Exclude natural health products
Petitioners ask Parliament to pass Bill C-224 to exclude NHPs from the Food and Drugs Act 'therapeutic product' definition, protect practitioners/retailers, guarantee access and block registration fee increases. The government responds it will maintain oversight.
Why we would sign this petition
- It would preserve access and affordability by removing NHPs from drug‑type regulation and blocking registration fee increases, lowering regulatory costs for producers and consumers.
- It would protect practitioners and retailers from penalties that might otherwise limit their ability to provide information and services about NHPs.
- It affirms consumer choice by keeping commonly used NHPs available without the stricter restrictions applied to pharmaceuticals.
Why we wouldn’t sign this petition
- Excluding NHPs from therapeutic regulation may weaken safety oversight, increasing risks from contaminated, mislabeled, or unsafe products.
- Reduced regulatory powers could hinder recalls, licensing and post‑market surveillance that identify and remove unsafe NHPs.
- A blanket exclusion is blunt; targeted regulatory adjustments or phased reforms could better balance access, safety and program funding.
The summary and both sets of reasons are AI-generated from the petition and given equal weight. Claims are the petitioners’ own; consult the official record for the full text.
Official petition
PETITION TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS IN PARLIAMENT ASSEMBLED Whereas: • Natural Health Products (NHPs) include a wide range of commonly used products such as vitamins, minerals, probiotics, herbal remedies, protein powders, body care products, and other health-supporting products relied upon daily by Canadians of all ages; • Health Canada's regulatory changes, including new fees, stricter compliance requirements, and limitations on the sharing of truthful health information, threaten the affordability, accessibility, and availability of NHPs in Canada; • Canadians have a fundamental right to make informed choices about how they prevent illness and how they address illness or injury in their own bodies, including the use of Natural Health Products; • Canadians want the freedom to access Natural Health Products and to receive information from qualified natural health practitioners and retailers to help manage their personal health needs; • Natural health retailers and practitioners should not face excessive fines or penalties for providing advice, care, and services related to Natural Health Products; • Bill C-224, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (natural health products), would amend the Food and Drugs Act to clarify that Natural Health Products are not therapeutic products within the meaning of the Act and therefore should not be subject to the same regulatory and monitoring regime as pharmaceutical drugs, ensuring continued access to safe, affordable Natural Health Products for Canadians. We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to: • guarantee the right of every Canadian to access, choose, and use Natural Health Products; • protect Natural Health Product practitioners and retailers in providing information; • ensure there is no increase to registration costs imposed by Health Canada; and • vote in support of Bill C-224.
Government response
Response by the Minister of Health Signed by Maggie Chi Our government understands that many Canadians use natural health products daily to support and maintain their health, and remains committed to safeguarding Canadians’ access to safe, effective, and high quality natural health products. To uphold this commitment, an appropriate regulatory framework remains essential, even for lower risk products, to maintain the standards of safety and quality expected by Canadians. Our government also recognizes that natural health products are generally lower risk than conventional pharmaceuticals, which is why they are regulated under the Natural Health Products Regulations, a separate and distinct regulatory framework from pharmaceutical drugs. However, natural health products can still pose risks to the health and wellbeing of Canadians if those products are contaminated, mislabeled, or misused. Recall and safety notices for natural health products are available online, and a review of that list highlights how widely-used natural health products can be unsafe, and demonstrates the need for Health Canada to maintain oversight. This is why natural health products must be licensed by Health Canada to verify they meet requirements for safety, efficacy and quality, and the sites that manufacture, package, label or import NHPs must be licensed to verify that appropriate good manufacturing practices standards are followed. The changes to Vanessa’s Law by the previous government were introduced to reflect the evolving nature of the natural health product marketplace. These changes support Canadians in making informed health decisions, while also protecting the reputations of the vast majority of natural health product companies that are committed to providing safe, high quality products. While the updates to Vanessa’s Law enable Health Canada to remove unsafe products from the marketplace if a company refuses to do so voluntarily, these new authorities are only to be used if a serious risk to health is identified and if a company refuses to cooperate with voluntary measures. That is, there are no implications on companies with compliant and safe products. Additionally, the authorities included in Budget Implementation Act, 2024, give the Minister of Heath the ability to respond in a tailored way to specific issues that arise. This authority was used in March 2025 to give companies additional time to comply with new NHP labelling requirements, which was welcomed by industry. The Ministerial Exemption Order provides an additional three years, until June 2028, for companies to bring products into compliance with the new labelling requirements. Our government understands that not all of the challenges faced by natural health product companies can be addressed through additional time, which is why the Department has committed to making changes to the Natural Health Product Regulations as part of its response to the Government’s Red Tape Review initiative. On September 8, 2025, Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada published a red tape reduction report, which indicates that the Department will: Amend the natural health product regulations to make the labelling requirements more flexible; Introduce a simple pre-market registration process for products with a higher degree of certainty, such as those aligned with an approved Health Canada monograph; and Introduce more flexible post-market vigilance requirements tailored to the level of risk. In light of its Red Tape Reduction commitments, Health Canada will re-visit introducing a cost recovery regime for natural health products once regulatory amendments and program adjustments have been completed. This will involve updating the program costing model and extensive consultations with stakeholders. Further, the government has carefully considered feedback from across the sector, including testimony provided to the Standing Committee on Health (HESA) last year during its study of Private Member’s Bill C-368, which was at report stage in the House of Commons when Parliament was dissolved for the federal election. On September 18, 2025, a new version of that Private Member's Bill, C-224, was introduced in Parliament, seeking to exclude NHPs, with the exception of nicotine replacement therapies, from the Food and Drugs Act definition of ‘therapeutic product’, thereby removing the Vanessa’s Law authorities for most NHPs. The Government has indicated that it supports additional discussions on Bill C-224 through the Parliamentary process.