Call For Action: Endorse The Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada Act, Bill C-460

Author: Jenn Kucharczyk

Posted: January 24, 2013

Categories: GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario

The Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) has distributed a one-page joint statement for consolidating NGO endorsements in support of Bill C-460, The Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada Act. The bill will be brought before the House of Commons for debate and vote beginning February 1, 2013. The bilingual statement is available online for review (PDF version also available). Interested parties should email their endorsements to CSPI by returning their e-signature, full name, title, and organization name (in either or both official languages) in the attached January 24th version of the statement as soon as possible, preferably by January 29th. Endorsements can be emailed to Bill Jeffery at bjeffery@cspinet.org .

During the question period of our Dig-In webinar on January 15th, Dr. Mary McKenna briefly spoke about the prevalence of high sodium foods in school and hospital cafeterias across the nation. High-sodium products are part of a larger series of issues regarding dependency on and accessibility to unhealthy food. Not only does this food selection affect the day-to-day lifestyle of students and patients that we associate with these institutions, but the staff and support members of communities are affected as well. The availability/promotion of processed foods impacts how diets are formed – be it by physical accessibility or financial accessibility – in all communities across the nation.

In 2010, the federal Minister of Health’s expert Sodium Working Group presented Bill C-460, The Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada Act. The bill includes a six-year sodium-reduction goal, which Prime Minister Harper adopted at the time as a joint effort with provincial and territorial support. The strategic goals include more transparency in nutritional information labeling and other methods of information communication to increase the accountability of companies that produce processed food goods.

Bill Jeffery, National Coordinator for the Centre for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI), writes: “In June 2012, Health Canada published a set of voluntary sodium-reduction targets for dozens of food categories that had been negotiated with the food industry.  However, 2016 is fast-approaching and the federal government needs to embrace an effective national strategy for effectively achieving that interim goal because the food industry has demonstrated little progress in sharing quantitative information about salting practices, let alone helping to meet the public health goals and saving money for Medicare.”

So while there has been progress, there is still no authoritative national act. The upcoming parliamentary discussions are the opportunity to amplify the potential of this strategy’s timely implementation.

Sustain Ontario is encouraging its alliance members to review the strategy and consider endorsement. A plethora of national health organizations have officially supported the bill, such as the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nurses Association, the Canadian Pharmacists Association, the Public Health Physicians of Canada, the Canadian Council of Cardiovascular Nurses, and the Centre for Science in the Public Interest. Provincial and local organizations have declared their support as well, including the Ontario Medical Association, the Board of Health for Simcoe-Muskoka, and the Association of Local Public Health Agencies.  We strongly encourage more groups to publicly endorse the Strategy and contribute to the growing body of public education resources on this topic. Once again, the joint statement is available for review online; endorsements should be sent in by January 29th (or no later than February 15th). As mentioned above, Bill C-460 will be brought before the House of Commons for debate and vote in February 2013.

A highlighted version of the bill has been prepared by CSPI as a partner document to the joint statement.

From the joint-statement (hypertext links are from the original):

Measures proposed in Bill C-460: If passed, the bill would require all food companies and key government departments to begin or continue to implement the Sodium Reduction Strategy on an urgent basis.  Foods that fail to meet Health Canada’s sodium-reduction targets for the applicable food categories (published as voluntary targets June 2012) would be required to disclose that fact on food labels so long as that failure persists.[1]  The bill also obliges the federal government to implement the regulatory reforms concerning nutrition labelling on prepackaged foods and chain restaurant menus, advertising to children, nutrition standards for food procurement, and other measures proposed in the Strategy.  Bill C-460 also requires food companies to report Nutrition Facts information to an official on-line database, and establish an independent expert volunteer oversight body to monitoring the implementation of the Strategy.  If passed, Bill C-460 would make food companies accountable to their customers through more informative food labelling, and governments accountable to Parliament through annual progress reports on implementing the Strategy. Many companies and products already meet the targets; others do not and likely will not if their non-compliance goes unnoticed.  A poll commissioned by the Public Health Agency of Canada in 2009 found that 82% of Canadians thought high-sodium foods should carry a notice highlighting that fact on the front of the label.