441-02202 (Health)

Health Canada recognizes that natural health products (NHPs) are important to Canadians to help support and maintain their health and is committed to supporting access to natural health products that are safe and of high quality.

While NHPs are generally lower risk products, that does not mean they are without risk, especially if products are adulterated, or used improperly.

In 2021, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development completed an audit of Health Canada’s NHP program and found both strengths and areas for improvement. Health Canada committed to undertaking a number of initiatives to improve the oversight of these products.

In an effort to make the natural health product market safer for consumers and support Canadians in making informed choices, Health Canada recently introduced two important regulatory and legislative changes:

• In July 2022, after extensive consultation with stakeholders and taking their feedback into account, Health Canada introduced new regulatory requirements to make natural health product labels easier for Canadians to read and understand. This includes, for example, increased font size and improved colour contrast.
• In June 2023, the Government passed legislation allowing Health Canada to take more action if a serious risk to health is identified with a natural health product. This legislation allows Health Canada to order recalls or add warnings to labels, if necessary, which the Department could not do before.

Now, Health Canada is proposing fees for industry to allow the Department to create an even safer marketplace for consumers and begin to recoup a portion of the costs of services it provides to industry. Presently, NHPs are the only line of health products where the regulatory activities are fully funded by Canadian taxpayers.

Health Canada knows that many NHP companies are small businesses and is committed to supporting them. The Department is considering measures to help alleviate the impact of fees on businesses.  This includes fee reductions of 25% to 50% and a full waiver of pre-market evaluation fees for small businesses marketing their first product.

Health Canada has completed the review of the thousands of comments received on the fee proposal. The Department is revising the initial proposal and will be engaging stakeholders in March 2024 for further discussions.

Ultimately, this initiative is not about limiting the production of NHPs or consumers’ access to them. Rather, these efforts are about making sure the products Canadians use every day are safe, and of high quality.