FEDERAL DOUBLE STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY

If we cannot harm people without legal consequences, why are Health Canada employees allowed to?

This is the question asked in Shawn Buckley’s latest commentary on the current regulatory and legal climate for NHPs. It’s a question which has hung, implied but unasked, in the minds of many who predicted this day would come. It’s a question that is seen by some as indecent, but Mr. Buckley backs up his right to ask it loud and clear with evidence and reason.

The crisis in the natural health community has taken years to become apparent to many, who chose to hope that they were dealing with reasonable people. The community, citizens and stakeholders alike are, after all, reasonable people. Assuming that conversation and cooperation with an organization devoted to ‘health’ would pay off eventually has naturally been a more attractive mindset than the ‘radical’ approach: that the system is fundamentally flawed.

Many have tried, in different ways, to avert or postpone the day when we could all see clearly that Health Canada have placed themselves above the law. Many have hoped that, ultimately, reason would prevail.

Some of us have stated unequivocally, from the outset, that not only are the NHP Regulations too inappropriate to be tweaked, the very mindset that created them must be challenged. The current recognition of the reality of Health Canada’s motivation, and subsequent distress, running through every corner of the natural health community in 2011 is a significant relief for the NHPPA. Our uncompromising stance, predicting that the NHP Regulations would dismantle the industry, has been unpalatable to some. The NHPPA is not, and never has been anti-regulation. But the NHPPA still asserts that the NHP Regulations, as they are written, are so disastrously inappropriate that they must be challenged, suspended and replaced.

THE COMMUNITY IS RESETTING ITS FOCUS

To date, most printed space and much mainstream media time has been taken up with attempts to comply with Health Canada. The drive to confront them in court, to hold them accountable for actions which are clearly criminal, has been too radical to contemplate. Our agenda has been off many radars until now.

If unelected bureaucrats are instrumental in setting our health policy, then we need to identify them and involve them in our dialogue. We need to communicate with them truthfully how their actions are impacting our freedoms, our health, and our relationship with our Government. We need to shine light on their actions so that where appropriate, they feel shame. We need to shine light on their actions so that, where there actions are criminal, they are made clearly aware of this. We need to shine light on their actions so that, where they are causing harm, they know clearly what they are doing so that they can choose differently.

Those at Health Canada who recklessly and knowingly risk harm, distress and death are about to be confronted with the real consequences for real people of their decisions and their actions…in person and in court.

Fundraising for our legal challenge to the NHP regulations continues to grow. Appropriate regulation of our industry must begin with constitutional foundations. Part of the process to have Health Canada focus on regulatory framework is to challenge them in court. The NHPPA will restate its core message, that the current Regulations are unconstitutional and dangerous, in court; since MPs, much of the media and even some sections of the industry still consider them benign. Legal cases take time however, and while we wait for the research and the preparatory work needed to challenge Health Canada, the organization, we need not sit idle. The NHP Regulations have been written and are enforced by individuals who have been made aware that they are causing real harm to real people.

INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNTABILITY

We believe that Canadians can regain their freedom to decide how they will stay healthy.  We invite you to partner with us in bringing about meaningful change. We cannot bring about meaningful change unless all of us work together. The only way we can collectively bring back our freedoms, is if we individually take responsibility for getting them back.  We fail if you do not get involved. It is no longer possible for you to be free and inactive at the same time. You must decide: will you be inactive or will you be free?

Within the next few weeks Canadians across the country will be receiving NHPPA’s Accountability Initiative that will include the essential principles of action. We will shortly be posting, on our website, new letters, documents, information and talking points. We will be asking you to keep the pressure on your MPs, especially as we approach the upcoming election. Over time, we hope to be posting details of individual Health Canada employees who knowingly cause harm in their day to day work. Individuals such as the two witnesses who stated, under oath, that documented distress, ill health and death meant nothing to them. We will ask you to write, call, email these people too. To leave them in no doubt that they are accountable. We can all be a part of shining the light. And we must.

“Arguably taking vital medications away from vulnerable sick people is a special kind of violence.” Shawn Buckley, March 2011.

Please forward this message to anyone you know who wants to make a change.

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Protecting access,

Natural Health Products Protection Association

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