0:00

hello all and welcome to the special episode of the true Hope cast podcast on today's show the VP of true hope Canada

0:06

Mr David Stefan is interviewing the nha's national campaign manager Veronica

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Jean a lot has been happening recently in the world of Natural Health Products and health Canada we wanted to bring you

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the most up-to-date information if you are new to this whole world then get ready to have your eyes opened you will

0:23

be amazed at the lengths the Canadian government will go to to limit its citizens medical choices please sign up

0:30

for the nha's newsletter to stay updated and informed they do not spam your inbox

0:35

they only send you critical information they also offer simple ways to become an effective advocate for your medical

0:42

Freedom visit their website www. nhp.org for Action kit and links to send the

0:49

right emails to your MP the health Minister and the prime minister they make it very easy and the nhpa is the

0:55

only organization fighting for your right to make Health choices that is it from me enjoy the show hello welcome

1:04

thank you for being here I'm David stefen with true hope Canada uh this is part of the true Hope cast or podcast

1:11

for True hope Canada and today we're going to be discussing the regulations

1:18

going on in Canada right now that Health Canada is imposing on the Natural Health Market and where this leaves you as

1:26

Canadians and whether or not these regulations are a good thing or if they're a bad thing that would

1:32

ultimately prevent you from having access to Natural Health Products so today we bring on Veronica with

1:38

nhpa and so I'd like to introduce you to her now where we will have a discussion with her and find out what she's doing

1:45

with nhpa and what they are seeing currently in the landscape that Canadians find themselves in under the

1:52

regulations that Health Canada is imposing so thank you very much for coming on Veronica thanks for having me

1:58

David why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and and uh who you are where you're from type of thing uh maybe

2:04

not in too much detail uh there's internet creep tilt there but um you

2:09

know and what brings you here today with the nhpa sure uh professionally I am a

2:16

nutritionist I've been practicing in this field for a little over 15 years now I came to know

2:23

nhpa at about that time that I got into the industry I was in 2008 there was

2:29

some challenges and I'm sure we'll talk about later today with the regulation of Natural Health Products around that time

2:35

and that's when I first got involved um at that point I was involved in a very Grassroots way uh I was running our

2:42

family's health food store and you know we would send out the postcards and talk to our customers and do those things to

2:49

get folks involved in protecting their access to Natural Health Products I

2:54

became officially involved with nhpa about six and a half years ago now I came on originally as a a campaign

3:00

assistant uh there were again some changes happening with the regulation of Natural Health Products in 2017 2018 was

3:08

something called the self-care framework that again I'm sure we'll talk about it a little bit more uh later on in the

3:15

call uh but that's where I I came on board with nhpa and then for the last year or so I've been acting as their

3:22

national campaign director since we started our most recent National campaigns uh which started in response

3:28

to Bill c47 which was last year's budget Bill there were some changes to the regulation of Natural Health Products

3:34

there and uh then most recently this year's budget bill bill c69 um and again I know we're going to

3:41

demystify all of these numbers they confuse everyone so um if you're listening don't get scared right off the

3:47

bat we'll we'll uh make sense of all of these things but um my relationship with

3:53

nhpa started out about 15 years ago in that very Grassroots way and has really

3:58

just evolved over time and become more and more involved more and more passionate about these issues um but as

4:05

you said on a personal level um I became a nutritionist and I studied nutrition

4:11

out of my own desperation uh as a teenager and a young adult I was very sick um both with

4:18

physical and with mental health issues I was doing all the things that the doctors were telling me to do taking

4:25

meds after meds and um I can't remember if it was the fourth or the fifth prescription that they wanted to pile on

4:32

and I just thought this isn't working I'm only getting sicker everything that I do I'm getting worse and worse and uh

4:40

I was just very desperate to find another way uh to feel better and so

4:46

that's why I originally studied nutrition I intended to go back to school for architecture was my plan uh

4:52

at the time and then I just absolutely fell in love with this field I

4:58

personally experienced the difference that it made for me being able to reclaim my health and live such a fuller

5:05

life than I was previously and I just love to share that with others I love doing that with my clients in education

5:12

roles and then now more in the advocacy world with NH hppa as well that's

5:17

amazing I wasn't aware of you know more the background that you had there um you

5:23

you mentioned running your family's health food store so you kind of grew up with this this whole situ

5:30

I didn't grow up with it so it's my in-laws um my my husband and I have been

5:35

together since we were very young so I was a teen when I was first introduced to uh Natural Health Products I did not

5:42

grow up in a family that used Natural Health Products it was entirely foreign to me knew nothing of the sort uh but I

5:50

did learn very quickly and uh my own trial and error like I said trying to

5:55

reclaim my own health and then in the store environment being being able to see other folks coming in and saying to

6:03

the other staff you know thank you so much for recommending this I've tried it and I feel so much better and hearing

6:08

all of that positive feedback of how many lives this was impacting in this totally new paradigm uh it just opened

6:15

up a whole new world for me and as I said I I never left I I loved it too much well this is a really relevant

6:21

point that you bring forward in in relation to your personal story about you know you don't know if it was the fourth or the fifth prescription that

6:28

they were wanting to pile on because well the first you know three or four clearly didn't work right and and and I

6:34

say that somewhat assumptive but we see that so incredibly often I mean we with

6:41

what we've been doing with true hope over the last uh two and a half decades in helping uh literally at this point in

6:46

time it's probably about 100,000 people that we've helped come off of psychiatric medications so you know working in the field of mental health

6:53

and that story that you're telling your personal experience unfortunately is not that rare I mean th

7:01

this is the issue that we're encountering um that's really at the Crux of the issue overall that we're

7:08

going to be discussing about natural health product regulations what this means to the Natural Health Market how

7:15

we see the contrast between allopathic medicine versus naturopathic or arotic or or traditional Chinese medicine how

7:22

we're seeing the you know this kind of issue arise where there seems to be this

7:27

favoring I'm not going maybe seems is a little bit of a softt word but there seems to be a favoring of allopathy

7:34

where pharmaceutical medication or Rockefeller medication or far or um petroleum based medication whatever you

7:40

want to call it uh is really being monopolized through government

7:46

regulations is what it appears to be um which we'll we'll discuss further and if any any of the audience is watching this

7:51

and they're not grasping that concept just wait till till the end of this you'll probably get a bit of a better understanding as to what has been

7:57

traditionally taking place historically within Canada in relation to naturopathic medicine versus allopathic

8:05

medicine compared to what's taking place today and how this is ultimately uh

8:10

serving to um make or or to kind of Correll people down one line of choice

8:17

if you will when it comes to choosing medicine and so yeah it's it definitely

8:22

is restricting our freedom of choice as Sovereign Canadians and you're you're

8:27

touching on something that I think is a very important aspect to use to frame this conversation because uh in the work

8:34

that I do talking about regulation uh we're talking about laws we're talking about government we can lose the fact

8:42

that at the end of the day this is about people's lives this is about the choice that an individual has on how they treat

8:50

their body how they manage their health and the health of their families my story as you said not unique by any

8:58

stretch of the imagination I've heard it from hundreds and thousands of other Canadians at this point my choice was my

9:05

choice um to go and to use natural medicine and thankfully I had that choice and I was able to manage my

9:12

health in a way that I wasn't when I tried all of the allopathic uh medications and other treatment options

9:19

so I think it's a really important part to not lose that it's not just about regulation it's not just about law and

9:25

government these are our lives and this is our choice that are available to us

9:31

when we need to deal with the health challenge incredibly said you know to to

9:36

humanize it to bring it right back down to the the actual impact that it has in people with their everyday lives and how

9:42

they're able to operate or whether they're even able to operate with a with a clear mind um being able to make good

9:49

decisions from dayto day being able to be vibrant and healthy and and um you know accomplish what they're looking to

9:55

accomplish that day uh that's ultimately what's at at at the base of all of this and it you know as you're sharing that

10:01

it makes me reflect back I mean I got to go back you know quite some time to the point that you know I'm 13 years old and

10:08

I'm watching my my older brother who is struggling with mental health conditions and he's not thriving at all and he's

10:15

going to be admitted to a psych wart if something didn't change because people were fearing for their lives not just within our home but also you know within

10:23

the community abroad and how my older sister who was just a you know handful of years older than him at that point in

10:30

time is in her early 20s and she is in and out of the psych word on a regular basis and at this time she's married has

10:37

a a three-year-old son but she's not able to take care of him she's not able to actually play the role of of an effective mother and if we didn't have

10:45

access to Choice the discovery of trop would have never taken place um the

10:52

correction in these mental health conditions in both my older brother and my older sister would have never happened where my sister would never

10:59

have to visit a psyart again uh for her own mental health conditions and get you

11:05

know she gets off the cocktail of five medications and gets well and writes a a beautiful book and you know which then

11:11

led to you know the birth of true hope which eventually would service well over 100,000 people across the world in

11:18

helping them come off of psychiatric medications and gain a life far better

11:23

than they ever had while they were on uh these cocktails of medications coming from these s right so you know without

11:32

choice of care uh without being able to choose uh the remedies that people feel

11:38

inclined to to utilize you know I can look look you

11:43

know from a business perspective in what we've done and and see how you know hundreds of thousands of people would

11:50

have lost the opportunity to live a far better life overall like it's just

11:56

um that that's that's significant that plays a significant role uh obviously on

12:02

the individuals but on their families communities and ultimately you know our our society as a whole and so it's it's

12:08

so important it's crucially important that people have access to choice so um

12:13

with that being said let's let's kind of go into um I don't think we've established what NH

12:18

PPA is what they've done who they are um so that we can kind of then go down that

12:24

road of how is that relevant today in what we're discussing talking about

12:30

regulations that Health Canada is imposing absolutely so nhpa is the

12:36

Natural Health product Protection Association uh they were Incorporated a

12:41

federal nonprofit uh in 2008 and have been acting since then to

12:49

protect Canadian's right to access Natural Health Products so that's sort

12:54

of the main sole Incorporated purpose uh our president is Sean Buckley I know

13:01

many in your audience are going to know the name um he is a constitutional lawyer he has loads of experience in

13:08

Food and Drug law which is where our Natural Health products are regulated in Canada uh and he's really at the helm of

13:15

this organization creating discussion papers looking at law uh directing what we do in terms of our advocacy and all

13:23

working towards that goal of ensuring that Canadians have access to that freedom of choice that we're able able

13:29

to freely access Natural Health Products and also that we just in general have that freedom to choose what is right for

13:36

each of us awesome I'm glad that you introduced Sean Buckley because yes a number of

13:42

people in the audience will will definitely know him some people may recognize the name but not be able to kind of you know connect the dots he has

13:48

also been uh you know popularized through his work with the NCI um the tour that that took place

13:55

across Canada that that was a year ago I believe and then it's continued on a little bit I know he did uh did some

14:02

work just recently uh in Regina I think at the beginning of June if if if I'm

14:09

correct or around that time anyways yeah I think you're right end of May beginning of June somewhere in there yeah yeah yeah end of May that's right

14:15

because it was about the same time that our our tour was was beginning which is a you know a sideline thing but it also

14:20

involves uh you know some work that Shan Buckley has done as well

14:26

so 2008 is when it's in at can you can you tell me a little bit about 2008 and

14:33

what was taking place within Canada at around that time that would be of you

14:39

know cause of concern for any Canadians out there I'll take us even a little bit

14:44

further back if I can um because it'll it'll tell the story a little better so

14:51

um the regulation of Natural Health Products in Canada has been a topic of

14:56

much debate for many many decades then honestly we could probably argue over a century at this point uh but if we go

15:04

back to the '90s there was one of the most widespread largest scale uh

15:10

inquiries that our government has ever conducted through the standing committee on health Alan Rock was the health

15:16

minister at the time and they went across the country conducting interviews and hearing Witnesses learning how

15:24

Canadians wanted Natural Health Products to be regulated and uh taking you know

15:29

insights from lawyers and legal experts and so on on how they should be regulated and there was a report

15:35

produced from that with 53 recommendations from the sing committee on Health on how Natural Health Products

15:41

should be regulated in Canada so that's the early 90s I'll fast forward us now to

15:48

2004 2004 is when our current uh in Canada Natural Health product

15:54

regulations came into effect on January 1st of that year and that's when we got npn numbers so anyone who uses Natural

16:02

Health Products in Canada who sells them or like yourself manufactures them you're familiar with npn as a term um

16:09

but this was a very big paradigm shift in Canada because it meant that any

16:15

product coming to Market as a natural health product needed to be licensed by

16:20

Health Canada needed to be proven to be safe needed to be proven to be effective

16:26

so we had to make a claim on the label in order to to have health Canada considerate entirely different Paradigm

16:33

from what existed previously which was more like the American system where we assume that Natural Health products are

16:39

safe unless we find otherwise so we kind of flipped that on its head you weren't

16:44

allowed to sell a natural health product in Canada unless it was approved by Health Canada so that's 2004 there was

16:53

lots of uproar in the industry you know how are we going to manage this again for me as like a little baby

16:59

nutritionist uh coming into the industry and learning uh within the health food

17:04

store we were losing products left and right um especially those that were coming into the country from other

17:10

jurisdictions American companies European companies they kind of threw their hands up and were like forget you

17:17

guys in Canada I'm not jumping through all of these hoops you're such a tiny market and we were just seeing products

17:23

that we couldn't get and so in that period of time 2004 to 2008 as companies

17:29

were coming into compliance with the npn uh regulations or as they were deciding

17:35

to pull out of the market entirely or in the case of many small and medium companies they just couldn't keep up

17:40

with the demand they were going out of business going under um there was a lot of discussion in Canada about regulation

17:47

of Natural Health Products so that all came to a head in 2008 under the Harper

17:52

government um they proposed a law called Bill c-51 and under c51 there were very

18:01

stringent regulations proposed for Natural Health Products um basically

18:06

moving them all the way into the drug category whereas they sort of um

18:12

inhabited this in between land between a food and a drug who was pushing them all the way into this chemical drug model

18:20

very high penalties very high um evidence requirements to be able to get

18:26

approval so there was uprate uproar Canadians were absolutely outraged that

18:32

on top of all of this that was already happening with the npn regulation now

18:37

we're going to penalize companies even more we're pushing even more business out of Canada there were tons and tons

18:43

of concerns not to mention as we talked about before those issues of freedom of choice that we should have free access

18:49

to things that we want access to as Canadians in the absence of a safety

18:55

concern um and so there was just a huge citizen Rebellion um and in 2008 uh nhpa

19:03

that's the time they really came together as an organization pulled together all the Grassroots community

19:09

members who were working together Sean Julia Rickert at the time Brett HW was there there were all sorts of folks who

19:16

came together um to form nhpa I know true hope uh was a huge part of that um

19:22

back in 2008 and um there were a few uh different initiatives at that time but

19:29

the most important one was to stop bill c-51 which was successful uh there were

19:34

other industry groups at that time that didn't think that was going to be possible they had sort of resigned

19:39

themselves to the fact that c-51 was going to go through they were campaigning to amend it rather than to

19:45

stop it and again ultimately it was stopped so that's 2008 um then we see in

19:53

2014 uh there were uh changes proposed again with respect to Vanessa's law so

19:59

making that apply to Natural Health Products which is um something that's

20:04

reared its head again recently as well um so there was some push back there at

20:11

that time the minister of Health uh wrote Vanessa's law in a way that it did not apply to Natural Health Products it

20:18

was concluded that it was not appropriate to apply that law to Natural Health Products they had an entirely

20:23

different risk profile than chemical drugs and therefore they needed to be treated different friend L uh I'll fast

20:30

forward us again to 2017 Health Canada proposed something called the self-care

20:36

framework despite the fact that we're seven years later we still haven't seen a full proposal of what the self-care

20:41

framework will be uh as a little sidebar but the stated intention for the self-care framework is to fully

20:48

harmonize the regulation of Natural Health Products with over the counter drugs uh so if we remind you of what

20:57

happened in the 90s and in the early 2000s and uh into the early

21:03

2010s th this has already happened multiple times and every single time Health Canada or the government of

21:09

Canada proposes further restrictions on Natural Health Products Canadians rise

21:14

up and they say we don't want this we don't accept this they push back and health Canada Retreats but they keep

21:21

trying it so that was the case in 2017 with the self-care framework this proposed framework again that we don't

21:28

even the details of as of yet um and since 2017 we've seen slowly

21:35

overtime and the timeline shifted with covid I'll say they they put this on hold for a couple of years during covid

21:41

so we actually got a little more time um but slowly over the years since this uh

21:46

self-care framework was first announced Health Canada has come forward with

21:51

multiple different mechanisms multiple different changes to Natural Health product regulation all of which are

21:58

moving us closer to that chemical drug style regulation that is not appropriate

22:04

for Natural Health Products that Canadians do not want with no safety data to back that up um and so we we can

22:12

talk about some of the more recent uh things I know I mentioned at the top Bill c47 Bill c69 cost recovery these

22:20

other initiatives but it's important to understand all of those smaller mechanisms are uh working towards that

22:28

common goal of implementing the self-care framework and having this full harmonization of the chemical drugs and

22:36

Natural Health Products and one last point I'll make before I'll let you jump in David um it's important to understand

22:44

there are very different requirements right now and for good reason for chemical drugs and Natural Health

22:50

Products one they have very different safety profiles they're used for very different reasons Canadians access them

22:55

in very different ways it's appropriate to regulate them differently so this entire Paradigm of idea that we need to

23:03

put them under the same umbrella and we're lowering the requirements for chemical drugs so allowing them to get

23:10

to Market more easily with less evidence of safety and so on and increasing the

23:16

requirements for Natural Health Products with things like taking away traditional

23:22

use evidence so in the Natural Health product world right now to get that npn

23:27

license that I talked about earlier uh a product could say something like uh

23:32

let's say it's a ginger capsule the claim made on the label could be traditionally used to treat nausea right

23:39

and we have thousands of years of traditional knowledge uh and wisdom that would say that that claim is true lots

23:47

of folks would tell you that they've taken Ginger when they feel nauseous it works amazing for them so that's a claim

23:52

that we could currently have on a label under the new self-care framework if we're harmonizing with chemical drugs

23:58

traditional use evidence goes away we need double blind Placebo control drug

24:04

style studies which can never be performed by a natural health Product Company these

24:10

can cost billions of dollars which no natural health product company has the

24:16

budget to perform and even if they did it wouldn't make any fiscal sense for their business because they can't recoup

24:22

that money because there's no patent rights in the Natural Health product world you can't patent something that's

24:27

a natur Ally occurring substance you can only patent a chemical drug and you know you recoup your costs over the 40 years

24:34

or whatever your patent is before you can have generics come to the market so

24:39

it's it's an entirely wrong Paradigm for regulating Natural Health Products and

24:46

at this point the last year Health Canada is just coming hard and fast with different mechanisms moving us

24:52

completely under that drug category all right which we'll jump into in a minute

24:58

here I appreciate you given us the whole expanded timeline and in fact you you answered my the first question I was

25:04

going to have with your very last point there um because I know that some people are saying well wait what's what's the

25:10

problem of Shifting the regulations so that Natural Health products are are having to to go under the same criteria

25:16

as pharmaceutical drugs like is that not a good thing and I've seen people touting safety hey this is a good thing

25:22

but you you answered that question that you know by doing so we have to have

25:27

those double blind control trials which is touted as the gold standard in the

25:32

scientific realm when it comes to medications it's the the best form of studies um there's other forms of

25:39

studies as well that that are a lot less um uh costly uh but they're they're not

25:45

they're not held up to the same level of standard even though they they can still um identify efficacy right and so when

25:53

we take a look at this you you're mentioning how you know some people are going to say well why not why why

25:58

why don't all these supplements go through double blind control trials well

26:03

I I'll highlight one one point here um back in the year 2000 EMP Power Plus was

26:12

coming to the Forefront uh for a treatment for mental health conditions not just specific mental health

26:18

conditions but it was being shown to be effective on things like ADHD and bipolar and depression and anxiety etc

26:26

etc right and so at this point in time there was a great need for scientific

26:32

research to validate what at this point in time thousands of people were already beginning to experience so there was

26:38

already this kind of Grassroots pressure taking place from people experiencing this across across the countries and

26:45

researchers needing to catch up to validate it through scientific research so the Alberta Government actually

26:50

funded half a million or just over half a million dollars at that time which half a million dollars at that time in

26:56

2000 was a lot more than what half a million dollars is today and they funded

27:01

over half a million dollars into a double blind bbo control trial on EMP Power Plus but at that it was a small

27:08

scale study that it would have been able to cover so just to kind of highlight the the costs associated with these

27:17

types of studies and so you know when you're saying that it's going to cost these companies you know millions

27:23

billions whatever it is like it's it's it's astronomical it is and when we take

27:28

a look at that it's first of all most companies won't have the money in the first place but like you said it's not

27:33

fiscally responsible because if a company did go and perform that study well they're the they're the

27:40

Pioneers they're basically the the ones they're like you know when when the water buffalo go across you know uh

27:48

across the crocodile infested waters they're like the first water buffalo

27:53

into the water they're basically like the sacrificial Buffalo if you that then

27:59

allows for the crocodiles to divert their attention to that so that the other ones can cross and so the Natural

28:05

Health company that's going to put out all of that Financial uh all the finances you know necessary to make that

28:11

study happen well now every other Natural Health company gets a piggyback off of that study because there's no

28:18

patent rights so it just doesn't make sense it's it it doesn't fit the model like you say it's it's it's the wrong

28:25

regulations for that particular Paradigm of of what we operate under Earth so it just wouldn't work and it hasn't worked

28:32

and so now let now let's re let's go back to the historical timeline sure so

28:38

in the 90s Alan rock is a health Minister there's a major Uprising right

28:43

because there's a they're trying to shift they're trying to change the regulations and there's a major Uprising correct absolutely okay and so then what

28:52

happens is you have the standing committee of Health come out with 53 recommendations after they had

28:58

thoroughly gone over everything to kind of identify what is the most appropriate way to operate here in Canada when we're

29:05

talking about um Natural Health Products and having them available to people

29:11

correct exactly 2004 rolls around and the nhp regulations come out did they at all

29:18

follow or fall in line with those 53 recommendations really no um the the

29:25

general sentiment from Canadians is that they want as little regulation as possible on Natural Health Products so

29:33

even bringing in the Natural Health product regulations as we had them in 2004 as they exist today with npn

29:41

numbers that already was an overstep um based on what Canadians had said that

29:46

they wanted for the regulation of Natural Health Products in Canada okay so you already see this encroachment of

29:51

power taking place that is infringing upon access to or Canadians access to

29:59

Natural Health Products so we already have choice of cares coming under under challenge at this point in time right

30:05

and now you're working at this point in time or maybe not at that point in time but maybe you are um as a uh or within

30:11

the health food store you're seeing you're seeing the act the actual effects that this is having on the marketplace

30:17

and already we're starting to see um a removal of products on the Canadian

30:22

market right off the bat right because many companies are looking at this and they're saying we already have a

30:28

wellestablished market in the US which is 10 times the market we're not required to jump through these hoops

30:34

it's not worth our time to you know try to meet all of this government red tape

30:40

regulation garbage for a very small Market it it doesn't fit within our business model so we're just going to

30:45

just NYX that and okay cut cut our well not cut our losses at that point in time it's just like well we just focus our

30:52

marketing efforts now in this market where it's much more easy to get our pro

30:57

products to the people yep that's exactly what happened a lot of the American a lot of the European

31:03

brands that were coming into Canada they just gave up Canada already had labeling

31:08

requirements that were difficult for international Brands because we need two languages and there's um challenges with

31:14

translation and so on so there were already um some hoops that folks had to

31:19

jump through in order to bring their Natural Health products into Canada and with that added level with the Natural

31:25

Health product regulations and meeting and and PN license and everything that went into efficacy and safety standards

31:32

that they needed to be proven there and also the cost every single skew uh you

31:38

know this every item that a company brings to Market they need to pay for that licensing so if you were a natural

31:45

health Product Company looking to bring 200 different products into the Canadian Market you were paying 20000 different

31:52

licensing fees and again Canada was a even smaller Market back then than it

31:57

was now I think we were around 30 million back then in the early 2000s that's a drop in the bucket

32:03

compared to the American or the European market so it just wasn't worth it for a lot of companies to go through the

32:09

effort and the cost of Licensing in Canada so right away we saw things coming off the market and then for the

32:15

small Canadian brands at that time um going back to the early 2000s a lot of

32:22

the Natural Health Community in Canada was very Grassroots it was and pop shops

32:29

single location health food stores it was little um you know artisanal uh

32:36

herbal products someone was making in their basement or you know had been

32:41

wildcrafted based on what their grandparents had taught them it was a very different market so folks like that

32:48

who uh were practicing or producing product on a very small scale they

32:53

didn't have the means with which to comply with the new npn regulations either so then we either saw people

32:59

going underground and kind of selling like gray market products or they were just leaving entirely so it that point

33:07

in 2004 when the regulations came into place was a really pivotal time where

33:13

the entire culture of the industry also really shifted to where folks were

33:18

thinking not just about helping others helping people to reclaim their health

33:23

now they were thinking about what legal risk does this bring to me what requirements do I have how am I financially at risk if I make these

33:30

decisions and that's only been exacerbated um over time but that was a

33:35

real big shift within the industry as a whole yeah absolutely I remember when

33:41

those regulations were coming out um I was fairly new to you know working for

33:46

True hope under my dad at that point in time and I remember being uh you know tasked with making phone calls to

33:52

various companies to kind of you know alarm them to what was taking place you

33:58

know put them on alert that hey these new regulations are coming into play this is not a good thing now a lot of

34:04

people will say well but hold on like take a look at 2004 2005 2006 did it really hurt the market that bad uh you

34:11

know if anybody's asking that question and saying you know like you know you have these alarmists out there that are

34:17

saying hey this is they're going to destroy the industry they're they're trying to monopolize allopathic medicine

34:23

so that you can only get your treatments for whatever it may be through you know know a doctor at a clinic or a hospital

34:30

or you know through prescription you know have to go to the pharmacy to get it um one of the things to that is that

34:36

people need to understand is that the regulations were put into play but they weren't being policed um to near the

34:42

degree that that they could have been initially it was a very soft phasin that was done over the period of

34:50

over a decade um I remember back in about 2011 is that I started to see with

34:59

you know products that I had access to that I was ordering that were non npn but they were still available in the

35:04

Canadian Market I saw how health Canada was beginning to you know police a

35:09

little bit more the threat was out there and there was some therapeutic products that I was getting out of the states but

35:15

getting through a Canadian distributor and I lit I saw a lot of products disappear through this one particular

35:21

distributor I saw how this one distributor literally went to less than 50% of the products they had available

35:28

um just based on a few of their key companies pulling out that were not getting npn numbers but were still kind

35:35

of just going under the radar but now that Health Canada was policing all of a sudden now we're seeing this removal of

35:42

products but it was happening you know at a very gradual process that the average Canadian would not recognize

35:49

unless they were actually documenting what was going on they they wouldn't wouldn't know what had taken place over the last 15 years because it was such a

35:55

slow fade we we often use the analogy of boiling a frog right you put them in the

36:02

water and it heats up really slowly over time and they don't realize they're about to be boiled until it's too late

36:08

and that's really what happened in the industry so the the point that you mentioned where the implementation of

36:15

these regulations was a very slow phase in over a period of more than a decade the policing didn't come in until much

36:21

later so a lot of folks didn't even connect the two in their minds necessarily but there was also the issue

36:28

that npns renew you have to reapply and relicense your product every few years

36:34

so what I noticed in the industry working in the health food store we would have product come in that I'm

36:40

recommending to my clients and the front of the label would look the same but you would turn it over and it's a totally

36:48

different product you know the levels of herbs were lower or the levels of minerals were lower because Health

36:54

Canada had required that in order to continue licensing it and so if we look over the last 20 year time scale we can

37:02

see that yeah we still have lots of products on the Shelf you know you can go into a health food store in almost any major city and there's lots of

37:08

products available but if you turn them over and compare to what was available 20 years ago they're not as therapeutic

37:16

you're paying tons more for much less and the you know the number of products

37:21

that you need to stack together to get the same therapeutic effect overall is much higher for most people which that

37:28

cost puts it Out Of Reach for a lot more Canadians that's also a factor in Freedom of Choice can the average

37:34

Canadian afford to even access Natural Health Products and so all all those

37:39

different factors came together to to where yeah you know the average Canadian they might go into a health food store

37:45

and say oh you're being alarmist tons of things are available it's different it is a different health food store than

37:52

you walked into 20 years ago absolutely and and there's some of the products that I was getting like that I was

37:58

buying just one one point here one case um some systemic enzymes and they were

38:04

phenomenal for eliminating um inflammation especially if I ate some stuff that I shouldn't

38:09

have been eaten and it was night and day difference and not available on the

38:16

Canadian market like at all um so I can't even go to a he food store today and get the same thing the closest thing

38:22

I can get is like sarap pepas which is good but not even close to the product

38:28

that I was using were literally the effects are so tangible um so there's

38:33

that type of stuff that that is actually taking place where we just don't have a lot of the remedies that we once had

38:41

available to us we just don't right A lot of it is like you're saying it's changed it's dumbed down it's uh it's

38:48

you know Health Canada that is you know slowly tightening down the bolts and labels are changing uh fortunately none

38:53

of our labels have had to change in fact uh we got off on the wrong foot in the first place where Health Canada was saying you can't have the full uh

39:01

version of Empire plus here so we actually fought and fought and fought and we finally said you know what we'll

39:06

put out a dumb down version it's it's subtly dumbed down it's still over 99%

39:12

the same but um just for the sake of making it available to people because it was still so therapeutic and then it

39:19

wouldn't be for a number of years later that we were able to get the full version so that was an uphill battle

39:24

right from right out of the gates with health Canada obviously you know anybody who knows the history of true hope you

39:29

know with health Canada coming in at gunpoint and raiding us and charging us and trying to shut us down um they know

39:36

that Health Canada didn't like us from the very beginning and that they had a major agenda to ensure that our products

39:42

were not readily available to the Canadian market and so and I want to say

39:47

too on on that front for for your audience who's listening to think about

39:52

what that does to innovation in our country in the Natural Health industry

39:58

right other wouldbe Natural Health product manufacturers are watching

40:03

what's happening to your family and your company David who who is putting their hand up

40:09

like yes please I would love to have that experience of having to fight Health Canada for a couple of decades at

40:16

gunpoint at times no thank you I I'm GNA go find something else to do with my

40:21

time right it it just it had such an impact and again it's that culture piece

40:28

it just totally changed whereas before you had folks who were passing down traditional wisdom who were being

40:34

creative who are looking for new solutions to help people who were willing to go out on a limb and try

40:39

things and you know what I know of um true hope story you were very upfront in

40:46

the advertising with your first set of clients and customers right you were saying we're trying this we don't know

40:52

if it's going to work it's helped a few people and folks got to choose for themselves do I want to try this or do I

40:59

not and again that's a freedom of choice so to me it just it highlights how much

41:05

the um ability for folks to innovate in this country in this industry has also

41:10

changed and there's so much more fear uh because of some of those uh experiences

41:16

that that folks like yourself had had yeah that's a great Point that's a really good point that a lot of people

41:22

just you know they have the Innovation they have the intellect to to bring something forward to the Market to really bless people and then they weigh

41:29

the the risk and say you know what's this going to cost my family what what

41:35

impact could this possibly actually have on us and and are and I willing to take that bold stand um and unfortunately a

41:42

lot of people are not willing to take that risk and can you blame them I mean people people innately want peace in

41:49

their life um is there peace to be had in this you know current regime that we live in no not really but they still

41:56

want as much piece as they can possibly get and so by you know taking a stand to do something good and um having the

42:03

forces that be come against them for that uh is maybe something that they don't want to do so that's that's a

42:09

really great point that this is an attack on Innovation when they try to you know make an example out of a

42:15

company like us fortunately we were able to make it through fortunately my dad was not in it for the business side but

42:21

rather for the fact that his family had begun to receive the restoration that he was pleading for and that he wasn't

42:27

going to deny that to anybody else that was going through similar circumstances as what we went through right where

42:33

there was multiple suicides within our family over the period of you know two decades and and uh how there was going

42:40

to be many more right that there were that you know myself included like I

42:45

just I'm so grateful for the fact I have my mental health because I didn't uh before this came out I just wasn't nearly as bad as my older brother and my

42:51

older sister who you know were were um ready to be in the psych ward for a long

42:57

period of time right so um you know it's a really good point so 2008 we have this

43:04

you know consumer protection bill is really what it was if I'm recalling it properly at the time I was about five

43:10

years into business five six years yeah five years into business with trop at that point in time and remember working

43:16

with with uh my father working closely with Shan Buckley at the point in time I was doing more of the media type stuff

43:21

social media was pretty new at the time but I was heading up the social media and video work on it and um I remember

43:28

the big scare over you know toys coming from China with lead paint and all of a

43:33

sudden we have this you know the Saving Grace you know it's Bill c-51 comes out

43:38

the consumer protection act but then when you take a look at it it's like wait a minute why you know couched

43:43

within this large bill is there all this stuff about Natural Health products that are going to shift you know it over into

43:49

more of a drug style model and basically illegalize a lot of stuff or make a lot

43:55

of Therapeutics like things like garlic and whatnot um licensable you have to have a license to be able to to sell

44:01

that type of stuff so you know we were taking a look at this and saying wow that was that was clever it was quite

44:07

sneaky of them to sneak you know get it into this bill so let's fast forward now

44:12

to um the budget bill of 2023 and then I hear more about the

44:19

budget bill of 2024 because that's that's very relevant news today but what

44:24

happened with the budget Bill and and anybody that looking at this is going to say wait it's good to have a budget bill

44:29

I mean we've seen how the government's operated over the last you know while here you know they need a budget and

44:35

they need to stay on budget because this is really bad so a lot of people are thinking a budget bill is a good thing

44:41

well what happened with the budget bill in 20123 known as bill c47 is that correct you got it yep

44:48

c47 I I mean basically what happened in 2008 with c-51 these huge uh they call

44:54

them Omnibus bills they have hundreds and sometimes thousands of different topics within one single bill which is

45:02

required for a budget Bill our annual budget bills uh are what dictates the

45:08

spending for the entire country for an entire year we require them they are

45:13

necessary and they pass quickly again out of necessity we need to be able to

45:19

move through and uh have spending within our country so it was fascinating to see

45:27

last year that Natural Health Products once again were kind of snuck into this

45:32

Omnibus budget Bill and it really went under the radar uh we we didn't even

45:37

notice it at nhpa we put out a discussion paper on it in early June uh

45:43

the the budget Bill had been proposed a few weeks earlier than that nobody's watching budget bills for changes to the

45:50

Food and Drug Act that's not where those changes belong so it really was very

45:55

sneaky of them to put changes to Our Food and Drug law changes to Natural

46:01

Health products into a budget bill so the specific sections that applied to

46:06

Natural Health Products within bill c47 or sections 500 to

46:12

504 so again we're talking a huge bill there are 500 things in this bill before

46:18

a mention of Natural Health Products and there are many many after as well but

46:23

those few sections 500 to 504 what it does is it changes the definition of

46:30

therapeutic products to include Natural Health Products whereas previously

46:36

they'd been excluded so that overthe counter drugs pharmaceutical drugs so on they had that therapeutic product

46:42

category for regulation of those products and Natural Health Products

46:47

stood to the side regulated separately under our existing Natural Health product regulations so Bill c47 proposed

46:55

and was made law to to move Natural Health Products under that therapeutic

47:00

products heading so with the definition of therapeutic products it makes Natural Health Products um it causes Natural

47:09

Health Products to be regulated in a very different way and introduces all

47:14

sorts of fees and fines and powers that were appropriate for the chemical drugs

47:20

that were being regulated in that way but are not appropriate for the Natural Health products that are now being regul

47:27

ated in that way and to give an example um under the new regulations with c47

47:35

natural health product companies and retailers um manufacturers practitioners they are

47:43

subject to up to $5 million per day fines for an offense and

47:50

an offense could be something like a mistake on your label so you misprint

47:55

your label you're in a under our Natural Health product regulations now you could be subject to

48:02

up to a $5 million a day fine and previous to c47 the Fine was

48:09

$5,000 for an offense period not even per day so when we talk about that risk

48:16

that people may or may not be willing to put their families under um if I use retailers as an example the other aspect

48:23

of this is that it removed the corporate veil so uh previously your company's fined

48:30

for an offense let's say your company goes insolvent you're bankrupt you can't handle all the fines and you know the

48:38

company goes under your personal residence is not under attack you as an

48:43

individual Canadian still have your own personal security financially and otherwise because your business is a

48:50

separate entity from you under c47 that is not the case the corporate veil was

48:56

removed so fees fines um that can be applied under c47 can be applied to an

49:03

individual can be applied to a manager can be implied to applied to an employee

49:08

so if we look at Natural Health retailers as a segment of this industry

49:14

um and let's say they make the offense of talking about a natural health

49:20

product for a claim that is off label um I've a couple times used the example of

49:26

magnesium most of us know magnesium can be used for muscle cramps you know you're getting calf cramps at night you

49:32

might need some more magnesium lots of us will go and grab a magnesium supplement for that but if you actually

49:37

look at the bottle of magnesium in the store oftentimes it doesn't say that it's for muscle cramps it says some

49:43

benign thing like for Better Health and Wellness as the claim on the label right

49:49

so if I'm a retailer and I've trained my staff well they know what magnesium is used for my

49:55

customer comes in campaigns complaints of leg cramps they might promote this magnesium product on the shelf for an

50:01

off Lael use telling the customer to use it for their calf cramps or recommending

50:06

that as an option that is now a finable offense to be promoting a product off

50:13

label you could have a fine of up to $5 million a day so that's if you're an

50:20

employee that's if you're the manager who's overseeing those employees that's if you're the owner of the company the

50:26

the all the different ways that this reg uh set of regulations has introduced

50:32

risk into the industry is just astronomical and makes no common sense whatsoever like you can't make sense of

50:38

it except through the lens of restricting access to Natural Health

50:44

Products um that's really the only way that I can see to make sense of it

50:49

exactly uh you know when we look at it economically those types of findes would be appropriate with pharmaceutical

50:57

companies for two reasons one Pharmaceuticals inherently are dangerous so an off Lael claim could actually

51:02

cause somebody their life right two pharmaceutical companies are making millions and billions of dollars like

51:09

just plain and simple right so five five million a day is pocket change for fizer

51:15

or madna or whoever they're making more than $5 million a day on that particular

51:20

skew right or that drug so when we take a look at that being applied to the Natural Health industry I can tell you

51:26

you know from my perspective um just one $5 million per

51:32

day fine just one would remove access uh for Canadians to have access

51:39

to our products just that simple it would it in one F hoop Done Right

51:44

whereas with the pharmaceutical industry they actually put that type of money off to the side anticipating that they will

51:50

receive fines for their UNT Behavior by making claims that they not

51:56

to make or you know uh hiding evidence that showed that it was a Dangerous Drug in the first place and that it would

52:03

cause deaths um or other uh harm to people and so they put that kind of

52:08

money off to the side as part of their whole budget knowing that something will likely come down the road and boom there

52:14

we go a small portion of our profits is diverted over to paying for those fines but look at all the money we made it's

52:20

built into their business model you can't build in in the Natural Health industry you cannot build million fines

52:27

into your business model it just doesn't work um there just isn't enough profit to be made um for that uh and when I say

52:35

that I say that probably for 99% of the the companies out there maybe there's the odd vitamin mineral company or odd

52:40

supplement company out there that's making enough money but most likely not um it's just it's just a different

52:46

different world entirely so it it doesn't make sense unless like you say

52:51

it's being used to restrict access if that's the end goal which is what it

52:57

appears to be yeah and again going back to the self-care framework from 2017

53:02

where the stated intention is that harmonization between the chemical drug model and how Natural Health products

53:08

are regulated Bill c47 sections 500 to 504 fit perfectly within that plan and

53:16

on in multiple meetings Health Canada and health Canada officials have stated that they're moving forward with the

53:21

self-care framework basically no matter what uh it's non negotiable is the term

53:28

that they uh continue to use when they talk about the self-care framework so c47 in that context is really just a

53:35

small mechanism for them to continue moving forward to that stated end goal okay so let's talk about that real quick

53:42

so we have in June of 2023 so a year and a month ago year and two months ago um

53:49

we have this bill passed right the budget bill which sounds you know service level like a good thing right

53:55

keep them on budget but but it it has this these egregious things in relation to the Natural Health uh Community

54:03

written in there at the same time we're we're seeing that there is some

54:09

proposals being made about cost recovery which is part of if I'm if I'm correct

54:14

on this maybe I'm not correct me if I'm wrong part of the self-care framework that Health Canada was

54:20

proposing so we have something else going on as well that's going to negatively impact the Canadians AC

54:26

access to Natural Health Products but do so on an more of an economic level yeah you have that exactly right

54:33

so cost recovery is just another one of these mechanisms that they're using to

54:38

harmonize the over-the-counter drugs and Natural Health Products I was in a

54:45

meeting uh what month was it in March of this year so March 2024 I was in a

54:50

meeting about cost recovery and they were looking at their proposed timeline

54:55

for producing cost recovery fees and for those who are listening who don't know what cost recovery is uh it's basically

55:02

Health Canada or another uh government body charging an industry the fees

55:09

required to regulate or to police uh to surveil that industry so cost recovery

55:16

with respect to Natural Health Products is charging fees to the Natural Health product manufacturers in order to

55:25

supervise or surveil um do inspections and whatnot within the industry so March

55:33

2024 we're having this meeting uh with health cada officials about their proposed timetable and fees for cost

55:40

recovery they had already proposed fees now they're coming back and they're saying oh we're going to drop them by

55:47

50% look at us we listen to you you know this is such great news we all knew that

55:53

they were you always start high and come down a little bit right so this was not a surprise despite the 50% reduction

56:01

we're sitting in this meeting and many of the manufacturers are saying if these

56:06

fees go forward as written even with the 50% reduction I need to pull 40% I need

56:13

to pull 70% I need to pull 90% of my individual Products off of the Shelf in

56:19

Canada and there was more than one manufa sorry more than one manufacturer who said I need to come out of Canada

56:27

entirely we're going to cease operations in Canada if cost recovery as proposed

56:32

comes to be we can't afford to do business like this um and it was really

56:38

very shocking and totally telling on that day we had a full day meeting

56:45

planned 9il 3: something like that and they sent us for lunch and during the

56:51

lunch break Health Canada published in The Gazette 2 which is how you publish

56:56

uh new regulation um they published their their new cost recovery plan so they didn't

57:04

even wait to listen to the second half of the day to get the rest of the feedback from manufacturers and I just

57:11

found that you know I wish it was shocking it wasn't shocking but it was

57:16

so telling that they're doing this everything all the conversations that

57:21

they're having with industry everyone that they're bringing to the table it's really a show right they were already

57:27

prepared to publish what they wanted to publish despite anything they heard that morning and even before they heard those

57:34

who were going to talk in the afternoon so cost recovery as I say that's going to have a huge impact on the industry

57:41

we've already heard that from manufacturers that they will be forced to pull product from the market because

57:47

keep in mind those those cost recovery fees they're for things like site licensing um site inspections that's on

57:54

top of what they're already paying for PN licensing what they have to pay for label requirements and so on and so

58:00

forth so we're just continuing to stack fees onto companies that don't have the

58:05

highest margins the Natural Health Product Industry doesn't have huge margins it is not a pharmaceutical

58:11

company so we're as we move forward with cost recovery that alone is is going to

58:18

change the the marketplace entirely and I would be surprised if half of the products in Canada didn't come off the

58:24

market just from that one single mechanism alone yeah and here's what Canadians need to know is that okay you

58:29

know some of them are like well you know we lost some products I wasn't taking those products myself whatever doesn't affect me um every single Canadian will

58:37

be affected by this who goes to the health food store to get products right

58:42

and here's why is that first you may not have access to the products that you once did but if you do have access if

58:49

you're one of the fortunate ones to still have access to the products that you liked and that you were consuming before it's going to be a a significant

58:56

increased cost right that no product is going to remain the same price unless

59:01

for some reason that company had massive margins and they merely said we'll just

59:07

take a cut over a profit margin and continue to offer at the same price which is going if if that did happen it would be an extreme Rarity so this is

59:15

going to have a Major Impact uh economically on almost every Canadian

59:21

because almost all Canadians are consuming one form or another of a natural health prop yeah those prices are are price

59:29

increases will be huge specif so you mentioned um companies may be absorbing

59:36

those costs that's already happened right there's already been costs that

59:41

companies have absorbed they can't absorb more by and large when we look at uh homeopathic companies as an example

59:50

most of the products that they're bringing to Market and and for many of the companies it's in the thousands of SKS um sometimes three six ,000 SKS uh

59:59

that a homeopathic brand might stalk the the vast majority of those SKS that

1:00:05

they're licensing they're losing money on but they want to have them available because they believe in the remedies

1:00:12

that they are producing they believe in providing this to people so for that oneoff person that the homeopathic

1:00:19

doctor says you know I need this really particular remedy they have it ready to go for that individual and they make

1:00:25

their money on you know the arnas and the nux bomas and things that more of us use more regularly they're able to uh

1:00:33

shoulder that burden to have these remedies available for the maybe you're going to be that case that you're the

1:00:39

odd patient who needs a very particular remedy these companies if we continue to

1:00:46

stack fees on individual SKS they can't keep those on the Canadian Market they

1:00:51

can't keep them available for those of us who have a very specific need at a very particular time and so the idea

1:01:00

that Natural Health product companies can just continue to absorb more and more fees they've already done that to

1:01:07

to the Limit that is um that could possibly be expected I don't see that

1:01:13

happening more so we are as Canadians and we already have seen it as Canadians that the increase in cost um Sean

1:01:21

Buckley our president he was on the Highwire earlier this year with they big tree and we pulled together some numbers in

1:01:29

advance of him appearing there looking at the difference in cost between a product in the US and the same product

1:01:36

in Canada and in almost all cases it's three to four times the cost if we look

1:01:42

at what you can get in the US versus what we can get in Canada for the same price and that doesn't take into account

1:01:48

the difference in our dollars buying power either so it it just our costs are

1:01:54

already exponential IAL compared to elsewhere in the world and that's only going to get worse as we continue to

1:02:01

pile fees and penalties on top of these companies yeah exactly and during economic downturn this is the last thing

1:02:08

you need to do is be increasing costs to the consumer right which is exactly what the government's doing and they're doing

1:02:14

it to fund their own regulations which are completely unnecessary in the first place and not what Canadians wanted in

1:02:21

the first place yeah and I think it's important to say too because you know it always comes back to that idea of safety

1:02:27

well we have to that that's the the mantra for all of these changes under the safe selfcare framework well we're

1:02:32

making sure that Canadians have Safe products available um there there's no evidence that we're unsafe if we had an

1:02:40

unsafe Market um or if Natural Health Products were unsafe you would expect there to be you know WID spread bed

1:02:49

Lem America where they are not regulated that's not the case um by and large

1:02:55

these are Safe products that are well regulated Canada as it exists today with

1:03:01

our Natural Health product regulations are considered the gold standard across the world for regulating Natural Health

1:03:06

Products the idea that we need more and stricter regulations is ridiculous and

1:03:12

then add to that whenever the discussion of safety comes up there is no

1:03:17

discussion of the other side of the safety coin what is the impact to the

1:03:22

health and safety of Canadians from removing those products from the market so someone like myself who is using

1:03:29

natural Health Products to manage my health now I can't access them either because they're illegal in Canada I

1:03:36

can't bring them over the Border they're too expensive for me to afford to purchase whatever the reason I can't

1:03:41

access them now what right what is what is the safety profile of that decision

1:03:47

and that part of it is never discussed by Health Canada in fact uh they were

1:03:53

asked about this during uh meetings on cost recovery what what is going to be

1:03:59

the health impact to the Canadian populace if we Institute these cost recovery fees and therefore there's less

1:04:06

product on the market and they flat out stated we've not done that analysis we don't intend to do that analysis so it's

1:04:14

it's entirely irresponsible and it's disingenuous I find to talk about the safety standpoint when we're not willing

1:04:20

to look at the other half of the safety equation well and and safety is a uh an

1:04:27

unseparable part of you know Health right Health Canada Health Canada should

1:04:32

be looking out for the safety of Canadians at least ideologically even though we don't see that actually put into practice but we have a perfect case

1:04:39

study in relation to uh Health Canada and their their operations how how they

1:04:46

move forward and whether or not they actually take into consideration the the safety of Canadians and and whether or

1:04:51

not they're putting Canadians at risk and that that comes about in a very well do dou umented case with their own

1:04:57

paperwork they you know when we did fo uh requests and everything got the behind the scenes um communication from

1:05:05

Health Canada when they uh raided us and they stopped our products at the border

1:05:11

preventing 3,000 Canadians from having access well the first thing that they noticed is that in very short order they

1:05:16

received um over a thousand phone calls from irate troubled Canadians who are

1:05:23

now struggling mentally because they just been deprived access to the Empower

1:05:28

plus that had helped them regain their mental uh Health right and what did held

1:05:34

Canada say you no longer have access to this Dangerous Drug go back to your doctor in essence what they're saying is

1:05:40

go back to your doctor get back on the drugs that didn't work in the first place that caused you to look for True hope and uh you know enjoy that

1:05:47

revolving door of the psyart again and many Canadians weren't willing to do that and health Canada persisted it was

1:05:54

over six months that that they that they had the product seized at the border preventing people uh 3,000 Canadians

1:06:00

from getting access to it uh smuggling Rings started up because of it um

1:06:05

otherwise normal you know law- buing citizens are now engaging in smuggling

1:06:10

uh for their own uh you know their own well-being and then you know you fast

1:06:16

forward a couple years and you have Ron Lanz the head of the Canadian mental health association's Alberta chapter

1:06:23

he's taking the stand under oath and he's testifying during the true Hope Health Canada court case and he's

1:06:29

testifying that he personally was aware just within his Circle he was personally

1:06:34

aware of and attended two funerals that took place due to health Canada

1:06:41

restricting access to the Empower plus and he warned Health Canada and let them know before any of this happened that

1:06:46

suicides would occur if Health Canada persisted with this and they did they continued on with it so clearly that is

1:06:53

not something that they that they choose to take into consideration even though in their documentation during this whole whole

1:07:00

Fiasco before they even pulled the trigger on seizing the product at the border they knew it was going to create a crisis within Canadian within the

1:07:07

Canadian populace so they already had that 1 1800 Crisis Line dedicated to the

1:07:13

ensuing crisis that was about to take place they already had it in in in place ready scripted and everything to field

1:07:21

these calls from from True hope participants who had been taking the empire plus now for years we're doing

1:07:27

well and all of a they don't have access to it anymore so Health Canada was well aware of what it would do but yet it

1:07:32

wasn't something that they were willing to put in the balances as to whether or not they should act in the way that they

1:07:38

did act so they literally cost people their lives and so yes we're going to see a

1:07:44

repeat of that now by them without having to seize the products at the border they're just economically

1:07:51

restricting them they're making the companies have to eliminate them or it

1:07:56

just becomes so cost prohibitive to the average man that they can't gain access to it and that's really the name of the

1:08:02

game here so that they say hey we we didn't do it no we didn't do it like we didn't stop we it was still available or

1:08:09

the company could have still provided it they chose not to right so it's absolving themselves of responsibility

1:08:15

when in reality that's exactly what they're doing is they're restricting that that access to these these in many

1:08:21

cases lifesaving supplements

1:08:26

yeah yep I couldn't agree more okay so we have Bill c47 comes out

1:08:32

uh pretty close just afterwards or just after the self-care framework the cost recovery is is uh proposed now there was

1:08:40

a bill that was going to undo everything uh sections 500 to 5504 of the budget

1:08:47

bill from June 2023 correct yes that is correct so that is Bill

1:08:54

c368 uh that is a private members Bill brought forward by MP Blain Culkin in

1:09:00

Alberta in Ur of the woods and he brought that forward and that's exactly what it's for it's basically to

1:09:06

reinstate the status quo for Natural Health Products before June of last year

1:09:11

when c47 became law so it just rewinds the clock a year or so it doesn't take

1:09:18

away issues with the self-care framework is the broader um initiative it doesn't take away cost recovery it doesn't look

1:09:25

at the issues with npn licensing but it does Undo what happened under Bill c47

1:09:32

those sections 500 to 504 it's a very important initiative um in many ways

1:09:38

it's actually quite historic um so over the first half of this year um that that

1:09:44

bill went through uh the second reading process and passed second reading at the

1:09:49

end of May very very unusual for a private members bill to pass second reading and

1:09:56

make it to committee uh especially uh he's a member of the conservative caucus

1:10:02

so he is an opposition member very unusual to have all the support

1:10:08

necessary to come onside to see that bill go through to the committee stage

1:10:13

so it's it's very exciting in that way that MPS have listened to an extent to

1:10:18

where we saw the block come onite and the ndps come onite and the conservatives come onite to where they

1:10:24

were supporting this bill and agreeing yes it deserves further scrutiny this should have been looked at by the

1:10:30

standing committee on Health in the first place there was no business to make these changes within a budget Bill

1:10:36

let's look at this further so we're anticipating uh that committee stage to happen in the fall there's still a long

1:10:43

road for that bill to go down before it would become law and would undo those

1:10:48

effects of Bill c47 I would say we're at about the third

1:10:54

step out of uh maybe like 15 if we look at the total um route for a bill to take

1:11:02

on nhpa website we have a page dedicated to bill c368 so if folks want to learn

1:11:08

more about it they can head over there um it's just nha.org and then bill

1:11:15

c368 um or you can find it in the main navigation for us as well um and that

1:11:21

bill uh sorry that page about the bill tells you every every step of the way what has happened it shows you the road

1:11:28

map how a bill becomes law so you can see some of the stages that are still required for that to happen um but this

1:11:35

is a great thing for folks to get involved with we have a few campaigns surrounding it there's a petition um

1:11:41

drives we've got electronic letter campaigns we have physical letter writing campaigns we give you resources

1:11:47

to go and meet with your Member of Parliament and speak to them about this bill so definitely get involved with

1:11:53

that because although C4 47 is just one part of this bigger picture it is a very

1:11:59

important part of the picture and we do need to apply a lot of pressure to our members of parliament to make sure that

1:12:05

that bill continues on through this parliamentary process perfect yeah the way the way that I'm looking at bill c47

1:12:11

is it's like it's the Draconian Powers Bill if you will that that

1:12:17

basically you know the cost recovery is is is majorly problematic as we've discussed but the bill c47 is what

1:12:25

allows you know is what is giving Health Canada a sledgehammer to squish ants

1:12:32

with really and so that that's what we're kind of looking at here is you know they

1:12:37

throw you know it's what allows them to attack me as an individual for saying something or a staff member in in a a

1:12:44

store for saying hey this is good for arthritis even though that doesn't say on the label but you know a lot of

1:12:49

people have seen benefits from it for arthritis so go ahead right and all of a sudden now they're getting fined by

1:12:55

Health Canada and it's bankrupting them right so it's the Draconian B Powers

1:13:01

aspect of it that's now being removed that allows for us to operate in a proper fashion where you know the you

1:13:09

know if if there is something that's out of the line and it needs to be corrected it's corrected in an appropriate way

1:13:14

versus in a versus in a way that literally is like a death sentence you

1:13:20

know uh it empowers citizens and companies needs more to be able to push

1:13:26

back against Health Canada so in the example that you gave where Health Canada was seizing products people made

1:13:33

individual decisions to take on a certain level of risk because they thought that what they were doing was

1:13:38

right they really believed in what they were doing they needed this access personally or whatever it was and they

1:13:44

could take on that risk because you know you can weigh out the pros and cons and we all do that in lots of different ways

1:13:51

in our individual lives but when the risk is five million dollar a day no

1:13:57

Canadian can bear that risk no one wants to put you know two years of jail on the

1:14:03

line just to tell one person that something might help them with arthritis um so that ability for us to push back

1:14:11

against our government uh c47 really undermines that because the fees and the

1:14:17

penalties are so astronomical that individuals are just afraid to make any

1:14:23

wrong step to do anything wrong because of those consequences could be and we

1:14:28

saw that we saw that when it first passed uh in some of the meetings that we were having we saw where industry

1:14:33

leaders um who were accustomed to taking a bold stand within the Natural Health

1:14:38

Community where a lot of them um were filled with a sense of trepidation they just it was not the

1:14:45

same they just didn't want those crosshairs painted on their back a lot of people went silent right where that

1:14:51

otherwise would have been you know they weren't silent behind the scenes but um on the Forefront they no longer were you

1:14:58

know a voice because they just didn't want to bring on health can the onto

1:15:03

their doorstep because of the risk that that was now present that wasn't present before so okay so we still have Bill C

1:15:13

368 moving through Parliament that's happening so at the

1:15:18

time that bill c368 is moving through Parliament going through the second reading process where it's being debated

1:15:25

for a few hours and so on um our 2024 budget bill was introduced and this time

1:15:32

folks were looking at it right like fo me once kind of situation so we were ready we were looking at this year's

1:15:38

budget Bill and sure enough once again Health Canada had snuck really

1:15:44

substantive changes to Food and Drug law into a budget Bill where they do not

1:15:51

belong um and we do have a discussion paper on that as well so uh for folks

1:15:57

who want to learn more about Bill c69 and what it means there is some impact to Natural Health Products um but there

1:16:06

are bigger Health Freedom concerns with Bill c69 um which was our 2024 budget bill

1:16:13

which again has become law budget bills pass very quickly for necessary reasons it is

1:16:20

essential but there isn't a lot of time to debate so um while bill c69 was being

1:16:26

debated Sean Buckley our president he did go to the standing committee on finance he was heard as a witness um you

1:16:33

can look at our Rumble Channel or head over to our blog um or on our website on

1:16:38

the page about Bill c69 nhp.org bc69 um there's a recording of him um

1:16:46

giving his witness testimony to the standing committee on finance his thoughts and opinions about Bill c69 how

1:16:52

it should be treated we were uh basically campaigning for them to remove

1:16:58

uh division 31 was the section out of um bill c69 that um we were concerned about

1:17:05

but under division 31 to give a really quick overview um it restricts the off

1:17:12

Lael uses of drugs and in this case because of Bill c47 changing the

1:17:18

definition of therapeutic products drugs includes Natural Health Products here so that's an important thing to understand

1:17:25

stand so bill c69 is restricting off Lael use of drugs by medical doctors

1:17:32

potentially other healthc Care Professionals Natural Health practitioners and even veterinarians

1:17:38

under Bill c69 so um that is a huge change and so

1:17:44

uh again Health Canada like they do they held a meeting about Bill c69 I believe it was in late May uh and

1:17:53

they were getting questions specific specifically from the naturopathic colleges um saying you know the wording

1:17:59

here it's not implicit that you don't intend to um infringe on the province's

1:18:05

jurisdiction you know what what we do as naturopathic doctors as regulated by our

1:18:11

Province and we're free to use things off label um as our College allows but

1:18:16

it's not implicit in what you've written in this bill that you don't intend to infringe on that and um Health Canada

1:18:23

just kept saying well that's not our intention that's not how we intend it they were asked if they would go back to

1:18:28

the drawing board and reward it just to make that clear to have that distinction that they're not going to infringe on

1:18:34

the province's rights they're not going to infringe on Healthcare practitioners ability to practice they did not make

1:18:41

those changes they kept sidest stepping those questions um so that's a it's a

1:18:46

quite concerning aspect under Bill c69 and then there's a couple other

1:18:52

Provisions there too uh where it grants Health Canada the ability to exempt Food

1:18:57

and Drugs from very important safety regulations so we've just spent the last hour talking about how health Canada

1:19:04

over regulates things now now they're removing arguably the only regulations

1:19:10

that most Canadians would agree with which are protecting us against uh Products that come to Market using fraud

1:19:18

so telling us it's something that it's not um products that have been adulterated so when we talk about

1:19:25

adulterated we're not talking about you know benign filler a has been replaced with benign filler B we're talking about

1:19:32

there's something dangerous in a product that shouldn't be there um so fraud

1:19:38

adulteration and then also things being um produced in unsanitary conditions so

1:19:43

Bill c69 grants Health Canada the ability to exempt Food and Drugs from those

1:19:50

critical safety Provisions I don't think that there's any Canadian who believes that we need to be um exempting products

1:19:59

from being fraudulent or adulterating things or being sanitary in the way that they're produced those are Basics that

1:20:06

most of us agree we actually should have regulation and good Manu manufacturing processes so having these exemptions in

1:20:14

there was um honestly for me still it's quite confusing um I I struggle to see

1:20:22

where that came from um and then there's also exemptions allowed for Food and

1:20:27

Drugs um to be approved and Exempted from safety laws based on parts of

1:20:35

foreign documents so uh it wouldn't even have to be necessarily a whole document

1:20:40

that's um produced let's say to the FDA or to the Australian government we could

1:20:46

take a thousand page um document and the Australian doc uh government gives us 12

1:20:52

pages of it and we can use 12 pages of the Thousand page document now to approve a drug or a food to come onto

1:20:58

the market so there were these very odd U package of regulations and the stated

1:21:06

intention from Health Canada was that these um changes in regulations were to

1:21:11

address issues with youth accessing flavored nicotine products like vaping

1:21:17

pens um and pouches of nicotine none of these things address that um again uh

1:21:24

Sean went to the standing committee on finance as a witness his belief and what

1:21:30

he testified was that this is their ability um their attempt to absolve

1:21:35

themselves uh Health Canada the government of Canada for um any negative

1:21:41

effects uh from their behavior and their choices during the covid pandemic uhuh

1:21:48

so you know we had um questions about vaccines being adulterated having DNA

1:21:54

fragments in them that maybe shouldn't have been there um so now we have a law that says well we didn't need to have it

1:22:01

free from adulteration um you know we can accept a food and a drug based on parts of a

1:22:08

foreign document and foreign documents in this case are defined so broadly it could certainly include the World Health

1:22:14

Organization or other um International organizations like that and then the the

1:22:20

Restriction of off label use of drugs you know we saw folks recommending things like ior mechon um for early

1:22:28

covid and for long covid now we can't do that under these regulations so Sean's

1:22:33

explanation for these very unusual uh changes to health law is that

1:22:39

when you look at them as a package it almost gives the government a blank check for uh getting themselves off the

1:22:45

hook for anything that might have gone wrong maybe some less than ideal decisions that were made during the

1:22:50

covid pandemic and then also for future pandemics uh as the country plans for

1:22:57

what that would look like now you know what are the things that went wrong the last time okay let's make sure those

1:23:03

issues won't be in place the next time so for anyone who's interested in that aspect listening um to Sean's testimony

1:23:12

uh the standing um committee on finance it would be really interesting he does not mince words uh he he tells his

1:23:20

opinion as he sees it uh and certainly he has more experience in the regulatory

1:23:26

law than I do I'm not a lawyer I am but a mere nutritionist so it's a little outside of my wheelhouse um but when I

1:23:33

read it it did seem very confusing um and you know Sean's explanation is is

1:23:39

certainly one that puts the pieces together we also saw during the time

1:23:44

that bill c69 was being debated before it became law uh the chfa the Canadian

1:23:50

Health Food Association also attended the standing committee on finance as a witness and they brought a lawyer I

1:23:55

believe her name is Laura Gomez I'm sorry if I got that wrong um and she

1:24:00

testified and the there were MPS questioning her um you know do we need

1:24:06

these powers to be able to protect youth from these nicotine products and she was

1:24:11

fabulous she kept saying you know we have this power under subsection whatever and she was just naming them

1:24:18

off dozens of different Provisions that already exist that could have the seated

1:24:23

intention and could protect Canadian youth in a way that many folks would agree with and might well be

1:24:29

necessary these Powers don't actually address the stated intention so that was

1:24:36

something both Laura Gomez and Shawn brought forward as lawyers in the Constitutional space was okay maybe we

1:24:43

need some more powers to protect youth but it's not these powers and why why

1:24:49

are we telling this story to Canadians uh that doesn't even add up right it

1:24:54

make sense well you know Health Canada definitely has a history of not being forthcoming right um employing elements

1:25:02

of fraud if you will uh to to perpetrate all of this agenda on on the Canadian populace

1:25:08

there's no doubt about it um I was going to touch on the um off label use I'm

1:25:15

going to digress from that for a moment though I'm going to just kind of beat on this this horse a little bit more in

1:25:22

relation to the fact that Health can the is not forthcoming whatsoever so last

1:25:27

year they're coming under under question for the proposed regulations and uh or

1:25:32

the proposed cost recovery as well as I believe Bill c47 was also a topic of

1:25:38

this discussion as well at the standing committee on health and uh the reason I want to show us this is because I I can

1:25:43

speak to it somewhat authoritatively uh more so than probably anybody else in the world um because it's it's well I'll

1:25:52

I'll just play it and and we'll go from there so th this is Dr Sharma from Health

1:25:57

Canada um trying to justify what they're doing in 20203 before the standing

1:26:03

committee on health so I'll just uh show this video here these products they are generally low risk but they had we had a

1:26:10

tragic 19-month-old in Alberta that died because of using natural Health products

1:26:15

instead of treatment for menitis Dr Steve fle and his Emergency Physician um

1:26:21

in all right so you know for the sake of time I would share more of that because she actually gets grilled on that and

1:26:30

that uh that 19-month-old that she was referring to is actually my 18-month-old uh son Ezekiel stefen and

1:26:37

what she gets grilled on is the fact that Natural Health Products had nothing to do with his death and what's of

1:26:46

interest in all of this and health Canada probably knows the full truth on it because they had the dirty

1:26:51

fingerprints on the investigation uh be um before we ever ended up in

1:26:58

court over the death of my son but uh they're probably well aware that my son never actually had bacterial menitis and

1:27:04

that there was no scientific evidence to even support that at all so it's really curious to me you know this happens in

1:27:10

in March of 2012 that my son passes away and that there's a massive cover up that

1:27:16

takes place and that there's this narrative that that emerges that's Bal angitis to absolve the medical system Alber Health Services of all

1:27:23

responsibility based on the fact that they had removed the equipment necessary

1:27:28

uh in those ambulances and so they had to absolve themselves of uh the criminal negligence that resulted in the death of

1:27:34

my son and so they come up with a narrative that says well it didn't matter whether that ambulance had the equipment or not he was already dead

1:27:40

because bacterial menitis compression of the brain stem you know getting him an airway wouldn't have changed that and so

1:27:47

they came up with this this incredible narrative that would eventually be completely disproven uh

1:27:52

scientifically and yet Health Canada now you know here we are um at this point in

1:27:59

time that that she's she's resurrecting this narrative you know we're 11 and a half years later and they're

1:28:06

resurrecting a false narrative that's already been debunked about the death of

1:28:11

my son to try to justify pushing these regulations onto the the manufacturers

1:28:18

the the Natural Health product manufacturers in Canada that'll ultimately have a detrimental impact to the Canadian this as a whole so it's

1:28:26

really interesting to me when we when we you're you're bringing up the fact that you know Health Canada is saying hey this it's for this that that we're

1:28:32

proposing this but yet it actually doesn't address this it it's going to do this over here it's interesting to me uh

1:28:39

somewhat but you know it just shows the level of corruption and if I will I'll just say

1:28:46

it boldly uh the level of criminality found within Health Canada

1:28:52

and what they're doing to ultimately monopolize monopolize pharmaceutical

1:28:58

medicine or allopathic medicine while they diminish from multiple angles um

1:29:04

all of the competition which includes natural medicine or naturopathy Artic

1:29:10

medicine traditional Chinese medicine uh Homeopathy right and we've already seen

1:29:15

this in in in times past because you said it the beginning if you were to really go back it's it's more like a hundred-year battle because we saw that

1:29:21

we saw where naturopathy disappeared we saw where Homeopathy disappeared we saw how those things became basically

1:29:28

Obsolete and underground and I believe the only thing to survive the initial

1:29:34

Onslaught back in the early 1900s was actually Chiropractic uh practice I don't believe

1:29:41

any of the others survived and then they kind of resurrected in what the 90s something like that is when we started

1:29:46

to see the reemergence of these different choices of treatment

1:29:52

that had been gone for for the better half of a century

1:29:59

so um choice of care it's interesting so they're attacking that but that's

1:30:04

provincial jurisdiction I know we're running short on time we're going to come to a close pretty quick here but um

1:30:10

so we have you know naturopathic doctors challenging that saying that you know that that's you know regulated Under The

1:30:18

Province based on their colleges and yet we're seeing Health Canada at the same time say that hey we

1:30:25

can allow for fraud adulteration and unsanitary

1:30:30

um uh practices taking place to bring forward medicine in essence as a whole

1:30:37

yeah and all under the guise that it's to protect youth from nicotine products

1:30:43

what what naturopathic doctors is recommending nicotine products to youth what uh family physician is recommending

1:30:49

nicotine products to you they're not right that that's not where the risk has come in so

1:30:56

using uh that guise as a way to bring in these Powers common sensical you know

1:31:03

even without being a constitutional lawyer commonsensically that makes no sense because it's not the doctors that

1:31:09

are uh allowing youth to gain access to those products exactly yeah so there's a lot

1:31:17

of things that just don't seem to line up unless you sell out a big picture for what what they're they're looking to to

1:31:22

achieve out of this and ultimately that's diminish the Natural Health industry while protect uh the

1:31:29

pharmaceutical industry from from what's taken place over the past four

1:31:34

years interesting stuff all right um uh one thing I forgot to make mention of uh

1:31:40

because I made some bold statements there about the fact that you know this uh this narrative that Dr Sharma there

1:31:46

um in that video uh before the standing committee on health that that narrative was debunked um I'm going to just put a

1:31:53

quick plug in here in relation to Big pictur mov.com because the irony of it

1:31:59

is that they make she makes a statement a week before a documentary would emerge

1:32:05

in relation to um my family's battle me and my wife uh over the death of our son

1:32:11

the whole Court Saga and everything like that and so that uh that documentary can actually be viewed on bigp

1:32:17

picture.com um it's it's in encompassed within a six-part series but it's been

1:32:23

dense and will be available um I'm not sure how how quickly this is going to air but um as of August uh it will be

1:32:31

available uh for purchase um to be able to view that from Matador films he's

1:32:37

he's a producer who also produced uninformed consent which uh many of the audience has probably seen in relation

1:32:44

to uh some of the nefarious stuff that's taken place over the past few years with the pharmaceutical industry and so and

1:32:51

and government of course Health Canada being part of that so bigp pictur movie.com and that can be

1:32:57

viewed where by the time you're done watching the documentary uh you're going to see that uh that Health Canada is

1:33:04

trying to exploit the death of my son in a very nefarious way using CBC narrative

1:33:10

when they know that that's not the truth of the matter at all so um before we

1:33:18

jump out is there anything else you know I know you talked about nhpa you know what let me let me let me preface it

1:33:24

with this um today is is incredibly important time at this point in time in

1:33:30

our lives to act to to take a stand so that we can have access to Natural

1:33:37

Health products that are going to make a significant difference in our lives and

1:33:42

that is really under threat you know out of fear of being an alarmist you know we we've been touting this we've been you

1:33:49

know blowing the horn for a long time but we're seeing it all come together so

1:33:55

quickly finally right because we see that Health C has been trying to do this for a long time that it is very

1:34:03

Paramount that just like back then back in 2008 when the stop c-51 campaign was

1:34:09

was was in full motion people acted back in the 90s when you know Health Canada

1:34:16

was looking at um enacting these regulations uh people acted they rose up

1:34:23

to the C all and they put a stop to this um let me ask the question how important

1:34:28

is it today Veronica that people take a stand crial yeah I you know we started

1:34:36

talking about both of our personal experience with Natural Health Products and what it's meant for ourselves and

1:34:43

for our families and I think it's important to bring it back to that right this isn't regulation this isn't just

1:34:50

government these are people's lives this matter M for our health it matters for our freedom it is critical that you get

1:34:58

involved in the ways that you are able to and there are so many ways to get

1:35:04

involved uh if you're going to take just one single action to get involved with nhpa I would recommend that you

1:35:10

subscribe to our email newsletter uh we're not going to spam you we send maybe one a week uh on average sometimes

1:35:17

a little less than that you're just going to get the latest with what's happening with natural health product

1:35:22

regulation the latest in our campaigns that will give you step by steps how to get involved how to communicate with

1:35:29

your members of parliament how to send letters you know who to talk to how to understand these issues and be able to

1:35:36

follow these things along as we do make progress and um as much as you know

1:35:41

we've spent the last hour plus talking about all of these threats that are facing the Natural Health Product

1:35:47

Industry as you said David it's it's coming so fast now it's so clear to so

1:35:54

many more Canadians that there is an issue here and so more and more people are standing up they are taking action

1:36:01

and so we're not seeing that boil the Frog analogy anymore we're seeing people stand up and say wait a second this is

1:36:08

not right this is not the Canada that I want for my children for my grandchildren I need to take individual

1:36:14

action and so it is really up to all of us individually to stand up and to do

1:36:20

our part and to take that action and Collective we're already seeing the benefits of that in um initiatives like

1:36:27

Bill c368 uh that are having really historic results within our Parliament so all

1:36:34

hope is not lost uh please activate yourselves take action in the ways that

1:36:39

you're able subscribe to our newsletter stay up to date and get involved all

1:36:44

right and I'm going to put a plugin for nhpa um you know taking a stand before

1:36:51

nhpa was was present before they became an entity um you know there was Shan

1:36:57

Buckley there was us there was Strauss you know um there was a number of key players and you know we saw what took

1:37:07

place and this is in an effort to say look nhpa has a solid stance a very

1:37:13

comprehensive stance where they're seeing all the issues they're not skirting around they're not just part of

1:37:19

the white noise and they're not there to deflect you from the real issues at hand which we have seen so in 2008 we started

1:37:26

trop started the stop c-51 campaign we did up the marketing material for we

1:37:31

supplied it to to key players across the country and it was

1:37:38

effective but we saw that there was people within the industry that would seek to sideline it to basically hijack

1:37:46

it and all of a sudden we see amend c-51 with a stop sign doesn't make sense but they were using our Browning material

1:37:52

and they just they swapped out a few key elements to basically hijack the movement and they they were almost

1:37:57

successful in it and they split the um the Natural Health Community really down the middle where lot a lot of people

1:38:03

thought that we were taking too radical of approach that we were too alarmist or whatever um but at the end of the day

1:38:09

and we were working with Shan Buckley Sean Buckley was really really assistant in highlighting the issues with Bill

1:38:15

c-51 he was the one that was the Catalyst that actually got us to move in the first place with with the stop c51

1:38:21

campaign and so we see the same thing today we saw the same thing last year where there was a lot of division within within the the

1:38:29

community um over the issues at hand and a lot of them were just ignoring the whole bill c47 thing so I'm going to put

1:38:36

a plugin for nha.org that when you go there you're getting Shan Buckley Shan

1:38:41

Buckley he's he doesn't have any skin in the game financially in relation to the

1:38:47

Natural Health Market he's not selling products he's not he is just he has a vested interest for Canadians to ensure

1:38:55

that they have access to Natural Health Products um because I know he himself uses some I know that for a fact and so

1:39:03

uh he's just trying to share that same blessing with with others as well and I know sha Buckley uh quite well uh

1:39:09

because also he's part of that big pictur movie.com uh documentary because

1:39:14

he was intricately involved with our court case and proceedings for years and

1:39:20

so he kind of threads himself in in in that way as well which is interesting because that whole um court case the

1:39:27

irony of it is that Sean Buckley would be representing us and we didn't know what the full agenda was but it was

1:39:32

actually a choice of care uh court case to try to create case law that would

1:39:39

criminalized parents for using naturopathic medicine even though they

1:39:44

were they were it was based off of a false premise in the first place and they had to create a narrative a false

1:39:49

narrative to try to get that out of the court case but it's interesting that Sean Buckley was uh an ingal part of

1:39:56

that court case and then now here here we are again fighting this from a different angle it's just like the same

1:40:02

players keep on finding themselves on the battle Battleground whether they want to be there or not it's like the government just keeps on inviting them

1:40:08

into that space so um so I'm I'm putting my plug in here for nha.org because I

1:40:14

know there's a lot of white noise out there and I know that there's a lot of distractions from the real issues at hand uh especially in in earlier 2023

1:40:21

when all this started to emerge and so if you want to clearcut line of uh or plan of action to make it very simple

1:40:27

and to get straight to the the point um you can find all of that information on nha.org and so if you're looking to act

1:40:34

they're going to provide you the guidance so that you are acting in the most effective way that you

1:40:40

can thank you David thank you for for coming on Veronica sure appreciate you taking the

1:40:46

time it's now been an hour and 40 minutes in just a few seconds here thank you I know your time is valuable uh

1:40:52

appreciate you sharing this and ultimately helping to empower Canadians

1:40:57

to preserve their rights to these products that are in so many instances

1:41:04

um life-changing life-saving and it's it's it's important it's it's a part of our culture and we need to maintain that

1:41:11

uh our rights to that so that we don't just become you know a product of the pharmaceutical industry so thank you so

1:41:17

much for coming on thank you for having me

1:41:23

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