04/16/2024
Please read this and if you can write to your MP as this "cost recovery plan" will pretty much ruin our ability to provide reasonably price and varied products for our patients.
To Our Valued Clients,
Health Canada is implementing what is effectively a massive tax on the supplements you’ve been prescribing to your clients. We need the help of you and your clients to stop this from happening. We have until April 25th to get this done.
The link below provides detailed information.
https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/natural-non-prescription/regulation/cost-recovery/revisions-proposed-fees.html
Health Canada has couched this tax as a ‘cost recovery’ effort. They intend to charge manufacturers and consumers for all the money needed to run their supplement oversight program. This might seem reasonable, except that Health Canada does not do the same for Cannabis and drugs. Someone else collects the fees (if any) to run those programs, making this cost recovery effort a targeting of the supplement industry and effectively punitive.
Practitioners are hit the hardest here because they have to pass on these increased costs to their clients. This means a potential hit to the pet owner of an extra $17/bottle for our products! Note that the consumer gets no added value for this exorbitant increase. It’s the same program it’s always been.
Companies supplying veterinarians and practitioners have already started to leave Canada in droves in anticipation of Health Canada plowing ahead with its plans. You may have noticed it is harder or now even impossible to find many items on your favourite vendor’s websites. Again, then, this increased cost delivers no added value but results in a dramatic decline in consumer choice.
To stop what is effectively a punitive tax, we need to act immediately. Please forward this email to your clients, who are a passionate group and who hopefully will not take this lying down. The deadline for them to respond to the government is April 25, 2024. One way to do that is by going to the website below and letting their MP know this is an issue that will be remembered in the next election and that votes are at stake if Health Canada proceeds with this unfair and targeted tax. This link sends a letter electronically to their MP as soon as a few form fields are filled out. It’s the easiest way for pet owners and for you to take action.
https://www.saveoursupplements.ca/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=sa_sos_2024_en&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw8diwBhAbEiwA7i_sJTwtp1cdgJlFjg30dvBWAxbdFi6th9noQjc9GQ0xHxwEt1DgHNDVpxoCAiMQAvD_BwE
If you want to read about Health Canada’s plans and provide more specific feedback, here is a link they have provided where you can provide input until the April 25th deadline.
https://healthcanada.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a2ZCxwYgfgWqQwS?Q_Language=EN
Please help preserve access of Canadians to supplements, so that holistic medical practice does not become a thing of the past!
Thank you in advance for your help!
Dr. Steve Marsden
DVM ND MSOM Lac. Dipl.CH CVA AHG
Feedback on Revisions to Proposed Fees for Natural Health Products
