Northern Lights Fitness Products Inc. v. Canada ( Minister of Health and Welfare )
T-1299-92
Tremblay-Lamer J.
11/3/94
9 pp.
Application for judicial review and mandamus to compel respondents to perform adequate investigation into matters complained of by applicant relating to sports nutrition products and contraventions of statutes and regulations related thereto, pursuant to Federal Court Act, s. 18.1 -- Applicant Canadian company manufacturing and distributing sports nutrition products composed of foods and/or non-prescription drugs in Canada -- Canadian sports nutrition market regulated by respondent Ministers -- Applicant's products seized on grounds of unilingual labels or of non-complying ingredient profiles -- Since 1991, applicant forced to discontinue significant percentage of product line, to remove own nutrition products with non-complying profiles, and to bring ingredient profiles of remaining products in compliance with Canadian laws -- Contending respondents taking no action against competitors committing similar infractions -- Applicant claiming great prejudice as result of fact enforcement measures not applied uniformly to all parties in industry -- Whether judicially enforceable duty owed to applicants has not been fulfilled -- Respondents under duty to enforce relevant legislation, but decision as to how and when will occur purely matter of policy -- Duty to enforce law and only complete inaction giving rise to judicial remedy -- Respondents demonstrated existing enforcement program constituting reasonable response to legislative duties given considerations of resource limitations, risk assessment, scope determinations -- Not completely inactive with regard to sports nutrition products market -- Choice of measures to enforce law discretionary and effectiveness of actions beyond jurisdiction of Federal Court -- Application dismissed -- Federal Court Act, R.S.C., 1985, c. F-7, s. 18.1 (as enacted by S.C. 1990, c. 8, s. 5).