By Teresa Buckley | NHPPA.org

There is an old saying: you don’t know what you don’t know. But once you do know, it is like flashing a light so bright in your eyes that you can hardly stand it.

Since my great awakening six years ago, I have spent most of my days thinking of creative ways to wake people up. That path led me to volunteer in the roles of Executive Director and Communications Director for the National Citizens Inquiry. Now, I volunteer with the Natural Health Product Protection Association (NHPPA).

The NHPPA was established 18 years ago with a mandate to protect our Health Rights, particularly our access to natural and traditional remedies. We serve as the watchdog for the Natural Health Community.

Learning about Natural Health Products (NHPs) has been like discovering a new food group—one I didn’t even know existed before.

This past Fall, the NHPPA hosted an online health show called The World’s Greatest Health Show, broadcast on NHPPA.org/live for three full weeks. We featured speakers—from professionals to everyday Canadians—sharing their personal health journeys.

Their testimonies are powerful. People facing death or severe suffering with no hope through mainstream medicine were saved or found hope through natural remedies.

Many Canadians suffer without hope because they are unaware that solutions exist.

They don’t know because, in Canada, it is illegal to share truthful health information. Those who know these life-changing stories, including medical practitioners and natural remedy producers, cannot share them due to penalties—Health Canada fines up to five million dollars daily for sharing the truth.

Fortunately, it is not yet illegal for individuals to share their personal health stories and the impact of NHPs on their lives. That was the purpose of The World’s Greatest Health Show—to hear uncensored stories. We listened to Canadians.

During the three weeks of the event, we travelled across the country with The Health Charter Tour, organizing live events along the way to raise awareness and interview people. Our goal was to deliver to Parliament the third-largest petition in Canadian history: 157,057 handwritten signatures demanding the enactment of the Charter of Health Freedom.¹

There is a distinction between allopathic medicine and traditional medicine. Allopathic medicine is what we are familiar with today. It is a pharmacological-based model that treats the symptoms of an illness. Traditional medicine adopts a more holistic approach and targets the root cause of the illness, aiming for a cure.

Once that light is on, it becomes impossible to ignore what’s happening. Canadians from coast to coast are suffering physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Our work at the NHPPA is to spread the message of hope.

The NHPPA currently has two separate but equally important campaigns that we need your help with.

First, Bill C-224. This bill has just successfully passed the second reading and is now before the Standing Committee on Health. C-224 repeals the changes that were quietly added to the 2023 Budget Bill. These changes included putting NHPs into the Therapeutic Drug Model and imposing fines of up to five million dollars a day for sharing truthful health information.²

We need your help with phone calls, e-letters, and letters to inform the Standing Committee on Health that we want the 2023 changes repealed. We also encourage individuals, professionals, and organizations to submit written briefs to the Committee.³

This second campaign is the solution: Enact The Charter of Health Freedom.⁴

The Charter of Health Freedom:

• Codifies the health rights Courts have said that we have;
• Obligates government to respect our health rights;
• Protects our access to natural remedies by moving them out of the drug category.
  

On March 12, the third-largest paper petition in Canadian history was tabled in Parliament. This petition urges the Government to enact the Charter of Health Freedom. Because of the size of the petition, the Government will be obligated to issue an official response.

This is where we need your help. This campaign aims to educate the Liberal Government on why enacting the Charter of Health Freedom is essential for all Canadians. It will involve e-letters, physical letters, phone calls, and meetings with MPs.⁵

Please subscribe to our newsletter at nhppa.org and follow us on all our social media platforms. Sign up to be a volunteer. Consider supporting us financially, as we are a very small group and depend on individuals to help.

For those reading that are thinking, why bother, the system is broken and it will not change anything, I suggest that you reframe your thinking. This is about shining the flashlight so brightly that people cannot fail to see things differently.

Either Parliament gives us health freedom, or it will be apparent that our system is broken and we must have change. This has been my experience in waking people up over the past five years.

With the Great Awakening ultimately comes strength and true freedom of thought. Remember, if the system does not respond to its people in this case, then more of us will wake up.

Just like I did six years ago, they will then have a Flashlight Event.

1. nhppa.org/health-charter-tour/
2. nhppa.org/bill224/
3. nhppa.org/bill-c-224-briefs/
4. charterofhealthfreedom.org/
5. nhppa.org/cohf

Teresa Buckley is the Communications Director of the Natural Health Product Protection Association