Evidence of meeting #67 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was legal.

A video is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Lynda Balneaves  Registered Nurse and Medical and Non-Medical Cannabis Researcher, Canadian Nurses Association
Karey Shuhendler  Policy Advisor, Policy, Advocacy and Strategy, Canadian Nurses Association
Serge Melanson  Doctor, New Brunswick Medical Society
Robert Strang  Chief Medical Officer of Health, Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness
Michael DeVillaer  Assistant Professor, Policy Analyst, McMaster University, As an Individual
Mark Kleiman  Professor of Public Policy, Marron Institute of Urban Management, New York University, As an Individual
Trina Fraser  Partner, Brazeau Seller LLP
Brenda Baxter  Director General, Workplace Directorate, Labour Program, Department of Employment and Social Development
Norm Keith  Partner, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP
Clara Morin Dal Col  Minister of Health, Métis National Council
Isadore Day  Ontario Regional Chief, Chiefs of Ontario
Wenda Watteyne  Senior Policy Advisor, Métis National Council
David Hammond  Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual
Mike Hammoud  President, Atlantic Convenience Stores Association
Melodie Tilson  Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
Pippa Beck  Senior Policy Analyst, Non-Smokers' Rights Association
Steven Hoffman  Professor, Faculty of Health, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, As an Individual
Beau Kilmer  Co-Director, RAND Drug Policy Research Center
Kirk Tousaw  Lawyer, Tousaw Law Corporation
Stephen Rolles  Senior Policy Analyst, Transform Drug Policy Foundation

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

I understand that, but I—

4:55 p.m.

President, Atlantic Convenience Stores Association

Mike Hammoud

Just let me finish. All I want to say is that I want to give you input on the experience we have. I personally have worked in a convenience store for over 30 years, selling tobacco. I've had experience with the big power walls, as they used to call them, with all the colours behind us and all of that, and people walking in.

Listen, I'll tell you that I have never had an individual who was a non-smoker walk into any of my stores and see a pretty orange package, and say, “Oh my God, I think I'm going to start smoking today.”

5 p.m.

Liberal

Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

I'm going to have to cut you off because I'm running out of time. I have just one more point to make. The reason I bring this in is exactly what Dr. Hammond said. The reason this has to be brought up is how much the tobacco companies have infiltrated this discussion on Bill C-45, themselves and through their lobby groups.

September 14th, 2017 / 5 p.m.

President, Atlantic Convenience Stores Association

Mike Hammoud

I think it's entirely up to this government to make that decision on where they are going to go. My thoughts are just based on the experience we have of selling another combustible product. We have worked with many government agencies over the years on how we can do a better job of keeping it out of the hands of youth.

You walk into a convenience store today. Do you see any tobacco? No, you can't see it. It's not visible to anybody who walks into a store. When you walk into a liquor store, do you see liquor? Yes, it's very visible.

I think we've taken huge strides over the years to keep it out of the hands of youth.

5 p.m.

Liberal

Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

I would just say, though, that is because that was legislated.

I have no further questions.

Thank you.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

That completes our first round of questions.

Now we go to our five-minute round with Ms. Gladu.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses.

I want to talk a bit more about branding. I know we've talked about it already. Originally there was a desire to distinguish the licit production from the illicit, but the more I listen to the testimony, and the more I think about it, and the more I think about all the hoops we've jumped through trying to keep our money from being counterfeited, I can see that's not going to work. This branding thing may not work.

It looks to me then that we might have to take more of an approach like the one Washington took, where it had very strict control. When it combined its medical and its recreational marijuana, it had its suppliers and distributors and those who were allowed to sell it, and it was all tracked so the government could make sure there wasn't more product coming in. Kids weren't allowed into the stores, so it was a non-issue.

Do you agree that is probably the best approach?

I'll start with you, Mr. Hammond.

5 p.m.

Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual

Dr. David Hammond

Yes. It's what you said has happened in other jurisdictions for cannabis. It's the sort of system that we've gotten better at with tobacco internationally, and that is the way to reduce illicit tobacco.

For the record, it is not difficult to counterfeit any packaging you might wish. I do studies where we go down the street, and for $50 we can have someone design a package. I think you're starting to hit the nail on the head in that those are the measures you use to reduce illicit tobacco.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Great. What about the rest of you?

5 p.m.

Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association

Melodie Tilson

It's my understanding that the legislation does provide for a tracking and tracing mechanism. The illicit trade protocol for tobacco is also requiring a global tracking and tracing mechanism as Dr. Hammond referred to, and it is currently being established. Pippa Beck referred earlier to the tax stamp that's on tobacco packages now. This has overt markings, ones you can see, and covert ones, which aren't visible but are much harder to counterfeit. It's that type of thing, as well as aggressive enforcement.

We haven't had aggressive enforcement with cannabis in the last number of years as we started discussing legalization or decriminalization, and we certainly haven't had adequate enforcement when it comes to contraband tobacco, largely because of the—

5 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

I don't really want to talk about tobacco.

Mr. Hammoud, what do you think?

5 p.m.

President, Atlantic Convenience Stores Association

Mike Hammoud

I agree as well. Anything you can do to help stop it from going to the illicit side, I think, is what everybody agrees with. That's the point.

5 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

All right. I'll turn to warnings. We've seen and heard testimony about how bad the effects are for youth who consume this, especially under the age of 25, and pregnant women, and a number of instances. It looks to me that you could almost write a novel of warnings if you tried to put that on the packaging.

Do you have any advice about what would be the best way to communicate warnings?

We'll start again in the same order with Mr. Hammond.

5 p.m.

Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual

Dr. David Hammond

Sure. I've worked with our government and governments around the world to assist with this. Right now, for other products we have rotating warnings. It's up to a government to determine the key messages and risks that they'd like to communicate. You can have a number of different warnings that rotate through the packages. You can change them over time. We've done it now in Canada a couple of times. We're about to do it again. It's very effective.

The lessons are not rocket science. I've wasted more of my career demonstrating these things.... They have to be big enough for people to see them. There should be images. I have a bunch of children, and when I leave cigarette packages around, they look at them. They can't read, but they know what it communicates.

I would suggest that we do not take our lead from U.S. states. You just have to look at the tobacco warnings that have been there from 1984. Their marijuana warnings look like a legal disclaimer. That is not the way to design a warning. We have very good experience with it. It's up to the government, but let's use effective principles for communicating with people, whatever those messages might be.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Okay.

What about names? I heard the testimony about how we don't want to have...like, everybody uses it, or everybody does it, or whatever. Is the solution to that to not even allow the naming but to go with the numbering of products?

I'm interested in what you have to say, Ms. Tilson.

5:05 p.m.

Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association

Melodie Tilson

I certainly wouldn't object to that. I think consumers would object. Given that the government is trying to balance the rights of adults to choose the product versus keeping youth away from it, a compromise, I think, would be to allow a limited range of brand names.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Okay.

One other interesting thing is that we have producers of medical marijuana, and they do supply here in Canada, but many of them are shipping globally. They want to brand their products. They want to ship them globally and they want to advertise them with e-commerce.

How do we incorporate that into the whole equation, Mr. Hammond?

5:05 p.m.

Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual

Dr. David Hammond

I'm sorry for mentioning the word “tobacco” again, but you know, there's nothing stopping.... When you sell a product in another country, you follow that country's laws. I think there's some wording in the act where you're not allowed to advertise through foreign media for Canadian products that would be coming in. I think that's a reasonable principle.

I just want to be super clear about plain packaging. You can allow product information. It doesn't mean you have to strip everything. What it means is that you're just taking away that tool of colours and images and logos and things like that. It's not inconsistent with saying that manufacturers can provide product information to consumers. The government can choose what goes in that product information. I think that the companies, whether medicinal or recreational, need to respect the laws of the country in which it's being sold, whether it's manufactured here and exported to other countries or imported from other countries.

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

That's my time.

Thanks.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Mr. McKinnon.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC

Thank you, Chair.

I'll start with you, Professor Hammond. What does standard packaging mean in terms of product offerings? You can't just have ad hoc packaging every time you have a new product. Someone has to design the package for the product. Who would do that? Let's say you have a new kind of product that fits within the schedule of what you can sell. How would you arrange to get packaging that was appropriate to that product?

5:05 p.m.

Professor, University of Waterloo, School of Public Health and Health Systems, As an Individual

Dr. David Hammond

That's a good point. I use the term “standardize” because that's essentially what you're doing. We talked about standardizing the look in terms of similar background, colours, and no logos. Certain countries regulate the shape and size. We do have a diversity of tobacco products that come in different shapes and sizes. Clearly you would need to have different criteria standards, whether for a dried herb or flower, an edible, or something else.

That would be the government's prerogative in terms of to what extent they would like to standardize the shape and size. It's quite possible to standardize by removing logos and imagery and having more flexible guidelines on standardized shape. You just want to avoid things like edibles being shaped as gummi bears. The government can prescribe their standards, and then the companies design their product containers and shapes to fit within those.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC

Thank you.

Would the Non-Smokers' Rights Association like to add something?

5:05 p.m.

Director of Policy, Non-Smokers' Rights Association

Melodie Tilson

Yes. I would just add the quick comment that we would not be averse to having looser restrictions on the non-smoked versions of cannabis. As you heard a number of times today, the smoked form is the most harmful to health and poses the most risk. The vaped forms and edibles could have looser restrictions on packaging.

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC

You are saying standardized packaging for some variance of the product, but not necessarily standard packaging for all.