Evidence of meeting #25 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was products.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health
Generally speaking, price is the main factor.
Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health
Regardless, it does not matter to them.
Bloc
Nicolas Dufour Bloc Repentigny, QC
I have read the bill, and I have a question for you about this.
In your opinion, why were the other kinds of smokeless tobacco not included in this bill, such as chewing tobacco, pouch tobacco or even blunt wraps?
Similarly, ever since the beginning, people have been saying that menthol cigarettes were excluded from the bill. I would like to know why the menthol flavour is being excluded, even though candy and fruit flavours are included, as you were pointing out.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Madam Chair, I would like to thank the member for his question.
First of all, it is a matter of targeting the products that have a greater impact. In our opinion, these products are cigarettes, little cigars and other products. Of course, there are new categories. That is why we have a schedule system so that after a short period, we will add other kinds of products.
As for menthol, that flavour is somewhat different. Menthol now has a long history on the market. Our objective is to properly target the new products, the new flavoured products, not the ones that have been on the market for a long time.
Director General, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Department of Health
The menthol market in Canada is quite different, as Mr. Glover just said. Menthol has been in the marketplace since 1934, and retail sales in Canada have fallen over time. Between 2001 and 2007, unit sales of menthol have declined by 26%.
So it's not the same as the market for little cigars, which is actually doing the reverse and growing quite dramatically.
Bloc
Nicolas Dufour Bloc Repentigny, QC
Yet many smokers think that menthol cigarettes are not as harmful as ordinary cigarettes or even the flavoured cigarillos.
Even though sales are declining, is there not some way of ...?
Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health
Actually, we did not see this impression you mention amongst the smokers we saw in the focus groups. In fact, people who smoke menthol cigarettes seem to be a separate group. Typical cigarettes smokers do not like menthol. If they run out of cigarettes and ask someone for one, they say "no, thank you" to people who offer them a menthol cigarette.
So menthol cigarettes are not as appealing as one might think.
Bloc
Nicolas Dufour Bloc Repentigny, QC
Pursuant to the legislation, the cost of acquiring a federal licence to manufacture tobacco products is currently $5,000.
Don't you find that $5,000 is a very low fee to get a licence?
Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health
Actually, that question should be asked of our colleagues at the Canada Revenue Agency, who manage this system on behalf of the Government of Canada. We are not in a position to tell you what criteria were used to set the price of the licence.
Bloc
Nicolas Dufour Bloc Repentigny, QC
We see that these youth begin smoking with the little cigars. Do you think that just banning the flavours will really have that much of an effect? The ordinary little cigars, the cigarillos, will remain on the market. Don't you think—I wouldn't go so far as to say that the measures are minimal—that we may not be getting to the root of the problem?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Thank you for the question.
In our opinion, this bill tackles the problem. The industry uses the new products, the flavoured products and the new flavours to target youth. That is its strategy. In our opinion, this is a way to tackle the challenge and to reduce the rate at which young people become new smokers, but it's not the only way.
Denis, do you have anything to add?
Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health
As was mentioned earlier, the schedule was created for that purpose, to make adjustments. If after two or three years, the market shifts and we find ourselves facing a new problem, we hope that we will be able to deal with it by making the necessary changes to the schedule.
Conservative
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Thank you, Madam Chairperson.
Thanks to all of you for being here. I think this is a very exciting moment in Parliament. We have legislation that is going to make a real difference. I want to thank all of the department officials, of course the minister, and all of the people here from the different organizations who have worked so hard to push and prod all of us to get to this point.
I could certainly support the bill as it is, but without pushing my luck too much or hoping I don't ruin anything, I would like to pursue the possibility of a couple of amendments to see what you feel and get your expert advice.
Let me pick up where the Bloc left off on smokeless products. You didn't show any of those products, Mr. Glover, but there are things that look like bubble gum and peppermints that are flavoured chews. Although I know you've told us in the past that they represent only a small percentage of the problem, it seems that from talking to folks, especially the young people who have worked so hard in northwestern Ontario, there is a much higher usage in certain parts of the country. It could be as high as 25% in parts of northern Ontario or northern Canada.
Many people have written us saying the legislation is great, but asking if there is some way we could amend the legislation to include flavoured, smokeless tobacco. What would be the drawbacks of doing that? Do you think we could do that without causing huge problems for the bill?
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
I feel like it's Thursday and we're doing clause-by-clause, Madam Chair.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
First of all, I want to acknowledge and say thank you to the member for acknowledging the work of the department officials and all of the NGOs for bringing this piece of legislation forward.
As I said earlier, we believe we have targeted the largest product classes and flavours that we see as having the biggest impact, but we would certainly acknowledge that there are other product classes that might need to be dealt with over time. We would acknowledge the member's comments with respect to regional variances that do exist for in fact all product classes. There are a few exceptions where we see the very same across the country, but there are differences from one region to another that we do acknowledge.
In principle, the question is this: Is it highly problematic? The short answer would be no, in that the schedules were designed to do just that. Is now the time to do that, and do we have enough evidence to support that? That's the question.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
In a short while we'll hear from some of the witnesses who might be able to enlighten us on that. I hope some of the youth who are familiar with this are able to present on it.
I would like to ask a further question about menthol. I know you've said it's something that appeals to a different target group than youth, but I think there is some evidence to suggest that menthol and cloves, which is also not covered in this legislation, make it easier for a smoker to inhale smoke deeper into their lungs, therefore increasing the amount of tissue directly exposed to the harmful chemicals of tobacco smoke.
I guess I'm wondering if it's possible at all, either now or in the future, to look at targeting menthol, which may help young people actually get hooked because it feels easier on their lungs.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
The member's comments are quite insightful. I'm sure there will be witnesses beyond us who will speak further to these issues.
As my colleague Cathy Sabiston indicated, we have found that the research that exists on menthol is primarily out of the U.S., where it is a very different marketplace. It is a much larger per cent of the overall total marketplace. It is true that it does make the cigarette less harsh. However, the evidence we have in Canada is that it is a very small per cent of the total market. It is shrinking. When we have done focus group testing, they have said it is not a preferred product.
When we looked at this, at the five million Canadians in Canada who are addicted to tobacco cigarettes, and looked at new product categories, where things are emerging, the evidence we had with respect to the appeal of this particular product for use and the differences we saw between the Canadian marketplace and.... We did not feel it was an area that we needed to be attacking.
NDP
Judy Wasylycia-Leis NDP Winnipeg North, MB
Some of the correspondence we've received I think could be dismissed out of hand, but it ought to be addressed to ensure that we aren't headed down a problematic path. One is from the brand-name tobacco companies.
Imperial Tobacco, in fact, wrote and said that “without amendments” C-32 “will throw the entire legal cigarette industry in this country into chaos”. I'd like your comments on that.
Secondly, the small convenience stores suggested that this was terrible for them. In fact, there's some talk of civil disobedience.
I just wanted to ask you about some of those comments.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
There is no question that this is an aggressive strategy, Madam Chair, in terms of what the government is proposing. This would again be a world first, where Canada has been a leader.
We have stalled in terms of the number of smokers in this country and the rate that we've been able to reduce it. We've made great strides, and then we seemed to be sitting stable over the last few years. This is not to be dismissive of the tobacco industry and their comments, but in order for us to continue to reduce that rate, we need to take further steps as a society, as a country.
Someone was describing this to me earlier as a big pie: every year we have people who quit, or, for other unfortunate reasons, leave the ranks of smokers, and every year we have new people coming into that. Our objective with this is to limit that.
I fully anticipate that there will be industry push-back. At the same time--I apologize, this is a long-winded answer, and I'm eating the member's time--we do acknowledge that there are a number of technical concerns with some of the ingredients we have put forward that are important to the tobacco industry and that we need to deal with, that have an impact on the product itself as it currently exists.
Denis, would you like to elaborate further?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
We just have a few minutes, but that's so interesting, so if you could elaborate on it, that would be very good.