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.