Evidence of meeting #3 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was packaging.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Great. It will be the same, for seven minutes.
Go ahead, Ms. Davies.
5 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
Thank you to the Health Canada officials for coming today, and thank you for the work you've done on this file, because it is very important. I would note that our former colleague, Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis, had a private member's bill on this issue and worked very hard. I know she'd be very pleased today to see these things going through.
I actually ended up with more questions, based on what was said. I wasn't running out at all.
We've heard from Mr. Cunningham that these warnings should be updated with new information every couple of years. The last set was in 2000, so we're already 11 years from what we had before. What is the plan now for the future? Are we going to see regular updates from Health Canada? Is that part of the regulations? Maybe you could address that.
There's another thing that concerns me. Maybe this is crazy, but a lot of teenagers buy these really fancy covers to put on their cellphones. We've heard that the visibility of this information is very important. What if some brilliant entrepreneur comes up with the idea of having some little slipcover to go over a cigarette package? Would it be illegal to manufacture and distribute something like that, because in effect it would cover up a health warning that is being done by regulations? I don't know if anybody has looked at that, but I have a concern about it.
On the manufacturing side, the stuff to come forward, we've heard that there are problems with the timeline. I suppose it's a possibility that if the tobacco companies can't meet the deadline, since they have a whole bunch of brands out there, they could decide to stage it. They could go forward with their most popular brands--if I dare say that--pull others off, and do them later. There's nothing to preclude them from doing that, as I understand it, under the regulations.
5 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
Thank you, Madam Chair.
On the first question about the renewal of the health warning messages, once the new warnings are in place, we obviously have a fairly robust system to analyze the effectiveness of those messages. We certainly recognize that 10 or 11 years is not an ideal period of time. Our intention is to try to renew them within four years this time.
On the issue of a slipcover, I'm informed by our counsel that if a cover is sold separately from the tobacco product, it's independent. It's not illegal to sell something to cover up the tobacco package itself.
On the issue of staging, I'm wondering if I could ask my colleague...?
5 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
That's something we need to really watch out for. If it looks like there's an intent to circumvent the regulations because somebody else has come in with a new product, some fancy little slipcover with some cute design on it, that's a huge undermining of the whole intent of these regulations. Will Health Canada be monitoring that?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
We will certainly monitor it. We can also investigate whether it has happened in other jurisdictions, how they've handled it, and what we can potentially do if such a thing happens.
June 20th, 2011 / 5:05 p.m.
Cathy A. Sabiston Director General, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
I would add that the tobacco control environment in Canada is more than the health warning messages per se. We are very fortunate to have worked very collaboratively with the provinces and territories, so they also have retail display bans. As you know, tobacco products are hidden from the view of young people.
Those two work together. Packaging is always of interest to Health Canada. We monitor the market and post the health warning message implementation. We're fortunate to have a number of inspectors across the country who can tell us what's happening on the ground. A lot of our colleagues across the country send me letters all the time letting me know about innovations, so that's very good.
Your third question was about the staging. In the last go-around we had more of a process like that for implementation. As Mr. Clayton pointed out earlier, the preferred option for the industry is to have one implementation period so that it's competitively equal for all. There was a difference of views within the industry when they came to us and reported back on the consultation period, and it was felt it would be best for the industry to have one date of implementation.
5:05 p.m.
NDP
Libby Davies NDP Vancouver East, BC
If they had difficulty, voluntarily they could do that. They could pull certain brands until they were ready to go.
5:05 p.m.
Director General, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
They could work on different brands at different times up to the implementation date.
5:05 p.m.
Louis Proulx Acting Director, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
Just to add to what Cathy said, we don't typically comment, as Health Canada officials, on tobacco company strategies. That is their business.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
Thank you very much, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing today.
I'll start by asking you what kind of consultation you did with industry over the six-month timeline. Mr. Haslam explained previously that six months will be very difficult. I was unable to question him directly, but it sounds as though these are high-end manufacturing jobs, and I get his point that if the industry is required by government to fulfill their six-month mandate, they're going to do it, but they might go overseas to do it. It sounds like it won't be in the United States and it might be abroad.
I'm curious to know just what you have to say about that, and if there is a solution that you can envision that perhaps wasn't brought up with the previous set of witnesses.
5:05 p.m.
Director General, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
I'll start and then I'll turn it over to Louis on the number of meetings. I don't want to get that wrong.
It's fairly clear that the original set of regulations proposed the six-month coming into force date for manufacturers, and then an additional three months for retailers. In Canada, our big three companies--JTI-Macdonald, RBH, and Imperial--are associated with some of the largest multinational companies in the world. As international companies they sell 2.3 trillion cigarettes a year, and their sales are $100 billion. The Canadian market is smaller, but as multinational companies they have expertise in implementing health warning messages in 40 countries around the world. This was factored into our decision-making as well.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
I appreciate that. Of course it's a global economy, so I understand that you didn't specifically come up with a strategy to ask how we could keep these jobs in Canada to ensure we have a process that's going to keep the work here. This government goes on and on, and rightly so, about the economic troubles we face, and here are manufacturing jobs, and the companies are looking at their global market price. It doesn't matter to you if these jobs are in Canada--or in China, for that matter--provided the regulations come in within the allotted time.
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
When we consulted and proposed six months and nine months, we obviously had to balance our desire to have the health warning messages in place as soon as possible--because the sooner they're in place, the sooner the public health benefits begin to be realized--with what's feasible.
I'll ask my colleague, Mr. Proulx, to elaborate, because he was most directly involved in the regulations. When we looked at what was feasible, we looked at the experience we had most recently had with Bill C-32, The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, for which we had the same transition period of six months and nine months. Our experience was that it went well and that the compliance was good.
We also looked to the sorts of factors that Cathy just mentioned about large multinational companies with expertise in bringing into place similar issues. They have had to put similar health warning messages in place in close to 40 countries now, so we were balancing what was feasible with what the earliest time was that we thought we could ask them to have the new health warning messages in place.
Mr. Proulx can speak more specifically to the numbers of comments we received, and I think you asked about needing some discussions with the industry itself.
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
Since the Canada Gazette was published on February 19, we have had two meetings with tobacco companies on the specific issue of the implementation period. They raised all the issues that they have raised today. We listened to them intently and, again, had discussions internally to try to balance what was said to us with the health impacts that we're trying to implement through these labelling regulations.
We are aware of the issues that were raised by the Canadian suppliers, but we believe that it's more an issue of the capacity of a single supplier to meet the surge in work rather than an issue of job losses. Tobacco companies are responsible for managing the relationship they have with their suppliers in Canada and across the world, and as was mentioned earlier, these very large companies have been able to meet various labelling requirements across the world in close to 40 countries.
As a last point, I just want to say that this is in line with the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control guidelines on implementation.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
John Williamson Conservative New Brunswick Southwest, NB
I think your announcement was flawed. I think it was a mistake to look at this as a global market when governments around the world are concerned about job creation at home.
For example, you talked about a previous six months, and I am wondering if you went back to look at the job losses that were referenced by Mr. Haslam and whether that formed part of the evaluation of what was successful. Again, I recognize that companies today can outsource, but I think we're trying to avoid that as much as possible in this country, particularly for good manufacturing jobs like these.
5:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
Part of the regulatory process requires us to prepare a RIAS, a regulatory impact analysis statement. That RIAS did look at issues of costs and benefits. Mr. Proulx can talk about what the analysis showed in that regard.
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
In terms of job loss, the RIAS showed it was going to be very minimal, essentially because as the labelling comes into place, there will be a very minimal job loss; four to ten pops into mind.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Acting Director, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Health Canada
It would be four to ten jobs lost over ten years. This mainly would be due to loss in profits. Jobs wouldn't be renewed because of these labelling regulations, essentially because the market would shrink, which is the objective. We are trying to get fewer people to smoke, and to smoke less.