Health Committee on April 30th, 2018

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Ms. Paradis, would you care to comment?

[Catherine Paradis]

I completely understand your concern. As someone who lives in Quebec, I can say I agree with my colleague Mr. Sacy. We are indeed disappointed that Quebec has not set a minimum price for these types of products.

Our recommendation that the government subject these beverages to the same excise tax as spirits would help achieve some consistency, at least in terms of the physical availability of these products. This would also have the effect of restricting their sale to publicly owned outlets, except in Alberta, whose privatized system makes things a bit more complicated. Another effect would be to increase the excise tax by a factor of 4.5, resulting in a minimum selling price that is consistently higher across the country.

[Ramez Ayoub, Liberal, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

How do we deal with the advertising issue? Young people are clearly the target audience. Ads promote teenage drinking, even though it's illegal to sell young people alcohol.

Perhaps the solution lies with the CRTC. Where can the federal government take regulatory action to address advertising and restrict company marketing, whether on social media or elsewhere?

[Catherine Paradis]

The real focus has to be social media.

First, the CRTC's code is inherently problematic because it's voluntary. It's a set of 17 rules that marketers are supposed to follow, but, as I, myself, observed during my research on bar advertising, the code is constantly being broken without any repercussions because it's voluntary. That's the first problem.

The second problem is that the code doesn't pertain to social media. That is really where the marketing happens nowadays, targeting young people in a very sneaky way. I'm in constant contact with students on campus, and one university student told me that he drank, went to bars, and knew what was going on, so he didn't need to check the Facebook or Instagram page of a bar or an alcoholic beverage in order to be told its effects. We need to consider who the curious people are checking those Facebook or Instagram pages. It's 12-, 13-, and 14-year-olds. They are the ones looking at the ads. They are the ones getting the brunt of the advertising. It's like the wild west when it comes to Internet ads.

Finland may have the right idea. There, authorities decided to completely ban all alcohol-related advertising on social media. They did it recently, so the exact impact has yet to be determined, but we could certainly look to our Finnish counterparts for some guidance.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

The time is up.

Ms. Gladu.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will share my speaking time with Mr. Lobb.

I want to thank the witnesses for being here today.

I agree with Mr. Sacy. I think alcopops are very dangerous. If I drank four alcoholic beverages, I could not drive. Yet that is the equivalent of just one alcopop. I don't know what would happen if I drank two alcopops.

What do you think, Ms. Paradis? Are there statistics on accidents caused by alcopops?

[Catherine Paradis]

I live in Sherbrooke, Quebec. This past year, we did a study of cases of young people aged 12 to 24 who were hospitalized for alcohol-related emergencies. That means not only intoxication, but all medical emergencies related to alcohol consumption. It could be an altercation when people are leaving a bar, a car accident, or anything related to excessive alcohol consumption. There were a lot of cases, in fact. In Sherbrooke, between 2012 and 2017, these cases occurred every two days among people aged 12 to 24.

We did a follow-up this year. We wanted to see if there had been an increase in emergency admissions for cases related to the consumption of alcopops, and those cases had indeed increased.

The problem is not just that young people get drunk. The problem is that they get so drunk that they have to go to emergency. It is noteworthy that 25% of these young people admitted to emergency wards are a code 1 or code 2, which means that their life is at risk. They are not just drunk; it is much more serious than that. Further, 57% of the young people admitted to emergency wards in Sherbrooke had experienced complications.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Would you agree, then, that we should just prohibit these drinks with this amount of alcohol and sugar?

[Catherine Paradis]

What worries me about a total ban is that the industry has always been made up of very clever people. I have colleagues at Health Canada who would say that, even if we ban sugar or caffeine, people in the industry would find other substances to mask the taste of alcohol. So we would end up with the same problem.

I have to answer you as a scientist. I have been doing research on alcohol for 25 years. The main determinants of excessive consumption are affordability and physical access. I am inclined to say that this is where we need to take action. In my opinion, all these issues regarding sugar and caffeine are just distractions. Athéna Gervais was not found in a stream behind her school because of too much sugar or too much caffeine, but rather because she had close to 100 grams of alcohol in her blood. It is the alcohol that we need to address.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, and I also agree with what you've said about increasing the price to try to discourage people. If you think about it, an alcoholic drink must be far cheaper in Quebec, because here in Ontario we think it's a cheap drink if it's $4 or $5 for one drink, and the four drinks here cost just about three bucks, didn't they? I think there is something to be said for increasing the price.

Do you agree that they should limit the quantity? Earlier, Health Canada said maybe the thing to do would be to restrict it so that there was only one serving of alcohol per can, so that you'd have to buy more cans. Do you think that's a good idea?

I'll ask both of you.

[Catherine Paradis]

Would you like to say something, Mr. Sacy?

[Hubert Sacy]

Yes. That is exactly what we recommend: the packaging and containers themselves must indicate the quantity of alcohol in the products. In other words, if people want to consume the equivalent of one alcoholic drink, they can buy one can; if they want the equivalent of two alcoholic dinks, they can buy two cans. At least people would know what they were doing that way.

Let me reiterate that the problem with these beverages is not that they contain alcohol. There is alcohol in all alcoholic products. The problem is that these drinks are deceptive because they mask the taste of the alcohol.

This is a problem for young people, but also for older people. We conducted tests on people aged 30 to 50. We had them drink these products. I will spare you their comments on the taste. In terms of the effect, however, they said they consumed a full can without even realizing that it contained alcohol. Yet these were informed consumers of alcohol, that is, people who are familiar with alcohol.

To the extent that consumers are being tricked by the product itself, the best solution—and I apologize for harping on this like an advertiser would—is to ban the product. It is that simple. Simply eliminate products that are not beer, wine, spirits or cider. We have to let people mix their own drinks, period.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Very good.

I'll pass my time to Ben Lobb.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

You have two minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I can't really disagree, if you want to make the cans smaller. If you want to reduce the alcohol percentage from 11.9% to 5%, they can do that through regulation.

I find it ironic, though.... It's a terrible tragedy, and I should have first stated that. I feel sad for the child involved and the family. It's a terrible situation.

That being said, I find it ironic, though, given our last bill, which we just passed here, that it leaves all the work up to regulation by Health Canada, and yet five minutes later Health Canada is here and they're saying, “We have the regulation, but now we need your help to change it.” The regulation, however, never caught the issue. That's my opinion on it.

What I will say is, we can change the issues around the alcohol and the cans, etc., but if you talk to a police officer, and I know many, the shape of a can or the colouring on the can is not the issue among our youth. The issues among our youth are drugs: hards drugs, illicit drugs, illegal drugs.

I'll go back to one example. Years ago on the health committee I was talking to a group of dentists. The dentists will still prescribe T3s to children under 18; they'll prescribe other drugs to children who are under the age of 18. You don't hear much about that. They give away Naloxone kits in Ontario for free because kids go to parties and overdose, and they shoot themselves with Naloxone kits.

The issue we're talking about here today is obviously 100% serious. However, there are so many other ills in society today that would be of greater significance by multiple factors, and issues around this.

I made issue about access for kids, or the desirability among kids. Talk to any parent with teenagers, and I'm not sure these are the issues. The parents are scared to death about their kids taking OxyContin, cocaine, crystal meth, carfentanil, marijuana, hashish, and these are quite a lot more accessible than a king can of beer in a liquor store. You could go down the street here to the bus stop by the mall and get any drug in the world you'd ever want for a fraction of the cost of a king can, as far as I can tell.

I understand we have issues here. The other issue that I think Health Canada will be tasked with and that is of significance is how many drinks there are—

Okay, we're over time. I'll conclude another time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Boulerice, you have seven minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank Mr. Sacy and Ms. Paradis for their presentations, which were both informative and at times impassioned.

Ms. Paradis, I understand the shell game you want to play by using the excise tax to affect the price of these drinks and young people's access to them. Yet a Health Canada official who spoke before you said that the regulatory changes seem to go in two directions: reducing the size of the can and reducing the alcohol content. If the alcohol content is 4.9%, requiring the industry to use ethyl alcohol in order for the product to be subject to the excise tax on spirits will not work.

[Catherine Paradis]

Actually, our recommendation pertains to the sugar content and not the alcohol content.

A beer or a strong beer, regardless of the alcohol content, never has more than roughly 4% sugar. Products such as FCKDUP, which Athéna Gervais had consumed, have 11% sugar.

We recommend that sugar content be a criterion that dictates a production method. A very sweet product would therefore have to be made using spirits. It would then be subject to a higher excise tax and would be sold only in government outlets.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Okay, I understand. The limit applies to the sugar content.

[Catherine Paradis]

Exactly.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

I wasn't sure.

Mr. Sacy, we understand your position very well: you said you would like these deceptive and dangerous products to be completely banned. You also seem to be saying—although we are not moving in that direction—that we should agree on certain things and make certain amendments.

You mentioned packaging. I agree with you, but I wonder how we as legislators or the Health Canada officials who draft the regulations can ban fluorescent pink and florescent yellow, but allow brown and orange. I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Hubert Sacy]

I will try to explain it.

There are already regulations on packaging. They differ from province to province, but they do exist. I will give you a few examples that are easy to understand: cartoons and characters from fables, legends or stories cannot be used on the packaging for alcohol products.

I remember a Norwegian beer that featured little elves on its packaging. In Norway, there are drawings of little elves on beer labels at Christmas time. When the product arrived in Canada, there was a problem with that here. So there are ways to properly regulate product labelling and packaging.

To take it to an extreme, although I am not an expert in the field, I would simply say that you can stipulate in an act or regulations the colours that may be used. There would be a list of the colours allowed or clear guidelines on typography, the type of lettering, and the size of lettering, which already exists in a number of places. Once again, it does not have to be ugly, hideous, horrible or repugnant.

If you gave me a week, I could send you draft regulations that would at least limit these things through proper guidelines.

There are already guidelines on packaging and labelling. They just have to be refined. At worst, to be cautious, we could always use neutral packaging. That already exists for other products. In many supermarkets and elsewhere, there are products with neutral packaging that are very clearly labelled. I am not saying we have to do that. Honestly, we are not experts, but if you give us a week, we will find some solutions.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you.

Ms. Paradis, I'm glad you mentioned that the CRTC voluntary code is outdated. It has not been changed in 22 years. Apart from it being old, the CRTC has no jurisdiction over the Internet or social media. The code is a complete throwback. It was developed at a time when we had rabbit ears on our TVs. Actually, I am sure than many young people would not even know what I mean by “rabbit ears” or TV antennas. Giving the CRTC jurisdiction over the Internet is huge. I am looking at my Liberal colleagues opposite to say that this might be a good idea.

I will now move on to something more technical. You both talked about the recommended reference price of $1.71. That is a lot for young people and students in terms of access to alcoholic beverages, their sale, and purchase.

Where does this $1.71 price come from? It is a very specific amount.

[Catherine Paradis]

At the CCSU, a working group that grew out of the National Alcohol Strategy produced a document that I could provide to you.

The title of the document is “Social Reference Prices for Alcohol”.

Based on various simulations, in 2009, the researchers found that $1.50 was an amount that led to better control of alcohol consumption without too many harmful effects. That amount was $1.50 in 2009, or $1.71 in today's dollars.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Very well. Thank you very much.