In 2019, Health Canada published an updated version of Canada's Dietary Guide, whose recommendations include drinking more water, eating more plant-based protein, limiting intake of highly processed foods, and cooking more meals at home (see box for full list).
Throughout the three-year review process, Canada's largest agri-food companies used a variety of tactics to oppose the changes: a total of 366 corporate political actions (lobbying, etc.), of which 82 (22%) criticized the scientific data on which Health Canada's recommendations were based, and 76 (21%) presented non-peer-reviewed, industry-friendly data.
These are the findings of a study published in the December 2023 issue of Canadian Health Promotion and Chronic Disease Prevention. Lead author Marie-Chantal Robitaille is a master's student at the University of Montreal under the supervision of Jean-Claude Mbarak, professor in the Department of Nutrition.
Preventing undue corporate influence
Marie-Chantal Robitaille, a master's student working with Jean-Claude Mbarak, professor in the Department of Nutrition at the University of Montreal.
Credit: Courtoisie
Health Canada established a committee to review the scientific literature and hold public hearings to update Canada's Food Guide based on three guidelines (see box). To ensure transparency and avoid conflicts of interest, food industry representatives and industry-funded experts and scientists were excluded from the hearings.
“Health Canada's decision is supported by the scientific literature and the World Health Organization, which concludes that public-private partnerships can undermine the focus on the public good and make it more difficult to establish public health policy,” Robitaille said.
She noted that previous versions of the food guide were considered outdated by many health experts and criticized as “ineffective and unreliable because they had become a marketing tool for certain products.”
Although food industry representatives were excluded from the hearing, they submitted 11 letters of opinion to the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Health, expressing their opinions on the guidelines.
A wide range of tactics
Robitaille combed through these reports and the websites of the 11 organisations that submitted them, investigating their political activities.
Her analysis revealed four main strategies.
Information management, e.g. concealment of information, use of third party credibility
Discourse strategies such as framing debates on food and public health-related issues in favor of industry interests
Political influence, e.g. direct lobbying or indirect access to policy makers
Coalition management, for example, building support networks, especially with medical professionals and other opponents
“I began by identifying the corporate political activities being undertaken by companies in the biofood industry to influence the development of Canada's Food Guide, and then documented and analyzed their discourse and positions on Health Canada's three guidelines and recommendations,” Robitaille explained.
Full-scale lobbying
Of the 366 cases of corporate political activity Robitaille found, three groups made up the majority: the Dairy Farmers of Canada (24 percent), the Canadian Juice Council, which also represents makers of sweetened and soft drinks (20 percent), and the National Cattlemen's Association (16 percent).
The most common practices were information management (197 cases, 53.8%) and discourse strategies (108 cases, 29.5%).
Within the information management category, the most frequently used strategy was information suppression, which consisted mainly of criticizing the scientific evidence and highlighting its complexity and uncertainty (98 cases, 27%).
Robitaille pointed to a position paper from the Canadian Egg Farmers Association, arguing that “consultation and dialogue with both food producers and medical experts is an important step to ensure there is a balance of views throughout the process.”
Similarly, they argued that the Canadian Meat Council should be consulted because the council “has extensive nutritional and scientific expertise, as well as experience in consumer education.”
Industry messages ignored
Robitaille said pressure from the agri-food industry on the committee responsible for updating Canada's Food Guide and Health Canada has been ineffective.
“This is a positive for Canada compared to other countries where the food industry has been successful in exerting a significant influence,” Robitaille said. “Research has shown that the same tactics have been used in other jurisdictions, most notably the United States, where companies banded together to oppose government efforts to combat obesity between 2010 and 2012.”
According to the article, one of the industry's main strategies has been to “exaggerate the costs of proposed changes by using alarmist narratives suggesting that the proposed recommendations would fail and that a host of undesirable health and economic problems would affect society as a whole.”
