Health Committee on Dec. 9th, 2010

[Garfield Mahood]

Certainly. From my perspective, I'd be glad to clarify.

We were consulted on the warnings. At no time was I or my organization consulted about the introduction of, the replacement of, or the slowing down of the process for social media. At no time were we offered the opportunity to talk about whether or not a focus on contraband would in fact require that the department not proceed with the warnings.

The key aspects of the issue that the tobacco lobbyists apparently were engaged in...we were not privy to the fact that it was going on or offered the opportunity to comment on it. Because of that, frankly, we in the health community were sideswiped by this decision.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Mahood, when you say that you were in conversations with Health Canada, does that mean you helped develop the new warnings?

[Garfield Mahood]

I think there were about a dozen people. Four or five of us—all of the people at this table—were involved in the consultations on a regular basis over several years.

So there's no question that the exchange, the interaction, between the health organizations and Health Canada improved the warnings from where they were in the beginning.

[Cynthia Callard]

I'd just like to add that this was a very transparent process. The government put out its proposals in a public discussion process. There were private meetings held with us, but for the most part it was done through the standard government consultation process.

[Rob Cunningham]

I'd just add that I was also involved, and I thought we had a meaningful opportunity to provide input as warnings were being developed.

[Dr. Geoffrey Fong]

I, too, was part of some of the consultations.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

One of the other comments that was made earlier in the first panel was that there needed to be more research done because it was determined, after doing some outreach, that the suggested new labelling was not going to reach all the age groups, particularly the one that was specified, the 18- to 24-year-olds, which proved to be 26% use, which is certainly above the normal of 18% use.

Were you aware of that?

[Garfield Mahood]

There is a term that has been used in the past in the public health business about hard-to-reach groups. Kids are a hard-to-reach group, and when you put a lot of resources into reaching a hard-to-reach group, you in fact can increase your morbidity and mortality, because resources are being taken away from the groups that you can influence.

There's no evidence to suggest that introducing something like social media would do anything to affect this hard-to-reach group in a lasting way. Cynthia Callard was extremely eloquent when she explained this. When you delay the warnings in order to introduce the social media, you take resources from the new warnings away from the easier-to-reach adults and the relapsed smokers. We must not forget relapsed smokers. These are the people who can be influenced to come back into the market—and that's millions of Canadians.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I'm sorry, Mr. Mahood, but Ms. Davidson wanted to split her time.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

There are two things I want to get into with the remaining time. I'm happy that Rob mentioned we need to have a multifaceted approach. I think there's merit in having synergies between the labelling approach and the social media approach. Take the example of the soccer players. Wouldn't it be amazing to orchestrate a social media approach trying to fight products like that? I realize that's in Germany, but you could have a link to a YouTube video showing a soccer player who can no longer run because of the effects of smoking.

Whatever the latest strategies of the tobacco industry may be, it would be great to counter them with social media. You talk about the hard-to-reach groups, and I'm sure those are the groups being targeted by the tobacco industry. I'm sure that young Canadians are particularly vulnerable to these approaches. I don't know anyone under the age of 30 who isn't on Facebook, and most are also on Twitter. So there are some amazing mechanisms available to reach that demographic.

Rob, you mentioned a tax marking in a different country for contraband. That's something that would be interesting to look into. I had an event in Barrie with convenience store owners, who told me that the lost revenue for government is $2 billion. Are there things we can do through labelling to deal with contraband? What was the example you cited? What country was that from? Maybe we could look into it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Cunningham.

[Rob Cunningham]

It was Singapore, and we made that recommendation to the Ontario and Quebec governments. So that one might be best for provinces.

[Patrick Brown, Conservative, Barrie, ON]

We can't do that on a federal level?

[Rob Cunningham]

It could be done federally. If the federal government could do it, that would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

We're happy that you came today and gave us an insightful presentation. We can hear your passion. We want to stop kids from smoking. Once they start, they don't have a tendency to stop. Right Mr. Dufour?

Ms. Duncan, we're out of time. But what is it?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I would like to make a motion based on the testimony we've heard today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We've run out of time. We'll attend to that at another meeting.

The committee is adjourned.