CALLING ALL NATURAL HEALTH PRACTITIONERS!
Nutritionists, Naturopathic Doctors, Integrative Medical Doctors, Indigenous and Traditional Medicine Practitioners: everyone in clinical practice using natural health products, herbal medicines and botanicals.
This is your challenge: Help us reach the next milestone for the Charter of Health Freedom Petition.
WHY DO THIS NOW?
We are just 6,241 signatures shy of 100,000 signatures.
Over the past seven years, the petition in support of the Charter Of Health Freedom has grown to Canada’s 2nd largest Federal petition in the last 25 years. In the hands of natural health industry stakeholders and citizens–in stores and homes and events–momentum in support of the Charter of Health Freedom has brought it to the brink of being second only to the Bill of Rights in public support.
Now we need you, your colleagues, clients and networks. If every practitioner in our membership and your network of colleagues collected one petition sheet of 25 signatures, we’d achieve our next milestone. But we know you can do better than that. This is a challenge! We must have six figures in our petition count before we find the right Member of Parliament to submit the Charter as a solution to truly protect natural health products, practices and the rights of people to choose how to deal with their personal health issues.
With your help we can break a record in the next 90 days!
WHEN TO ACT
Start today (April 17) and collect signatures until July 16, 2015.
July 16, 2015 is the deadline to have your envelopes full of signed petition pages in the mail to us (and must be post-marked). It is important to send all your petition pages together in one envelop, so the count will be correct for your challenge competition.
THE ACTION
This action is a vital step you can take to protect the tools of your trade and your freedom to choose natural health care. You, your practice and your networks are vital links in the chain of communication to get the word out.
Your personal and professional futures are at stake, as is the wellbeing of your clients, you and your families. Here is a short article by Deane Parkes in the Spring issue of HANS (pdf) that clearly describes what a better health care system would look like, and where our current system falls short. Wouldn’t you want more choice on an equal playing field?
WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?
You may have noticed that supplements you have safely recommended for years now have lower potency, less effective formulations, are more expensive, or have disappeared altogether. You may even have experienced supplement orders from the United States being seized at the border.
Since the introduction of the 2004 Natural Health Product (NHP) Regulations thousands of safe, effective products have been criminalized and removed from store shelves. Although practitioners have been exempt from the full force of these Regulations to date, this may change, and already many products you need to help your clients are no longer available, such as Nattokinase.
If you have natural health products at your practice available for clients that have been banned or are not licensed by Health Canada, would you know your rights and what to do if Health Canada came to inspect? NHPPA has put together a valuable resource written by Shawn Buckley (NHPPA President and constitutional lawyer) to help you understand your rights: Emergency Kit for Health Canada Raids. Be sure to download this guide today!
Health Canada is effectively making your treatment decisions for you, by restricting your ability to make choices in the best interests of your clients.
The number of disappearing products has reached crisis level, and will continue to deepen until there is a change in the law.
WHAT IS THE CHARTER OF HEALTH FREEDOM?
The Charter of Health Freedom is proposed legislation that could end the destructive regulatory landscape facing NHPs, practices and all Canadians. The product losses are an inevitable result of the current regulations:
“Despite the fact that there have been zero recorded deaths from consumption of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, herbal remedies, or amino acid supplements, Health Canada continues a very aggressive approach to regulating NHPs, treating them as if they were the most toxic of all substances on the open market. At the same time, it conspicuously ignores the carnage created by prescription drugs and vaccines.”
– Dr. Zoltan P. Rona, MD, M.Sc., Vitality Magazine, March 2013
The Charter would protect access to NHPs and traditional medicines by creating a separate legal category for them, separate from the Food and Drugs Act. The Charter would regulate for fraud, adulteration and misrepresentation, while deeming NHPs and traditional medicines to be safe unless there is evidence of harm.
In short, the Charter is A Law For Natural Health Products and Practices.
HOW MANY SIGNATURES ARE NEEDED?
The more, the better.
Since the launch of the Charter of Health Freedom on September 10 2008, the NHPPA has kept a comprehensive list of each and every petition that has come in from across the country. The greater the numbers of signatures from people who want the Charter of Health Freedom enacted, the more gravity it will have to:
- find a Member of Parliament to present the Petition and the Charter in the House of Commons;
- be taken seriously by our elected officials;
- make history as a significant political Canadian document.
DOWNLOAD PETITION STATION MATERIALS
CLICK HERE to download and print all the materials you need to set up a petition station in your office (or retail store, community centre or gym, etc.). There you will find:
- The Petition signature page
- Charter and Petition information handouts for your staff, clients, friends and families
- Petition station poster
- Additional resources
GATHER SIGNATURES
Here are some ideas on how to collect signatures:
- Keep a petition in your practice waiting area for your clients to sign.
- Give each client and other practitioners in your office a blank petition page (with instructions) to collect signatures of family, friends and colleagues.
- Go door-to-door in your neighborhood.
- Set up petition stations in your community, like at your local health food store, community centre, or gym.
- Take a petition signature page and information package everywhere you go so you are always ready to inform others and gather signatures.
- Create petition stations at your practitioner networking groups, events and at public health presentations.
- Hold a petition signing party.
- Share a booth (or space on a table) at local events, farmer’s markets and fairs. Print and set up our “Sign The Petition” poster, print off plenty of blank Charter petition pages and print out one or two pieces each of our support material for use at the booth only, directing people to download their own copies directly from the NHPPA website.
WHEN YOU MAIL NHPPA YOUR PETITION SIGNATURES ENVELOPE
We want to know all about you! Please share a few things with us so we can acknowledge and thank all of our freedom fighting practitioners and ensure you are eligible for prizes. Please provide the following:
- Your first and last name and a short bio, link to your website
- Your city and region
- A sentence or two about why the Charter of Health Freedom is important to you
- A brief description of how you collected signatures
- A photo of yourself and/or your practice (with your petition signatures/station)
We’ll feature all our participating practitioners in a gala blog post. The winners and runners-up will each be featured individually. Yes, there are some pretty snazzy incentives for you… keep reading below!
Remember, if you have other people collecting signatures for you be sure to get their signed petition pages from them before July 16 so you can mail them all together in one envelop.
RULES TO ENSURE YOUR SIGNATURES COUNT
Official federal petitions have some very important rules to follow, otherwise they don’t count. Please ensure you, and anyone else who is helping you gather signatures, read the following. We would hate for all your hard effort to go to waste if someone didn’t pay attention to these details:
- Do not write anything else on the petition page.
- The wording must not be altered in any way.
- Only one signature per person. The signature count must be from unique individuals to be valid.
- The person’s name in capitals must accompany their signature.
- A postal address consisting of at least city and postal code is vital to prove the signatory is a resident of Canada so they are eligible to be counted.
INCENTIVES FOR PRACTITIONERS
Besides freedom of choice in health care when this becomes law (we are very optimistic!), there is much more in it for all our freedom fighting practitioners. There are some juicy incentives and prizes lined up to make your efforts even more rewarding and energize you to gather as many signatures as you can during the Practitioners’ Petition Challenge April 17 to July 16, 2015.
The grand prize awarded to the practitioner who sends in the most signatures will get a one hour phone call with Shawn Buckley, NHPPA president and constitutional lawyer, to ask anything you like. Valued at $700.
There will be four (4) runner-up prizes of $500 worth of product from your choice of professional line of NHPs.
The winning Freedom Fighter Practitioners will also get introduced to the rest of Canada on our Facebook page and to our subscribers in an E-blast, showcasing what you do as a practitioner.
Prizes must be awarded as described here, no cash substitutions. Envelopes must be post-marked on or before July 16, 2015 to qualify for prizes. Petition signature counts by NHPPA staff are final. Winners will be announced August 17, 2015.
PETITION CAMPAIGN RESULTS
We will post news of the final count on Facebook, Twitter and via an E-Blast to our subscribers. If you have not “liked” or “followed” us yet, please do. Subscribe to our E-Blasts where you will get news about the petition challenge and the Charter of Health Freedom to support your success.
READY TO TAKE THE CHALLENGE?
Everything you need to set up your petition station is right here.
