Four federal routes, the provincial ones, and one that is not a route at all. Each body below is linked directly to its form. Which one you use depends on what you actually saw — and the single most useful thing you can do is make sure your complaint leaves a trace somebody can count later.
Every page in this section ends at the same place: a record with almost nothing in it. No Canadian prosecution, no fine, no published college decision. We have argued that this is a gap in what anybody has decided to charge rather than a gap in the law.
If that is right, then the thing most likely to change it is not another website. It is a file on somebody's desk that is too big to set aside.
Do this before you contact anybody, because everything below depends on it.
They are not interchangeable. Sending one identical message to all four is weaker than sending four short ones that each fit the body receiving them.
Competition Bureau of Canada
This is the route this site would use first. A claim that an infrared camera detects cancer risk years early, that a microscope image shows yeast overgrowth or toxicity, or that a machine treats a condition and is “clinically proven” to do so, is a performance claim. The statutory question is narrow and favourable: was the claim based on adequate and proper testing before it was made? It does not matter whether the person making it holds a professional licence, and it does not matter whether you personally lost money.
It is also the only route in the entire Canadian record that has ever produced a financial penalty on a health device — $70,000 and a ten-year prohibition order in 2006, over a slimming machine. It has never been pointed at any device documented in this section.
Say plainly what claim was made, where you saw it, and what evidence was offered for it. If none was offered, say that too — that is the point.
One thing it will not do. The Bureau states on its complaint form that it is not a consumer protection agency and cannot act for you to obtain a refund. If you want your money back, see the refund route below as well.
Health Canada — Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch
Note the name. Complaints of this kind are handled by the Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch. Older material, including some on this site describing the 2012 advisory, refers to the Health Products and Food Branch Inspectorate; that was the branch at the time, and the function has since been reorganised.
There is a form built for exactly this, and it is the one to use — a medical device form, not a general one. Complaints are reviewed and prioritised by risk to health and safety, so the sentence about what you did or did not do next matters more than anything else you write.
One form per manufacturer, and no more than two devices per form. If a health professional performed the scan or delivered the treatment, include their name — the form asks for it.
Two cautions. The public listing confirms whether a named device holds a licence; it will not necessarily tell you which conditions the licence covers, so put that question to Health Canada in your complaint. And Health Canada notes that some devices do not require a device licence at all, so a device missing from the listing is a question to ask, not a finding. If the clinic would not answer, say so in the complaint. A refusal is a fact too.
We flag this because the department is not always consistent about it either. A physician who wrote to the Minister of Health, his Member of Parliament and the device branch about thermography in 2016 received a reply from Health Canada's own Medical Devices Compliance and Licensing Unit — directing him to the general health product complaint form. If the unit responsible for devices routes a device complaint onto the general form, a member of the public can hardly be blamed for the same mistake. Use FRM-0317A, and say in the first line that your complaint concerns a medical device.
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre
Be clear about what this body is, because the name promises more than it delivers. The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre is a national call centre and central fraud data repository, based in North Bay and jointly operated by the Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP and the Competition Bureau. It gathers reports, analyses them, and prepares material for other agencies to act on. It does not itself investigate or enforce.
Two things follow. First, a report here will not produce an outcome you can see. Second — and this is why it is on the page — the Competition Bureau is one of its three parent agencies, so reports lodged here are one of the ways a Bureau file begins. It is also the one route where sheer volume is the entire point, because a repository exists to show patterns.
It fits best if you paid money on the strength of a claim. It fits poorly if you simply saw an advertisement.
The Minister of Health
Writing to the Minister does not start an investigation. The Minister does not adjudicate complaints and will not review your file. What ministerial correspondence does do is get logged, tracked and answered, and the answer is written by the department. That is its whole value: it forces someone in the building to compose a position, in writing, on a subject it may not have addressed in years. On breast thermography, its last public statement was in 2017.
The current Minister of Health is the Honourable Marjorie Michel, Member of Parliament for Papineau, appointed 13 May 2025.
In Ontario that means the College of Naturopaths of Ontario, the College of Chiropractors of Ontario, or the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario, depending on the profession. For a nurse, nurse practitioner, physiotherapist or any other regulated profession, Ontario Health Regulators links to all of the province's health colleges and their public registers, where you can check whether the person is registered at all. Complaints generally must be in writing. Ask specifically whether the outcome will be published, and if the answer is no, ask why not — and keep the reply.
Naturopathy is not regulated in Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, or the three territories. In those places there is no college, no register and no complaints process, and the federal routes above are all that exist. In Quebec, unlicensed practice of medicine is a matter for the Collège des médecins.
None of these is a federal regulator, and none replaces the four above. Each does one thing the federal bodies do not.
Ad Standards
Ad Standards is the advertising industry's own body, not a government agency. It measures an advertisement against the Canadian Code of Advertising Standards, and by its own account a single complaint is enough to start the process. Complaints must be in writing; it does not take them by telephone.
Know two things before you use it. Your complaint is sent to the advertiser word for word. And the process is confidential: Ad Standards says it cannot proceed if the complainant makes the complaint or the correspondence public. That makes it the one route on this page that does not add to a public record, and it does not publish summaries of complaints it does not uphold.
Consumer Protection Ontario
The Competition Bureau says on its own complaint form that it is not a consumer protection agency and cannot obtain a refund for you or settle a dispute. In Ontario that job belongs to the provincial ministry's Consumer Protection Ontario.
It expects you to raise the complaint with the business first, in writing, and to keep the reply or note the silence. Then file with the ministry, one form per business. Businesses that do not respond to a formal complaint can be placed on the province's public Consumer Beware List.
The platform carrying the ad
Meta keeps a public library of the advertisements running on its platforms. Search the advertiser's name and it shows each active ad, the date it started running, and a Library ID number. Take a screenshot of that entry before you do anything else. It is dated proof that a claim was paid advertising, and it belongs in a Competition Bureau complaint.
You can also report the ad to the platform from the menu on the ad itself. Do not expect to hear what happened. The value of this route is the screenshot, not the report.
| What happened | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| You saw an advertisement, a website or a price list making a claim about what the device detects or treats. | Competition Bureau. Also the publication itself, and Ad Standards. |
| A device is being sold, imported or advertised for a use it does not appear to be licensed for. Thermography for breast cancer screening is the documented example. | Health Canada, Consumer Medical Device Report Form. |
| A clinic says a treatment machine is “Health Canada approved” and will not tell you what for. | Health Canada, asking what the licence covers, and the Competition Bureau for the claim. |
| You paid for a scan or a course of treatment on the strength of a claim. | Competition Bureau and the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. |
| You paid, and you want your money back. | The business first, in writing. Then Consumer Protection Ontario, or the college if a regulated professional sold it. |
| You saw a paid ad on Facebook or Instagram. | Screenshot the Ad Library entry, then the Competition Bureau. Ad Standards if you accept its confidentiality rule. |
| A regulated practitioner performed or interpreted the scan, or delivered the treatment. | Their provincial college. The federal bodies cannot reach this. |
| You delayed or skipped recommended screening or treatment because of a result. | Your physician first. Then Health Canada and the college, and say so in both. |
| The operator holds no licence and the province does not regulate the profession. | Provincial health ministry and the Competition Bureau. In Quebec, the Collège des médecins. |
| You want the department to say, in writing, what it has done since its last advisory. | Your MP, asking them to write the Minister. |
Ask, in writing, what happened to your complaint — and then ask again in a year.
Every complaint filed with a federal body becomes a record. Records can be requested. A year from now, a request under the Access to Information Act asking how many complaints a department received concerning a named class of device, and what was done about each, produces a number and a disposition. Those are publishable facts, and at present nobody has them.
This is, we think, the single most valuable thing a member of the public can do here, and it costs $5. The running finding across this entire section is that Canadian regulators announce measures and never report outcomes — a border alert in 2012 with no published result, letters to manufacturers with no published result, a notice to the provinces with no published result. An access request is the mechanism that closes that loop, and it is available to anyone. Requests to any federal institution can be made through the government's ATIP Online Request Service.
If you file one and get an answer, send it to us. We will publish it whether or not it suits the argument on these pages.
Our advice on how to write these, offered as opinion.
Write it yourself, in your own words. Identical form letters are counted once; individual accounts are counted individually, and they are far harder to dismiss. If you are organising with others, share the facts and the addresses, not the wording.
Keep it short and factual. Date, place, person, price, claim, what you did next. Attach the screenshots. Do not allege an offence, do not speculate about motive, and do not tell the regulator what the law is — the moment a complaint reads as an argument rather than an account, it becomes easy to file away.
Send it to more than one body, tailored to each, and say in each that you have done so. Bodies that can point at one another's jurisdiction do exactly that, and knowing the other one has the same facts makes it harder.
And keep your own copy of everything, with dates. The value of a complaint is not only what the regulator does with it. It is that a year from now, somebody can count them.
Health Canada: the department's Problem Reporting pages, the Consumer Medical Device Report Form (FRM-0317A), and guidance document GUI-0065 on handling complaints about medical devices. Devices are regulated under the Medical Devices Regulations, a separate regime from the Food and Drug Regulations governing drugs and natural health products; the account of a device complaint being routed onto the general health product form comes from correspondence held by QuackeryWatch. The form's own notice states that submissions go to the Regulatory Operations and Enforcement Branch and that complaints are prioritised according to risk to health and safety. Canada Vigilance Program telephone line as published by Health Canada.
Competition Bureau: the Bureau's contact and complaint-form pages and its Information Centre listing, giving the toll-free and direct numbers, the TTY line, the business hours and the three regional offices.
Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre: the Centre's Fraud Reporting System and toll-free line as published by the Competition Bureau, together with the Centre's own description of its mandate and its joint operation by the Ontario Provincial Police, the RCMP and the Competition Bureau.
Minister of Health: Health Canada's Contact Us page, which publishes the ministerial email address; and the House of Commons record for the Member of Parliament for Papineau, appointed Minister of Health on 13 May 2025.
Ad Standards: its own pages on how to submit a complaint and how complaints are handled, including the written-only rule, the forwarding of the complaint to the advertiser, the confidentiality condition and its reporting practice.
Consumer Protection Ontario: the Ontario government's page on filing a consumer complaint, which sets out the business-first step, the complaint form, the telephone and email contacts and the Consumer Beware List. The limit on regulated professional services is our reading of the Consumer Protection Act, 2002 and is offered as general information, not legal advice.
Competition Bureau on refunds: the statement on the Bureau's complaint form that it is not a consumer protection agency and cannot obtain reimbursement.
Federal details verified July 2026. Links added, and the Competition Bureau, Anti-Fraud Centre, Minister and Ontario details checked again, 4 October 2026.