Thank you, Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Rob Cunningham. I'm a lawyer and senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak today on behalf of the Canadian Cancer Society.
Most of my testimony will deal with clause 51 in Bill C-44 in supporting the tobacco tax increase found there, but first I would like to mention two other items in the budget.
I would like to convey our support for the investment in home and palliative care that is included in the budget. It's been estimated that 80% of those receiving palliative care are cancer patients. This will make a real difference and improve the lives of cancer patients and their families.
Second, we support the introduction of a new and more flexible employment insurance caregiver benefit. Caregivers provide assistance and key services to thousands of cancer patients every year in Canada while bearing a significant personal and financial burden. This new benefit will help and has our support.
Turning to tobacco, it remains the case that smoking causes 30% of cancer deaths in Canada. We've made progress, but more than five million Canadians still smoke. It's the leading preventable cause of disease and death. Higher tobacco taxes are the most effective strategy to reduce smoking, especially among kids, who have less disposable income, are less likely to be addicted, and are more responsive to price.
You have a handout from us. The graph shows the comparative provincial and territorial tobacco tax rates. The blue shows the rate. The mauve shows the GST and the PST, the provincial portion of the HST. We can see that in Ontario and Quebec the rate is much lower than in other provinces. The green shows budget announcements that are not yet implemented, where there's a scheduled date to come. On the far right of the graph is the federal tobacco tax, which is now lower—by quite a bit—than that of most provinces. The yellow is the 53¢ increase per carton in the budget, so it's small, but every bit helps. This just gives a bit of context for this increase.
The next page shows the trends in federal and provincial government tobacco tax revenue, not including GST, HST, or sales taxes. There are objectives to increase public revenue, in addition to benefiting public health, and we've seen an increase in tobacco tax revenue. That's the idea. The blue line shown there is after inflation, so it's not as much, but in both cases I think it's quite impressive, because there's been a decrease in the smoking public, yet tobacco tax revenue is going up.
The third page shows a newspaper headline saying that in Australia a package of cigarettes is going to be costing $40 in 2020.
The final page compares Australian and Canadian tobacco taxes. Quebec, on the far left, has the lowest tax of any province in Canada, while Manitoba has the highest. In Australia today, it's far higher at $148 per carton—the Canadian and Australian dollars are almost at par—with further scheduled increases by 2020. It's going to go up quite a lot more. Based on Australia, we haven't come close to the ceiling of what is possible. In Canada, we—