Health Committee on June 11th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

All right. I'll call one representative from the Small Guys Tobacco Group, if they're in the room.

I'll give it a minute so the witnesses can take their seats.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I'd like to call the committee to order, please.

We're now going to go into our second round of witnesses. We have a new group. We have the Department of Health, with Mr. Paul Glover, assistant deputy minister, healthy environments and consumer safety branch; Cathy Sabiston, the director general, controlled substances and tobacco directorate; Denis Choinière, director, office of regulations and compliance, tobacco control program; and of course we have Diane Labelle, general counsel for the legal services unit.

From the Small Guys Tobacco Group, we have, I believe, Colm Kennedy O'Shea.

Now that's a little bit of an Irish name, isn't it, sir?

[Colm O'Shea, Vice-President, House of Horvath, Small Guys Tobacco Group]

Yes, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay. Welcome to our committee.

And who is your assistant beside you?

[Colm O'Shea]

It's my wife, Cathy. It's a family business, so she's here as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

It's a family business. That's wonderful.

We are going to start with the officials, starting with Mr. Glover for seven minutes, please.

[Paul Glover, Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I do not actually have a prepared statement. I thought we were coming with respect to clause-by-clause today.

We're happy to take the committee's questions, as we move through this.

Given some of the statements that you have heard, I would like to just follow up with a number of brief remarks to once again reiterate that the department believes that the intention of this bill is still an appropriate way to deal with the problems we see emerging with respect to youth and youth tobacco issues.

The department and the Government of Canada do have a broad tobacco demand reduction strategy and we do want to make sure we are using a multi-pronged approach. You've heard a lot about contraband in some of the previous testimony. There are other departments directly involved in attempting to address and deal with the issue of contraband. The government is aware of that as a problem and is working to take action.

We work with our colleagues in all of the other departments—Canada Revenue Agency, the RCMP, Canada Border Services, Public Safety—to try to make sure that those issues are addressed as we move forward.

With respect to the intent of the bill before you today, our intention is to deal with what we see as an emerging problem, and that is the introduction of these new, novel products, the introduction of flavours, the singles that are attractive to youth.

I don't think that as a department I've had the privilege to have one of our surveys quoted quite as often as we did in the last presentation.

It's important to note that by definition most people who will use tobacco products will be adults, because it is prohibited for youth to have them and for them to be sold to youth. That notwithstanding, from the research we have done, from the focus groups we have done, these are products that are attractive to youth. They are growing in terms of the numbers. Cigarillos went from a very small percentage of the overall market a few years ago to now being the fastest growing product category as we move forward.

As a country, we have made great strides in reducing the prevalence of smoking in this country; however, in the last few years we've stalled, and we've stalled at about 19%. If we want to reduce the prevalence of smoking in this country, we need to take different actions or we will continue to be at that rate. We believe that by focusing on this area we can effectively reduce the number of people who start smoking, and thereby reduce that over time.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Glover.

If there are any of the other officials who would like to make a comment, you have an opportunity now before we start.

Ms. Sabiston.

[Cathy Sabiston, Director General, Controlled Substances and Tobacco Directorate, Department of Health]

I would add to Mr. Glover's comments that the federal tobacco control strategy is built on four pillars, and they're interrelated. There's cessation, prevention, product regulation, and what we call protection, but basically it's second-hand smoke. This bill is very visé towards youth, prevention. We have 5 million smokers in this country, but that circle isn't static. Those 5 million aren't static. People enter that and they leave. That's why we have cessation, people who quit. The people who go in are young people. We don't want that. This bill is about prevention.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

Mr. Choinière.

[Denis Choinière, Director, Office of Regulations and Compliance, Tobacco Control Program, Department of Health]

As Mr. Glover was pointing out, since 2005, 19% of the population who are 15 years of age or older are tobacco users. I'd like to add that in 1985 that number was 35%. So in twenty years we went from 35% to 19%. We're very proud of this. Obviously it's not just the federal government; it's the provincial and territorial governments as well.

I would also add that if we look at youth, the group from 15 to 19, we were at 28% in 1998 and at 15% in 2007. Again, in less than 10 years we went from 28% to 15% of youth aged 15 to 19. We're very proud of this very important decrease, but there again we are challenged in continuing to decrease the number of youth who are smoking, hence the appropriateness or the timeliness of this bill.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

Now can we hear from Mr. O'Shea, please?

[Colm O'Shea]

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the standing committee. I represent the Small Guys Tobacco Group, but allow me for a moment to describe what we do as a group.

We are one company of that group. I represent House of Horvath; it's a family business. My wife's family has been in this business in Toronto, Ontario, manufacturing cigars since 1932, and we carry it on today.

The Small Guys Tobacco Group, as a group, represents the interests of the small cigar and pipe tobacco importers of Canada. The Small Guys Tobacco Group represents less than one-half of 1% of the total Canadian tobacco market, a number you've heard earlier today. We are made up of a number of independent companies, many of which are family owned and operated, with some tracing their origins back over 75 years.

Now, the Small Guys Tobacco Group is not new to Health Canada. We first came into being in 1998, I believe, which was...the Tobacco Act. That was the first time we had an opportunity to meet with Health Canada. Obviously, we were aware that regulations were going to come through, and we worked closely with the members here of the tobacco control team, along with the ministers of health. I want to say that this relationship has been a rewarding one for both of us because we're the industry that you're regulating. We're honest enough to share information with you and expect the same courtesy back. A business that's been around for 75 years has seen a lot of regulation over these times. So that's who we are as the Small Guys Tobacco Group.

I have some slides here. This is a presentation that we actually submitted to the standing committee, and I think the committee will get these.

I will be speaking to our points.

On a review of the general bill, in spirit, we are in agreement with it insomuch as little cigars, as we refer to them--and we'd like to make that distinction because cigars are all different in terms of the names and nomenclature used in the industry--are an American-style product with an acetate filter. So in spirit, we're happy that it's headed in a direction that these should not be done singly. They should be done in packs of 20, and that is our first goal there.

With respect to the amendments we would propose, it refers to paragraph 2.(2)(d). Just for easy reference, paragraph 2.(2)(d) reads:

has a cigarette filter or weighs no more than 1.4 g, excluding the weight of any mouthpiece or tip.

We have two recommendations under that paragraph. On the first one, it is kind of odd that it would come from an industry member, but we're suggesting that the Standing Committee on Health substitute the word “cigarette filter”, which is ambiguous or arbitrary.... Actually, in one regard, if I had a filter on a product, yes, I would call it a cigar filter, not a cigarette filter. So we would ask that you tighten that up to say “cellulose acetate filter or other filtering device”.

We would also strongly recommend that you either omit or eliminate the weight characteristic. You capture products that have been traditional in European cigar culture for hundreds of years. Certainly, we have heard from the ECMA group, which is the European manufacturers' council or cigar association in Europe. They're very nervous about this because you're capturing a product that they sell widely and only to adult consumers. It's an expensive product to begin with, so it's not in any of the kiddy-pack formats that you're talking about. A 10-pack of these would cost somewhere between $14 and $20, and if you're talking about the Cuban format of the same product, it would be over $27 a pack.

The second amendment we were looking at refers to proposed subsection 5.1(1), which reads:

No person shall use an additive set out in column 1 of the schedule in the manufacture of a tobacco product set out in column 2.

I'll read my notes, and you can probably follow the gist of it.

On a review of schedule 17, column 1, it is clear that the list of prohibited additives represents a total ban on all additives. The restrictive additive list goes beyond limiting the use of additives that may be deemed to be candy-like and appealing to youth, and captures additives that may be deemed essential to making the product you're trying to ban or regulate, one of which is just the presence of sugar. It really requires you to understand the concept of air-cured and flue-cured tobacco, and we have members here who can speak to that.

One of the processes takes the sweetness out of the tobacco and one leaves it in—or leaves a portion thereof in. On the cigar side of things you have to add that back. Again, I'm not a manufacturer and I'm not on the technical side, but I would suggest that there's a level that you'd have to add back. It may not be super juicy sweet, but it is a level that is necessary to make the tobacco palatable to smoke.

We would strongly recommend that the standing committee and Health Canada expand the list of exclusions from the prohibitive list in order to include those items that are considered essential to the manufacturing set out in column 2, such as item 10.

I'll point out, because I heard the menthol conversation in the debate, that there are many of the traditional flavourings that have been used in the cigar market for years that predate the Second World War as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. O'Shea.

You can take just one minute, please, because you're over time.

[Colm O'Shea]

With respect, as I wanted this to be at the committee level, we had submitted a letter on June 9 to the clerk of the committee. It outlines specifically our recommendations for the weight criteria. I'd like to make sure the committee gets that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

A special thank you to the committee for allowing an extra witness on this morning.

We're going to go to five-minute rounds because that's the only way I can get all the people in. With the will of the committee, can I go to five-minute rounds so we can get the six questioners in?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

We'll start with Ms. Murray.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I think everybody around the table has the same objective in not having children get addicted to tobacco and begin smoking. But it sounds like there are differences of opinion as to whether this bill is going to accomplish that in an optimal way or not.

Good public policy really includes proper consultation with all of the groups affected. That's one concern I have. For example, it was on June 9 that we're hearing you put some ideas forward to the clerk. I heard from two of the previous presenters absolutely and emphatically that they were not consulted. In fact, one of the groups only found out about this bill the night it was being tabled by the minister.

Mr. O'Shea, you may have a different experience. Did you feel fully and properly consulted, with the same positive experience you had when you had input into the Tobacco Act regulations the first time around?

[Colm O'Shea]

Over the last, say, five years, we've had in the industry more regulations come out in consultative papers than I think I've seen in a long time. Things have been sort of suggested in the past.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I'm talking about this bill.

[Colm O'Shea]

This bill just showed up. We had seen the member's Bill C-566, I think, and then this one came out as a surprise. It was almost while we were up in Ottawa that we had heard it was coming.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Glover, I know that civil servants try to do good public policy, and by far and away most often you do that. Do you consider the process of consultation on this bill to have been good public policy, and adequate to ensure you got all the details right to deliver on the intention?

[Paul Glover]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for the question.

Canada is a very large, diverse country. When we consult extensively there will always be somebody who can come forward and indicate that they weren't aware or we did not or were unable to reach out to them. I think in many respects, for me, as a senior bureaucrat, to say that we have, with all certainty, consulted to the full extent, to be able to reach everybody, the answer to that is, given the vastness of the country—for many reasons, we find that does occur.

We do acknowledge that with this bill, compared to normal processes, the level of involvement we have had with industry has been different. We do acknowledge that as we move forward.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

I appreciate that.

I'm concerned about the big rush, frankly. I think that makes for laws that then have to be revised and changed.

I have another question. In 1985 we had 35% of Canadians who were smokers of legal age, and now we have 19%. How did we get from 35% to 19%? Was it through prohibition, or was it through other means?