Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to members of the committee for the opportunity to address you in relation to your inquiry into the government's decision not to proceed with implementation of Health Canada's tobacco package warnings—the new ones.
I'm the executive director of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, founded 35 years ago. We are one of only three national organizations that work exclusively in the field of tobacco control.
For members of the committee who are not familiar with our association, we have a small staff of nine people located in offices in Ottawa, Toronto, and Montreal. We have members across Canada. I am proud to say that our association played a significant role in encouraging Parliament to introduce its landmark tobacco advertising ban in 1988 and its two generations of world precedent-setting warnings. We hope the discussion under way here today will now lead to the government revisiting its decision about the refreshed warnings.
As background to my presentation, I was privileged to have been asked by the World Health Organization to write an expert report on tobacco package warnings for that organization. I was deeply involved in the consultations over the refreshed warnings. Along with other members of this panel, I was involved in those consultations. Consequently, we know what has been blocked.
I wish to stress that tobacco warnings are a critical component of any comprehensive tobacco control plan. It is simply wrong to suggest that the utilization of social media, or any other tobacco control strategy, can substitute for an effective, revitalized tobacco package warning system. Tobacco warnings are the core of any comprehensive response to the tobacco epidemic
Let me explain why risk messages on the package in particular are so important and at the same time reveal why the tobacco industry will use almost any means to stop them coming forward.
First, the tobacco package is the core of all tobacco promotion. Everything the industry does to sell its products is centred on the package. All advertising, sponsorships, point-of-purchase displays, billboards--everything is tied to the package design. This is the hub of the wheel. With most of these promotional tools banned in Canada, the package takes on even greater importance. The package design is the industry's principal marketing tool in this country. But also important, what Canada does to warn consumers, especially kids, and to reduce the power of the package to promote sales will influence tobacco policy in countries around the world. That's why the industry will go to any length to block it.
I have told you about the marketing power of the package overall. Here is why the warnings on the package are so important and cannot be replaced by social media, or anything else for that matter.
There are 1.5 billion cigarette packages sold in Canada each year. These packages, even many contraband packages, carry the required warnings. Advertising experts will tell you that each package is a mini billboard. Each package produces what these experts call an advertising impression, just like a roadside billboard produces an advertising impression.
On average, a cigarette package is pulled out of a shirt pocket or a purse 20 times a day, the beautiful package design producing a positive, legitimizing image each time it appears. Conversely, and critically, on average, risk messages warn consumers and deter adolescent smokers or starters 20 times a day. With 1.5 billion packages in circulation each year, the package warning system creates an estimated 30 billion advertising impressions every year. About 30 to 40 billion times a year, the warnings undermine the image that the beautiful package tries to produce, a message that says the product inside the package is legitimate, even though it will kill a whopping one out of two of its long-term users. The package is critical.
In short, the package is the cornerstone of everything the industry does, and because the importance of the package is maintaining normalcy and legitimacy for the product, the industry will threaten litigation, threaten the closure of factories, offer to assist government with its contraband problems, or to withhold that help. It will do whatever it takes to delay, stall, or block improvement to the warning system.
In my statement that's been tabled with the committee, I've reviewed some of the things they've done in the past. I won't go into that now because of time restrictions. The point of reviewing the history of how they've tried to block warnings in the past is to show that effective warnings never materialize without a struggle, and we've seen this.
Once again, members of Parliament are being asked by health interests that are supported by millions of Canadians to work in a non-partisan way to encourage the government to implement these warnings. Because of tobacco industry-caused illness and death that can be prevented, this reform rises above party politics and above the pseudo and often dishonest arguments that tobacco lobbyists have put before well-intentioned legislators.
Our association's position is this. The existing warnings are extremely stale. The refreshed warnings were essentially finished months ago--not perfect, but a significant step forward. Over $3 million will be wasted if they sit on a Health Canada shelf, and if they do, kids will be addicted and they will later die. There is no--