If Bill C-51 passes, upwards of 70% of Natural Health Products currently sold in Canada will be illegal!

C-51:

Will allow laws to be created behind closed doors by government agents who are NOT elected officials and may have corporate interests in mind - while legally prohibiting our elected officials from intervening on behalf of Canadians who have not even been appraised of this latest threat to their health freedoms by media owned and controlled by a handful of corporations.

C-51 acts as a “Trojan Hearse” for the natural supplements industry many Canadians currently depend on by substituting the new Orwellian term “therapeutic products” for “drug” throughout the old Food and Drugs Act. Since most people think of “drugs” as referring to costly chemical drugs sold by a pharmaceutical industry regardless of known side-effects and more than 200,000 Big Pharma drug-related deaths in the U.S. every year - calling herbs “drugs” - oops, “therapeutic products” - is meant to sow confusion in the minds of consumers already skittish over harmful “drugs” un-inspected poisoned pet food from China.

“The last time consumers and the industry rebelled against Health Canada enforcement actions against NHPs (Natural Health Products), the rallying cry was 'Don't treat our foods as drugs.' That rallying cry created the most successful petition drive in Canadian history,” Buckley reminds us. “Would the rallying cry have been successful with the new term: 'Don't treat our foods as therapeutic products'? Or to be more accurate: 'Don't treat or natural health products as therapeutic products'”?

“A Natural Health Product cannot be taken off of the market unless the Government can prove that it is unsafe,” Buckley points out. Moreover, Good Manufacturing Processes certification voluntarily complied with by supplements suppliers like USANA “are appropriate for the low risk profile of NHPs.”

Under C-51 if you “distribute to one or more persons” - such as your children or spouse - an illegal herb like goldenseal, this would be considered “selling” a “drug” - I mean a therapeutic health product considered to be a drug. Under C-51, inspectors can enter your private property without a warrant to make sure that you do not have any herbs in your kitchen or residence. Ditto your vehicle. (Presumably, marijuana-sniffing helicopters will now be converted to spot Echinacea and basil growing in your garden.)

Even if you escape the scrutiny of Health Canada's college-recruited brown shirts, your local health food store staff - I mean drug suppliers - could see their products confiscated (at the store owners' expense) while facing new penalties for summary conviction under C-51, including fines up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 6 months for a first offence, and $500,000 and/or up to 18 months of incarceration for subsequent offences.

Directors and officers of business that hurt Big Pharma sales by giving away free samples of products containing unlicensed boron, for example, could face an indictable offence resulting in a fine of up to - wait for it! - $5,000,000 and/or imprisonment of
up to 2 years!

Heroin dealers selling baggies to children on playgrounds don't face five million dollar fines! But if C-51 passes into law, someone indicted for selling or giving away a naturally-growing herb used for thousands of years with demonstrated health benefits and ZERO health risks will.

Says Shawn Buckley: “This is probably unprecedented in Canadian history.”

And remember, adds this Canadian lawyer: “Please note that in all of my years defending companies in Court, I have never seen Health Canada charge only one offence. In one case there were 73 charges. Under ten would be an exception. So when considering whether a company could survive sentencing, do not calculate a single fine for a single offence. Rather assume multiple fines for multiple offences.”

Some, hopefully many, readers have been involved in the long campaign to keep the onerous “CODEX” laws now severely restricting supplement sales in Europe to uselessly low-dose, extremely expensive prescriptions from being implemented in Canada (and the United States) can now take fresh alarm at what can only be described - as Mussolini termed government in the service of corporations - as a “fascist” bill.

Even worse…

“If an inspector who does not understand the NHP industry, and who is not qualified to make health decisions tells a manufacturer to stop selling an essential product, or tells a natural health practitioner not to provide a product their patients rely upon, that the manufacturer or natural health practitioner is committing an offence if they do not comply.”

But as thousands of Canadians depending on Truehope Nutritional Support to balance dangerous mood swings naturally found out, yanking natural health products off the shelves and confiscating shipments at the border - can stress them out, make them sick - and in at least two cases of suicide - kill them quite dead.

At least this is what the Alberta Court found when a judge ruled that Truehope would have caused suicides and hospitalizations if they had heeded Health Canada's demand to take their natural herbal product off of the market.

Catch-22. But this catch could be fatal.

“When Health Canada inspectors demand that NHPs be recalled or removed, they are in effect making decisions that affect people's health. In determining whether these inspectors should be given blanket power to recall and seize products, we need to consider whether we want untrained persons making health decisions,” Buckley pointed out in his Draft Discussion Paper On Bill C-51 to the health minister.

“We are calling on you to hold a public inquiry to determine: How can it be that Health Canada does not consider harm and suicides caused by Health Canada's actions to be relevant to an investigation?

“Why would Health Canada shut down the University of Calgary clinical trial when it was approved by three ethics committee boards and funded by the Alberta Science and Research Authority?” - who provided half-a-million dollars to look at the efficacy of a multivitamin already freely obtainable over-the-counter throughout Canada!

“The trial was progressing without any evidence of harm to the trial participants when Health Canada intervened to shut the trial down,” Buckley recounts. “Health Canada's reasons were that the University did not seek prior Health Canada approval. it was not the practice of Universities to seek Health Canada approval for nutrition research. lf a University wanted to study the effect of oranges on scurvy, they would not ordinarily seek Health Canada approval. In this case the University was studying a vitamin and mineral supplement with ingredients readily available in health food stores….

DEADLY INTERVENTION
As if determined to provide a dramatic preview of what could soon be happening across Canada under C-51, in 2003 Health Canada illegally embargoed a herbal product being used by Canadians suffering serious mental disorders. EMPowerplus - a natural health product developed in Canada and produced in the US - was being imported legally under ministerial order when Health Canada intervened on behalf of mega-drug companies threatened by loss of sales - as an Alberta judge later found in ruling for the defendants, Truehope Nutritional Support - by “thousands of individuals who found relief from mental illness through the supplement without the negative side effects of conventional medications were relying upon them to continue to sell and distribute their product and to maintain the Truehope program.”

When Health Canada stopped shipments of Truehope's EMPower Plus at the border, the agency set up a 1-800 “crisis Hotline” - not to help panicked Canadians suddenly denied essential herbs but to patronize and demean them, Buckley relates. More than 700 pages of detailed notes of the conversations were entered as Exhibit 65 at the trial.

“It is essential that you read them,” Buckley abjured the minister. “I can tell you that you will be shocked and horrified. I could only read bits at a time because they are too troubling. They document scores of vulnerable Canadians who had finally found health pleading with Health Canada for their very lives and sanity. As a human being I find it inconceivable that these notes did not cause Health Canada to re-evaluate what it was doing.

“In addition to the crisis line notes, there were hundreds of letters sent by Canadians pleading for access to the product. Yet these were systematically ignored. How could Health Canada and the former Minister of Health ignore the input of vulnerable Canadians who called, wrote and protested on a life and death issue… ?

“How is it that ordinary Canadians are to have a voice in Health Canada decisions that affect their health?

“Why is it that evidence was suppressed prior to trial? We know from the Judgment of the Trial Judge that Health Canada knew that Synergy and Truehope could not get a DIN. We also know that 90% of the natural health product industry did not have DINs and that there was no reason to single EMPower Plus out for enforcement
action.

“Health Canada ran a criminal trial calling evidence that Synergy and Truehope did not have a DIN. Health Canada never explained to the Court that it was impossible for Synergy and Truehope to get a DIN and that Health Canada knew this. the notes of the 1-800 crisis line calls. These should have been disclosed prior to trial as part of the disclosure process. They should also have been disclosed under the Access to Information Act request. We had specifically requested them prior to the trial. At a pre-trial conference the Judge made it clear they should be disclosed.

“On the third day of trial when they had still not been disclosed, we made an application to the Court for a disclosure order. Health Canada's lawyer explained to the Court that the documents were 'undiscoverable'. That Health Canada had searched and searched for them and they could not be found. The Judge made an order they be disclosed. The Judge also made it clear that if the documents were not disclosed by the end of the Crown's case that the Court would consider stopping the trial. Within half an hour of this order the 'undiscoverable' documents were discovered.

“Why did Health Canada carry on a public charade that Synergy and Truehope should have obtained a DIN without telling the Court or the public that getting a DIN was impossible?

“Why was the charge laid to enforce a regulation that no longer applies?”

The offense date was 2003. As of January 1, 2004, the DIN regulation no longer applied. The product EMPower Plus is a natural health product which became subject to the Natural Health Product Regulations on January 1,2004 (the "NHP Regulations"). The NHP Regulations came into force because of the recognition that the drug regulations, such as the DIN regulation, did not suit the natural health product industry.

It turns out that in March 2004, “the new Minister of Health, Pierre Pettigrew, granted an exemption to Synergy
and Truehope allowing EMPower Plus to be sold under the ministerial agreement. A Minister of Health will only grant a ministerial exemption under the Act if it is in the public interest to do so. A couple of months after the Minister of Health agreed that EMPower Plus could be sold without a DIN, Synergy and Truehope were charged with selling without a DIN.

“Despite the facts that: the DIN regulation no longer applied, and 90% of the industry did not comply with the DIN Regulation, the charge was laid and proceeded with. This raises question as to why Health Canada would proceed. Does it not create disrespect for the legal system when that system is used to enforce a regulation that no longer applies because it could not be adhered to in the first place?

And by the way…

“When faced with evidence that EMPower Plus could be a breakthrough in treating bi-polar disorder, why didn't Health Canada contact the researchers involved?”

One of the largest Health Canada investigation ever “went on for two years prior to the charge being Laid” following a coordinated RCMP - Health Canada raid on the Truehope call center.

Yet…

“Despite the size and complexity of the investigation, it appears that no Health Canada inspector took the time to ever call researchers such as Dr. Charles Popper at Harvard University, or Dr. Bonnie Kaplan at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Calgary to determine whether EMPower Plus was safe or effective. Health Canada had been given the journal publications of these doctors on EMPower Plus.

“Honorable Minister, EMPower Plus may be the single biggest breakthrough in the treatment of
mental illness in history. Rather than confirm that this was a breakthrough that needed to be
supported by Health Canada, Health Canada took all means in its power to stop the
breakthrough.

“We are calling on you to hold a public inquiry to determine:

“How it came about that Health Canada took all means in its power to stop what may be the most significant breakthrough in the treatment of mental illness ever?

“How it can be that Health Canada can conduct such a large investigation without ever contacting the researchers for information?

“How can Health Canada be refusing to license EMPower Plus with Boron? Synergy and Truehope have applied to the Natural Health Product Directorate for a license for EMPower Plus with boron?

"To date, a license has not been granted with boron because Health Canada is voicing concerns about boron. All of the leading experts on boron state that not only is boron safe but it is an essential mineral for health. Indeed, not only is boron essential for health, but several studies have shown that boron dramatically reduces the incidence of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is the leading cancer in men. Rather than restricting boron, Health Canada should be actively promoting boron. The world standard is to allow up to 20 mg of boron a day. The amount of boron in EMPower Plus is well below the world standard.

“It appears that Health Canada is once again ignoring science in the position it is adopting. Canadians are being denied access to a mineral that is essential for health.”

$20,000 REWARD
In offering offers a $20,000 reward “for information confirming serious corruption involving past or present Health Canada employees,” Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. relates how… “As determined in the courts, EMPowerplus was found to be necessary for the life and wellbeing of participants in the Truehope program. Citizens who begged for relief were denied their Charter rights by officious bureaucrats who seized and destroyed EMPowerplus shipments belonging to Truehope participants. As a result of these actions by these agents, Canadian citizens were injured, hospitalized, and some sadly committed suicide.

“Health Canada charged Truehope Nutritional Support Ltd. with selling a drug without a drug number. Officials pursued Truehope, at great expense to taxpayers, for an offense with a $500 fine. In 2006 the case was heard before the Honorable Judge Gerald M. Meagher. Five of the six charges were stayed with the last being acquitted. The following findings of fact came forth against Health Canada's actions:

'Health Canada's own conduct in setting up a 1-800 crisis line once the seizures commenced at the Canada/United States border is evidence that Health Canada was aware of the possible harm or danger to the participants.'

'The Canadian Mental Health Association testified that they warned Health Canada that their actions would ultimately result in injury and suicides, the warning was ignored.'

'Expert witness, Dr. Charles Popper (Harvard University professor) testified that “if the supplement became unavailable symptoms associated with depression and bipolar disorder, which would include aggressive behavior, assaults, hospitalizations and suicides, would return.'

'Court transcripts include the testimonies of two Health Canada agents who claim adherence to policy is paramount, even over lives. Agent Sandra Jarvis testified that in spite of her knowledge of direct harm to Canadians, she continued turning back the legally imported nutritional supplement from the USA. Agent Miles Brosseau was questioned under oath: “So if you were sent a document . . .showing that people were dying because of what Health Canada was doing . . . you would just ignore that because it's not a policy or directive?” Brosseau answered “Yes.”'