Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate the invitation to speak to the Standing Committee on Health regarding the subject of Health Canada's warning messages on cigarette packages.
There has been much media attention to this recently.
As you are aware, the Minister of Health has indicated that the department continues to examine the renewal of health warning messages on tobacco packaging. I am pleased to outline for you today what has been done to date and what remains to be completed on the project.
Canada is a world leader in tobacco control. I know there are some who will argue that we have slipped a bit; however, no country in the world with a similar political and economic environment has a lower smoking rate than Canada. Only 18% of Canadians smoke, and 13% smoke daily. This is a substantial decline from the over 50% who smoked in 1965.
This did not happen accidentally. Successive tobacco control strategies and actions since the 1990s—a strong Tobacco Control Act, collaborations with provinces, territories, non-governmental organizations, and community organizations, as well as the changing attitudes of Canadians towards smoking—have all contributed to the smoking rate of 18%.
These actions include measures such as taxing tobacco products, banning advertising in newspapers, magazines, television, and radio, ensuring that retailers do not sell to youth, banning smoking in workplaces and public places, making sure that tobacco products are not sold individually, putting health warning messages on tobacco products, creating smoking cessation programs, and legislating the ban on the display of tobacco products at retail venues, as most provinces have done.
This represents a comprehensive and integrated approach to tobacco control that has been undertaken across the country. Canada has a very strong tobacco control environment. We know this from our research that clearly demonstrates that 95% of Canadians know that smoking is bad for them.
It should come as no surprise that Canada has greatly influenced international tobacco control efforts. Aspects of the World Health Organization's framework convention on tobacco control, an international treaty that now involves 172 countries, was modelled upon Canada's tobacco control activities.
Canada continues to lead the way. The Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act, which received royal assent last year, represents another first of its kind in the world and at the country level.
Canada's ban on flavours and additives in little cigars, cigarettes, and blunt wraps recently received acclaim from the 130 countries that participated at the conference of the parties to the framework convention on tobacco control, which was held in November in Uruguay. In fact, the conference of parties agreed to embed this idea as a key best practice for countries to adopt in the guidelines to support the regulation of tobacco contents and emissions, or smoke.
Regarding health warning messages, Canada was the world leader in implementing full-colour pictorial messages covering 50% of cigarette packages in 2000. Many countries have since followed suit.
Canada is also one of the few countries in the world to have rigorously tested the effectiveness of health warning messages. Our results indicate that the messages encourage smokers to quit and discourage youth from starting to smoke.
As an active player in international tobacco control efforts and a leading member of the WHO framework convention on tobacco control, we fully support any country's efforts to implement health warning messages. Where possible, we provide technical assistance as well as the rights to use our graphic health warning messages.
Health warning messages on tobacco packaging are an important tool, but they must be factored into the larger tobacco control strategy. Health Canada is of the view that hard-hitting health warning messages on the dangers of tobacco should not be treated as a stand-alone initiative. The social environment has changed significantly since health warning messages were introduced 10 years ago. Now is a good time to refocus our efforts to ensure the warnings reach the largest numbers of smokers possible, while remaining effective and cost efficient.
While the qualitative and quantitative research conducted in recent years on potential images for new health warning messages has allowed us to refine them and ensure they appeal to a wide spectrum of smokers, we recognize there are better and emerging social marketing techniques that could improve this project. As such, we are examining innovative ways to complement the health warning messages project by strengthening our Internet presence and extending it with social media, such as Twitter and Facebook, to reach more Canadians.
In 2009, 80% of Canadians aged 16 and older, or 21.7 million people, used the Internet. We have not asked smokers which of these channels, or a combination thereof, would be most beneficial to help them quit. We are engaged in policy development and research to determine the best path forward, recognizing that new forms of media offer new opportunities to reach smokers with effective health warning messages that will continue Canada's role as a world leader in tobacco control.
So, is Health Canada committed to revising the health warning messages? Yes. Absolutely. They are one very important and proven effective mechanism in providing information to help people stop smoking.
Health Canada will continue to seek innovative approaches to tobacco control and implement the necessary measures to reduce smoking rates and protect the health of Canadians.
Thank you. Merci.
We welcome your questions.