Health Committee on June 9th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Collishaw, may I just stop the clock for one minute? You have about a minute and a half left, and I understand from your organization that you wanted Mr. McKibbon to say some words as well.

I'll start the clock again.

[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.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Go ahead, Mr. McKibbon.

[Sam McKibbon, Campaigner, Flavour...GONE!, Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada]

Thank you very much. I'll try to be quick.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, distinguished members of the committee, fellow youth advocates, and committee witnesses.

My name is Sam McKibbon and I live in Dryden, Ontario. I'm here to present on behalf of the Northwestern Health Unit, former peer leader for the Youth Action Alliance, and also a member of the youth-led campaign to eliminate flavoured tobacco called Flavour...GONE! Before I begin, I'd like to acknowledge two people in the crowd right now, Catherine Kiewning and Jeffrey Satchwill, who are my counterparts in the Flavour...GONE! campaign. I thank them for their support in making this presentation today. I hope to do them proud.

Jeff, Catherine and I started the Flavour...GONE! campaign last July because we saw that many of our peers were using flavoured tobacco products and that they were clearly marketed toward youth. This stirred up the youth advocate side of us, and we felt strongly that the best way to stem the tide of these products was to advocate for the elimination of flavours in tobacco products, which are attractive to youth and easy to use.

We are thrilled that the Canadian government has tabled Bill C-32 and has taken a stand to protect children from these products. This bill will eliminate the lure of flavoured cigarillos, cigarettes, and blunts and is a big step toward discouraging youth from picking up tobacco products.

What we are not so pleased about and what we are respectfully pleading the committee to do is to include chewing tobacco in Bill C-32. We have put together a package, which unfortunately hasn't been handed out to you--it will be afterwards--that we hope will help you make this decision. In the folder you will find letters from the medical officers of health from the Northwestern Health Unit and also the Thunder Bay District Health Unit. Both refer to a 2005 student survey that put youth chewing rates at 10% among the youth in my part of Canada, which is northwestern Ontario. What might come as a surprise to the committee is that I was once part of that 10% who used chewing tobacco. My first dip of chew was Peach Skoal. Although I acknowledge that peer pressure was a factor in the situation of me picking up chew, I can honestly say that if it hadn't come in a myriad of very palatable flavours, I'm not sure I would have tried it.

Chewing tobacco was something that my team mates did after games and during road trips, to make them go by more quickly, and although the coaches knew about us using chewing tobacco, they did not care as much because we were not harming our lungs. For the rest of my grade 11 season, I used chewing tobacco, occasionally after practices and games. I quit with some difficulty at the end of my grade 11 year, then became involved with the youth action line, which is a youth advocacy program.

Reflecting now on my experience, I can honestly say that if chewing tobacco hadn't come in many flavours, I probably wouldn't have started and it probably wouldn't have been such a big issue on my team. More than half my team used chewing tobacco on my football team in Dryden, Ontario. Unfortunately, many of my friends, to whom I have already made reference, did not quit when I did. They are now addicted, and they all started on flavoured tobacco products. I was lucky enough to quit. Many of them were not.

I'm here today to also tell you that I know that chewing tobacco is an issue with youth, especially among young athletes in Ontario. There is evidence of this in my area of Canada in the form of the northwestern Ontario student Dryden youth survey, as well as personal stories told me by the many youth I know across Ontario who are involved in youth action lines. Also, when the news of Flavour...GONE! reached Alberta and British Columbia, we heard the youth tell us there that it is an issue in their communities. I understand that scientific proof might be lacking at this point, but I urge the committee to consider the fact that this is becoming a disturbing part of youth culture. There's a whole youth culture surrounding chewing tobacco in sports teams, especially hockey, football, and baseball in rural areas, that the committee may not be aware of but we are very aware of.

I want to draw your attention, and obviously you will see this later, to a website where chew users post comments and pictures about chewing tobacco. The website contains lots of articles and pictures, such as choosing a dip for beginners, dip of the week, and blend talk, where chewers discuss the best way to blend flavours of chewing tobacco to reduce the bad tobacco taste. The page also includes an article entitled “How a chew chewer recycles”. This features a table made by a person in British Columbia, and on the second page there are a number of dipper cups that are made from empty chew tins. I'll also point out that the second cup from the left is a dipper's cup made by a local hockey team in my area of Dryden. This website is one very visual example of the culture that surrounds chew in Canada.

Flavoured chewing tobacco is very easy for users to tolerate. Eliminating flavours in chewing tobacco at the same time that we get rid of them in flavoured cigarillos, cigarettes, and blunts will go a long way in keeping children and youth from experimenting with these products.

It will also remove a significant marketing tactic that the tobacco industry has been able to manipulate by selling the products in the same colours and flavours as candy. I will also make reference to another photo that you'll be able to see later, in which a candy display has been interspersed with chewing tins to show that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Might I interrupt you and stop the clock for a minute, Sam?

I need the indulgence of the committee. Sam has gone way over time.

Your presentation is so compelling.

With the will of the committee, there will be no objections just to listen to Sam finish. Is that okay?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

It doesn't happen very often that I break the rules, Sam. Go ahead.

[Sam McKibbon]

Thank you very much, Chair.

In closing, I am here on behalf of many youth, like those currently involved in the Youth Action Alliance across Ontario who put together the bus stop billboards that you guys may have seen in Ottawa. We also created the MP packages you received last week to ask for a ban on all flavoured tobacco products.

I am also here to represent the youth from the Flavour...GONE! campaign and all those health organizations that have signed on in support of our campaign, as well as over 8,000 people who have signed postcards in support of Flavour...GONE!

I am here on their behalf to respectfully ask you, the Standing Committee on Health, to send Bill C-32 back to Parliament with an amendment that adds all oral tobaccos, including chew and snus, to the list of tobacco products that should not contain flavours. Please help youth make better decisions for their health by removing these products that once hooked me and continue to hook my friends.

Thank you.

[Applause]

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Sam. That was a very compelling presentation.

Now we'll go to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association.

I have to warn you, Ms. Tilson, that I am keeping to the time, which is seven minutes. Thank you.

[Melodie Tilson, Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to address you on Bill C-32.

I would like to thank the chair and all the committee members for giving us the opportunity to tell them our point of view about this bill, which is so important for the health of our young people.

My name is Melodie Tilson. I'm the director of policy with the Non-Smokers' Rights Association. My organization has played a major role in tobacco control in Canada for more than three decades, and I myself have been working in tobacco control for the past 19 years.

The Non-Smokers' Rights Association strongly supports the amendments in the Tobacco Act contained in Bill C-32. Bill C-32 would put an end to tobacco advertising in print publications, a practice that resumed in 2007 and that has proliferated in the past year. My colleague is going to show just a few of the samples that we've collected from the veritable mountain of tobacco ads that have appeared over the past year or so.

A key objective of the Tobacco Act, to protect young persons and others from inducements to use tobacco products, is “being undermined with the current provision allowing advertising in publications with 85% adult readership”. As research by University of Regina business professor Anne Lavack shows, significant numbers of impressionable teenagers remain exposed to tobacco promotion.

Based on 2005 readership data from the Print Measurement Bureau, Dr. Lavack found that advertising in a single issue of People magazine in Canada, for example, reaches half a million youth readers aged 12 to 17, or about 20% of the youth population of this age. Advertising in the Canadian edition of Time magazine reaches about 200,000 adolescents aged 12 to 17. Even more troubling is the extensive advertising of tobacco products in entertainment weeklies across the country. These publications clearly target teens and young adults and are available free of charge in hundreds of locations throughout major Canadian cities.

The bottom line is that limiting print advertising to publications with an 85% adult readership results in substantial promotion of tobacco products to vulnerable young Canadians. We commend the government for recognizing that this loophole must be closed.

We also commend the government for understanding the importance of dealing with flavoured cigarillos. This product is clearly being marketed to youth and young adults, and with remarkable success. You heard already from Mr. Glover that sales have increased exponentially in recent years, growing eightfold in just six years to 400 million units.

Perhaps most disturbing is that flavoured cigarillos are being consumed by youth who would otherwise not have considered smoking. If this population of youth smokers were covered by the definition of current smokers in our major national surveys, smoking rates among Canadian youth would increase by five percentage points, from 15% to 20%.

I see that we've all brought a lot of samples for show and tell, but I'm going to pass around a few cigarillos, and I invite you to just open the cap and smell them. They really do smell like candy or Kool-Aid and nothing like a tobacco product.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I am keeping an eye out, committee.

[Melodie Tilson]

Sadly, my own experience validates this finding. My 21-year-old son, who was successfully inoculated against smoking cigarettes by his parents and of course by his schooling, did not equate cigarillo use with what he knew to be the health risks of smoking. And who can blame him or his peers when cigarillos come in candy and cocktail flavours that mask the harsh tobacco taste, when they are sold in singles and kiddie-sized packs at youth-friendly prices, and when, as in the case of singles, they have no health warning at all?

The Non-Smokers' Rights Association strongly endorses the measures in Bill C-32 that would ban flavouring in cigarillos, cigarettes, and blunts and would require these products to be sold in packs of 20. We assume that the new health warning regulations currently being drafted will remedy the situation regarding the woefully inadequate warnings currently on cigarillos.

Although my organization's top priority is to see Bill C-32 pass before the House recesses for the summer, there is one amendment that we strongly urge members to support. As you've just heard from Sam McKibbon with Flavour…GONE!, flavoured, smokeless tobacco is another product that targets kids and starts them on a dangerous path toward a lifelong addiction to tobacco. Like cigarillos, smokeless products come in a vast array of innocuous candy and fruit flavours, and in a very quick trip to a local convenience store I was able to find a number of candy products that look just like Skoal. I challenge you to tell from a distance which is which.

Like cigarillos, smokeless products come in a vast array of innocuous candy and fruit flavours and are packaged to resemble tins of candies, mints, and gum. While use of smokeless tobacco by youth Canada-wide is low, this statistic is misleading. As you have heard, there are specific demographic and geographic clusters of adolescents with very high rates of use—for example, youth in northern Ontario, in Alberta, in native communities, and youth who play sports such as hockey. Once again, many of these kids would not have considered smoking, but for many reasons, including the candy flavours, they did not associate smokeless tobacco with the dangers of tobacco use. Once again, my own 16-year-old son is included in this group. I asked him last night how many of his peers use smokeless tobacco, and he said basically all of them do. I asked if he would use this product if it didn't come in flavours, and he said no.

Members of Parliament have the opportunity to close the huge loophole that currently exists for flavoured, smokeless tobacco products and thereby ensure that the exponential increase in use of flavoured cigarillos by youth that we saw in recent years is not repeated with smokeless tobacco.

I would like to say a few words about the contraband tobacco problem, which I know is a major concern for members of Parliament, as it is for the health community. The extent of the contraband market in Canada is not a reason to refrain from implementing progressive tobacco control measures such as Bill C-32. Rather, the extent of the contraband market justifies urgent and concerted action by government. Health groups have been advocating for some time for the government to implement a comprehensive set of measures that would severely limit contraband, and in so doing would protect public health. In fact, just today my organization is sending to members of Parliament our latest publication on this issue, which outlines a very comprehensive approach that we are urging the government to adopt. You should have that any day now.

In closing, I would like to commend the government for its leadership on this issue as well as recognize the support given by members from other parties, in particular Ms. Wasylycia-Leis. The Non-Smokers' Rights Association urges members of the committee and indeed all members of Parliament to ensure that this important piece of legislation is passed before the House rises for the summer. We also urge you to support an amendment to include smokeless tobacco products in the schedule of tobacco products to which the flavouring ban would apply.

Thank you. Merci.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Tilson, for that very insightful presentation. It was very compelling.

We'll now go to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Mr. Cunningham.

[Rob Cunningham, Senior Policy Analyst, National Public Issues Office, Canadian Cancer Society]

Madam Chair, committee members, thank you for giving us this opportunity to testify today. I would also like to thank the Minister of Health for bringing in this bill.

I'd like to thank the Prime Minister for his commitment last September 2008. I'd like to thank all parties for their support at second reading and the members of this committee who spoke during the debate in favour of the bill.

I think you would appreciate a special acknowledgement from us to Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis for her leadership with respect to this particular issue. So thank you.

We would urge that this bill be passed quickly by this committee and by Parliament. The sooner that happens the sooner it can work to advance public health and the sooner it can prevent youth addiction. At the same time, we have three amendments to propose, and I'll come to those in a moment.

First, with respect to advertising, we very much support the ban on advertising in newspapers and magazines, as found in this bill. There is a compelling body of evidence with respect to the impact of tobacco advertising. The Canadian Cancer Society has already tabled with the committee eight volumes of this evidence--it's very substantial--four of which were tabled with a Senate committee in 1998 and four of which were tabled as an update in 2005, in terms of growing evidence with a commission parlementaire de l'Assemblée nationale, in Quebec. That is available for members of the committee and committee staff for their consideration during consideration of this bill.

I also draw to the attention of the committee this recent report by the National Cancer Institute in the U.S., in 2009, which provides an update in terms of a review of the evidence: The Role of the Media in Promoting and Reducing Tobacco Use.

In our written submission to this committee, we have included a number of things. If you turn to tab 5, you'll see examples of tobacco advertisements that have appeared in Canada. The first one here is a recent advertisement from du Maurier, Imperial Tobacco Canada, in which they promote the environmental friendliness of their packaging. So here we have this highly toxic product. We have cigarette filters that are horrible for the environment because they simply do not biodegrade well, and they're doing some greenwashing. This is the endless creativity we have from tobacco companies, and we see other examples of tobacco advertisements in tabs 5 and 6.

Of concern, of course, is where they advertise. We've seen a lot of advertising in the free weekly entertainment newspapers, such as The Georgia Straight, in Vancouver, Prairie Dog, in Saskatchewan, Voir Montreal, in Montreal and other parts of Quebec, and Ottawa Xpress, here in Ottawa. These reach youth, and that's why, in part, this bill is necessary.

With respect to cigarillos, I would like to reiterate our support for this measure. The evidence is clear, in terms of how there's been a tremendous growth by youth of the flavoured cigarillos, this product category one, which simply did not exist about 10 years ago. The youth smoking survey has very shocking data in terms of the proportion of youth who are experimenting. Even if a company claims they do not intend to market to youth, the fact is that youth are attracted by these products. It is the reality in the marketplace that Parliament must respond to, and already, as noted, the Ontario and New Brunswick legislatures have adopted bills to prohibit flavoured cigarillos and to provide authority to deal with other types of flavoured tobacco products.

As one example, I have these Bravo cigarillos that are packed to look like magic markers or lip gloss. The Prime Minister held these up during his announcement. I'll pass these around to members of the committee.

There are three amendments to propose. You'll see in tab 1 a summary of our amendments and a proposed text, in English and French, for our amendments.

The first amendment is to prohibit flavoured, smokeless tobacco products, a message you've already received. And I have with me examples of these. I have vanilla and berry, I have black cherry and cherry, there's mint and spearmint, and apple and citrus. This simply should not be happening, and that's why we feel very strongly, along with others, with respect to this amendment.

We also have to recognize where these companies are placing their advertisements. It's in these free weekly entertainment newspapers for Ottawa Xpress, where we see advertisements for Skoal smokeless tobacco. It's in publications such as this one, Urban Male Magazine, a sort of Canadian version of Maxim. That has a very substantial youth readership. And to give you one example, I invite members to turn to tab 15 of our binder, of our submission, and here you have an advertisement for Skoal Peach in Playboy. Playboy is widely read by young males, teenage boys. This is the type of marketing. Who is their target audience? That's why we feel this is very important, why we need to protect youth. We know that among teenage boys there's substantial smokeless tobacco use in Canada. It is higher in some regions, such as Nunavut, northwestern Ontario, and Alberta. But for every five boys who smoke, one uses smokeless tobacco.

Our second amendment is with respect to the menthol exemption. The government's intent is to maintain an exception for menthol cigarettes, but it still would be possible to ban menthol little cigars, menthol smokeless tobacco, and menthol blunt wraps. We propose an amendment to ban menthol from those other product categories, not touching the government's intent.

Our third amendment is a technical amendment. The bill is worded in such a way.... I'll pass this around; it shows some cigarettes. You can see how the companies print their trademarks on the cigarettes with coloured ink. There's an exemption in the bill to allow that, but we would like it to be available as well for governments to print a tax paid marking on a cigarette, as Singapore has done starting in January 2009, or a health message.

In 1994, Parliament approved amendments to excise legislation to give regulatory authority to require a tax paid marking on the cigarette itself. It hasn't happened yet, but as the interdepartmental task force reviews options to deal with contraband, this might be part of the package. We should not say that should never happen.

Similarly, new international guidelines adopted under the international tobacco treaty last November include an endorsement for consideration of a health message directly on cigarettes.

So it's a small amendment just so that door is not closed for provincial governments and for the federal government.

Finally, provincial governments, in their point of sale legislation to control advertising, have sometimes used allowing a price list or information binder as a mechanism. I know there is regulatory authority existing in the act that would allow those information binders and reference catalogues to continue. I note that Ms. Sabiston from Health Canada said that a regulation may be necessary. I would urge the government to take action on that to maintain the flexibility of the provinces to have their best optimal control of advertising at point of sale.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I thank you all. These have been excellent presentations.

I have to say we're just going to go through one round of questioning. That's going to be a seven-minute round with questions and answers. I need five minutes with the committee at the end to go over some business.

We will start with Mr. Wilfert.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm not a member of this committee, but I have to say, Mr. Collishaw, that I was struck by your comment that tobacco is the pandemic. I'm sure that if it were any other product or anything else, we would be lining up to respond accordingly, but in fact you give us some interesting statistics. Yet we, as parliamentarians, are only in one business and that is good public policy. Is this good public policy?

I would suggest to you that we have failed as parliamentarians because we have not had a whole-of-government approach when it comes to tobacco. Finance, public security, justice, agriculture, etc.—we have failed miserably. We continue to respond to the edges of the issue.

For example, as a parliamentary secretary to two ministers of finance, I was in the business of dealing with excise taxes on tobacco. We have no problem taxing it. What do we do with the revenue? We put it into general revenue. We don't dedicate a dollar to health prevention or to health care. It goes into general revenue.

From the municipal days, we used to do it. As a former president of the Canadian Parks and Recreation Association, I was involved with Health Canada in a joint project to deal with banning it and educating young people, as young as eight years old, about tobacco. I couldn't believe we were dealing with eight-year-olds at the time. This was in the early 1990s.

My question really, Madam Chair, is to the assistant deputy minister about the failure of government generally in terms of responding. Yes, I support this bill. I support the three amendments, although I have nothing to do at this committee with it. But to me it seems to be, again, at the edges.

One of the comments I noticed in the binder that's put out says we're going to watch further trends. I'm not sure what that means, but if instead of getting ahead of the parade we're going to watch until people become addicted and then we're going to come back and say we need to respond accordingly....

So although this is all well and good, it doesn't address the issue. If we want to deal with the tobacco industry, do we have a long-term strategy that's going to deal with farmers who are currently producing a legal product and with manufacturers who produce it? Are we going to deal with the real issue of smuggling, particularly if other jurisdictions near us are able to continue to promote and manufacture this?

In terms of taxation, are we honestly going to get serious, and is Health Canada going to get together with Finance, and is government generally, regardless of party, going to really take this kind of action? I'd be interested in your comments on those views.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to start?

Mr. Collishaw.

[Neil Collishaw]

I'd be happy to start, Madam Chair, and I thank the member very much for his question.

Indeed, these sentiments that he's expressed are ones that I share and have often reflected on in my own career working on tobacco control, which has spanned 28 years so far. May I say at the outset that a long time ago, Parliament was, in fact, very prescient about this issue. There was a bill that passed second reading in Parliament to ban cigarettes. That bill was voted on in 1904, but it somehow or other never became law, even though it had been adopted at second reading. So Parliament has tried, and there have been other efforts by Parliament since then, in the sixties and seventies and eighties, to control tobacco, but there are many forces at work that maintain tobacco use in our society.

I think the question also suggests that we ought to have a much stronger approach to dealing with tobacco. I agree wholeheartedly, and on another day at another time I would be delighted to engage members of the committee in a serious discussion about how we may well phase out tobacco over the next 20 years. I have a lot of ideas about that, and I would be happy to discuss further ideas.

In the meantime, however, there are some very good things that we can do, as has been suggested. Members of Parliament could adopt Bill C-32, hopefully with one or more of the amendments that have been suggested here today. That is certainly a step in the right direction. But like the member, I am anxious for real action, to have a whole-of-government approach to really address this problem once and for all.

Thank you.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

I'm interested in seeing a comprehensive strategy. In my 12 years in Parliament, this is the first time I've been to the health committee, so I thought I'd put the question on the table.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We have another minute and a half.

Mr. Cunningham.

[Rob Cunningham]

Just to add, with respect to the part of your question on contraband, it is indeed a very serious situation. We have made recommendations for possible actions to deal with this, and I think there are a couple of things to note. One is that 95% to 98% of contraband today comes from unlicensed, illegal manufacturing operations, which can distinguish themselves...some of these products would no longer be available to be sold because they'd be regulated and you couldn't have these flavours. So it's a different circumstance. Dealing with contraband is not precluded by dealing with the regulated part of the market.

I also wanted to note that there are ongoing international negotiations for an illicit trade protocol, which once adopted should assist with things going forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much.

Monsieur Dufour.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for coming today.

To counter cigarette smuggling, the cost of a federal licence to manufacture tobacco products could be increased from $5,000 to $5 million. The Bloc Québécois has been making that suggestion for a long time. Is anyone listening? We will certainly see someday. But we see that the witnesses are in agreement with our suggestion.

In the summary of your amendments, Mr. Cunningham, the one that had to do with a ban on menthol cigarillos, menthol blunt wraps and menthol smokeless tobacco caught my attention. I was extremely surprised when I read the bill. I completely agree with Mr. McKibbon about the way people start smoking cigarettes. I am not very old. I played on the football team at my high school, and many of my teammates started with chewing tobacco, cigarillos and other products.

Earlier the officials from the department told us that the bill does not cover menthol flavoured tobacco because menthol cigarettes have been around for a very long time. Chewing tobacco goes back to the 1700s or 1800s. Why would we create an exception for menthol but not for the rest? Why did the government and the officials not include all oral tobacco products and smokeless tobacco products in the bill?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Cunningham, do you want to take a shot at that one?

[Rob Cunningham]

I think that question should be put to the bureaucrats.

In our opinion, since the evidence and statistics show that these products are consumed by young people, they should be included. We do not feel that there is any reason why they should continue to be excluded. That is why we are supporting an amendment to include them.