “more than prescribed levels of sugar, saturated fats or sodium.” The bill is now advancing to the Senate for further consideration.Conservative MP Damien Kurek (Battle River-Crowfoot, AB) said as a husband and father of three, he “would be very surprised if anyone disagreed” with the bill’s sentiment but noted actual details were left to federal regulators. “The regulations that are proposed in the bill are difficult to enforce,” Kurek told the Commons. “There is not very much clarity.”A similar Bill S-228 An Act to Amend the Food and Drugs Act lapsed in 2019. The Association of Canadian Advertisers estimated that an ad ban would cost $956 million annually.“The proposal would affect perhaps $366 million worth of television advertising and $590 million worth of digital advertising each year in Canada,” lobbyists wrote the department of Health. “Those revenues, nearly $1 billion, would be lost by Canadian media operations.”Advertisers called it "an enormous blow" that would have repercussions for food manufacturers and restaurant chains.“Fully 52% of the industry’s ability to reach adults with television advertising, and 74% of the industry’s ability to reach adults with digital advertising, would go away if the proposal were to become law,” wrote the Association.MPs who backed Bill C-252 expressed concerns about banning certain foods without clear definitions or limits on sugar, salt or fat.“Here I am as a legislator sort of handing over all that power,” Bloc Québécois MP Luc Thériault (Montcalm, QC) told a March 28 hearing of the Commons health committee. “We are doing this blindfolded in a way.”“It seems too abstract to me,” said Thériault. “What about yogurt? Fifteen grams of sugar, 18 maybe. Would that be considered acceptable, unacceptable? Would that be on the list?”“Excellent example,” replied Dr. Supriya Sharma, chief medical advisor with the Department of Health. “When you go into a grocery store, half an entire aisle is yogurt. Some of those might be suitable to be part of children’s regular diet, some of them may be very high in fat, very high in sugar as well.”
