Canadian Government wants you to believe C6 is protecting you

     

  • But from what?
  • Drugs and even peanuts claim lives every year
  • Herbal supplements simply help people be well so they do not need drugs 

    

C6 endangers your rights, liberties and freedom of choice.

What would you do if your favorite, even essential vitamins, minerals, herbs, homeopathic or nutritional supplements suddenly disappeared?   What if the government chose to ban them?  C-6 gives them the power!

Millions of  Canadians rely on natural health products (NHP) for their health and these products are now endangered by Canada's Bill C-6 as are their personal rights & freedoms. Consumers need to act now to save them by voicing their concerns to politicians

As a voting Canadian citizen, you have every right to object strongly to the fact that the proposed natural health product and drug regulations under Bill C-6 are in numerous ways limiting your freedom of choice, and your ability to take care of your own body. 

Unlike drugs or even peanuts, natural health products have no significant track record of harm and ZERO deaths in Canada since 1960.  So if people are not being harmed, why is the government so keen to bundle herbs with drugs?

      

Here are just a few key elements found in C-6:

  • C-6 EXPOSES CANADIANS TO THE POTENTIAL OF FOREIGN STATE INFLUENCE ON DOMESTIC AFFAIRS:  A significant shift in the term "government" to include foreign states and groups of foreign states and therefore the potential to influence internal Canadian affairs.
  • C-6 REDEFINATION OF NHP's AND DRUGS TO 'THERPEUTIC PRODUCT' UNDER NEW TERMINOLOGY: " A radical alteration to key terminology, including replacing the word "drug" and "natural health products" with "therapeutic product" throughout the Act, giving the Canadian government broad-reaching powers to regulate the sale of all herbs, vitamins, supplements and other items.  With this single language change, anything that is "therapeutic" automatically falls under the Food and Drug Act, including natural health products.
  • C-6 APPEARS TO LOWER DRUG SAFETY STANDARDS: By shifting the basis of drug approvals from the current Precautionary approach to a Risk Management approach, a Minister can decide, based on secret industry data, that ‘benefits’ outweigh ‘risks’
  • C-6 APPEARS TO SPEED UP DRUG APPROVALS: By providing a legal framework for ‘progressive licensing’ of pharmaceuticals with less evidence of safety or effectiveness. Speedy drug approvals have already led to harm (remember Vioxx)
  • C-6 ELIMINATES BARRIES FOR DIRECT-TO-CONSUMER ADVERTISING: Suggests the introduction of any kind of prescription drug advertising with new regulations. As in the USA, drug ads give misleading and even harmful information and drive up spending on new drugs that cost more with questionable benefits over existing alternatives.  Patients asking doctors for a new drug prescription? Absurd!
  • REDEFINATION OF THE WORD "SELL" TO INCLUDE ANYONE who gives a therapeutic product to someone else. So if you give an herb to your child, under C-6's new language, you could be arrested for engaging in the sale of unregulated, unapproved "therapeutic substances."
  • IMPOSED REMOVAL FROM THE MARKET , HALTS AT THE BORDER, LEGAL ACTIONS, ARMED PRESENCE AT A RECENT BC CONFERENCE -if you think that's not possible, think again becasue it is happening and with C-6, the minister has unprecedented powers.

     

What is Bill C-6?

CURRENT NATURAL HEALTH PRODUCT DEFINATIONS: vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, homeopathic medicines, traditional medicines such as Traditional Chinese Medicines, probiotics, and other products like amino acids and essential fatty acids.

Since 2004 when the Natural Health Product Regulations were introduced, natural health products have been increasingly threatened. The new Regulations were Health Canada’s response to consumer demands for the government to protect their access to natural health products. The Regulations have had the opposite effect.

To “legally” sell a health product the new Regulations impose a licensing requirement. The problem is that 60% of licence applications have failed. These have been the “easy” applications. Expectations are that 70-75% of applications will fail. For the NHP Community this means that 75% of NHPs we rely upon for our health will become illegal.

      

Bill C-6 reads like a Police State Manual

There has never been a death in Canada caused by a natural health product.

Considering that there are multiple deaths every year caused by common foods such as peanuts and shellfish, it is clear that natural health products are extremely safe. When you consider the health benefits of natural health products, including that many of us rely upon them for our very lives, it becomes clear that the real danger in regulating them is to “over-regulate” them off of the market.

Bill C-6 gives Health Canada unprecedented power to take natural health products away from us.

Traditionally in Canada we have had the rule of law.

  • This meant that it was not okay for the State to take our property without a warrant and without Court supervision to prevent arbitrariness and abuse.
  • Now to “protect” us the State under Bill C-6 can seize the property of persons in the natural health product industry, including natural health practitioners, makers of natural health products, and retailers. This would be problematic even if there had to be a realistic safety concern for the seizure, but there does not have to be a safety concern.
  • Under the new law (Bill C-6) the State can seize without a reason, without a warrant, without limits to what can be seized, without a time limitation, and without reporting the seizure to a Court.

In some cases seized property can be forfeited to the State without Court approval. Owners will have to pay the costs of the seizure, transport and storage of seized things, even if it turns out that there was not a safety risk.

The State still needs to get a search warrant if they are going to search someone’s home, but if it is not a home they do not need a warrant and can trespass on private property without any liability.

Small family businesses are subject to the same maximum $5,000,000 fines as large corporations. Directors, officers and agents of a company can now be personally charged for the misdeeds of the company.

Even more troubling is that the State under Bill C-6 does not have to consider the health risk caused by their seizures.

Under Bill C-6, when the State seizes our natural health products, they are taking away our right to choose. That is, they are making our health decisions for us. We are then forced to use other treatments such as chemical pharmaceutical drugs which can be dangerous and ineffective.

For those of us who only get relief from natural health products, the State forces us to suffer and in extreme circumstances, to die. The seizure of Empowerplus is an example of where deaths resulted from the State seizing a natural health product that is now freely on the market.

  • There is something wrong with “health” legislation which allows the State to seize health products without considering whether we need the products.  There willingness to do so has already be demonstrated.
  • There is something wrong with the State making personal health decisions for us. Health decisions are fundamental to our personal autonomy.
  • There is something wrong with the State being able to seize our property without prior Court approval, without clearly defined reasons for the seizure, without time limit, and without Court supervision.
  • There is something wrong with the State being able to trespass on our property without any recourse.

It Appears The Canadian Government Plans To Make Your Health Safety Priority Last With C-6 and C-52

 

This page updated Nov. 8, 2008 and is awaiting actions following the conservative re-election.