Health Committee on Feb. 12th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Welcome to meeting number 90 of the Standing Committee on Health.

We're studying Bill S-5, an act to amend the Tobacco Act and the Non-Smokers' Health Act and to make consequential amendments to other acts.

Today, on behalf of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, we have Peter Luongo and Mike Klander. On behalf of the Canadian Convenience Stores Associations, we have Satinder Chera and Anne Kothawala. From Freeze the Industry, we have Anabel Bergeron, Akehil Johnson, and Maxime Le.

As an individual, do we have Sinclair Davidson here?

[Professor Sinclair Davidson, Professor of Institutional Economics, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, College of Business, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, As an Individual]

Yes, you do. Hello.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

There we go, by teleconference.

All right. We'll begin the opening rounds. Each organization has 10 minutes to make an opening statement and then we'll go to questions.

Mr. Luongo or Mr. Klander, would you like to open up with a 10-minute opening statement?

[Peter Luongo, Managing Director, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc.]

Absolutely.

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to speak with you today.

I'm Peter Luongo, the managing director of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of Philip Morris International. I'm here to talk with you today about our vision for the industry, how that vision aligns with our shared goal of reducing smoking rates in Canada, and the implications of Bill S-5 for that objective.

First, our vision for the industry or goal, put simply, is to stop selling cigarettes. We can do this in a way that makes sense for us as a business and for society as a whole by switching existing adult smokers to alternative, smoke-free products that significantly reduce their exposure to the chemicals in cigarette smoke that are linked to disease. You may be thinking, if you want to stop selling cigarettes, why not simply stop? However, if we were to simply do that today, every single adult smoker in Canada who smokes our brands would most likely switch to another brand of one of our competitors. This would not serve the long-term goal of eliminating smoking. However, we believe that by introducing new, reduced risk products and by educating adult smokers on the benefits of switching, we can reach a point where we can envision a phase-out of cigarettes. We know this is a massive undertaking and will require time and support from the government and other stakeholders, but it is a goal we should all share.

You may also be thinking, why now? What has changed? Put simply, it's technology. For more than a decade PMI has been developing a series of smoke-free alternatives, products that are designed to replace cigarettes for adult smokers who are not seeking to quit tobacco altogether. As an industry, we finally have products that both satisfy adult smokers and also significantly reduce their exposure to chemicals. This is based on the simple fact that nicotine, while addictive and not risk-free, is not the primary cause of smoking-related diseases but it is ultimately a large part of what smokers are seeking from cigarettes.

As the old quote goes that was mentioned earlier today, “People smoke for the nicotine but they die from the tar.” It is the burning process, the combustion that occurs when tobacco is lit on fire that creates this tar, not the mere presence of nicotine. All of the alternative products we are looking to introduce have several things in common. They all produce an aerosol vapour, and they all contain nicotine to address smoker preferences, but they also all eliminate combustion. By eliminating combustion, we dramatically reduce users' exposure to these harmful chemicals if they fully switch to these products. We know from the millions of smokers in other countries who have already switched that we are talking about reality, not theory.

I'll give you a bit of background to what we are doing today in Canada with one of our alternative, smoke-free products called IQOS. It is an electronic device that heats specially manufactured tobacco sticks to release an aerosol vapour. The vapour contains nicotine and is similar to the vapour produced by an electronic cigarette. When compared to a reference cigarette smoke, the aerosol vapour produced by IQOS contains, on average, 90% fewer harmful and potentially harmful constituents linked to smoking-related diseases. Looking specifically at the 14 carcinogens identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, we see the reduction is greater than 95% on average. Recently, an advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration in the United States concluded that switching completely to IQOS can reduce smokers' exposure to harmful smoke compounds by a vote of eight to one.

To be clear, we are not saying that smoke-free alternatives are risk-free. They are not for non-smokers, they are not for youth, and they are not for people who smoke today and who want to quit tobacco and nicotine altogether. Smoke-free alternatives, such as IQOS, are for adult smokers who will otherwise continue to smoke without a satisfactory alternative. With over four million adult smokers in Canada today, it is imperative that we provide such alternatives.

If IQOS is legally available today in Canada, you may be wondering what the problem with Bill S-5 is. To start, I think we can agree that for someone to switch to a product, they need to know that it exists and how it compares to cigarettes. However, if Bill S-5 is passed in its current form, it will be illegal for me to share with Canadian adult smokers everything I have told you so far about how IQOS compares with cigarettes. Specifically, clause 27 of Bill S-5 prohibits anyone from making comparisons between any two tobacco products or their emissions. Because the IQOS unit heats tobacco, it would be considered a tobacco product. As a result, we would not be able to clearly explain the differences between IQOS and any other tobacco product, including cigarettes, regardless of what the scientific evidence showed to be true.

It is important for the committee to remember that this is not just about the product that we, as RBH, have on the market today. Our competitors in the industry have products that also contain tobacco and that operate under similar principles of avoiding combustion while still delivering nicotine. It is not only about products that have already been invented; it is recognizing that through additional research and development, these categories will continue to evolve to provide smokers with ever more and better alternatives in the future. As drafted, if there is a tobacco product that is proven to be of lower risk, there will be no way to explain that fact to consumers without further amending the legislation, which could be a very lengthy process. During this time, you would have millions of adult smokers in Canada making choices about their health without having all of the relevant information and access to the best available science.

Therefore, our recommendation is that clause 27 be amended to create regulatory power and to put tools in place to take advantage of the opportunity that we believe these products represent, and to have regulations reflect the latest available evidence. The Senate modified a similar section of this bill dealing with vaping products so that, through regulations, authorized statements could be created by Health Canada that strike a balance between providing adult smokers with the information they require to make informed choices while at the same time preventing them from being given a misleading impression. A similar change to the tobacco section of Bill S-5, giving Health Canada the power to create tailored regulations going forward, is a reasonable and balanced step for this committee to take.

Now, you don't have to believe everything I've said today. You don't even have to believe that IQOS is a better choice than smoking. You only have to believe that it is possible for a tobacco product to exist that has lower risks than cigarettes, and, if it is possible, I think we should all be able to agree that adult smokers in Canada have a right to that information and that the law should provide flexibility for regulations to reflect that fact.

Before I conclude, it's also important to recognize that given the ongoing evolution of these categories, we will continue to need to study and update our knowledge of these new alternatives. Our second recommendation for this committee is that in your report on Bill S-5, you recommend that the Government of Canada, in the upcoming federal tobacco control strategy, commit to funding research into smoke-free alternatives, including heated tobacco products and electronic cigarettes, to help inform future policy discussions with evidence that is entirely impartial. Doing so will provide legislators and regulators with substantiated third-party information regarding the science behind smoke-free alternatives, and better enable a more fulsome dialogue about the potential of harm reduction in tobacco to achieve the goal of “5% by '35”, a goal we all share.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you.

Now we'll go the Canadian Convenience Stores Association.

Mr. Chera.

[Satinder Chera, President, Canadian Convenience Stores Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. My name is Satinder Chera, and I am the president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association.

Our association is proud to represent 27,000 small business owners across Canada who serve 10 million customers each and every day. As you will note from the materials in your kits, our channel provides employment opportunities for over 234,000 Canadians and collects over $22 billion in taxes for all levels of government. Our stores ensure that Canadians have access to necessities and basic groceries wherever they live, and a third of them serve rural and remote regions of the country. In our vast country it is our distributors who provide this critical link of getting those necessities to our stores, which is why I am joined by Anne Kothawala, who represents that part of our industry.

Our industry is much more than our contribution to the economy. We support local sports teams and charities. Last year we held our first ever national Convenience Store Day, during which politicians and community leaders worked a shift in our stores and helped us to raise over $80,000 for charity. Our channel is constantly changing and adapting. You can buy food-service items like samosas and healthier snack options such as energy bars. Twenty years ago newspapers were a significant part of our sales; today they are not.

Tobacco sales have also declined, just as the number of Canadians who smoke has declined. This is a good thing; however, those sales have moved to the illegal market. Across Ontario, one in every three cigarettes sold is illegal, and it's as high as 60% in some markets throughout the province. Please find more information regarding contraband in your kits.

Just so we are very clear, we're not here to defend the tobacco industry. After all, tobacco is a cause of serious diseases. That said, so long as Canadians choose to smoke this legal product, our retailers continue to represent the most responsible avenue for them to buy tobacco products. We are the most responsible safeguard to keep tobacco products out of the hands of children. It is in this context that we work with the tobacco companies, along with confectionery, snack, and beverage manufacturers, who are all non-voting members of our association.

My colleague and I are both parents. As any parent, we don't want our kids, or any kids, to get their hands on tobacco products. In fact, retailers play an important role in keeping these products out of the hands of youth to begin with through display bans and with identification checks through our We Expect ID program that is included in your kits. Convenience retailers are part of the solution to preventing kids from smoking, not in opposition to it.

We are here today to raise the concerns of our members about the impact that the proposed plain-packaging legislation will have on our stores. We fear that despite the intent of the legislation, efforts to reduce tobacco consumption will be wasted and, ultimately, worsened by this bill. We will also talk about the vaping side of Bill S-5, where we fully support the government's finally stepping in to regulate this promising development for consumer choice.

Our channel has proven to be the best at age testing when measured against the Beer Store or the government-owned LCBO in Ontario. According to data from Smoke-Free Ontario, public health units have conducted over 20,000 underage mystery shops, with a pass rate of 96% by convenience stores in Ontario.

Committee members may be asking why, if 75% of the package is already covered by warning labels, it would matter if the remaining 25% were covered too? There are three reasons.

First, as with any product, branded packaging gives consumers assurances of quality and reliability and helps them distinguish one product from another. Standardizing cigarette packaging will make it much more difficult to differentiate legal from non-legal products. Moreover, Bill S-5 allows for the standardization of the cigarettes themselves. Forcing legal products to look like their already-standardized illegal counterparts will only further encourage consumers to make their purchasing decisions on price alone. The cheapest products will always come from the black market, free from any tax or ID check.

Second, we already compete with an illicit market that is double the global average. With plain packaging, we can expect to see counterfeiting become a bigger problem than it already is.

Third, because of the black market, law-abiding convenience stores lose not only the tobacco sales, but also the purchases that go along with them—milk, bread, lottery tickets. Governments lose tax revenue, and no one is there to prevent children from buying illegal tobacco.

We know that committee members have heard a lot about the black market and contraband lately, having just studied Bill C-45. Many witnesses have remarked on the importance of addressing the black market when it comes to cannabis, and several have pointed to branding to visually separate these products and provide consumers basic information about them as well as a quality guarantee.

Our members cannot understand why, when the government is trying to curb black market cannabis, it chooses to proceed with plain packaging for tobacco, which will be a boon to the already thriving black market. If the shared problem between tobacco and cannabis is the black market, why are we treating these products so differently?

This is compounded by stories from retailers in other countries where they have adopted plain packaging. Our Australian retail counterparts have struggled with inventory control, staff training, and customer transactions without any of the intended benefits. Contraband rates increased by 20% in that country after plain packaging was introduced. More recently, the Australian and French governments have both stated that plain packaging did not have the desired impact on smoking rates. As you can imagine, our retailers and distributors hear these stories and are naturally questioning whether we should expect to see any different outcome for plain packaging if implemented here in Canada.

I'll now turn it over to my colleague to conclude our remarks.

[Anne Kothawala, President, Convenience Distributors, Canadian Convenience Stores Association]

Thanks, Satinder.

Without adequate resources to deal with contraband tobacco, and without adequate time to prepare for the consequences of plain packaging, already stretched small businesses will take a hit once again. A poll of our retailers, which has been shared with Health Canada, found that over 88% of staff use brand logos to differentiate between tobacco products; 97% of retailers believe that they would need to increase staff training to ensure proper inventory control, stock management, and customer service if plain-packaging restrictions are imposed in Canada. Our stores and distributors are not asking for any compensation to assist with this transition, but we are asking for time to deal with what we know the fallout will be.

While it's not in the mandate of this committee to recommend, we believe the government should address the issue of contraband tobacco before moving ahead with Bill S-5. The Senate social affairs committee noted in its report that more should be done to fight the black market. Health Canada is contemplating studying the illegal market in its renewed tobacco control strategy, and we support that effort.

We need action. Illegal tobacco is unregulated, untested, and untaxed. Many have zero per cent health warnings. The existence of this significant market undercuts every single one of the government's tobacco control measures and goes against the government's stated rationale for plain packaging. Providing law enforcement with greater resources specifically allocated to eliminating contraband tobacco is one option. Funding a regular study to evaluate the state of contraband tobacco and regulatory impacts on illegal tobacco usage rates is another. It is worth noting that this is not something the Government of Canada currently tracks.

To support this committee in its ability to recommend amendments to the proposed legislation, we offer the following recommendations.

First, to help mitigate the impacts of plain packaging on our small businesses, allow for some type of visual differentiation on packages, perhaps on the cellophane overwrap, which has the added benefit of being removed as soon as the package is opened. This would help to distinguish legal from illegal products, particularly for law enforcement. The RCMP have raised concerns about contraband tobacco, particularly the links to organized crime. In a recent massive seizure of drugs, weapons, and contraband, their press release stated that the investigation demonstrated “the strong ties between contraband tobacco and the organized crime community.”

From a distributor perspective, this is crucial when it comes to shipments of cartons of cigarettes. Very rarely are cartons purchased in stores, as you can well appreciate because of the cost, but our distributors use the visual differentiation to pick and fill customer orders. We understand that the U.K. plain-packaging legislation focused specifically on products destined for retail, rather than on shipments. We believe Bill S-5 should include that same provision.

The committee may also want to consider extending the same logic to individual cigarettes. Some differentiation would likely assist law enforcement in telling legal and illegal products apart.

Our second recommendation would recognize that many of our retailers and distributors are small businesses that are already burdened by excessive red tape and regulation. Not allowing for a reasonable transition period for our stores and their distributors will hurt our already struggling channel. Should this legislation proceed, we implore you to consider amending Bill S-5 to include a separate adjustment and sell-through period for retailers and distributors, of between 12 and 18 months.

Our third and final recommendation deals with vaping. We support the government one hundred per cent in finally regulating this product. We find it extraordinarily unfair that our stores and distributors have followed Health Canada's directive to refrain from selling vape products with nicotine, while illegal vape shops have been allowed to pop up on street corners in virtually every community.

With growing acknowledgement of the benefits of vape products as an alternative to traditional cigarettes, we ask this committee to create a level playing field by allowing for limited, substantiated communication by convenience retailers about alternative nicotine-containing products, including electronic cigarettes and heated tobacco products.

We thank you very much for the opportunity to present today, and we would be happy to answer any questions you might have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Freeze the Industry.

Mr. Johnson.

[Akehil Johnson, Volunteer, Freeze the Industry]

Imagine if an airplane manufacturer sold airplanes that routinely fell out of the sky and killed 45,000 people per year. Surely that would not be normal. There would be an outcry and people would demand that steps be taken to protect the public. That would be normal.

That said, good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.

We are here together to talk about Bill S-5, the issue of plain and standardized packaging, and to introduce our group called Freeze the Industry.

That quote I read is one from my first Unfiltered Facts meeting. Unfiltered Facts is youth advocacy, anti-industry group in Hamilton, Ontario. I thought about it long and hard. This was a self-evident truth. I thought to myself this was crazy, because tobacco is the only product that, when used as intended, kills over half its users. It seemed to me that nobody cared that smoking kills or tobacco usage kills. We hear it all the time and we just brush it off. I couldn't just sit by while this was happening. I'm also a Seventh-day Adventist. Our church believes that good health is vital to good living. We must do all we can to ensure that we live the best and healthiest lives.

Thus, in that singular moment, I became passionate and energized. I was ready to advocate in my school, in my church, in my communities, in Ontario, across Canada, in North America, and in the world that the industry targets youth to be replacement customers. No longer could “Smoking kills” work. I had to get the message out there to resist big tobacco, revolt against its manipulative tactics, and unite in solidarity that we would never use its products, and advocate to other youth about this shady industry. That's how I became an advocate, and it has been nothing short of a powerful journey.

I've been able to witness first-hand how youth advocacy has helped shape and change society, whether it was in Hamilton where we informed and gained 5,000 petitions in support of smoke-free movies, or helped lower the smoking rate in high school to 6%. However, that's not all. Throughout my volunteering and time spent at Unfiltered Facts, I learned about a provincial-wide network of youth and young adults who were committed voluntarily to fighting the industry in Ontario. Thus I got involved with this network known as Freeze the Industry.

It was through Freeze the Industry that I saw youth become informed and empowered. I saw youth take an interest in the Canadian political and democratic process. I've had the joy of being a youth advocate and seeing youth advocacy result in laws passed and new policies implemented. Some of these include power walls; the banning of flavouring in tobacco; the regulation of electronic cigarettes; the banning of smoking in parks and on patios in Ontario; the divestment from big tobacco by the University of Toronto; regulations on hookah and shisha use; and recently McMaster University, a university in Hamilton, going tobacco-free.

I've seen so much accomplished, but I know there's a lot more to get done, whether it's tighter regulations on flavours in tobacco, a moratorium on new products, or the implementation of plain and standardized packaging, which is why we are here today.

The fact remains that cigarette packaging is a mini-billboard. It's flashy, it's bright, it's colourful and attractive. We want people to understand that items that look friendly should not be deadly to your health. Friendly should not be deadly. You would not advertise rat poison or bleach the same way you advertise sugar or apple juice.

Therefore, in addition to countless other youth from across Ontario and across this nation, we support the passage of this legislation and will continue to advocate in favour of it, and we will strive to inform the public of the importance and necessity of this legislation.

Thank you.

[Anabel Bergeron, Volunteer, Freeze the Industry]

Thank you.

I come here wearing many hats. I am a science student, a volunteer, a sister, a daughter, and a community leader. As a master's student conducting research on innovative cancer therapies here in the nation's capital, I have come to appreciate the repercussions of tobacco products on our economy, health care, and families. As you perhaps already know, treatments of tobacco-related conditions cost Canadians an estimated $6.5 billion in direct health care costs and tobacco-related conditions kill 100 Canadians every day. Smoking remains the foremost cause of premature death, and we must act.

I can testify first-hand that research innovates at a rapid rate, and progress in the field of medicine has significantly improved the prognosis of various diseases and continues to improve the quality of life of many patients. However, we must also acknowledge the power of education and prevention. Plain and standardized packaging elevates the impact of health warnings and prevents the use of deceiving designs.

As a volunteer in my community, I know youth have opinions on public heath issues, and they deserve to have their voices heard. As an ambassador with Freeze the Industry, I have witnessed the support of younger generations for plain and standardized packaging. Last November, approximately 100 youths and young adults expressed their support for plain and standardized packaging at our Freeze the Industry “Make 'Em Plain” rally on the Hill.

We understand the dangers of smoking and recognize that the tobacco industry employs various strategies to deceive. We know that plain and standardized packaging will spread this knowledge by highlighting the health warnings, and will prevent new smokers from falling into the tobacco industry's manipulative traps.

It is with these many hats on today that I support the proposed amendments to Bill S-5 for standardized, plain packaging.

I am hopeful that, together, we will be able to provide for a better future for current and future generations of Canadians.

[Maxime Le, Volunteer, Freeze the Industry]

Back when I was in high school there was a smokers' pit outside every morning, at lunch, and after class. Nowadays when I'm not busy studying or conducting research on population health, serving as a patient adviser to the Ottawa Hospital, or advocating for tobacco endgame measures with Freeze the Industry, I take my little brother to this very same school and see that without fail the smokers' pit endures. Masked behind plumes of cigarette smoke, I can see some new faces from back when I was just a youth, but nonetheless the fact remains that it is the young, the vulnerable, and those who just want to fit in that populate this pocket of poison. I asked my little brother if he knew who they were, and his answer was, “It's all the cool kids who go there.”

When I was younger, my mother smoked. Fortunately, she quit, but I still had secondhand smoke from tobacco products in my lungs at times. She got hooked on cigarettes because of her environment and living situation, but it was not her fault since everyone around her smoked. It was considered normal; everyone smoked.

Through my studies, I have learned that, for various reasons, francophones have poorer health than other non-marginalized communities. This is easier to understand considering that 35% of francophones in Canada are smokers.

Young people can be affected by tobacco in many ways—not just by smoking it and poisoning their body, but also by being robbed of the lives of the loved ones they care about. This summer I was in an accident and required surgery. When I was transferred to my overnight bed, a fellow patient who required surgery as well became my roommate. When prepping the patient for anaesthesia, one of the staff members asked whether or not the individual smoked. The answer was yes, and because of this the staff member said that smoking could complicate the procedure. The little girl who was there started to cry and become worried. Can you imagine how she would have felt if her parent died because of that?

For me, advocating for and supporting Bill S-5 with Freeze the Industry means saving my little brother from the influence of tobacco packaging.

The coming into force of Bill S-5 will help people of my generation be healthier parents and have healthier children, while reducing the health inequalities in marginalized communities.

It's about making sure the air we breathe is a little cleaner for everyone, but also for young people in particular who are tired of having seconds, minutes, or years of their lives taken away by tobacco-related death.

Freeze the Industry allows me to be this advocate and to be the role model I want my brother to have. We urge this committee to take our perspective seriously and to follow through with our recommendations to implement plain and standardized packaging so that every Canadian from sea to sea to sea is happier, more productive, and can lead a healthier life.

We thank you for your time today and this opportunity, and we look forward to our discussions later on.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we have an invisible witness by teleconference, Dr. Sinclair Davidson, from Melbourne, Australia.

Are you with us, Dr. Davidson?

[Prof. Sinclair Davidson]

Yes, I am.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We've never had an invisible witness before, but we have a technology issue, I guess.

Welcome. We look forward to your opening statement.

[Prof. Sinclair Davidson]

Thank you so much for inviting me to speak.

I'm a professor of economics at an Australian public university. I'm also associated with some free market think tanks, the Institute of Public Affairs and the Australian Taxpayers' Alliance.

As part of my overall research during my career, I have looked at various government policies, ranging from things such as insider trading, native title, and petrol pricing, and all sorts things along those lines. One of the public policies I have looked at is the plain-packaging policy that was introduced in Australia in December 2012.

I think we can all agree that smoking kills and that the rate of smoking in our society is probably a lot higher than what is socially desirable. The real question is what we ought to do about the fact that people choose to smoke. What I'm going to argue today is that if the Canadian government wishes to lower smoking rates they need to do the hard policy work on issues such as excise pricing, public education and information, and the provisional substitutes to smoking. Particularly, my argument is you should focus on actual results, not virtue signalling, and you should stay away from utopian public policy-making. The idea under utopian public policy-making is that there are free lunches, that people would be different, and that things could change for the better if only we all tried and worked harder.

It turns out that the Australian policy of plain-packaging failed. You don't have to believe me on this point. If we have a look at the latest Australian national drug strategy survey results, the decline in smoking prevalence in Australia stalled after the introduction of the plain-packaging policies. The government waste-water intelligence survey found that the amount of nicotine in Australian waste water actually increased during that time. The size of the contraband market has increased dramatically over time. The bottom line is that a policy experiment was attempted. The notion that by taking away the branding of packets you could emphasize the graphic health warnings was an experiment that was probably well worth trying. The Australian government did this experiment. They conducted a tracking survey to see how it would work. The fact of the matter is that the experiment failed. It turns out that taking away branding adds costs to the economy, which previous speakers have spoken about, but does not actually reduce the prevalence and instances of smoking. In fact, today in Australia there are more people smoking than there were five years ago when they introduced the policy.

What some of my colleagues and I have done is have a look at the government's own survey results, taking their own data and using their own techniques. What we found is that the graphic health warnings, as a form of public education, do have an effect on reducing smoking. What we also found, however, is that the size of that effect actually declined after the introduction of plain packaging. Graphic health warnings in Australia were introduced in 2006. You can see clearly that they do have an impact on people's smoking behaviour, but that taking away the branding, the notion that people would be more aware of the graphic health warnings if we took away the branding, did not work. There is no evidence, even in the government's own data, to suggest that a lack of branding reduces smoking. The other thing is, when you have a look at the packets themselves, the government's own research found that the appeal variables of the packets did not really have a big impact on the intention to quit and quitting behaviour.

Yes, it was probably a good idea that should have been tried. I can't say that it has succeeded, but more importantly, given that it can be very difficult for a government not to go ahead and do something along these lines, I would like to make some recommendations. First, if the Canadian government does go ahead with the S-5 bill, it should introduce a sunset clause so that after a period of five or ten years, say, the legislation could be reviewed and renewed if it has been successful. Second, a formal tracking study should be commissioned to measure the success or failure of the policy, and this tracking study should include a full assessment of the health, economic, and social costs associated with the policy, especially the impact on small business, on convenient stores, and on insurance costs, because we know crime will increase. Third, the tracking study should be conducted in an open and transparent manner by people who are not intimately associated with the policy themselves. Fourth, formal and transparent cost-benefit analysis should be conducted by credible external individuals. Fifth, all of this data should be made available on the Health Canada website for external verification and analysis.

I'd be happy to answer questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much for your presentation.

I'm sorry about the problem with our technology, but you've certainly made your message very clear. We appreciate it a lot.

We'll now go to our question period, and we'll have seven-minute questions.

Dr. Eyolfson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for coming.

Mr. Luongo, you talked about IQOS. You described it as a less harmful alternative to the actual combustion of cigarettes. Is that correct?

[Peter Luongo]

Yes.

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

What research is that based on, that this is less harmful?

[Peter Luongo]

It's based on a wide body of research that's looking at a number of things.

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

What research is that? Is this industry-sponsored research? Is it independent, peer-reviewed scientific research? Who's doing this research?

[Peter Luongo]

It's a combination of industry-sponsored research. We, obviously, pay for a large portion of the research that's done over here. It is also being independently verified by numerous people around the world, and this is published—

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

Who are these numerous people—universities, research institutes? Can you supply some references to research that is not private industry-sponsored research, to peer-reviewed scientific research supporting this?

[Peter Luongo]

Absolutely. I think the most recent would have been by Public Health England, which has said that all of the evidence suggests there is a reduction in harm associated with these products.

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

Public Health England. All right. When was this published?