Thank you very much for your testimony, the research, and leadership you've been showing on the issues of smoking and smoking cessation in Canada over the years.
To me, there are two issues we are dealing with here. One is stopping non-users, in particular youth, from becoming addicted to nicotine, and the numbers are still quite alarming. I read just recently that there are about 100,000 new daily smokers per year in Canada, and something like 82% of people start smoking at the age of 18 or younger, so there is clearly an issue of stopping young people and non-users from getting the habit.
The second grouping is those who are addicted to nicotine, and trying to move them to a less harmful form, given that the evidence isn't quite clear yet, but there is a fair bit of it, and/or helping them quit.
My first question deals with that second population, people who are addicted and want to move to a less dangerous or harmful form. I had somebody in from the tobacco industry to meet with me to talk about their view, and that was fine. They were sort of doing their rounds. The concern they raised was on proposed section 20.1 where it says:
No person shall promote a tobacco product, including by means of the packaging,
(a) in a manner that could cause a person to believe that the product or its emissions are less harmful than other tobacco products or their emissions...
and the example was heat-not-burn consumption.
I'd like to get your reaction to that first of all. If the tobacco industry does believe they have found a safer way to consume nicotine, they wouldn't be able to advertise or promote that on packaging. Do you agree with them or disagree with them? I'd like to hear your perspectives on that one, from all of you.