Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2018

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I just want to reiterate what I said this morning. When we look at 100,000 new daily smokers a year in Canada, 82% of new smokers in Canada are 18 years or under. Our problem right now, I believe, is stopping people from starting to get addicted to nicotine, from starting to take up smoking.

I support anything in Bill S-5 that continues.... Putting stronger language on the vaping side to make sure the same restrictions on vaping advertising are in place for tobacco, and that they match, I think, is a really important thing for Bill S-5 to be doing.

I just want to move over to Mr. Johnson regarding his testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Be very quick.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Do you think there's a need for another public campaign on the risks of nicotine and cigarette smoking?

[Akehil Johnson]

Yes. I think it's important to understand that it's not just the tobacco; it's also the nicotine. It's the nicotine that goes to the brain and gets you addicted. It makes you feel good, and then you want another hit and another hit and another hit. So it's important to understand. It's also important to understand, when you inform the public, that tobacco and smoking and tobacco usage are not normal. We're in the practice of tobacco industry denormalization, making something that seems normal not normal. It's not normal to use a product that, when used as intended, will cause bodily harm or cause death. It's not normal to do that. I think it's important not only for young Canadians, whether 18 and under or between 18 and 24, but also for their parents to understand that so that they can guide and best raise their children to be healthy and productive Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

That completes our seven-minute round. We're going to go to our five-minute round.

We're going to start with Ms. Gladu.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses.

For my first question, I think I'll start with Satinder Chera.

You talked about how the convenience stores are not allowed to participate in the vaping industry. One of the testimonies we heard was that it's important that people be instructed on how to use the vaping devices. How will you address this if your industry is allowed to participate?

[Satinder Chera]

First of all, I'd like to make a point that my colleague made earlier, which is that we have proactively abided by Health Canada's regulations around ensuring that convenience stores not sell vape products with nicotine. We will be more than happy to share with the committee the materials we've distributed to our members.

We certainly stand to be partners with the government—we are today—in ensuring that young people don't get their hands on tobacco products. We have an excellent track record, as witnessed through Smoke-Free Ontario. They've done their own test, if you will, and they've concluded that convenience stores are a trusted source of providing tobacco through legal means.

When it comes to vape, certainly our recommendation is that if the government is to go down this road, convenience stores should be looked at as a partner to dispense those products. There is growing acknowledgement out there that vape may be a safe alternative, and certainly we think our channels for dispensing that product should be looked at very seriously.

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

Very good. Thanks.

Freeze the Industry, obviously, you're against people smoking, which is great. With the legalization of marijuana only in the smoked form happening, what do you think about that? Also, what do you think about vaping, since people are not just vaping nicotine products, but are also vaping marijuana? It's been shown that young people who vape are twice as likely to start smoking something. Could you comment on that?

[Maxime Le]

Right now the mandate of Freeze the Industry is to make sure that young people don't take up smoking. Because vaping could perhaps be a sort of gateway and because it, combined with marijuana, could contribute to increased smoking rates, we believe that it should not be allowed to happen. Of course, that's the position the industry is willing to take on. We can't comment on specific matters with regard to that, but of course we still believe that young people should not be in the business of trying to kill themselves by smoking.

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

Dr. Davidson, you mentioned something about the importance of excise pricing and public education with respect to the implementation in Australia. Could you elaborate?

[Prof. Sinclair Davidson]

When looking at smoking prevalence, two things stand out. First of all, in developed countries, smoking prevalence has been falling for decades. What really stands out is that price increases through excise taxation and public education about the harms of smoking have probably had the single largest public health impact in Australia—and probably in Canada, and all over the developed world as well. My argument is that, if the Canadian government genuinely wants to do something about smoking prevalence, they should focus their efforts on excise taxation, public education, information, and also substitutes to smoking.

A lot of the debate that I've been hearing this morning seems to have this idea that there's good nicotine and bad nicotine, and that bad nicotine comes from the tobacco industry. However, there are substitute gums and vapours provided by the pharmaceutical industry that are tax-advantaged in most countries, and with this talk about banning vaping.... All these products deliver nicotine and should be treated equally, taxed equally, and put onto a level playing field.

With the excise increases in Australia, there have been two rounds of 50% increases phased in over four years since 2013. We're still in the second round right now, and there's also automatic indexation to weekly earnings. Every six months, the excise on tobacco gets increased by whatever the index amount is on weekly earnings. It used to be the CPI, but it was felt that the CPI was not keeping track of purchasing power.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

Now we'll go to Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses.

The removal of the brand elements led you to be less interested in tobacco. It was even found that removal of the brand elements was more likely to result in people having a negative expectation of the taste of tobacco. Certainly if this practice reduces the appeal of smoking to youth, we can reduce the number of young Canadians who take up smoking.

Could you comment on this finding, Freeze the Industry? How can we reduce smoking and increase smoking cessation rates among youth?

[Akehil Johnson]

I think it's important to understand that we are not against smokers; we're against the industry. We want youth and young adults to be informed of how the industry targets them. We we want them to be informed to understand what the product does when used, and we want them to have the tools and resources to be able to resist this manipulative marketing.

I think it's important, first, to limit the industry ability in total to advertise and target youth and young adults. That's step one. Step two is to really have youth and young adults understand what a cigarette is or what tobacco products are and what happens when they use them, but also allow them to understand that they have great freedom right now. They don't have to worry about emphysema, heart failure, or any of these diseases that unfortunately afflict other people, and we want to help them understand how the use of tobacco causes that. They should also understand that there's no such thing as good nicotine and bad nicotine. Nicotine is nicotine. It's a drug, and it's an addictive drug. When you use it, you get happy in the head, and then again, and again, and again. As people have seen, when you get addicted to a drug, life doesn't tend to go up; it tends to go down.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

You said that McMaster University became smoke free.

[Akehil Johnson]

Yes.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

What kind of public education campaign did you have?

[Akehil Johnson]

McMaster's tobacco-free policy means that there are no tobacco products sold on campus and tobacco can't be used on campus. What McMaster is undertaking is that between now and March it's a soft launch, meaning that if people are found to be using tobacco products on campus they will be asked to leave campus and use it elsewhere. After that, there will be a hard implementation.

In addition to that, they will also let the McMaster community know that indigenous use of tobacco for sacred purposes will be allowed, because we don't want to hinder that culture. Furthermore, McMaster is also working with its local neighbourhood to ensure that the people who would usually smoke on campus don't end up going to smoke in these neighbourhoods to cause more smoking in those neighbourhoods that are so beautiful.

Lastly, the McMaster community has committed a considerable amount of resources to help its staff, students, faculty members, and any person who may want to quit smoking to access those resources, and they're working hand in hand with Hamilton Public Health to really make that happen.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Le.

[Maxime Le]

Can I add something? During the summer at Freeze the Industry we held a “plain party”, an educational night for our local communities. We went to an ice cream shop, stood outside, and basically educated the people who walked by, especially the youth, about the benefits of plain and standardized packaging. We showed them how appealing and attractive different types of cigarette packages can be.

For example, you've seen this one here. It was at the last committee meeting. This is the Vogue Slim pack. It leads young women who are vulnerable to social pressure about fitting in, to a need to look like the X, Y, or Z stereotype or whatnot, to think that if they took this sort of cigarette with this sort of branding and packaging, they would then look like the ideal person they wanted to be. In reality, it might just make them end up looking worse.

The point is that when we showed these young people what the new sort of package would look like, hopefully, they said they didn't want to hold it, they didn't want to be seen holding it, and they didn't want to smoke it. They wanted nothing to do with it.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

My next question is for Benson & Hedges.

Your company sells the Superslim cigarettes, which are very attractive and fashionable to women. Don't you think this type of cigarette is more attractive to youth?

[Peter Luongo]

I don't think this type of packaging is the reason that people smoke. I think making the decision to smoke is a much bigger decision than which brand you smoke.

At the same time, the reason I did not speak about plain packaging in my remarks is that, frankly, while there are negative impacts in terms of contraband, it's not going to have the impact on public health that you think it will. Just look at Superslim cigarettes. They're not a large portion of the market. Even if they disappeared tomorrow, it's not going to get you to 5% by '35.

Japan is the best example, because we've had heat-not-burn products there the longest. Cigarette consumption went down by 10% last year in Japan. I will bet anyone on the committee a hundred dollars that the year after plain packaging comes into play in Canada, cigarette consumption will not go down by 10%. It's a question of what are the most effective strategies. I think there are things that are being done on the margin, which we can debate, but I don't think they're going to get you to the goal you want, which is really to reduce the diseases associated with smoking.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Kusie.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Chera, would you say it is difficult to differentiate between plain packaging and contraband packaging? If so, can you please describe some of the similarities between the two types of packaging?

[Satinder Chera]

When you look at the two brands, what ends up happening is that for both the illegal and the legal ones, you'd have the same characteristics—the same colour size and the same font size. That absolutely would make it difficult for law enforcement to decipher whether the product were legal or illegal. We already know that there is a thriving contraband market in Canada. In Ontario in some communities, it's up nearly 60% to 70%. Our view is that with plain packaging you're essentially giving a blueprint to criminals to continue to grow the contraband market.