Health Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Dosanjh]

I can ask 10 times in my time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Don't interrupt me, please.

Mr. Glover, I'm asking you if this is all you can answer on that question.

[Paul Glover]

Perhaps, given that the member is not satisfied with the language I'm using, I'll turn to my director general, who can further elaborate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Okay. Go ahead, Ms. Sabiston.

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

My director of regulations, as this is a regulatory project, and I often work with all stakeholders. We accept all meetings. We listen to all concerns and advice. And my comment, my verbal comment to the industry, was that this option was still under consideration and that no decision had been made.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

Madam, this is--

[Cathy Sabiston]

There is an unfortunate word on that page that says “suspended”; it is a translation error, and I apologize for that. But it was suspendu, en français, and that means delayed or on hold.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Madam Sabiston.

We'll go to Mr. Dufour.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Mr. Glover, I know that you are not in an easy position. You have to defend a very controversial position. You have to defend the minister's position. People still fail to understand.

If I am not mistaken, the minister said that she wanted to fight contraband tobacco. You said in your opening remarks that warnings on packaging are one tool in the strategy and not the only tool. By the same token, the fight against contraband tobacco is one tool but not the only tool.

When you want to come to grips with a problem as major as tobacco addiction, you have to use all the means at your disposal, from warnings to the fight against contraband. I have real trouble believing that such a huge machine as the Government of Canada is incapable of walking and chewing gum in the same time. That doesn't even occur to me.

Mr. Dosanjh asked the question...and I will take it even further. We can see that, since November 19, the only interest groups that you have met with are those from the tobacco industry. They wanted to meet with you to discuss advertising. They include Small Guys Tobacco Group, Scandinavian Tobacco Group, Imperial Tobacco, Japan Tobacco.

It is astonishing to see that the most recent stakeholders you have met with come from the tobacco industry and now, suddenly, you are cancelling—or at least postponing, as they are saying over at the department—the placement of new warnings on cigarette packaging.

At the very start of your presentation, you told us that Canada is a world leader in warning messages. But, as Mr. Strang mentioned—and I thank him for doing so—we are now ranked 15th out of 18 countries in warnings on packaging.

How can you come to the committee and tell us that Canada is still a world leader?

[Paul Glover]

I thank the member for the question.

There are a number of elements to it. I'll try to deal with all of those in the order that they were presented.

Contraband is an issue that Health Canada is concerned about. But more to the point, Health Canada is concerned about all cigarettes being consumed, legal or contraband, and the impacts they have on health. We wanted to ensure that a strategy we used was integrated, multi-faceted, and realized, in putting the package together, that different vehicles were necessary to reach those who don't use traditional means to purchase their cigarettes.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Glover, you tell us that you want to implement a number of measures in the fight against tobacco use. But here you are putting one of them to one side, specifically the warning labels on cigarette packaging.

[Paul Glover]

Yes, certainly that is one measure. That said, Internet use is skyrocketing at the moment. At the time, that was not one of the measures in the plan. So we have since realized that it is possible to improve our action plan in order to better meet all the challenges that tobacco poses.

We are addressing legal tobacco and contraband tobacco.

We realized, with the explosion of the Internet.... That's further supported by some of our national anti-drug strategies, where we have comprehensive approaches, with images in movie theatres and posters, including television ads. We have an Internet site and a Facebook site, where youth are now posting their own stories and starting discussions. We have fans. We have different vehicles available to us than there were 10 years ago.

While we've certainly recognized that we were a leader 10 years ago, we're the first to get to this issue. We wanted to make sure we continued to be a world leader, as we were with Bill C-32, the first country to ban flavours in tobacco. Simply renewing health warning messages, which was world-leading 10 years ago, would not be world-leading today.

But more to the point, our objective is not to be world-leading; our objective is to be successful in helping Canadians quit smoking or stop smoking.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Glover, why—

[Paul Glover]

Furthermore, with respect to the number of meetings we had--there's an impression by the committee that we only met with industry. We had 15 face-to-face meetings with industry groups and 16 health groups during the same period.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Madam Chair. You know that we have limited time.

I am sorry, Mr. Glover.

Thank you, Madam Chair. You know that the time is—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I think Mr. Glover's just trying to answer your question.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am well aware of that, Madam Chair. But unfortunately, we have very little time. This is a very complex issue and we are getting the same arguments repeated.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

So you're satisfied that you've had the answer you need, Monsieur Dufour?

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am satisfied with the answer. Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Why spend almost $3 million on public opinion research? You had contracts starting to prepare the warnings. Then suddenly, we hear that you are meeting with the tobacco lobby and deciding to pull the plug.

Can you explain to me the logic in spending $3 million if the ultimate decision was to pull the plug? Could you not have thought about that before you spent the $3 million?

[Paul Glover]

In response to the member's question, absolutely, $3.1 million has been invested. We've made that publicly available. That was to both acquire rights to images that we felt would be appropriate, to test those with different audiences in cities across the country, with different age groups, and to make sure we had images that were effective.

I would again point people to the wide number of images that were tested and are available--when we published our public opinion research. The money that goes into this is to acquire images, to shoot images, and to test them.

We continue to feel that it is useful information, and it will, in all likelihood, be a wise investment that will be part of the final package we'll present to the minister for her consideration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Sabiston, do you have something you would like to say?

[Cathy Sabiston]

Yes. Thank you very much.

The POR that we conducted also.... We're very interested in reaching the broadest number of age groups, the broadest literacy groups, etc. This allows us to reshoot the images, to redo the text, to make sure people understand it and it is impactful.

The POR is absolutely essential because it's designed to shift behaviours and inform about the health risk. There's much fine tuning that's done as a result of the POR.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much. I understand perfectly.

My question was not about the way in which the $3 million was spent—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I'm sorry, Monsieur Dufour, your time is up.

We now go to Ms. Leslie.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you all for being here.

Mr. Glover, in January the minister said the labelling project was being pulled. She said there was going to be a focus on contraband and she said that was her decision.

At committee last week, when she appeared here, she said she was going to look at social media and emerging media, and you've affirmed this today. But the scrutiny of these two responses makes me think that the minister is just looking for some answer that we'll all buy.

My first question is, is there actually any evidence, are there any studies, or is there any research out there that shows the impact that social media has on smoking?