William Bjornsson

About William Bjornsson

For businesses that make or sell foods, cosmetics, natural health products, drugs or Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices, William Bjornsson sorts out how Canadian product regulation applies to what they're selling. Bjornsson is a partner in Gowling WLG's Ottawa office, and the work regularly involves dealing with Health Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and Environment and Climate Change Canada, as well as regulators at the provincial and territorial level.

Law wasn't Bjornsson's first career. Marine microbiological research and analysis came first, with research and analyst posts in Australia, in Hawaii and at the National Research Council of Canada. At the NRC, the focus was on getting more oil out of marine and freshwater micro-algae, from growing it to extracting it, so that oil could be turned into biofuels and nutraceuticals. A Master of Science in Biology from the University of Western Ontario (2007) came before a combined civil and common law degree at McGill in 2015. Bjornsson was called to the Ontario bar in 2017 and joined the firm's partnership effective January 1, 2025.

Day to day, the files run from licensing and labelling questions to advertising and distribution, and they reach into compliance and the commercial issues that come up in direct selling, multi-level marketing and consumer protection. Deal teams draw on that regulatory knowledge too: Bjornsson has covered the product, food or cannabis regulatory pieces of transactions including Gridiron Capital's investment in Cubii and the sale of Sol Cuisine to PlantPlus Foods. In April 2026, Bjornsson wrote for the firm about Health Canada moving sports electrolyte products out of the natural health product framework and into the supplemented food rules.