Bill C-32 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Tobacco Act

This enactment amends the Tobacco Act to provide additional protection for youth from tobacco marketing. It repeals the exception that permits tobacco advertising in publications with an adult readership of not less than 85%. It prohibits the packaging, importation for sale, distribution and sale of little cigars and blunt wraps unless they are in a package that contains at least 20 little cigars or blunt wraps. It also prohibits the manufacture and sale of cigarettes, little cigars and blunt wraps that contain the additives set out in a new schedule to that Act, as well as the packaging of those products in a manner that suggests that they contain a prohibited additive. It also prohibits the manufacture and sale of tobacco products unless all of the required information about their composition is submitted to the Minister.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. I have the honour to inform the House that a communication has been received as follows: Rideau HallOttawaOctober 8, 2009Mr. Speaker:I have the honour to inform you that the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada, signified royal assent by written declaration to the bill listed in the schedule to this letter on the 8th day of October, 2009 at 11:51 a.m.Yours sincerely,Sheila-Marie CookThe Secretary to the Governor General and Herald Chancellor

The schedule indicates the bill assented to was Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Tobacco Act.

Bill C-32

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, on Friday, October 2, I responded to a question regarding Bill C-32, which is currently in the Senate. I said that Bill C-32 had passed the Senate with no amendments. I should have said that Bill C-32 had passed the Senate committee with no amendments.

The Economy

[Josée Verner, Conservative, Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs]

As the Prime Minister mentioned, and in line with the government's position, Bill C-32 is a bill that seeks to protect our children. The objective has not changed.

Having said that, members from the Quebec City area are also concerned about the impact on Rothmans and we are confident that we will find a solution.

Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Pursuant to an order made earlier today, Bill C-32 is deemed read a third time and passed.

(Motion agreed to, bill deemed read the third time and passed)

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is clear at this point that the result of the vote on Bill C-32 is no longer a secret to anyone, because, as hon. members will have noticed during routine proceedings today, a motion was unanimously adopted in this House to pass Bill C-32 unanimously at the end of this debate, which my NDP colleague will close.

I imagine that the reason is quite simple: all the parliamentarians in this House—on the advice of the Standing Committee on Health, on which I sit with my colleague from Repentigny—decided that all the measures in Bill C-32 were in keeping with the objective of the bill, which is to place greater limitations on young people's access to cigarettes and tobacco products.

This objective is very much in line with the purpose of the Tobacco Act that was enacted in 1997 and that stipulates in paragraph 4(c) that the purpose of the act is to protect the health of young persons by restricting access to tobacco products.

We know that Bill C-32 aims essentially to eliminate any attractive packaging that resembles candy and contains a single little cigar or just a few units. In fact, the weight limit is 1.4 grams. Removing these flavoured products from circulation broadens the scope of the act to include blunt wraps.

It is important to try as much as possible to remove from circulation and make inaccessible to our young people tobacco products that could introduce them much more easily and quickly to tobacco use, which we all know is harmful to health and leads to addiction.

Of course, in a few moments, when this debate concludes, we are going to make our decision, which, as I said earlier, is a unanimous vote in favour of this bill. It will be sent to the Senate to be studied there.

It is clear, however, that our actions as parliamentarians must not stop with this bill. As we know, manufacturers have a great deal of imagination and could try to find other ways to make tobacco more appealing and more accessible to young people. We must always remain vigilant. We mentioned this and talked about it during our examination at the Standing Committee on Health. We said that the government and this Parliament must remain truly open to adding any other products that might appear or are already on the market, and for which we do not have any evidence on how appealing they are to young people.

The ISQ revealed that more than one-third of secondary students had smoked a cigarillo in the month before the survey. I think that number speaks for itself and illustrates the importance of taking action.

I was also pleased to hear my colleague from Etobicoke North describe cigarette smuggling as a scourge and say that it encourages our young people to use tobacco products.

Indeed, according to the statistics I found by doing a little research, 200 illegal cigarettes can be purchased for about $6. What young person today does not have $6 in his or her pockets? And 200 cigarettes translates into a lot of heavy smoking.

It is therefore important that we make a greater, more concerted effort to put an end to cigarette smuggling. I am pleased to have my Liberal colleague's support on this, because our work as parliamentarians should focus on finding a solution to smuggling as quickly as possible. The problem is already well entrenched and critical.

The government also loses out because of smuggling. According to the most recent figures I could find, federal and provincial governments lose $1.6 billion in tax revenues every year because of cigarette smuggling.

I would like to talk about another matter for future consideration by all my colleagues. We heard in committee from cigarillo manufacturers that stopping the production and sale of cigarillos will lead to a substantial reduction of their revenue, not that generated by sales to young people but revenue from sales to adult clients who currently smoke these products. Lost revenue translates into future job losses. Out of concern for these workers, it is our duty as parliamentarians to reflect on the impact of this legislation on those workers in the industry who may lose their jobs and consider possible assistance for them. The government should also think about this when implementing the bill.

In closing, I would like to acknowledge all witnesses who appeared before the Standing Committee on Health during the course of this study. When we have to study a bill it is important to hear from experts and also from those people who make the fight against smoking a priority every day.

It is also important, as we deal with this matter, to congratulate and acknowledge all those who have quit smoking, something I wish to highlight. By quitting they have decided to do something positive for their health and we should give them credit for that.

I would also like to thank all stakeholders, including groups of young people who, every day, try to get the message out to our youth about the harmful effects of smoking and urge them to not start down the road to this addiction. As years go by, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop smoking. I am not speaking from experience because I have never smoked a cigarette or any other tobacco product. However, I have met many people and, in my previous speech in this House, I gave the example of Louis Lemieux.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to follow my hon. colleague in speaking to Bill C-32, as I believe it is vitally important to curb tobacco use among children.

Most smokers begin smoking in childhood or early adolescence. Ninety per cent smoke before the age of 18. Early starters are more likely to become addicted daily smokers. Partly because the tobacco industry targets adolescence, 82,000 to 99,000 young people start smoking every day.

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, 60 of them known or suspected carcinogens, such as arsenic, DDT and methanol. Cigarette smoke is directly linked to an increased risk of many diseases, including cancer, heart disease and even sexual impotence. In fact, 30% of all cancer deaths can be attributed to smoking. Cancers other than lung cancer that are limited to smoking include bladder, cervical, kidney, liver, pancreatic and stomach cancer.

Even light smokers risk their health. For example, a 2005 British Medical Journal study showed that smoking only one to four cigarettes per day was associated with a significantly higher risk of dying from heart disease. According to the World Health Organization, smoking accounts for one in ten deaths worldwide. As a result, Gro Harlem Brundtland, former director general of the organization, repeatedly and angrily spoke out against the tobacco epidemic, “Civilized nations protect their people under 18—they do not let them play around with a product which statistically kills one out of two of its permanent users”.

The Standing Committee on Health did work collegially and heard testimony from anti-smoking groups to small business owners to the tobacco industry. Much of the questioning focused on contraband tobacco, smokeless products and menthol flavouring and whether more work needed to be done in these areas.

We have a crisis in Canada, namely contraband tobacco, which lacks government control, inspection, taxation, is cheap and is easily bought by youth. Research tells us that the price of cigarettes is an important factor in determining whether young people begin to smoke, whether current smokers continue and how much they smoke. We know low cost contraband cigarettes are particularly attractive to vulnerable populations such as young people. Lab analysis of contraband shows that dead flies, insect eggs, mould and even human feces have appeared in contraband cigarettes.

Our children are smoking contraband cigarettes in disturbing numbers, 25% of youth in Ontario and 32% of youth in Quebec. Dave Bryans, president of the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco, reports:

We've got the wild west of illegal tobacco manufacturing and distribution right under our noses and most Canadians don't know it's happening.

The reality is that trade in cigarettes undermines prevention and smoking cessation strategies.

In a 2009 example from Hamilton, Hamilton's public health department and the Canadian Cancer Society blame the jump on easy access to contraband and tax-free cigarettes that sell for a fraction of the regular price. Smoking increased by a third in one year. Public Health estimates that contraband cigarettes cost $8 to $15 compared with the usual $55 to $80.

A last point regarding contraband tobacco is that while it may rob government of enormous tax revenue, at least $1.6 billion each year, it is statistically likely to kill one in two of the youth it sucks in.

While contraband is growing in popularity among youth, so too is smokeless tobacco, better known as chew, snuff or spit tobacco. Spitless tobacco is a cleaner, friendlier version of chewing tobacco, developed in an effort to convince more smokers to consider using smokeless products in places where smoking is prohibited.

Regardless of the name or form, smokeless tobacco causes serious health problems. Chewing tobacco hooks users on nicotine, similar to the way cigarettes do, and makes it difficult to stop using chewing tobacco. Over time, users develop a tolerance for nicotine and need more tobacco to feel the desired effects of the drug. Some switch to brands with higher nicotine content or use tobacco more frequently and longer.

Severely addicted users may leave the chew in their mouths overnight and swallow the tobacco juices. Smokeless tobacco causes gum disease to tooth decay because it contains high amounts of sugar as well as coarse particles that can scratch away tooth enamel, making teeth more vulnerable to cavities.

More seriously, smokeless tobacco increases blood pressure and heart rate, and may increase the risk of heart attack. Smokeless products also increase the risk of developing small white precancerous patches inside the mouth where the chew is most often placed or worse, oral cancer, including those of the cheek, gums, lip, mouth, throat and tongue. Surgery to remove cancer from any of these areas can leave the chin, face, jaw or neck disfigured.

Smokeless is not harmless. Joe Garagiola, a former spit tobacco user, played major league baseball and later worked in broadcasting. He reported:

I chewed tobacco because it seemed to be the thing to do if you were playing baseball. Everybody chewed when I was playing, and nobody knew the dangers of it.

He has since become a crusader against smokeless products because he lost three close friends to oral cancer. He said:

You won't die of gum disease or yellow teeth, but develop oral cancer and it's a terrible way to go. Here you are with oral cancer from using spit tobacco, your jaw has been removed and you have to eat through a tube. You die one piece at a time. Spit tobacco is a horrible, horrible thing. I just wish I could get this message across to everyone.

Today, more than 600 additives including caramel, cocoa, coffee extract, vanilla and menthol can legally be added to tobacco products.

Many appear to be present simply to add flavour, but some may have more sinister effects. For example, cocoa when burned in a cigarette produces bromine gas that dilates the airways of the lung and increases the body's ability to absorb nicotine.

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health explored tobacco industry manipulation of menthol levels in specific brands and found a deliberate strategy to recruit and addict young smokers by adjusting menthol to create a milder experience for the first time user. Menthol masks the harshness and irritation of cigarettes allowing delivery of an effective dose of nicotine. These milder products were then marketed to the youngest potential consumers.

Howard Koh, professor and associate dean for public health practice said, “For decades, the tobacco industry has carefully manipulated menthol content not only to lure youth but also to lock in lifelong adult customers”.

We know that younger smokers use menthol at higher levels. About 44% of current smokers, age 12 to 17, have tried menthol. That compares to 31% with older smokers.

To be fair, a spokesperson for Philip Morris said:

We disagree with the author's conclusion that menthol levels in our products were manipulated to gain market share among adolescents...The company's various brands, including our menthol brands, are designed to meet the diverse taste preferences of adults who smoke. We believe kids should not use tobacco and our marketing methods are designed to minimise reach to unintended audiences--

Regardless, there are significant knowledge gaps regarding menthol: the role of menthol in tobacco reinforcement and addiction; the relationship between menthol cigarettes and cancer of various sites; the effect of menthol cigarettes on cardiovascular disease; and the association between use of menthol and illicit drugs.

Importantly, this year there will be a second scientific conference on menthol cigarettes.

In closing, Bill CC-32 is important and necessary. I am encouraged that it is receiving strong support from anti-smoking and health groups. Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, said, “We're hopeful that MPs will adopt this bill quickly. It's a very important gain for us”.

Going forward, however, we have to close the loop on contraband tobacco. This may mean looking at the Criminal Code as 49% of cigarettes smoked in Canada are contraband. We also need to look at smokeless tobacco and menthol cigarettes.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak once again in support of Bill C-32, an act that would bring important changes to our tobacco legislation.

By now members of the House should be aware of the urgent need to update the laws governing the marketing of tobacco products. The changes in Bill C-32, appropriately titled “cracking down on tobacco marketing aimed at youth act”, are needed in order to protect our children and youth from the dangers of tobacco use.

The reason is simple. A vast majority of adult smokers became addicted when they were in their teens. We know that if someone has not started smoking by the age of 19, it is unlikely that individual will ever become a lifelong smoker.

The current legislation allows tobacco advertising in publications that can spill over to youth. The proposed amendments in Bill C-32 will put an end to this practice.

We know that overwhelmingly the publications that carry tobacco ads are free publications. Many of these are found at bus stops, on street corners and malls. This makes them easily available to teens and children. We also know there was a 400% increase in the number of ads that appeared in the beginning of 2009 when compared to the same period of 2008.

We all want to protect our young people from advertising that might entice them to try smoking and potentially become addicted to a product that has many serious consequences for their health.

Following the last amendments to the Tobacco Act over a decade ago, there was a lull in advertising by the tobacco industry, but that has changed over the last two years. We have seen a new wave of advertising and this practice must end now.

The proposed amendments in Bill C-32 will eliminate potential spillover from tobacco advertising to children and youth, but Bill C-32 does not stop there. It will also make tobacco products less appealing to young people and less affordable too.

In 2007 more than 400 million little cigars, also known as cigarillos, were sold in Canada. Many of those were flavoured to taste like tropical punch, chocolate cherries and a host of other flavours that would appeal to a young person. I have a young family, and my son is 15 years old. These products look like markers, they look like toys, they look like anything but a tobacco product.

Flavoured sheets or tubes made from tobacco known as blunt wraps are also flavoured and marketed to young people and sold individually for as little as $1 or in low price kiddie packs. Tobacco is not candy and there is no good reason to make it taste like something other than what it is. Our proposed legislation will make it illegal to add flavours to cigarillos, cigarettes and tobacco wrappers known as blunts.

Another factor that encourages young people to try smoking is the price of the products. If a tobacco product is inexpensive, more young people are likely to try it. For that reason, the proposed legislation will require that cigarillos and blunts be sold in packages containing a minimum of 20 units. This will increase the cost of these tobacco products and make them less accessible for our young people. We eliminated the sale of individual cigarettes or cigarettes in kiddie packs a long time ago. It is time that the same rules apply to cigarillos and blunts.

All of these changes would help protect our children from marketing practices designed to entice them into smoking. By amending the Tobacco Act, we can help prevent more young people from experimenting with an addictive substance. We can protect them from laying the foundation for a possible lifelong addiction, with potentially serious health consequences.

Through this proposed legislation, we are taking a tougher stand against tobacco products that are packaged, priced and flavoured to appeal directly to young people.

Tobacco is a killer. Some 37,000 Canadians die every year from illnesses related to tobacco. It is linked to lung cancer, emphysema and cardiovascular disease, to name but three. The negative effect of the health of those people has been an affect on all health care. Smoking costs the health care system over $4 billion every year.

Sales of little cigars nearly quadrupled between 2001 and 2007, making them the fastest growing tobacco product on the market. Who is buying them? Health Canada's Canadian tobacco use monitoring survey gives us this insight.

In 2007, 25% of youth aged 15 to 17 reported having tried smoking a little cigar at some point in their lives and over 8% said they had smoked one some time in the 30 days before the survey. These results confirm that there is reason for concern and we need to take action. I would like to remind the House that the proposed legislation does not seek to get rid of little cigars altogether, but we do want to put a stop to the marketing of them to youth, whether that is through price, flavouring or advertising.

In closing, I would like to thank members of the Standing Committee on Health for their thoughtful and timely consideration of this very important legislation. I would like to acknowledge the efforts of the hon. member for Winnipeg North and all the important work she has done to raise awareness of the dangers that candy-flavoured tobacco products pose to our country's young people.

All of my colleagues on the health committee have done a wonderful job with this legislation. I thank the stakeholders, the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health for their support. I found this a great experience and an example of working co-operatively, not in a partisan way, especially on an issue that is very important to all of us here as parents, which is the health of our children. It is an example of how committees should work.

I hope the bill gets a very speedy passage through the Senate.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia, MB]

moved that Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Tobacco Act, be read the third time and passed.

Health

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Health in relation to Bill C-32, An Act to amend the Tobacco Act. The committee examined the bill and has decided to report it with amendments, and has ordered its reprint.

I wish to especially thank all members of the health committee for all their hard work, dedication and co-operation.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

This one is fairly lengthy. I believe everybody has a handout.

The intent of the schedule of Bill C-32 is to ban the use of additives, including flavours that make cigarettes, little cigars, and blunts more attractive to youth. The schedule is not intended to prohibit the functional ingredients that are required for the manufacturing of the products.

After talking to industry about the technical requirements of the bill, we were told that restrictions would change the look and the feasibility of making their product. For example, the changes make it technically difficult for them to use existing cigarette papers, and filter paper would no longer be able to look like cork. This amendment will fix the technical requirements without compromising the intent of the bill.

I would move to propose that Bill C-32 in the schedule be amended as per the text provided to the clerk and circulated to the committee.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

With all due respect, Mr. Glover, I have to disagree completely with you about the government's quickness to act on the contraband trade. The government has literally been dragging its heels on this matter. It does not want to act. We have proposed a number of measures to assess the extent of the contraband problem as well as more proactive steps to eradicate the problem. You are correct in saying that this is not the aim of the bill. I'm getting to the bill, but I did want to clarify our differences of opinion with regard to this subject.

A number of witnesses have called into question the different studies done in advance of Bill C-32. From your testimony I take it that you have complete confidence in the validity of your studies.

Can you be more specific about the process used to determine that young people are major consumers of the products slated to be taken off the market?

[Luc Dumulong]

On behalf of our 11,000 Canadian customers and retailers and our employees, thank you for having us here today and for allowing us this opportunity to share with you our concerns about Bill C-32 .

Distribution G.V.A. is a small business established in 1997 which employs approximately 80 Canadians in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador. We distribute more than 1,000 different tobacco products, including high quality cigars like the Davidoff brand, as well as cigarillos and pipes and accessories to more than 10,000 retail outlets.

We are an important importer and distributor for convenience stores, tobacco shops and duty-free boutiques. Over 10,000 retail outlets in Canada are serviced by our organization and we remit in excess of $20 million a year in tobacco taxes.

Distribution GVA Inc. is a responsible corporate citizen and a major importer and distributor of cigars. It is essential that the Canadian government is aware that Distribution GVA has never, ever promoted any of its flavoured tobacco products to minors.

We are aware of the fact that tobacco products are health risks and that these products are not destined to be consumed by individuals who are not old enough to buy the products legally. The consumers of our products are adults, and we are opposed to the fact that minors are able to obtain access thereto.

TheMinister of Health has announced that her government intends to establish a prohibition regime on all flavoured tobacco products through Bill C-32. If the said bill is adopted in its present version, this will result in the layoff of the majority of our employees and may even force the closure of our company.

Bill C-32, while perhaps well-intentioned, is needlessly too wide in its scope in its present version, due to Health Canada's elemental lack of knowledge with respect to cigar products. Bill C-32 will prohibit products that have been on the market for decades.

I have brought some products to show you what kinds of products will be banned with this bill. They are clearly not kids' products. These have been on the market for about 25 years. Some of these are little cigarillos made in Europe, and they have also been on the market for the longest time. They have flavours and they're enjoyed by adults. These will all be banned if the bill is passed as is. I have more. I can show you more.

Anyway, I'll continue. I think you have pictures of these products in annex 1.

The latest statistics demonstrate clearly that flavoured cigarillos are products that are destined for adults and consumed by adults. According to the results of the latest Canadian tobacco use monitoring survey, cycle 1, which Mr. Martial was talking about earlier, conducted by Health Canada and Statistics Canada, 91% of the flavoured cigarillo consumers are adults or are of age for buying the product. Sixty per cent of those people are over 25 years old. So saying that these are kids' products is not very true.

These findings raise an important question. Before passing this legislation and imposing a prohibition on an entire legitimate category of tobacco products, it is important to discover the manner in which the remaining 8 or 9% of consumers who are not adults obtain access to these products.

For example, according to Health Canada, access to cigarettes through the contraband tobacco market is much greater than access to flavoured cigarillos. Unfortunately, we fear that because of the speed with which the Government intends to adopt the present law, this important question will remain unanswered and will unnecessarily penalize the thousands of individuals who are employed in the legal tobacco trade.

What the Statistics Canada survey demonstrates is that the flavoured category did not actually create more smokers per se, but actual smokers switched from cigarettes to flavoured cigarillos. We have also noted that a large majority of flavoured cigarillo consumers were originally cigarette smokers who have switched to our products, for multiple reasons.

From conversations with some of these consumers, we have learned that they prefer our product to the cigarettes they used to smoke. In many instances, these consumers were in the process of reducing their tobacco consumption with the use of our products. They told us they smoked less when they smoked flavoured cigarillos than they did when they smoked cigarettes. Some have also told us that they were trying to quite smoking, and that since they smoked less of these, it was a way to reduce their consumption and eventually quit smoking. I am not the one saying this; the consumers of our products are saying this.

We cannot understand, then, the urgency to adopt Bill C-32 in its present form and why the government is finding it okay to create such an emergency to proceed on something that represents one-half of 1% of the total tobacco market in Canada, while at the same time making an exception for menthol cigarettes. According to the health minister, they're marginal, and this is why they're making an exception, but they're at 2%. So one-half of 1% is not okay, but 2% is okay?

One can easily deduce that the 400 million cigarillos market will be claimed by the big tobacco manufacturers. Are the big tobacco multinationals behind this bad piece of legislation? Have the anti-tobacco lobbyists been shamelessly manipulated by big tobacco?

Health Canada has mentioned to a representative--and Mr. Martial talked about it earlier--that they have no intention of undertaking any unnecessary research. That supports the desire to introduce a complete prohibition on a whole category of tobacco products that, in some cases, have been on the market for 25 years, as I've said. At the present time, the government is essentially asking Canadians to allow it to prohibit a complete category of products without supporting such a measure with the proper research.

However, such legislation will have direct and wide-ranging consequences on the financial security of thousands of Canadians and will ensure an increase in tobacco contraband for these products. Accessibility to minors will also be increased through the tobacco contraband channel, because they are never asked for proof of age.

Furthermore, in its present format, Bill C-32 will come to unquestionably cause, not solve, problems of criminality already well documented in our society. In effect, once we put aside the emotion associated with the debate concerning minors, flavoured tobacco products, and the issue of tobacco consumption, the prohibitions proposed by the Government will not address the problems associated with minors' access to tobacco products. The illicit contraband trade in tobacco presently offers—

Let me show you what you can now find on the market, in schoolyards and just about everywhere: plastic Ziplock bags containing 200 flavoured cigarillos.

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member brings forward a question that we heard several times during consultations in committee.

The bill works with ignition issues, as far as papers, with tobacco, but one of the things we learned in committee was that tobacco was governed under an entirely different act. It is a very unique product and because the government has a specific act for it, it was felt by the majority of committee members that it should be dealt with in this separate act.

The member may be aware of the co-operation we see in committee right now with An Act to amend the Tobacco Act, as far as banning tobacco products that are geared toward children. We had some great presentations yesterday. I think he would agree with me that we are moving forward in tobacco control. With the changes we are putting forward, this will again make Canada a leader in the world.

I look forward to the co-operation of the NDP, like the great co-operation of the critic in putting forth her ideas in improving the Tobacco Act.

[Neil Collishaw]

We would like to thank the person who promised us such legislation, the Prime Minister. We are grateful to the staff in his office for their work to ensure the progress of Bill C-32. We greatly appreciate all your efforts.

Thank you.

Now I'd like to pass to my colleague, Mr. McKibbon.

[Neil Collishaw]

Thank you.

According to the WHO, tobacco use is a pandemic that is unequalled in history. Last century, the use of tobacco killed 100 million people. In the 21st century, it will kill 1 billion people unless we end this epidemic. It will not be an easy task. We need an ongoing series of measures to restrict tobacco use, such as those found in Bill C-32. Taken together, these measures are proving to be very effective to reduce the use of tobacco.

We applaud this bill, and we have only one improvement to suggest to you. We suggest that the ban on the use of flavourings be expanded to include smokeless tobacco like this product here. You can find a draft amendment that would do so in your information kits.

Why are we making this suggestion? Here a few reasons provided by two dental surgeons from Northern Ontario, Dr. Pynn and Dr. Dowhos of Thunder Bay, in their letter to the committee. Here is the quote:

More than fifty percent of our patients are of Aboriginal origin with the majority of this population using tobacco products. ... Tobacco has no boundaries when it comes to its effects on the oral cavity.

Dental decay and gum disease caused by tobacco usage, including smokeless tobacco (also called chew and spit), are leading reasons why we are so busy with tooth extractions. Not only are we extracting single or multiple teeth, but we also regularly have the unfortunate task of performing full mouth clearances of all 32 teeth because of tooth rot from poor oral hygiene and decay.

Prolonged usage of products such as smokeless tobacco can also cause life-threatening oral cancers. Oral cancer can have a horrific and disfiguring consequence, as the majority of the surgical interventions for its treatment require parts of the jaw to be completely removed.

Our youth do not recognize that the instant pleasure they may receive from chewing smokeless tobacco can have devastating effects later, thus we also need to ban the use of flavourings to smokeless tobacco products before it is too late.

In a few minutes my colleague from Dryden, Ontario, Mr. Sam McKibbon, will explain just exactly how he and many of his friends in northwestern Ontario and many other places in northern and western Canada are being seduced by the lure of flavoured, smokeless tobacco.

Mr. McKibbon was one of the creators of the “Flavour...GONE!” campaign. Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada are proud to have provided more both moral and financial support to this campaign, and we are proud to have Mr. McKibbon here speaking on our behalf today.

Before I turn it over to him, I still have one important duty to fulfil. I would like to thank all of you. For 18 months, we have been asking parliamentarians to amend the act in order to protect our youth from the tobacco companies' tricks, in particular adding all kinds of tempting flavours to encourage our kids to start using tobacco. The fact that Parliament has introduced not one but two bills to deal with this problem bears witness to the serious attention that our elected officials have given to this issue.

We are particularly grateful to Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis and her staff for the introduction of private members' bills in two successive parliaments to draw attention to this issue and for the strong support shown by her and her staff to the “Flavour...GONE!” campaign. We are similarly grateful to the Hon. Leona Aglukkaq and her staff for the initiative shown to bring forward Bill C-32 as a government bill and the parliamentary craft involved in shepherding it through all stages of consideration.

We are also grateful for her initiative in seeking the support of Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis and to the latter for so graciously offering such support.