THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON SOCIAL AFFAIRS, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Wednesday, October 29, 2025
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met with videoconference this day at 4:14 p.m. [ET] to study Bill S-202, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning label on alcoholic beverages); and, in camera, for consideration of a draft agenda (future business).
Senator Rosemary Moodie (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good afternoon. My name is Rosemary Moodie. I’m a senator from Ontario and the chair of this committee.
I would like to do a round table and have senators introduce themselves.
Senator Osler: I’m Flordeliz (Gigi) Osler, a senator from Manitoba.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran, an independent senator from Manitoba.
Senator Senior: Senator Paulette Senior, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Boudreau: Good afternoon. Victor Boudreau, New Brunswick.
[English]
Senator Arnold: Dawn Arnold, from New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Good afternoon. Chantal Petitclerc, Quebec.
Senator Brazeau: Patrick Brazeau, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Hay: Katherine Hay, Ontario.
Senator Bernard: Wanda Thomas Bernard from Mi’kma’ki, Nova Scotia.
Senator Muggli: Tracy Muggli, Treaty 6 territory, Saskatchewan.
The Chair: Thank you, senators.
Today, we continue our study on Bill S-202, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning label on alcoholic beverages).
Joining us by video conference today, for the first panel, we welcome, from Toronto Public Health, Dr. Michelle Murti, Medical Officer of Health; from Vancouver Coastal Health, Brandon Yau, Medical Health Officer; and from Middlesex-London Health Unit, Linda Stobo, Program Manager, Social Marketing and Health System Partnerships.
Thank you all for joining us today. You will each have five minutes for your opening statements, to be followed by questions from our committee members.
Michelle Murti, Medical Officer of Health, Toronto Public Health: Good afternoon. Thank you to the chair and members of the committee for this opportunity to speak with you today. As stated, my name is Dr. Michelle Murti, and I’m the Medical Officer of Health for Toronto Public Health.
My comments today specifically relate to and are in support of Bill S-202, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, that would require warning labels on all alcohol containers for sale across Canada.
This proposed amendment and my comments here today reflect the position of Our Health, Our City, which is Toronto’s mental health, substance use, harm reduction and treatment strategy. The strategy outlines strategic goals and recommended actions for the City of Toronto’s divisions and agencies, as well as government partners, health care leaders, schools, businesses, civil society and all Torontonians. Adding warning labels to alcoholic beverages is consistent with the strategy and would improve consumer awareness of the health risks associated with alcohol.
Alcohol produces some of the highest burden of drug-related harms and deaths. In an average year in Toronto, alcohol is linked to over 800 deaths, 4,400 hospitalizations and close to 40,000 emergency room visits. It also causes a tremendous financial burden on our health system.
The requirement for warning labels on all alcohol containers reflects the evidence and federal policy recommendations, most notably from the research by the Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation project and the most recent Guidance on Alcohol and Health from the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction.
Warning labels on alcohol containers have been implemented by other federal jurisdictions such as South Korea, New Zealand and Australia, and Ireland will be implementing cancer-specific warning labels starting next year.
Furthermore, we support the proposed requirements in the bill for alcohol warning labels to include the size of a standard drink per Canada’s new Guidance on Alcohol and Health, the number of standard drinks in the container, the number of standard drinks that lead to health risks and the direct causal link between alcohol and the development of fatal cancers.
In addition, we would support the requirement that warning labels be a prescribed format and size. Warning labels that clarify what constitutes a standard drink and how many standard drinks are in a container can help consumers make choices that align with the most current Guidance on Alcohol and Health. Information about health risks, including the causal link to cancers, can also help to moderate consumption.
At Toronto Public Health, we recognize that people can drink alcohol responsibly. Canadian consumers should have accurate and current health information relating to alcohol use to make informed decisions about their consumption.
There is good evidence that shows greater public support for alcohol labels compared to other alcohol control policies. There is also evidence that shows the implementation of alcohol labels increases awareness of the health outcomes from alcohol and that increasing awareness of the cancer outcomes of alcohol is associated with an increase in support for alcohol labelling.
Finally, I would like to add that warning labels on alcohol is one of a suite of ten evidence-informed federal policy measures that would lower public health harms and health system burden caused by alcohol use. Other measures include pricing and taxation strategies, physical availability restrictions, and screening and treatment interventions.
With that, I will thank you for your attention, and I would be very happy to answer any questions that the committee may have.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Murti.
Brandon Yau, Medical Health Officer, Vancouver Coastal Health: My name is Dr. Brandon Yau. I’m a medical health officer for Vancouver Coastal Health. I’m a physician with specialty training in public health and preventive medicine. Part of my responsibility here at Vancouver Coastal Health is to monitor and assess the health status of our community and to make recommendations to address these health issues. Specifically, my portfolio includes responsibility for addressing population-level harms of legal psychoactive substances, such as cannabis and alcohol.
I would like to tell you a little bit about our population. Vancouver Coastal Health authority is one of five regional health authorities in British Columbia, and we’re responsible for delivering health care and public health services to our population of over 1.25 million people.
I’m happy to be here to speak in support of Bill S-202.
Now, I would like to speak a little bit about alcohol. As we’re probably all aware, alcohol is a legal psychoactive substance that is both socially accepted and normalized. However, the latest scientific evidence is clear: Any amount of alcohol poses some health risk.
We know that there are a multitude of health harms as a result of alcohol. These include both health and social harms. Health harms can include acute intoxication, alcohol poisoning, liver disease, hypertension, heart disease and cancer. Social harms can include intimate partner violence, impaired driving and injury.
When we’re talking about population-level health harms, from a public health perspective, we want to look at exposure as well. The best way to look at exposure is to examine consumption in Canada. Current levels of consumption in Canada equate to around 9.4 standard drinks per week per person over the age of 15. This is in the increasingly high-risk category of consumption.
We see the negative health outcomes as a result of this level of consumption. We see over 800,000 emergency department visits and 17,000 deaths as a result of alcohol in Canada every year. The costs of alcohol to Canadian society are staggering. The cost of alcohol use is greater than both tobacco and opioids. It costs Canadian society $19.7 billion per year.
While there are significant societal costs and harms associated with alcohol use, there is generally low public awareness of some health risks of alcohol. Health Canada conducted a survey in 2023 which found that Canadians were generally unaware about cancer risks at low consumption levels. Among Canadians who were aware of the concept of a standard drink, 70% were unable to correctly identify the number of standard drinks in their preferred alcoholic beverage.
There is ample evidence that supports alcohol warning labels, and there is strong public support for alcohol warning labels as well. In the same survey I just mentioned, a majority of those Canadians surveyed agreed that there should be labels on alcohol to provide information on the number of standard drinks, guidance to reduce health risks as well as health warnings. These are contents that are mirrored in the proposed bill that you’re considering today.
Additionally, many people believe that labelling on alcoholic products would help them track their own alcohol consumption, think about alcohol-related harms and consider cutting back or to speak to others to cut back on their alcohol consumption.
A systematic review conducted by Dr. Erin Hobin and the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction showed that labels with health warnings and alcohol guidance would likely result in positive health behaviour change among Canadians. They also found that labels were effective in keeping this type of health messaging front of mind for Canadians when they’re thinking about drinking alcohol.
Fundamentally, Canadians have a right to know about the health harms of alcohol. As I said, a majority of Canadians surveyed agree. They support health labelling for alcohol that would be similar to product labelling such as that for cannabis and tobacco.
I recognize that all levels of government have a role to play in addressing alcohol-related harms. Unfortunately, the federal government has received a failing grade on addressing alcohol-related harms from the Canadian Alcohol Policy Evaluation group. Specifically, they also received a failing grade for their health and safety messaging efforts. I want to remind you that the federal government already has acts in place that require mandatory labelling for tobacco and cannabis products, both of which have been shown to be effective.
In summary, I’m happy to be here to speak in support of Bill S-202 as well as other measures to address alcohol-related harms among Canadians. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Yau.
Linda Stobo, Program Manager, Social Marketing and Health System Partnerships, Middlesex-London Health Unit: Madam Chair and distinguished members of this committee, my name is Linda Stobo, and I am the program manager of the social marketing and health systems partnerships team at the Middlesex-London Health Unit in London, Ontario. I’m here to express the health unit’s support for Bill S-202.
The health unit protects and promotes the health of more than 520,000 residents of the County of Middlesex and the City of London by delivering public health programs and services legislated under Ontario’s Health Protection and Promotion Act. Under this mandate, the health unit — through surveillance activities and engagement with local community members, organizations and municipal partners — collects and assesses available data, works collaboratively to identify health risks and implements interventions to reduce those risks. This includes the provision of health information to decision makers to help inform healthy public policy development, so we thank you for this opportunity to speak with you today.
We ask that you support this bill and the implementation of federally mandated labels on all alcohol containers sold in Canada so that Canadians are better informed about the health risks of alcohol. This is particularly important given that the majority of Canadians are unaware that alcohol is classified as a Group 1 carcinogen and causes at least seven different types of cancer.
In Ontario and across Canada, alcohol availability has increased significantly over the past decade, while at the same time, health protective regulations have not kept pace. Alcohol is normalized in our society. It is used to celebrate, commiserate and has even been seen as a rite of passage.
However, alcohol is anything but an ordinary commodity. As you have heard from many leading researchers and health policy experts, it is a leading risk factor in Canada for disease and injury, responsible for over 17,000 deaths and nearly 120,000 hospitalizations every year. Alcohol contributes to over 200 health conditions, including cancers, liver and heart disease, mental health concerns and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. In addition to these significant health harms, the economic and social implications of alcohol are substantial, costing Canadians $19.7 billion per year, which is more than the costs of tobacco and opioids combined.
Within the Middlesex-London community, alcohol’s population health burden is similar, with 80% of local residents identifying themselves as current drinkers and 30% drinking above what is considered a low-risk level. These consumption levels translate into 4.1% of deaths, 2.4% of hospitalizations and 3.8% of emergency department visits each year in Middlesex-London alone, and they are all caused by alcohol.
This results in pressures being placed on our already overstretched health care and policing systems. Furthermore, alcohol can have profound secondary harms to communities through impaired driving, intimate partner violence and public disturbances.
From a public health perspective, preventing harms from alcohol consumption requires a comprehensive approach that provides controlled access to a strictly regulated product, while removing commercial and industry influence. By placing health warning labels on alcohol, the consumer would be informed about the health risks associated with alcohol, as well as better understand how much alcohol they are consuming.
We have also learned that we can achieve substantial public health gains by changing social norms. We have evidence and experience to draw upon from comprehensive tobacco control. Canada’s leadership in commercial tobacco product labelling and packaging provides a path to help ensure that every Canadian is provided with evidence-based health information at all points of contact with alcohol: at point-of-sale, at time of pouring and while drinking.
Drawing upon the lessons learned from tobacco policy, alcohol labelling could be particularly effective in preventing youth initiation. With the increased visibility of alcohol products in stores accessible to children and youth, alcohol labelling has the potential to reach them with messages to counter industry advertising on store shelves in their own community. The labels also provide an opportunity for meaningful conversations to occur between parents and their children regarding the health harms associated with alcohol.
While progress has been made, there remains a substantial population health burden associated with alcohol and one that exceeds our social and health care system’s capacity. The Middlesex-London Health Unit supports Bill S-202 as it provides transparency to consumers around the health risks associated with alcohol.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you.
We will now proceed to questions from committee members. For this panel, senators will have four minutes for your question and answer. Please indicate if your question is directed to a particular witness or to all witnesses.
Senator Osler: Thank you to all the witnesses for being here.
My question is directed first to Ms. Stobo, and then our other two witnesses can add if they have anything to add. Ms. Stobo, your work focuses on social marketing and partnerships to influence health behaviour. From your perspective, how effective are warning labels compared to other public health communication tools in changing consumer awareness and behaviour?
Ms. Stobo: Thank you for the question.
Health warning labels are a part of a comprehensive strategy to begin to increase our population’s awareness and understanding about the health risks associated with alcohol. It’s about different measures working together at the same time so that we can begin to change that social norm, that lack of understanding, that we currently have within our population as a whole. That very much is the experience that we can draw upon from comprehensive tobacco control. It has taken us decades to get to where we are today, and we still have work to do, but it was through a comprehensive approach of looking at health labels so that individual users and families can have those conversations, that they understand what they are consuming and can make that choice, combined with other policy measures, including other social marketing strategies, so that we can begin to provide them with evidence-based, factual information around the health harms associated with alcohol.
Senator Osler: Thanks, Ms. Stobo.
I would open it up to the other two witnesses, if they have anything to add.
Dr. Murti: I would say that one of the most effective components of alcohol labelling is that it directly reaches the consumer at the point of consumption. Other social marketing methods are highly effective in reaching populations but may not penetrate to all populations we’re trying to reach and may not have the repeated impact if people are less likely to consume that type of media. However, having that label right at the point of consumption every time they consume that product is a constant reminder and makes sure that it is front and centre and is part of their decision making prior to consuming.
Dr. Yau: I have nothing else to add. Thank you.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
Senator Hay: Thank you all for the work you do on the front lines of public health. I appreciate it a lot.
I think I’m following the same thread as my colleague Senator Osler. This is perhaps for all of you. I would say many populations have nominal trust in government programs, and that’s just potentially a fact of life. In fact, the 2024 Edelman Trust Barometer clearly indicates this growing trend with youth in particular. I’m going to focus on youth. I think, Ms. Stobo, you spoke about youth. How might labelling interact with other community-level interventions and youth prevention programs, and I’m going to add in their words, in their world, relevant to them being young people, to create measurable impact?
Ms. Stobo: Thank you for the question. I will begin but will definitely defer to my colleagues as well.
What we need to think about when we’re looking at alcohol labelling and how it reaches them is, in fact, at the time that they are going to see the product. From the time they are children and youth, if we look at this through an early exposure perspective, they’re going to see these labels before they even think that they want to drink or would like to try experimenting with alcohol. If their parents do consume alcohol, they’re going to see these products and clearly see the labels. It sends the message to them right away that this is a harmful substance. It’s not benign. It’s not an ordinary commodity. It has health risks associated with it.
That messaging can be complemented by work that happens in our school system through our health curriculum from our educators. It is complemented by some of the great programs and interventions that are being implemented across different communities across our country through youth centres where we’re engaging young people to make sure that we’re trying to lead them down the right path so that a substance doesn’t become something that is the definition of their life.
It is a complementary measure. It’s one way in which they can see the product itself is indicating and the producers of that product are communicating a message that this product has harm. So it’s not the government actually sharing that message; it’s the industry themselves that is saying, “Be aware that this product has health harms associated with it.”
Senator Hay: Perhaps I might clarify for the other witnesses a little bit. It’s about the fact that “just say no” and a warning label might not be a strategy for young people, so what I’m looking for is, how are you going to speak to young people in their words in addition to a label that might be at the point-of-sale about this same messaging? I’m just curious because the label might not actually get to the young person.
Dr. Yau: I think what you’re speaking about are health-promotion and knowledge-translation efforts targeted toward higher-risk populations, such as the youth that you’ve identified. That is really an important part of a comprehensive strategy toward addressing alcohol-related harms.
Alcohol warning labels, in my opinion, are largely agnostic of the population. They are for all consumers and anyone who sees those warning labels, so they do play an important role in reaching the wider audience, but there is work that needs to be done by public health and by government to make sure that we are speaking the language of each of the populations that are harmed by alcohol, including youth. It is really a complementary approach. The alcohol warning labels would be a great start, but it would not necessarily be the entirety of an approach to address youth drinking, for example.
Senator Hay: Thank you.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you to each of the witnesses not only for being with us today but also for the work you do every day. It’s much appreciated.
This may be a difficult question, and I appreciate that in asking it, but I would really welcome hearing from each of you about any experiences that you’d be willing to share with us about your interface with the alcohol industry and whether you have had positive experiences or perhaps not so positive ones. Please feel welcome, anyone who wishes to start, but the question is to all three.
The Chair: Dr. Yau, you look like you want to say something.
Dr. Yau: I was just thinking about if I have had any personal interactions with the alcohol industry in my role. I’m relatively new to my role, so I don’t have a large body of personal experiences. I know that there is work under way in British Columbia to look at the role of industry and what was called regulatory capture, so the role of industry in creating policy for itself here in British Columbia. That is an issue that we have when government is both the regulator and also benefits from being the sole proprietor of alcohol, the liquor distribution branch. There’s a little bit of discussion here locally about that. From the work that my colleagues have done with their alcohol advocacy, I know that there is strong pushback whenever there are any proposals to restrict or refine alcohol access and consumption in Canada. That has primarily been my experience.
Ms. Stobo: We have had some interaction with the alcohol industry. Approximately eight years ago, we presented a report forward to our board of health, and part of that board of health report was speaking to, and calling for the need for, a comprehensive alcohol strategy. Within the strategy recommendations, it was asking questions about whether we should, in fact, be increasing the legal age to 21? Are there other alcohol measures like labelling that we should be including? Should we be thinking about how alcohol is advertised and promoted, applying the more restrictive lens and approach that we have taken with comprehensive tobacco control? I recall that we had received letters from the alcohol industry and different representatives from the industry communicating their perspectives on why they disagreed with some of the recommendations that had been made. I would say it tends to be through those formal channels, such as formal resolutions being heard through local boards of health, which are then being actioned up through to our government partners.
Dr. Murti: I’m relatively new to my role at Toronto Public Health as well, so I don’t know if I can speak to anything specific at Toronto Public Health. I will comment, though, saying that I was a former employee at Public Health Ontario where my colleague Dr. Erin Hobin, who is a global leader in alcohol policy, was leading a study on alcohol labelling in the territories, which was then stopped because of alcohol interference. As a colleague to her, as part of that scientific agency, we’ve certainly seen an impact on scientific advancement in this topic area because of the industry.
Senator Brazeau: Hello to all of you. Like my colleagues, I would like to thank you for the work that you do. From my standpoint, your work doesn’t go unnoticed. So thank you.
My quick question is this: We’ve just been talking about the industry. The industry is quite powerful. Having said that, could you share your thoughts on what will happen if we allow industry to have their way and prevent the requirement for warning labels on their cancerous product?
Dr. Murti: I’m happy to start, Senator Brazeau. Thank you for the question.
It’s always hard to know what the counterfactual is in terms of what might happen, but you’re asking an important question as to where else we can go with alcohol policy. I’m here to advocate that alcohol labelling is an important step. It’s probably not the only step we need to take, but it is an important first step in terms of increasing awareness among consumers about the health risks of alcohol and making sure that it is part of the Canadian consciousness that we are recognizing alcohol as a carcinogen that has multiple health effects on different stages of the population. That’s where we need to take a stand in terms of the industry, saying that this is a product like any other product. We have labelling on food, cigarettes, vaping products and cannabis, but we do not have alcohol labelling. This is a final area in which it’s very important to penetrate the collective consciousness of Canadians to make sure they understand the harms of this product.
Ms. Stobo: Thank you for the question.
For the bulk of my career, I’ve actually worked in comprehensive tobacco control, and I have been involved in policy related to tobacco control for a couple of decades. When I think about the work that we have ahead of us as it relates to alcohol, we have work to do, and the reason for that is because the industry has done such a good job of promoting their product as safe and as part of a good time. We are steps behind if we think about the fact that alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen just like tobacco. Yet, we are seeing advertising, packaging and labelling that continue to focus on the positive benefits of alcohol consumption, and we are lacking that same level of reach to our communities with messages around the health harms associated with alcohol. We can see the delays because we’re experiencing them right now. We have a lot of work to do with regard to changing our social norms related to alcohol and sending messages that it’s okay if you choose to not drink.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you to our witnesses for helping us with the study of this bill.
I have a simple question. We’re trying to target labelling because the idea is that we have the right to know what we consume and the risks associated with it. If this bill passes and we begin the task of deciding what we put on the label, would you say that there is scientific medical data consensus on the danger and the risk? Are we ready? Do we have a strong consensus in the community so that we know exactly what should go on those labels? I’m trying to get a sense if the medical and scientific communities are united about what those risks are.
Dr. Murti: Thank you so much for that question. It is an important question.
Yes, absolutely we are ready. The piece about alcohol being a carcinogen, being linked to seven distinct cancers, is not well understood in the general population. All of our evidence shows that people have a very low understanding that alcohol causes cancer. We think about all of the different ways that people try to prevent cancer in their lives. They say, “I’m not going to smoke, I’m going to exercise more, and I’m going to eat healthier.” They do not understand that alcohol is a carcinogen, and that is a key thing that we’re trying to change by having alcohol labelling. The link between alcohol and pregnancy outcomes is better. We could always do more on that, but some of those key risks like the risk of cancer are not well understood, and we have very good evidence from other labelling studies that have shown that when we show people that this exists, it does modify their behaviour. I think, yes, absolutely, we do have very good evidence to move forward, and we know what we would want to put on that label.
Senator Petitclerc: That is exactly what I wanted to know. I understand that there’s the industry and the knowledge of the public, as you’ve said so well, Dr. Murti. To me, what’s important is also — I think that’s what I’m hearing from you — that the scientific and medical communities are in sync that this has to be done because of the data that we have. I think that’s what I heard. Thank you.
Senator Bernard: Thank you all for being here. I have found your evidence to be very compelling.
I have two questions, and my first question is this: It’s clear from the evidence that you’ve presented and what we’ve heard from others that there is harm. The evidence of the harm is clear. I’d like to hear in your words, for the record: Why is there so much resistance to labelling on alcohol when we have it for tobacco, cannabis, food and so many other things? Why is there such resistance?
Ms. Stobo: In part, it speaks to the fact — I’m going to speak from a local public health agency perspective — that our funding to support the work we’re trying to do to educate health harms associated with alcohol is so minuscule compared to the billions of dollars that support the alcohol industry. As a result of the David and Goliath situation that we’re facing, we have work to do for the general public to understand the health harms associated with alcohol. It does require a comprehensive approach, as we have talked about. Labelling is the step to take so that consumers understand the product that they are purchasing. If we think about some of the work that we have done with regard to comprehensive tobacco control, in 1950, 50% or more of the population smoked. We had doctors who were actually suggesting people use menthol cigarettes to help with throat issues. We are just behind. We need to begin to do that very intentional work of having people understand health harms associated with alcohol. We need to look at how we can implement product regulations that really speak to that public health approach of strict regulations through controlled access combined with information and strategies at the local, provincial and national levels where we are communicating the health harms associated with alcohol and how individuals’ health and community health could be improved by people choosing to drink less.
Dr. Yau: I think about it in terms of what we call commercial determinants of health. This is how private industry affects our approach to these substances. I think the comparisons with tobacco and nicotine are so apt. Tobacco and nicotine were completely normalized and glamorized in Canadian society, and we just accepted it. We were maybe not told the entire truth about them. I think we’re at a point now in society where the scientific evidence is becoming clearer and clearer about the harms of alcohol, not just about cancer but about a variety of health and social harms. Alcohol is a substance that’s normalized, glamorized and promoted in our society, so every policy that we try to promote that restricts that comes back with discussions about old, draconian laws. People ask, “Why are we still in this prohibition-style era?” when, really, we’re just using the best-available evidence to inform our policies. I think that’s why we accept these risks when they are really unacceptable to society.
Senator Muggli: Thank you all for being with us today. I certainly appreciate it.
In my previous role, I was responsible for leadership of an inner-city hospital. You’ve talked about presentations to emergency departments, et cetera. I was there. Because I was in an inner-city hospital and there were very different socio-economic challenges for many people who went there, I’m wondering, are there particular populations that are more responsive to labelling? I’m interested in socio-economic differences. With that, I’m trying to imagine the people that we used to serve at the hospital I was responsible for who, generally speaking, lived in severe poverty. Are they as impacted by labels as, say, other populations? I’ll start with Ms. Stobo.
Ms. Stobo: Thank you for the question.
A strength when looking at alcohol labelling as a strategy is that it does reach everyone. It reaches everyone who purchases the product. It reaches everyone who shops in the grocery store and walks through the alcohol aisle. It is not meant to stigmatize; it is meant to inform. I think labelling can be done in such a way that it clearly articulates the health risks about the product. It’s not about individuals who choose to use alcohol and/or are in a position where they are struggling with alcohol use themselves.
I think a little bit about my experience with our quit clinic. We had a tobacco quit clinic at the health unit, and when the plain packaging and the health warnings directly on the cigarettes came into effect, we had clients talk about the fact that it was a good reminder. They themselves need to make the decision and the choice if they want to choose to quit and try to quit, but it was reinforcing for them and provided that conversation tool that they then used with their families around, “I know this is bad for me and I am working on it.” I think it has great potential to reach them at every point of contact with alcohol.
Senator Muggli: I would agree with that, but I’m more curious about responsivity outcomes. Do we know that there are different outcomes for different populations that receive information through labels? I don’t know if that research exists.
Dr. Murti: I don’t think we have that specific research. We can draw on the vast experience in Canada of tobacco control and labelling. Canada has a long history of labelling and being a global leader in packaging and understanding what works for tobacco labelling. We have a long history to draw on from that.
We do have some experience with alcohol-labelling studies specifically, again led by Dr. Erin Hobin, studies in the territories of Canada that showed people different labels and tested their pre- and post-awareness of information, their receptivity to different types of labels and their intention to change behaviours based on being provided that information. We did see that pictorial, clear messages had an impact across many different types of populations in the territories who were part of that study. That’s good evidence, that it can work in the territories or a northern population where we know there are significant struggles with alcohol, I think that’s a good extrapolation for how we might impact the rest of Canada.
Senator Arnold: Thank you for being with us today. I felt with the last witnesses, that there wasn’t more to discuss, but you have added interesting new perspectives, so thank you all.
I’m looking at the back of a Heineken bottle of beer at the moment. It has the following messages on it: Don’t drink and drive, don’t drink while pregnant, you must have ID, and enjoy responsibly. Does anyone know how those warning labels came to be on alcohol right now?
Dr. Murti, you said that you’re ready and that there’s alignment on what should be there. What would it actually say on alcohol products? Will it be, “This product causes cancer”? What would it be?
Dr. Murti: To the first question, I can’t give you the full history on all of those. Perhaps my colleagues can provide history on how each of those additions happened over time in terms of the existing labelling on alcohol, which is pretty minimal. If you look at a bottle of wine, there is really no label on it. There’s nothing that says what’s in it or any type of health information.
In my statement, the types of information that we are seeking to include on a warning label would be the size of a standard drink, how many standard drinks are in a container — as my colleague pointed out, many people wouldn’t know how many standard drinks are in a bottle of wine or a can of beer — the number of standard drinks that lead to health risks, so that’s the reminder of the recommended amount that is considered low-risk drinking, and then that specific causal link between alcohol and the development of fatal cancers. That’s one of the key pieces of information that people have not yet absorbed.
Senator Arnold: To that last point, how would you articulate that?
Dr. Murti: We have a lot of experience in Canada in terms of drawing the link between tobacco and cancers. Many people would be familiar with very graphic images of types of cancers from cigarette smoking. I would defer to my colleagues who have expertise in behavioural science as to what type of images or labels would be most effective for alcohol. That may need to evolve over time in terms of our understanding and what’s working or not with the general population. But certainly beginning with the identification of how many drinks are in this container, what a standard drink is and that there is a direct link to cancer — that is the key information.
Senator Boudreau: I’ll join my other colleagues in thanking all the witnesses for being here today.
I certainly believe in warning labels on alcoholic beverages after everything that we’ve heard here over the last number of meetings. I do think it’s the responsible thing to do, but I also think we need to take a responsible approach to what we put on those labels. We heard previous testimony from witnesses, some of whom said that absolutely no amount of alcohol can be consumed safely, if I can use that term. There is a sentence in an article from our clippings that we receive every morning that struck me a little bit. I’ll quote from the article. It says:
Data from the Canadian Centre for Substance Use and Addiction shows that consuming two alcoholic beverages per day increases one’s risk of getting cancer by 0.0099%.
Although there is a risk, that sounds very low. I’m just trying to get a sense if those numbers are misrepresenting some of the research that has been conducted. We’ve had a hard time getting information on whether a glass of wine is the same as a bottle of beer or a drink of hard liquor. What is reasonable and what is not reasonable from a health perspective? My question is addressed particularly to the two medical officers of health: What do you respond to a stat like that? Is it correct, is it not, or how do you find the balance between that and what most witnesses have told us, saying that no amount of alcohol is considered safe or healthy?
Dr. Murti: The clarification is that the data you’re quoting is from the centre where the new low-risk drinking guidelines indicate that two drinks per week is considered low risk. So certainly the recommendation is to avoid alcohol as much as possible, but if you’re drinking two drinks within a week, that is the low percentage that you quoted in terms of what you’re calling “low risk,” because it is a low risk. If you’re having two drinks per week, your incremental risk of cancer is very low, so that’s why we’re putting it in that low category, whereas, if you start drinking three or more, or particularly six or seven more drinks a week, that’s where the risk increases quite a bit. Also, particularly after six or seven drinks a week, there is quite a significant gender difference. The risk of cancer is significantly higher for those of the female sex versus those of the male sex.
Standing by the current guidelines and saying that up to two drinks a week is still considered low risk is part of the information we would want to convey to consumers. Labelling is not about saying, “absolutely not,” but is rather about making an informed choice so that people understand what a standard drink is and what is considered a low risk, which is up to two drinks per week, and understanding that having more than that is associated with an increased risk of cancer.
Senator Senior: Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today and for your presentations.
I think it was Ms. Stobo who said that labelling is seen as part of a comprehensive approach to prevention. Understanding that — particularly in your roles in public health and the regions that you represent — I’m wondering if any of your current prevention initiatives are in schools with young people, maybe through partnerships with boards. Also, how would you see labelling impact some of those prevention programs in terms of potential outcomes? If you don’t mind starting, Ms. Stobo.
Ms. Stobo: Thank you for the question.
Yes, there are a couple of ways in which messaging is being shared directly with young people in school settings. There is variability, and I can’t speak for every public health agency across the country, but from a public health perspective within Ontario, our local public health units have strong relationships with our local school boards, school administrators and teachers that have that direct contact with schools. Public health does work in support by providing them with information and resources that they can use, either under the umbrella of their healthy schools foundational approach that they use within schools or through the provision of curriculum resources so that they are actually learning messages about health harms associated with alcohol and other substances within their health curriculum and their physical health education curriculum.
From a broader perspective around how to engage and work with youth, it would be to engage them in messaging, so if we, in fact, were in a position where we had labelling and you have a product that clearly articulates the health harms associated with its consumption, actually working with youth and having them co-create messaging that we could then take to Snapchat, TikTok and the places where young people are hanging out and where they are getting their health information and letting them be the voices that are sharing the health information with their peers.
That would be an on-the-ground, front-line response to your question. That’s how we see benefits to communicating the health harms associated with alcohol that people are seeing on labels.
Dr. Yau: I’ll just say yes to the first question in terms of our reach to younger people in schools. We do run substance use prevention programs, and we assist with curriculum development in terms of substance use prevention.
Your question about a systematic approach is highlighting the lack of a provincial or a federal strategy on alcohol in terms of where we’re going and what our aims as government and society are. In British Columbia, we don’t have a provincial strategy, and there is no federal strategy. Obviously, labelling is an important component, but we’re talking about something as if it’s a silver bullet, and it isn’t. We need to talk about a larger federal strategy for identifying our aims in our alcohol approach.
Senator Senior: Thank you.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you to all of the witnesses here today. Thank you for all the work that you do. I have worked in public health for 20-plus years, so I feel like I have kindred souls here from British Columbia.
My question is around the warning labels on cigarettes. There has been a lot of work done around tobacco and the effect of graphic cigarette warning labels on smoking behaviour. These have been very effective and have had a significant impact. What is it that we’ve learned from this experience that could help us as legislators in addressing the industry pushback on efforts to warn Canadians of alcohol’s negative health impact? I’m wondering what we can do as legislators when we’re facing such pushback from industry. Would you have any advice for us? Perhaps, Ms. Stobo, you can begin.
Ms. Stobo: One of the reasons why we’ve had success with comprehensive tobacco control is because we have continued to stay grounded within the evidence and we’ve let evidence guide our decision making. It has not always been easy, but by focusing on what we know, what the evidence is telling us and trying to think about what it is we are trying to achieve in terms of a clear goal from a population health outcome for our communities, for our population, if you stay grounded within the evidence, it becomes really difficult to argue.
We also need to have a commitment to ongoing research because this is an emerging field for us where we are learning more and more as time goes on. As part of a comprehensive strategy, we would want to also look to see some commitment to ongoing funded research to guide, measure and evaluate the measures that we’re putting into a place and to then adjust as we need to.
Dr. Murti: I would just add that I think people around the table would remember the days of the camel for cigarettes and when we still had very much branded, recognizable packaging for tobacco. We are very far from that now, and it didn’t happen overnight. It took a really long time to get there and to push what is effective, how to move away from branding, to increasing size of labelling, to changing the messaging, to recognize that we needed to rotate messages because they will get stale otherwise. We learned a lot over that time period. Hopefully that means we will learn a lot faster with alcohol. I would certainly agree with the point that we would need to continue to do research and evaluation to adapt our methods to see what is effective in terms of really penetrating that understanding and change in behaviour that we are seeking. Really, we are still back in the times of the camel because, if you look at any of the advertising for all alcohol products, it is very much about the label, the design and the product. I think we have a long way to go.
Senator Greenwood: Thank you.
The Chair: Senators, this brings us to the end of the first panel. I would really like to thank Dr. Murti, Dr. Yau and Ms. Stobo for their testimony today.
Before we hear from our second panel, I would like to share with members that this panel is on industry sector perspectives. We have only two panel members for this section.
Senator Petitclerc: I apologize for stopping you. I did notice we only have the two — and thank you so much for being here — but my understanding from the notice of meeting was that we were meant to have the CEO of Spirits Canada and Wine Growers Canada. Were they confirmed?
The Chair: Yes. Last week, we had these two organizations, Spirits Canada and the Wine Growers of Canada, who confirmed their attendance, but they have since withdrawn. We were continuing to reach out to industry-sector organizations, and we’ve made every effort to accommodate them. I’ll tell you, we reached out to 10 people. We have two folks — thank you, Professor Malleck and the Coalition of Canadian Independent Craft Brewers — who today have joined us. We also reached out to Wine Growers Canada, Spirits Canada, Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Federation of Independent Business, Beer Canada, Drinks Ontario, Import Vintners and Spirits Association and the Liquor Control Board of Ontario, all of whom have failed to accept. They have declined joining us to be a part of this exercise.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you, chair. I really wanted to ask because I’ve been on this committee for many years now and I know we always make a very conscious effort to hear the industry and all sides of a bill, so I appreciate that.
The Chair: I’ll go on to say we are thankful to our two panellists who are here today who will assist us in conducting a well-informed and balanced examination of this bill.
Joining us in person today for the second panel, we welcome, from the Coalition of Canadian Independent Craft Brewers, Brad Goddard, Chair of the Board of Directors; and from Brock University, Dan Malleck, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Sciences.
Thank you for joining us today. You will each have five minutes for your opening statement, to be followed by questions from our committee members.
Brad Goddard, Chair of the Board of Directors, Coalition of Canadian Independent Craft Brewers: Thank you, Madam Chair and senators, for inviting me to speak.
Beer has been safely enjoyed by humanity for more than 10,000 years. Besides its prominent use in religious rites from Egyptians to present day, beer was also a keystone tool in creating safe drinking water — safe because the water was boiled but also because the water contained alcohol which inhibited the growth of deadly waterborne pathogens. It also happened to have nutritional value and a pleasing side effect.
Beer has evolved significantly over those 10,000 years, thanks largely to empirical evidence and scientific study. Science is the heart of beer-making, and beer is responsible for the development of several tools and processes used across the food and drug industry today. To say that brewers are afraid of science or progress is to deny thousands of years of history to the contrary.
There have been direct comparisons between tobacco and alcohol, despite some discussion in the past that the intent of this bill isn’t for beer labels to become as homogeneous and graphic as cigarette packages. Small Canadian craft breweries have successfully been able to build their businesses in Canada based on creating unique labels and names that elevate their product from being a commodity. If we lose the ability to express our individuality, then Canadian independent brewers will lose the battle on the shelf to multinational brewers who dominate the majority of the market share across Canada, and Canadian craft beer will lose its unique identity and, subsequently, volume.
On June 3, the Honourable Senator Brazeau cautioned his peers on this committee that any industry-sponsored health reports conducted by researchers and medical professionals, if they did not align with his agenda, should not be trusted. That American-style polarization of points of view — advice about which research and experts to trust and which to not — doesn’t create constructive dialogue.
His statement that we “don’t give a rat’s you-know-what about Canadians’ health and well-being” is demonstratively not true. Our independent craft brewers from coast to coast to coast support a myriad of health and wellness causes within our communities. We invest hundreds and thousands of our own dollars to make our communities better. Those charities include groups raising awareness around critical illness, creating safe meeting places and supporting local sports organizations. Brewers could keep those dollars as profit, but that isn’t the principle that governs many craft brewers in Canada. We are a group of community-first businesses who take very active roles in supporting our community in our taprooms.
There are currently established processes to communicate health-related guidance to consumers wherever alcohol is sold, responsible service guidelines prohibiting the sale of alcohol to minors or those who are intoxicated, as well as posters and circulars displayed publicly advising moderation and abstaining from alcohol during pregnancy. It’s actually a condition of our liquor licenses, both retail and manufacturing. Industry has long been supportive of these effective communication tools where there is significantly more space to communicate complex risks and messaging regardless of how alcohol is sold or served.
If on-can, on-carton warnings must be added, it would cost my business more than $100,000. I know this because we were recently required to place an allergen warning on all our packages cautioning consumers that beer contains barley. Beer has contained barley for hundreds of years, and many Canadian craft brewers voluntarily disclose this fact using a list of ingredients. Despite the redundancy it has created, the warning labels were added.
Earlier in these hearings, Dr. Naimi from the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research noted that the U.S. has had warning labels on alcohol for nearly 40 years and that Canada should catch up. From 1989, when the Surgeon General’s warning was placed on packaging, to 2021, the consumption rate of alcohol in the United States remained steady or increased.
Statistics Canada noted earlier this year a historic decrease in alcohol consumption, the largest decline in consumption since it began maintaining records in 1949. Beer in Canada has been steadily declining for more than a decade. Our relationship with alcohol has evolved significantly, and consumption trends suggest that each new generation is becoming more informed and making choices that meet their personal wellness goals. Whether to have that beer after work or a can of soda pop or a fast food cheeseburger and fries, Canadians are making choices for themselves today in a world with no shortage of access to information and deciding what level of risk is acceptable to them.
Some people would suggest, because of my personal relationship with craft beer — a beverage containing alcohol — that I shouldn’t be trusted, that my decades of brewing and selling beer make my opinion invalid, a poisoned chalice because I dare lobby the government. I would describe myself differently. I am a small business. I am an individual who takes pride in his work, values the contributions craft beer makes to Canadian communities and the economy and, as a beer consumer myself, I’m deeply vested in making responsible choices for myself and my own well-being.
The Chair: Mr. Goddard, thank you very much.
Dan Malleck, Professor and Chair, Department of Health Sciences, Brock University: Hello, senators. My name is Dan Malleck. I’m a medical historian who studies how societies regulate alcohol and drugs. My research has been funded by Canada’s tri-agency research councils, not by industry.
I’m here because Bill S-202, however well intentioned, is a disproportionate response to the risks of moderate alcohol consumption and may itself be damaging.
Like several people here, my life has been affected by alcoholism and cancer. I had an alcoholic grandparent, and several friends have struggled with alcoholism. As for cancer, my dad was diagnosed with cancer in the early 1970s. It went into remission but returned in 1990 and killed him quickly. He was 49. So I take seriously the risks of alcohol and the devastation of cancer, but as a historian, I see the manipulative strategies reminiscent of temperance throughout the evidence on alcohol harms.
Consider the talking point that alcohol is a Group 1 carcinogen like tobacco and asbestos. That’s technically true, but it’s deeply misleading. A Group 1 classification means there is sufficient evidence that it can cause cancer in humans. It says nothing about the strength of that effect, at what dose or in what context. Other Group 1 carcinogens include processed meat, like bacon, as well as estrogen and even some cancer treatment drugs. So is hormone replacement therapy as risky as smoking? Of course not. And neither is drinking.
What about the data about alcohol and cancer risk? Public discussion often confuses absolute and relative risk. CCSA data says seven drinks per week increase a woman’s relative risk of breast cancer by 12.6%. That sounds pretty worrisome, but the baseline lifetime risk for breast cancer in Canada is about 12.5%. That increases the absolute risk by 1.6%, taking the lifetime risk to 14.1%. That’s not insignificant, but consider the risk of cancer from smoking. Regular smoking increases the risk of contracting lung cancer by over 2,500%. 12.6% versus 2,500%. These are very different levels of risk, but this bill treats them as equivalent.
Then there is the way that drinking is measured. Alcohol researchers describe drinking in grams of ethanol rather than types of beverage, usually expressed in drinks per week. This makes effects easier to calculate but also lifts drinking from its lived reality. Is having a glass of wine with your nightly dinner the same as seven shots of tequila on a Saturday night? A reasonable person would say no, but that’s how the data are presented. This approach erases context — the setting, frequency and method of consumption, all of which affect levels of risk.
Finally, a word about our emotional responses to ideas of harm. When people talk about alcohol and risk, the conversation jumps to the worst outcomes of excessive drinking — addiction, violence, drunk driving, you’ve heard them all. That’s called an availability bias, when negative images dominate our perception and crowd out potential positives. The alcohol availability bias was driven by Victorian temperance groups who, seeing no benefits to drinking, framed it as damaging and immoral. That idea persists, as do temperance groups like Movendi International and the Institute of Alcohol Studies, both of which support and amplify research on alcohol harm.
Availability bias also explains the emphasis on cancer. As Senator Brazeau noted, cancer labelling is sellable. Why? Because cancer is horrible and ubiquitous. These biases deny any nuanced understanding of alcohol’s effects. For instance, the CCSA data — the same data we see with cancer rates — shows that up to 10 drinks per week reduces the risk of ischemic heart disease and stroke. These conditions kill far more Canadians than all alcohol-related cancers combined.
In conclusion, senators, public health policy must be proportionate, matching the message to the evidence. Placing stark cancer causation warnings on alcoholic beverages is not proportionate to the danger. It risks eroding public trust in health authorities and distorting how people understand harm. Bill S-202 is a disproportionate and potentially damaging measure, one that reasonable legislators should reject.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak.
The Chair: I’m going step out of protocol and start with the first question.
Professor Malleck, I have to ask a question. I have heard previous witnesses discuss the need to provide labelling that speaks of the direct link to cancer and, separately, the amount of liquor, standard drinks, within each bottle of the particular drink. I have not heard people in this room talk to us about 10 shots of tequila versus one glass of wine. Can you provide us a particular quote from a witness where you heard that? I’m unaware of that.
Mr. Malleck: I’m sorry, chair. I wasn’t quoting one witness, although we did hear earlier today someone ask about the differences.
The Chair: I thought I heard that.
Mr. Malleck: No, I’m talking about the fact that research describes grams of ethanol, but that doesn’t actually represent how people consume alcohol. When you talk about grams of ethanol across a week, it distorts the way people actually consume. If you say a drink a night and seven shots of tequila, they are both seven standard drinks in a week, but they’re very different ways of consuming them.
The Chair: Thank you.
Senator Osler: Thank you to both witnesses for being here today.
My question is for Professor Malleck. An article you wrote for Brock University earlier this year, January 2025, touches on what you were talking about with cardiovascular disease. You wrote:
. . . evidence consistently shows that moderate drinking is still protective against cardiovascular disease, the single biggest cause of premature deaths in Canada and the United States.
I looked at several different sites, but I’ll quote two. The University of Ottawa Heart Institute recommends “ . . . that patients with heart disease do not drink alcohol.” The medical journal Circulation earlier this year published a scientific statement from the American Heart Association. It says, “Considering the level of evidence, it remains unknown whether drinking is part of a healthy lifestyle . . .”
My question is, if what you’re saying is true, why, then, aren’t we seeing the alcohol industry promote, market and advertise the purported health benefits of alcohol when consumed in moderation? This committee is talking about warning labels about the risks. If these health benefits are true, why aren’t we seeing that promoted, advertised and marketed?
Mr. Malleck: Thank you for that question.
I can’t speak for industry. I can speak for the fact that if someone has heart disease, that’s different than it is for someone without heart disease. The protective effects go away when you have — again, this is availability bias. We’re going to the level of disease, the level of dysfunction. I don’t know if Mr. Goddard wants to talk about industry, but I can’t speak for industry. I don’t speak for industry.
Senator Osler: I asked you because you’re a medical historian who’d studied strategies, but I would appreciate hearing from Mr. Goddard.
Mr. Goddard: We do touch on this a bit. You can’t make health claims without substantiating the health claim on the package. For example, if you claim a low-calorie beer, you have to put a nutritional panel on the label to actually show the consumer it is low in calories. It would be hard to prove the health claim on the label, and that is the burden of our law packaging in Canada.
Senator Osler: I know the rest of the committee has questions, so I will cede the rest of my time.
Senator Hay: Thank you for your perspectives.
My first question is for Professor Malleck. If you could provide to the committee your data around breast cancer and all the data you spoke about in writing, I’d appreciate that.
I wander around the grocery store and the liquor store. I’m not here to discuss a prohibition or “just say no” or that we should abolish it. I don’t think that’s a strategy at all. But when I walk around, some of the coolest, most compelling labels one could find are on craft beer, first of all, or on wine bottles. I get it because you need to stand out on the shelf. You spoke about communicating the uniqueness and how different it is. It has a cool factor. To be honest, I love how art is used and how dynamic it is. It’s a brilliant use of marketing and brand management. My question is just about brand. What is the resistance? With that kind of ability to create cool, dynamic, appealing packaging, why can’t you add something that’s really relevant to someone who might be at point-of-sale going to consume alcohol that could very well have a health risk? What’s the problem?
Mr. Goddard: I think therein lies what’s going on in this committee. Our industry’s concern is we would go down the path that we’ve heard a lot about, tobacco, where there is no brand identity. If the conversation goes in the direction of how to communicate messages, I think industry would be open to how those messages are communicated and to make sure we’re using the right tools to communicate those messages. I would hesitate to try to artfully incorporate them into labels because I think we would get accused of trying to override or hide the message.
Senator Hay: If I may, I’m just curious where this committee said we were going down a rabbit hole regarding brand identity or whatnot in industry. I don’t recall that myself. This committee has been pretty thorough in trying to grapple with this issue. I’ll let you carry on.
Mr. Goddard: I was just going to say it is because of the close association between tobacco and alcohol that has been made in this room. Tobacco has gone brand free, so certainly one of my great concerns is that we would head down that path and that that would be the continuum of the conversation that we’re starting today.
Senator Hay: It’s a little challenging for me to accept the idea that “Then this is what’s going to happen in the future.” I don’t think that’s based on any research or fact. That’s just your opinion, which is what you’re here to talk about. If you parallel that to tobacco, those companies are doing just fine. They are profitable. They are doing fine without brand identity, and they don’t even have shelf space. They’re doing fine.
Mr. Goddard: It’s a highly consolidated market. It’s controlled by a very limited number of manufacturers. That’s not the Canadian marketplace today. In the Canadian marketplace, there are 1,200 craft breweries. I don’t know that 1,200 craft breweries would survive in a brandless vacuum the way that tobacco has been able to consolidate it.
Senator Hay: I appreciate that.
Senator Brazeau: My question is for you, Mr. Goddard. Are you a medical doctor?
Mr. Goddard: No.
Senator Brazeau: Thank you.
You mentioned in your opening remarks about your product being ingested in a safe way. You used the words “nutritional value,” and you mentioned that your craft brewers have created some unique labels. Have they created unique labels to warn their own consumers about the cancer risks associated with it?
Mr. Goddard: No, we haven’t.
Senator Brazeau: Thank you.
I’m not getting personal here. I understand that you have a job to do, but I have a job to do as well. My question to you is, are you aware that alcohol has been classified a Group 1 carcinogen since 1988? Are you aware of that?
Mr. Goddard: Yes.
Senator Brazeau: Thank you.
My final question is, can you tell me what your organization has done to make your own consumers aware of the cancer risks? Can you tell us what exactly you have done since 1988?
Mr. Goddard: Professor Malleck spoke a bit about this. The risk of cancer, we need to have a —
Senator Brazeau: That’s not what I asked. I asked, what has your organization specifically done since 1988 to warn your own consumers about your poisonous and carcinogenic product? What have you done specifically to warn your own consumers?
Mr. Goddard: We’ve supported a lot of community initiatives, including cancer associations, raising money and supporting their fun runs and things like that.
Senator Brazeau: Could you provide the committee with an extensive list of everything you have done to provide your own consumers with the information about the cancer risk associated with consuming your product?
Mr. Goddard: I could probably not provide a comprehensive list, no.
Senator Brazeau: Could you provide a small list? Any list?
Mr. Goddard: Communicating that hasn’t been part of the mandate from the provincial or federal governments.
Senator Brazeau: So you’re waiting for a mandate from the federal or provincial governments to start notifying and educating your own consumers with respect to the cancer risk? Is that what you’re saying? You’re waiting from a mandate from any level of government, the same governments that you lobby to ensure that you don’t have cancer warning labels on your products? Is that what you’re suggesting here?
Mr. Goddard: I’ll take it away and consider it.
Senator Brazeau: When you have the answer, I would ask for this committee to be given that answer. Thank you.
Senator McPhedran: I apologize for coming in late. I had a commitment with a group of visitors and had to step out.
I think it’s fair to say that on this committee we have been quite fascinated with the notion of the commercial determinants of health. We know that your industry — like all industries — is in the business of making a profit, and you have to operate in a very competitive commercial environment. My question to you builds somewhat on the question from Senator Brazeau. Do you have any dedicated research within your corporate sphere that is focusing on the commercial determinants of health or the health results of consuming alcohol?
Mr. Goddard: No, that’s not something that we’ve researched. We do have research that talks about the awareness level of negative health outcomes of alcohol, even the awareness level of the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction, or CCSA, report. This is Alberta data, but the awareness level of negative outcomes of alcohol consumption is around 90% for Alberta consumers. The awareness from the CCSA report is 55%. I would say they’ve done a good job in that regard from branding that report and creating awareness around it.
Senator McPhedran: You mentioned partnerships with community. I wonder if you could give us one or two specific examples.
Mr. Goddard: We are asked to support a lot of fun runs, certainly some for mental health. We’ve done Movember events. Beers have the ability to bring people together in community and create an occasion where people are together and not isolated — regardless of what the base cause for bringing people together, the base reason, Folk fest or whatever it is — and I believe that has a very positive community benefit and a positive health benefit.
Senator McPhedran: On those occasions that you’ve just given us examples of, do you provide any messaging about the health risks of consuming alcohol?
Mr. Goddard: If people do it at a location that is one of our licensed establishments, yes. Signage is posted at the front where the sale of alcohol takes place, warning consumers about potential health outcomes.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you.
Senator Bernard: Thank you both for being here and for spending this time with us this evening.
My colleague Senator Greenwood had to leave, so I’m going to start with her question. This is for you, Mr. Goddard.
She says:
I read the letter your organization shared with her office and other witnesses who appeared before our committee, namely your arguments that “those involved with these efforts believe that less alcohol is still too much alcohol,” and that “this is despite well-established global evidence that exists demonstrating moderate alcohol consumption may provide some health benefits.”
Senator Greenwood then shared some of your claims about heart disease, stroke, diabetes and improved mental health with other witnesses.
One witness said, “That study has been debunked.” Another said, “The risk of cancer far outweighs any of those benefits in various studies.” Another witness said, “The industry, like the tobacco industry, works to slander the work of professionals who are involved in their area of focus.” Another said, “The industry has ignored people who struggle with alcohol.”
The final witness said: “For those other pieces around moderate drinking, the World Heart Federation and the World Health Organization, every big global body has come out clearly, alcohol is not good for your health. We talk about that in the context of lots of foods and other things. Why are we still pretending about this?”
Senator Greenwood’s question is this:
Do you still stand by your previous claims? Do you agree or disagree that there is a link between alcohol consumption and cancer?
Mr. Goddard: I do still stand by my previous claims. The positives that alcohol can contribute aren’t measured as easily as the negatives. There are plenty of statistics that have been quoted by a lot of witnesses, and it is easy to measure the negatives; it’s not easy to measure the positives. However, I have never met anybody who thought that beer was a health food. I’ve certainly never met anybody who thought that beer was good for them. The occasions that it creates do create positive impacts, but I’ve never met anybody who was under the impression that a glass of beer a day is going to make you faster, better or stronger.
I forgot the second question.
Senator Bernard: The question was whether you stand by your previous claims and whether you agree or disagree. I think you’ve answered that.
I’m from Nova Scotia. There’s a small brewery in Nova Scotia called Candid Brewing Company in Antigonish, which is in rural Nova Scotia. They have teamed up with St. Francis Xavier University to do a project where they’re putting warning labels on local craft beer. They are piloting this to see how labels could work for alcoholic beverages. How is it that a small brewery in Nova Scotia could be so bold as to put warning labels on their products?
Mr. Goddard: I actually know the answer to this one because I’ve spoken to them. They believed it would be good PR to get their name in the news.
It does speak to the spirit of craft brewing, which is collaborative. Some of the line of questioning here today doesn’t feel collaborative, but you would find among craft brewers — certainly craft brewers — that there is a spirit of collaboration. If we were able to work together, we could find a compromise that communicates messages effectively and keeps in mind what our end goal is, ultimately, for Canadians. That is the spirit of our industrial sector, and I think we could get there. I just don’t know that this bill is the correct tool to get there, or at least all of the elements of this bill are the tool to get there.
Senator Bernard: This brewery is clearly making public statements that they believe it’s important to give consumers more information so they can make informed choices. They believe that they can do that by putting labels on the brewery cans. And your response is that it’s for PR?
Mr. Goddard: That’s what the brewery told me. They believe it would get them on the newspaper and get them on TV. They will also feel some duty to consumers as well.
The Chair: As chair of this committee, I’d just like to state that, as a committee, we’re here to examine the issue and the legislation. We’re not here to collaborate.
Senator Muggli: Thank you for being here.
My question is potentially for both of you, but I’ll start with Mr. Goddard. Mr. Goddard, if not labels, can you talk about what you might see as alternatives to labels that can help consumers understand and appreciate cancer risk from alcohol use?
Mr. Goddard: Yes. There are other tools already being used by provincial jurisdictions because liquor control has largely been a provincial issue. In Alberta, there are several posters that we have to put at the point of sale that educate consumers about a number of different issues. Then seasonally, of course, we promote don’t drink and drive. We promote responsible consumption. In our training — and this is true in every province — we receive a significant amount of training about the risks around alcohol and the responsible service of alcohol. And for those people, everybody who touches sales of alcohol, whether it’s direct service or a salesperson selling wholesale, that training focuses on education, and that education we are meant to pass on to consumers, whether they like it or not. We are meant to engage them and pass on that message.
Senator Muggli: Can you give detail on what that training looks like?
Mr. Goddard: Yes. There’s training about health impacts. It’s several modules. One is how to identify if somebody has had too much alcohol, how to identify and engage somebody if you feel they have a problem with alcohol, strategies to speak to them, to connect with them so you don’t chase them away from the answer. There are direct-risk associations, drinking and driving, fetal alcohol syndrome, that have very direct messaging. It has training but it’s followed up with circulars.
Senator Muggli: Mr. Malleck, do you have any response on that one? Alternatives to labels to get the message out about cancer risk?
Mr. Malleck: My whole perspective on this is you’re providing distorted information that doesn’t give nuance. There’s been interesting research on labelling that came out in August 2025 that looked at how people respond to causative versus what you call modal verbs, “may cause” versus “causes.” In both cases, people got very hostile towards the authority when they saw causative. It diminished their trust of this kind of messaging, in the causative messaging, but in both cases, people said they weren’t going to change their behaviour.
There’s a lot of conflicting information on labelling. I can’t speak for the industry, I don’t speak for the industry, but I think on a practical basis, if you’re going to expect someone to change their product, it might be useful to be sure that what they’re doing is actually going to be effective. A lot of the information this committee has received is from the Yukon study that was really problematic in the way it was designed and then what happened when the industry interfered with it. It really complicated the data. I don’t think the people from CISUR clarified the complication with the data, but until you have good data on the type of messaging that works, I don’t think it’s fair to industry to expect them to change their labelling.
Senator Muggli: Any opinions quickly on QR codes, the use of QR codes on labels? Maybe Mr. Goddard.
Mr. Goddard: We have used QR codes. They can create a dynamic experience — to one of the senator’s questions earlier about speaking to people in their own language. There is some flexibility that you might have with QRs if you can get people to engage with them. Only certain demographics actually engage with QR codes, but you can create a message that is relatable for the types of people that would scan QR codes. It might be an adaptable message.
Senator Senior: I appreciate being able to hear from industry directly today, so thank you for that.
I think one of you used the term to describe us as potentially unreasonable legislators.
Senator McPhedran: And distorted.
Senator Senior: And manipulated strategies. I’m just trying to ask a question that will show you that I’m a reasonable legislator.
To me, the evidence is clear. I’ll just make it clear that I support and believe the science in terms of the link between alcohol and cancer — seven cancers, in fact. Understanding that, hearing from you that there’s labelling in the U.S. and there’s been no reduction, and also hearing that the link may be minuscule — I’m not quite sure that’s what the science that we’ve heard says. If the labelling of alcohol in other jurisdictions — let’s say the U.S. — hasn’t had an impact, what’s the risk of including labelling, knowing that there is a link. Mr. Goddard?
Mr. Goddard: I think the risk, actually speaking to something Professor Malleck said, has to be proportional.
Senator Senior: Excuse me for interrupting. I think the proportion is somewhat irrelevant if you’re trying to inform your consumers about that link.
Mr. Goddard: I agree, but when I spoke to my doctor recently about colorectal cancer — I don’t have it but I’m getting to the age where I need to start being responsible about it — I said, “What are my risk factors?” He said, “Smoking, certainly big; obesity; eating red meat; high-fat, low-fibre diet; sugar; and alcohol.” He said all of those things contribute to colorectal cancer. I said, “What can I do to avoid it?” He said, “Go for walks, eat more fibre.” Those were his top ways to advise me in order to correct my life. He didn’t say, “Drink less beer.”
Senator Senior: Mine said, “Drink less,” period, as well. I get the personal anecdote that you’re telling us. Some doctors may not give full information and advice as well, but I think the science is really clear. The link has been proven globally as well, because we had someone from the UN come and talk about this. We’re not prohibitionists. I have no interest in being a prohibitionist. I have no interest in telling people what to do, but the information is really what I’m interested in as a reasonable legislator.
Mr. Goddard: I guess my only response to that is I want to look at highest impact corrective actions to hopefully prevent cancer outcomes. I don’t know that a warning label on beer is the highest impact to help change consumer behaviour.
Senator Senior: Thank you.
Senator Arnold: Thank you for being here and having the courage to come here, so we appreciate that.
I want to follow up on what Senator Bernard said because I think it’s a great Atlantic Canadian success story. I have a quote here from the guy who runs that brewery. He said he views the labels as being important to help consumers make informed decisions. I think that’s what many of the witnesses who have come before us have said. We know that 81% of Canadians support warning labels. It seems to me like Canadians should have a right to know what’s in their products, just like they do on every other consumable they put in their mouths. We’re struck by the fact that Corona Cero has a huge warning label on it about don’t consume more than two of these non-alcoholic beverages because you will be over your quota for vitamin D in a day. Yet, we can’t tell Canadians what some risks are to them from this? I’m curious what your thoughts are on that.
Mr. Malleck: Again, I don’t speak for industry but I can speak to the idea of proportionality.
The data I gave, by the way, was from the CCSA’s report and from the Public Health Agency of Canada. Often what happens is the infographic provided gives a certain slant on information that, when you dig into the data, it doesn’t provide the same kind of information.
When we look at something like cancer risk, as Mr. Goddard said and as most people in here know, there are multiple factors that cause cancer. It’s really difficult to tease out what specific thing causes cancer, yet within the cancer epidemiology cohort, they have a formula for figuring out an estimate of how many fatal diseases were caused by alcohol consumption. It’s problematic to make that assumption, unless you’re looking at direct death from alcohol, a.k.a., alcohol poisoning. Anyone who knows anything about cancer — and I think there are three physicians in this room — knows that there are a lot of factors. For example, increased estrogen after childbirth affects the risk of breast cancer. I think breastfeeding is also part of it.
If someone says it increases your risk of cancer, that’s a more reasonable statement. When they say it causes cancer, that is a problematic causation statement. All the toxins in tobacco, yes, cause cancer. I don’t think anyone in this room is going to disagree with that. When you get into things like the marginal increased risk and its relative risk, which itself is problematic sometimes — if you don’t know your absolute risk, relative risk can seem scary. The relative risk for oropharyngeal cancer at 14 drinks per week increases your risk of that cancer by 90%, but the risk of getting that cancer is remarkably low. I don’t even think they can really measure risk the way they can measure the risk of a woman contracting breast cancer.
That bold cancer statement is really distorted. This is why I talked about manipulation because it manipulates the data, and I would say it disrespects Canadians because it’s saying it’s cancer, but there is a lot of stuff that goes into affecting cancer, and alcohol may or may not — I’m not going to deny there is an increased risk, but to say it causes cancer and to make that the warning is problematic.
Now, if you wanted to expand this bill —
The Chair: We’ve run out of time for that question.
Senator Brazeau: You’ve talked about manipulation and distortion with this bill, and you’ve tried to associate it with being a personal issue of mine, but here’s what’s distorted and manipulative. We have two people before this committee, grown men, saying that there is nothing to see here and alcohol is great. We’re just talking about cancers here, but alcohol also causes deaths, accidents, calls to 9-1-1, calls to police, FASD, mental health issues, depression and suicides, but you don’t want to talk about that.
Here is what is distorted. The only reason people would be against such a bill, which is common sense, is because of profits. But you cannot even say that. There is no wealth in Canada without health. Unfortunately, where you’re getting your wealth is at the expense of Canadians’ health. Why not inform them? That’s the basic question. Why do alcohol companies in Canada get a free pass? Cannabis and tobacco have warning labels. Why do you get a free pass? Can you answer that question?
The Chair: Senator Brazeau, who would you like to answer your question?
Senator Brazeau: Either witness. Why do you get a free pass?
Mr. Goddard: Well, first, I don’t think we have said there is nothing to see here. I don’t think we have said that we’re not concerned with public health. I don’t think that has been the context of either one of our messages today.
What I would like is when we communicate with Canadians, I want it to be trustworthy, credible and clear. To Dan’s points earlier, I don’t know that the message that is proposed is trustworthy, credible or clear.
Senator McPhedran: Professor Malleck, I would like to ask if you could specify the research that you’re currently doing and the source of funding for that research.
Mr. Malleck: I actually don’t have any research funding right now. I just put in an application to SSHRC for a history project on the history of prohibition. I don’t have any funding from industry. I’m very adamant. People from industry call me and want to go for a beer. I will talk to anyone. I’ve talked to public health folks. I was at the University of Ottawa and met Senator Brazeau there. I’ve talked to a bunch of public health folks as well. When I go to these meetings, I insist — and they understand — that I won’t let them buy me dinner or a beer or anything. There is no financial connection. I speak at different conferences. My research is not funded at all, as I said at the beginning, and I don’t know why you would think I wasn’t telling the truth.
The Chair: It wasn’t clear.
Mr. Malleck: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m not industry funded.
Senator McPhedran: I’m aware of your statement. I’m just trying to understand what the sources of funding are for you.
The other thing I want to observe is this is what comes up of you on the Brock University website — hoisting a beer and holding Liquor and the Liberal State, which is obviously one of your books. I think I’m probably out of time, but I would ask if you would please answer the question in writing, which is to list the research that you’ve conducted in the last five years and the sources of funding for that research.
Mr. Malleck: I’m just wondering if that was also asked of all the other people who presented.
Senator McPhedran: You’re the first academic who has been as positive and encouraging about the consumption of alcohol.
Mr. Malleck: Well, I didn’t bring a bottle of whisky in from my own stash.
The Chair: I’m going to end this conversation.
Senator Osler: Professor Malleck, you referenced the Yukon study.
Mr. Malleck: Yes.
Senator Osler: For folks around the table who are not aware, the Yukon study was an eight-month intervention where they had three enhanced warning labels on alcohol containers. There was an intervention site, which was in Whitehorse, Yukon, and a control site where there were no warning labels, in Yellowknife. Professor Malleck, I believe you called this study flawed. I would be interested to know what were the flaws that you identified in that study.
Mr. Malleck: I can’t get too much into it, but as you know, it was interrupted. The study design was to go over eight months, but it was interrupted when there were some issues with the — I guess people have used this as a way of saying the liquor industry wants to interfere with research.
The problem with an eight-month study in public health, especially when you’re looking at consumption, is that you’re not looking at the full year, so you don’t go through every season. Consumption of things changes seasonally. That’s another issue.
Interestingly, they’ve extracted seven research articles out of it where they’re looking at responses and they say, yes, people did notice the labels, but after the first two months of this study when the fact that it was stopped became news, it kind of messed up the strength of the study because, suddenly, other people are talking about it and there are some question.: How did you learn about this? Did you notice the label, or did you hear about it in the news and it tweaked your memory? There are a lot of challenges in that.
Interestingly, there is a ton of other research on labelling that gives a variety of very useful information and a balance of useful information around the nuances in that kind of a study. Some people say labelling doesn’t work at all. Some people say it’s useful for raising awareness in certain formats. I’m not an expert on labelling, but I decided that because this is a bill on labelling, I would look at some of the robustness of the research.
Like I said, with the article in August 2025, the researchers expected to see a reaction to these labels, which was maybe I might drink less, and they admitted surprise that it didn’t happen.
Senator Osler: I’m sorry, August 2025. What was the article again and which journal?
Mr. Malleck: I can provide you with that information.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
Mr. Malleck: I can’t remember. It was in Addictive Behaviours, August 2025.
Senator Osler: Could you provide that to our clerk?
Mr. Malleck: Absolutely. No problem.
Senator Osler: Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much to our witnesses for joining us today and sharing your perspectives.
Senators, we have come to the end of our session, and we are going to have a short period in camera.
(The committee continued in camera.)