Food and Drugs Act

Honourable senators, I rise today to speak at third reading of Bill S-202, which aims to introduce warning labels on beverages that contain 1.1% or more alcohol. I would like to highlight the work Senator Brazeau has done on this matter, as I know this is an important and personal initiative for him.

Colleagues, I spent the summer studying this bill in detail. My team and I reviewed the committee’s proceedings and met with several health experts, including the Canadian Cancer Society, the chair of the Council of Chief Medical Officers of Health, as well as researchers from St. Francis Xavier University, the University of Victoria and Public Health Ontario. I also discussed the bill with the Canadian Craft Brewers Association, Beer Canada, Wine Growers British Columbia and several vineyard owners in British Columbia.

Colleagues, I’m not going to question the health effects of alcohol. While some studies show that alcohol consumption is associated with health risks, including certain cancers, others show that low or moderate alcohol consumption actually improves longevity and heart health.

Earlier this year, the American College of Cardiology published the results of a 10-year study involving more than 340,000 adults. The researchers found that heavy alcohol consumption increased the risk of death. By contrast, people who drank wine in moderation had a 21% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease than those who drank rarely or never. According to the study, this may be due in part to the compounds and antioxidants present in wine, which may have beneficial effects on cardiovascular health. This is not to downplay the health effects of alcohol consumption, however.

Some of the people I met over the summer made compelling arguments about this issue. However, this study also shows that research does not always yield the same results. I’m sure we’re all familiar with this debate. It highlights the conflicting findings that have emerged from research on this issue, findings that I’m sure we’ve all heard about.

Honourable colleagues, my concern with this bill is whether it is the right way to tackle the issue. I don’t believe that a Senate public bill is the right tool for establishing national labelling requirements, particularly when they involve health-related guidance.

According to standard practice, this decision should fall under Health Canada’s jurisdiction. In Canada, the labelling of prepackaged food and beverages is governed by the Food and Drugs Act. The government implements new requirements through the Food and Drug Regulations. The government should take the lead in this process. It has the necessary tools and resources to conduct appropriate engagement and consultation activities before proposing changes to the way we package or label our food and beverages.

These consultations would help us better understand the potential impact of the changes on stakeholders, both in Canada and abroad. The Senate simply does not have the resources to undertake a task of this magnitude.

The regulatory approach also offers flexibility.

As labelling information requires updating over time, which is inevitable as science evolves, we would be taking away the government’s ability to be nimble in updating labels when we codify the requirement through legislation.

It should be noted, per the Library of Parliament, that since 1989, there have been ten private members’ bills in the House and two Senate public bills that have all sought to introduce health warning labels for alcoholic beverages. None of these have passed into law in numerous parliaments under various governments.

The arguments against passing such a bill have included the following: favouring public education campaigns over unilateral mandatory packaging requirements; economic concerns around financial burdens and supply chain complications for producers and manufacturers; creating trade friction by forcing international producers to maintain separate, Canada-specific production streams; domestic jurisdictional clashes, given that provincial and territorial governments control the distribution and sale of alcohol, which complicates unified implementation; and the overarching question as to whether standalone notices are effective in curbing heavy drinking while at the same time stigmatizing moderate consumption.

Honourable senators, over the summer, I met with several owners, operators and winemakers from B.C. wineries. I had the chance to better understand the state of the industry, as well as the impacts the bill would have on them.

In B.C., the vast majority of wineries are boutique and family-run operations. When I asked them why there wasn’t a presence from B.C. wineries in the study of this bill, many of them indicated that they had not even heard of it, and of those who had, many were too busy with all the other issues facing them to have time to engage. The people who produce B.C.’s renowned wines are farmers and winemakers, not lobbyists.

This comes at a time when the wine industry is already facing substantial headwinds. Many of you know of the wildfires that ravaged the heart of British Columbia’s wine country this summer; the industry is still dealing with their severe impacts. This occurred at a time when the B.C. wine industry was still in active recovery from a 2024 extreme weather event in which a cold snap caused catastrophic losses of nearly 99% of the typical wine grape production across British Columbia.

The wine industry is also facing economic uncertainty with the Wine Sector Support Program set to expire in March. This federal funding initiative has helped producers shoulder excise taxes and adapt to climate events, high operating costs and changing trade rules. It has been backed by $343 million in government investments since its launch in 2022, but its sunsetting is causing a crisis within an industry that is long-term oriented in its planning.

These headwinds are underscored by the fact that Canadians are already drinking less. Statistics Canada data shows that national alcohol sales have hit a 20-year low.

Our wine industry is also in the crosshairs of the U.S. trade war, as they have already been subject to a 50% tariff; and now, as of a few days ago, Canadian alcohol is completely shut out of the United States.

Colleagues, this is an industry under assault from social trends, economic pressures and international spats. If yet another burden is to be placed on this industry, as this bill proposes, it should be done under the direction of Health Canada, after adequate consultation and engagement with all impacted parties, as has historically been the case.

It should be noted, colleagues, that the government is already very proactive in its ongoing efforts to address substance use and related harms, including alcohol. This is being done through the Canadian Drugs and Substances Strategy, which is a whole-of-government approach to substance use, including alcohol-related harms, and underscores the importance of timely access to prevention, harm reduction, treatment and recovery services. It supports their availability when and where Canadians need them.

For these reasons, I urge senators to consider whether prescribing labelling requirements through an inflexible act of Parliament is the most appropriate vehicle. There are other avenues to address the underlying issues at play and to work with the government to ensure that Canadians have access to the best information. For these reasons, I will be opposing this bill.

Thank you. Meegwetch.

Senator Wilson, will you take a question?

Yes.

Thank you. You mentioned craft and boutique wineries, small distilleries, craft breweries and small craft cideries. Their margins are small to begin with. Would you agree that asking them to do additional work and undertake the responsibilities that will be required by this bill may, in fact, be too much for some of them? You met with a number of them over the summer. Can you expand on what you found as far as margins? I expect there were small margins in many cases.

Thank you for the question. Yes, small margins indeed. In some cases, there are not even small positive margins, given some of the forces they are facing. The cost of labelling is significant, and as you can appreciate, wine is made and vintages are kept for long periods of time. They will be stocked outside of the wineries’ control, so point-of-sale labelling and other things may be required in order to be able to achieve the desired effect. In this industry, design, including the design of the labels, is also very important. It is part of their marketing; it’s part of their brand.

It was really heartening that all of them recognized the importance of ensuring consumption is appropriate, and they are prepared to do their part. However, they want to be part of the conversation and to be engaged with. A number of them had very creative suggestions for how to get that information out to consumers. A prescriptive approach like this, placing burdens on already struggling businesses, may put them from barely in the black into the red.

Yes.

It is not purely a cost discussion. First of all, in my view, the legislation is very prescriptive. It specifies the volume and the number of standard drinks. Yes, it does give flexibility to the department in sections 5.1 (c) and (d), but it is still being very prescriptive in terms of what goes on with the packaging, which, in my view, is something better handled through regulation.

From a health point of view, yes, it is significant. Obviously, there are risks involved in drinking alcohol, and frankly, some of the harms alcohol has created for society are much bigger than the ones we are talking about in terms of family violence and the like. It doesn’t make sense to specifically focus on the risk of cancer when there are other factors at play. For example, my family has a history of heart disease. Heart disease is a bigger risk factor for me, based on the medical advice I have been given, than the types of cancer we are talking about. Maybe, for me, drinking wine is better than not drinking it, so putting a warning label on something that may scare people off may not be the right thing. I’m not a scientist. I don’t know if that —

Senator Wilson, I regret to inform you that your time has expired. If you would like to answer the question, you will need to request leave for more time.

If I could have 60 seconds, I can finish.

I also have Senator Ringuette on the list. If there is agreement, I will add five minutes to your debate time.

Is leave granted?

Thank you. It’s void of context. It is putting out messaging about one particular type of effect. I think what should happen is Health Canada, in consultation with the medical profession, science and industry, should figure out what’s best to put on it. I don’t think that is something we should do.

Senator Wilson, will you take another question?

Yes.

Senators, you all know that I’m a smoker, and I also enjoy a good glass of wine. However, this summer, I started drinking non-alcoholic wine, and it is clearly indicated on the label. It is still very much enjoyable.

But the label is just paper, and the cost of paper is absolutely minimal, not only for Canadian producers but also for all the imports that we bring into the country. My grandson is into this thing called “six-seven.” From my perspective, with all the speeches that we give, don’t you think that health issues regarding alcohol have now been demonstrated to be as important as the health issues related to cigarettes? I’m living proof so far.

My primary argument is that this is not the appropriate vehicle to do something like this. If putting cancer warning labels on alcoholic beverages is the right thing to do, I think it needs to be done after thorough consultation and in consideration of all the other research out there.

As I indicated, the American Society of Cardiologists study was with 340,000 people over 10 years. That’s not a small data set. It showed a 21% reduction in longevity as a result of drinking moderate amounts of wine.

I would put to you that there are arguments on both sides. I think what we need to have is some moderation in the messaging. It is not one thing or the other; there are a variety of risks that need to be understood. There may also be some benefits. I don’t feel that I’m equipped to make those decisions. I think they should be made by Health Canada in consultation with industry, science and medicine.

I’m always under the impression that Senate committees are thorough in their evaluations, so I looked at the report with respect to where we are at this stage.

Essentially, if you found there were not enough witnesses at the committee, then you should be suggesting that the report go back to the committee. Or are you ready to put forth an amendment? What is your “six-seven”?

I don’t agree that there was adequate consultation as part of the committee process. It is not that the committee didn’t try to reach out. I know they did.

It was interesting. We heard about this big alcohol lobby. Microbreweries were the only organizations that reached out to me while that was going on. I had to perform outreach in the B.C. wine industry. I had to talk to folks in my own province to find out, and they didn’t know about it.

This is an example of how we think we are the centre of the universe here in the Senate, but we are not. People don’t know what we are doing. That’s why I think a broader consultation led by Health Canada is warranted.