Nutritional supplements about to be banned in Canada? wtf?

You know, it is good to see something like this. There are a lot of "all natural" supplements that are able to avoid some of the restrictions on medications by stating that it is a supplement and all claims have not been evaluated by the FDA (here in US at least). I imagine this problem exists elsewhere where the legislation doesn't put restrictions on what constitutes medication vs supplement.

Note that supplement are never directly addressed in the bill, and one may argue that any given supplement wouldn't fall under the definition of "therapeudic product" (Being that of a drug, device, cells, tissues, or organs). This is especially true since the definition of drug is not present in the law. Let the debate begin! Is Vitamin C a food or drug? If Vitamin C (supplements) is considered a drug, then would foods containing Vitamin C (supplements) be considered drugs as well? Pretty soon you'll need a prescription to buy your Vitamin C infused juice, your Calcium and Vitamin D infused milk. Not to mention your "fortified" cereals, pastas, breads, etc. A large amount of (processed) food is fortified with the same vitamin and mineral supplements you can buy as dietary/nutritional supplements.

I also don't see anywhere in the revision of the law that would explicitly give the pharmaceutical companies control over supplements. It would be a far stretch in court for any company to sue over any other form of providing the supplement (Vitamin C drops, powder, gummy candy, liquid, etc) that could be considered a food, food additive or ingredient (add Vitamin C to your baking, they already advertise that for fiber and some other things). Nor would a theory that the government oversight committee (like the FDA) is directly controlled by the pharmaceutical companies, seems like a bit of over concern and conspiracy theorist alarm.