Health Committee on May 7th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

There is just a minute left, if you could quickly finish.

[Aaron Freeman]

Actually, I'll defer back to the member, if that's okay.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Okay, thank you both.

Really, I'm also very concerned about mandatory labelling. As you mentioned, in California, products that contain chemicals that are known or suspected to cause cancer or disrupt normal reproductive function must have a warning label. In Europe, a product cannot carry an eco-label if it contains a cancer-causing substance.

I'd really like to hear your suggestions on what you think a good model would be for labelling in Canada.

[Aaron Freeman]

Both the California model and the European model provide good instruction for Canada, and we could easily adopt a similar system here. But they've adopted a much more precautionary approach to risk management than the traditional approach Canada generally takes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Freeman.

Mr. Malo.

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

Thanks to the witnesses for being here this afternoon.

I'd like to talk about labelling. Looking at Ms. Checkland's bottle, you can see that the labelling isn't right. A number of notations appear on the bottle, and I wonder where information could be added. How could this labelling be adapted to make it clearer for the consumer?

I'll put my question first to Mr. Cunningham, from the Canadian Cancer Society. You can answer me later.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Monsieur Malo, if you don't mind my interrupting for just a moment, I'll be sure to give you the time.

This is to let the witnesses know that when I go into overtime, it's not because I'm trying to be rude to you. It's just that when it really starts to go into overtime, others don't get their questions in. Sometimes a member will pick up on that last question and continue it so you can answer it. So I try to be fair and equitable, and I really don't want the witnesses to think I'm trying to be rude.

Thank you.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I understand that the amendment proposed by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and yours are different. The purpose of the amendment by Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada is to create two classes of tobacco products: those before and those after January 2009. For that reason, I won't go back to it for the moment.

I'm going to come back to your proposed amendment. Subclause 4(1) of Bill C-6 reads as follows:

4.(1) This Act applies to consumer products with the exception of those listed in Schedule 1.

So there's a list. As for subclause 4(2), it reads as follows:

4.(2) This Act applies to tobacco products as defined in section 2 of the Tobacco Act but only in respect of their ignition propensity.

I wonder why you want to put this item in the schedule since it's already excluded. I want to understand the nuance. You seem to be telling me that it isn't the same thing as if this element were in Schedule 1. And yet you word it exactly the same in the schedule. I want to understand why it's different in your mind.

[Rob Cunningham]

Thank you, Mr. Malo.

Clause 36(1)(c) of the bill grants regulatory authority to amend the schedule. With respect to clause 4, it is impossible to make an amendment by regulation in future. However, if it's in the schedule, it can eventually be decided that the act or part of the act will henceforth apply to tobacco or other drugs. So the difference is that there is regulatory potential to use it in the future.

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

All right.

Why do you think the government has decided to exclude tobacco products from a potential subsequent amendment? I'm trying to understand why you want to put an end once and for all to all debate on tobacco products with respect to the application of Bill C-6.

[Rob Cunningham]

They gave two reasons for that on Tuesday. First, tobacco is already regulated by another act, but that's not convincing because the same is true of a number of other classes of products.

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

Absolutely. The same is true for other items. That's why I don't want to go back to those products.

[Rob Cunningham]

Second, they indicated that this will undermine the integrity of the schedule. I don't agree because there's no legal or constitutional problem with including tobacco. The situation is somewhat different in the case of cigarettes, because they can cause a fire if dropped on a carpet or something like that.

In Schedule 1, for example, there are aspects of a vehicle that are regulated, but not all.

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

If you consider that the government's arguments are invalid, what are the real reasons, in your view?

[Rob Cunningham]

My colleague Ms. Callard testified on that point today. In fact, it's a good question to put to the officials. In my opinion, there's no good reason. I know that a lot of elements traditionally relate to tobacco manufacturers. In my view, there's no legal reason preventing this amendment.

Tobacco is normally exempted from this kind of act, but that should no longer be the case.

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

On the other hand, since this appears in Schedule 1, and because of the manner in which it's drafted, it would nevertheless be exempted since we have the Tobacco Act.

[Rob Cunningham]

Except that there would be potential flexibility in the future, if necessary. Action should be taken quickly because there could be other activities by manufacturers.

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

Mr. Checkland, could you speak to the labelling issue?

[Claire Checkland]

Sure. It's a bit of an interesting thing for me, because working for a non-governmental organization, where they put the label is really not hugely of concern to me. It's just that the consumers be warned. But as I mentioned, this particular bottle has a label for flammability, skull and crossbones for toxicity, and an explosive logo. Should the product have also been corrosive, they would have found space to include that logo too. We now have full ingredient disclosure on cosmetics in Canada, and they've found lots of ways to fit that in. Sometimes you peel the label back to find it.

The industry can figure that out, so I'm not too worried about it.

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

Would it be a pictogram or something written?

[Claire Checkland]

The globally harmonized system we've apparently been pursuing for 10 to 15 years, which Europe is moving on, is a symbol. In that case, it's one symbol that depicts chronic health risk as a whole. It's an interesting symbol. It's a silhouette of a man with bubbles coming up through him. Below that, just like for these ones, it says why. So it will say “extreme danger”, “very flammable”, “poison”, “irritant”, or “contents under pressure”. In the case of cancer, it would say “warning, cancer risk” or something like that. If you turn it around, you can maybe see what trigger chemical has merited that label.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Ms. Checkland.

Mr. Malo, just for the record, I gave you extra time.

Now we'll go to Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thanks to all of you.

On tobacco, based on the dialogue we had with the officials on Tuesday, it seems that the only reason for not including tobacco under this bill--the way you've described it or wished for--is fear of another legal battle. It almost seems that tobacco has the upper hand. As a country we fight tobacco, take it on in big court cases, and win. Now we have a government that's afraid. It's almost like it's being blackmailed or something by tobacco and it's afraid to take it on again.

Is there another reason, other than fear of another battle with big tobacco?

[Rob Cunningham]

I can't articulate any further reasons than have already been expressed. I can reiterate my view that there wouldn't be any legal impediment if this amendment were adopted. I can't conceive what legal argument tobacco could bring to court.

Would they challenge this bill on the grounds that they've been exempted because of the schedule? If at a certain point regulations were adopted to say that part of the act would apply to tobacco, of course the government would have to ensure that any such regulations were consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But to simply have the amendment made at this stage, there should be no impediment.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

For the whole panel, I would like to make a suggestion or a hypothesis. I think the fact that we've had absolutely no desire shown by the toy manufacturers or the consumer products industry to appear before this committee says that they're quite happy with this bill, which tells me that they're not too worried about any punitive directions from this government.

The more I look at this bill, the more I think that what in fact we have is a bit of a smoke and mirrors effort that will only serve, if we're talking about magnets in toys or walkers with wheels—visible whole products that are obviously a danger—to move industry a little faster than they would be moved by public opinion, keeping in mind that without any recall legislation we had 240 recalls last year, 90 recalls in 2007, and so on.

I'm not sure we're any further ahead with this bill in terms of dangerous products, because we're not dealing with anything other than the obvious, visible, easy stuff that has to go off the market. What we're having trouble with in this bill is that there's no way we can get the government to move quickly on compound products, on products that have toxic substances. We were told two days ago that even if this bill passed tomorrow, we're going to have to wait for however long the government wants to take to develop standards on lead. So the story in the paper about doctors and parents and children being concerned about heavy metals in kids' face paint has to wait, because there's no strategy.

It seems to me the government can do this as long as they want. There is nothing in this bill that forces the government to do anything. It's full of “mays”; there are no requirements. I think this is really a smoke and mirrors exercise and that we have to really be tough in terms of some amendments.

I would like to ask Marie Adèle, are you really that happy with this legislation from the point of view of pediatricians? Wouldn't you want to see some legislation that requires the government to actually use the tools that are listed here; that actually requires the government to inform consumers, if there is any kind of danger on site; that requires the government to remove or restrict a product; that requires information be made available to consumers; that requires labelling, if nothing else works? Wouldn't you want that as a pediatrician, as a mother, as a parent?