Pass Bill C-224

AI summary

Petitioners ask the Parliament to expeditiously pass Bill C-224. The government responds that Health Canada must retain oversight to protect safety and that C-224 as drafted would remove safeguards; it is studying the bill.

AI summaries describe petitioners’ requests and claims. Consult the official record for the full text.

Official petition

PETITION TO THE PARLIAMENT OF CANADA: Whereas: The Government's Bill C-47 has allowed Health Canada to regulate natural health supplements the same as therapeutic synthetic drugs; And Whereas: New Health Canada regulations will impose substantial new fees on the importation, manufacturing, and sale of natural health products; And Whereas: Bill C-47 is poised to dramatically disrupt the market and represents a direct attack on Canadian consumers and small businesses; Therefore: We, the undersigned residents of Canada, call upon the Parliament of Canada to expeditiously pass 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. The passage of Bill C-224 in its current form would remove these consumer protections and prevent the government from responding quickly to serious health concerns, as well as limiting Health Canada’s ability to reduce regulatory burdens on Natural Health Product companies. C-224 is currently being studied by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. The government looks forward to hearing from stakeholders and Parliamentarians on whether the bill can be amended to ensure it does not remove safeguards that protect the health and safety of Canadians.