Canadian Citizens

The Self-care Framework is a multi-step initiative set into motion by Health Canada in 2017 with an end goal of harmonizing our natural health product regulations with the pharmaceutical model. If achieved, this will result in the loss of countless natural health products and increased prices on products that remain.

Cost Recovery is being imposed on the natural product industry. Businesses will be charged significant annual fees to license and manufacture their products. This will result in the loss of many products and Canadian businesses who cannot afford these fees. The fees are to come into effect on December 1 2025.

Vanessa’s Law now applies to natural health products, resulting from definition changes in the annual budget bill (Bill C-47), passed on June 22 2023. Vanessa’s Law empowers Health Canada to order recalls, impose tougher penalties, and require companies to change labels or run expensive tests at their whim. It’s important to note that Vanessa’s Law was designed for pharmaceutical drugs and was never intended to apply to natural health products.

Under Vanessa’s Law, Health Canada now has the power to levy fines up to $5,000,000 per day against the natural health industry for offences such as labelling errors or advertising a products use outside of the Health-Canada-approved label claims. Previously, the fine for noncompliance was $5000 per offence. A $5,000,000 penalty is appropriate for the pharmaceutical industry, but will only serve to destroy natural product companies and silence retaliation.

Still to come in the Self-care Framework, Health Canada intends to:

• Restrict natural product claims to minor conditions for which a person would not seek the advice of a practitioner licensed by a province 
• Impose the chemical drug standards of evidence onto natural products
• Stop allowing traditional use evidence to support treatment claims and license natural products

• Reduced selection of natural health products in Canada. Our highly innovative multi-ingredient products are especially at risk.

• With the new fees and fines being imposed on natural health product manufacturers, we can expect that many companies will go out of business, especially our beloved small and medium-sized companies, and their products will disappear along with them.

• The industry will also lose the right to rely on traditional-use evidence to license products. For example, it will no longer be acceptable to claim on a product label that “ginger is traditionally used to treat nausea”, all of this leading to more lost products and fewer options for the shelves for you and your family.

• Higher prices on the remaining natural health products will leave even more natural health products financially out of reach for a larger group of Canadians. Can you afford to pay more for natural health products?

• The Self-Care Framework will also restrict natural health products to over-the-counter uses. In other words, natural health products will not be licensed for any condition that you’d typically seek the advice of a licensed practitioner for.

• Reduced product selection and high prices will limit the tools that natural health practitioners have available to help you manage your health and wellness.

• Increased Health Canada censorship and fear of $5,000,000 /day fines will prevent truthful advertising by manufacturers and natural health retailers by limiting discussion to the label-approved claims of a product. This means that natural health product manufacturers and retailers can only tell you product information that is on the label, they can’t tell you about other traditional uses of a product or they’d risk fines of up to $5,000,000 per day.

1. Repeal sections 500-504 of Bill C-47
2. Stop Cost Recovery on natural health product businesses
3. Stop the Self-care Framework
4. Regulate natural health products as foods, not drugs.
5. Enact the Charter of Health Freedom to ensure fair regulations of natural health products