Health Committee on Feb. 14th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much. I'm just at the beginning of the learning curve on your product. I think many of us are like that, so we appreciate your contribution to this. I think we're going to have limit the first round of questions to four minutes starting with Mr. Ayoub.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I have already met you in other circumstances, I will get straight to the point.

First of all, I want to say that I am happy to see that the industry that you represent, or your association, takes part in a positive way to the development of the Bill.

You were here when we asked questions to the Minister earlier. We're discussing Bill S-5. What concerns you when it comes to the health of young people? I didn’t hear you talk about it. You represent an industry and you mostly talk about the business side of things.

Obviously, health is mostly a ministerial responsibility, but we must get information and educate ourselves on the measures to take to improve the health of Canadians and to convince ourselves of the effectiveness of these measures. As Mr. Chair mentioned, we’ve only just begun to collect information on that topic.

I’ve already taken a minute for my introduction.

Mr. Kealey, you may answer first, if you wish.

[Marc Kealey]

Do you want to take that, Boris?

[Boris Giller, Member, Canadian Vaping Association]

Thank you very much for the question. It is a very important question.

Obviously, at the Canadian Vaping Association, we take youth vaping very seriously, and we absolutely do not want any youth addicted to nicotine. Despite the relative reduced risk, it is still an addictive substance, so we at the Canadian Vaping Association have been taking initiatives. Prior to it becoming law, we have been distributing “19-plus” signs to our members and mandating that in our bylaws. Our membership chair has negotiated a deal with the credit card companies to mandate ID verification at the point of sale, and at this point I believe this is a very impactful initiative that is going to heavily limit young people's access to vaping products.

That, I believe, is not enough. I do support some of the suggestions and recommendations to ban lifestyle advertisements, and a lot could be learned from the alcohol laws, because it is a dangerous addictive substance that's restricted for young people, and that problem has been tackled. One additional suggestion would be to limit the time during which such advertisements could be aired to later in the day. We do believe that a lot stronger co-operation between the government and our industry is required regarding the accreditation and certification program, in order to enforce these things and go further, even into the realm of educating young people.

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

Mr. Edwards.

[Sherwin Edwards]

If you've been following closely, you'll know that the vaping industry has done a relatively good job of self-regulating and being very responsible. We restrict sales to adults. I know that I do in my outlet, and I know that my retailers also do. I'm not there to oversee them on a regular basis, but there are guidelines put in place. We do not want to see our children get hooked on nicotine. That's for sure. I'm in agreement with, as Boris said, some of the restrictions on lifestyle advertisements. There should be certain guidelines within labelling. Speaking for my company, we have been very responsible in that area. We do not use unicorns and cartoonish types of images on our products. I wouldn't sleep well at night if I did that.

The industry itself has done a pretty good job of self-regulating. Governance is needed. Oversight is needed, and it's welcomed, and we would like to be part of an open communication discussion with governments when regulations are going to be determined, because right now, things are scripted so broadly that nothing is clear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you very much.

Now we go to Ms. Gladu.

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

Thank you to the witnesses.

The first question I have is about the nicotine e-liquids.

Mr. Edwards, I think you said that they don't come from tobacco. What's the source of the nicotine then?

[Sherwin Edwards]

The tobacco leaf is actually the plant that contains the highest content of nicotine, and therefore it's the most commercially viable for extraction, but you can also find nicotine in nightshade plants such as green peppers, tomatoes, and cauliflower. There's a variety of nightshade plants that actually carry—

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

So some of the nicotine in the e-liquids is extracted from tobacco?

[Sherwin Edwards]

The nicotine that is used in e-liquid is a tobacco, actually, for the sole reason that it is more commercially viable to extract from that particular plant, but that being said—

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

That's fine. My next question has to do with the actual devices.

This legislation leaves all the detail about the device to the regulations. I know early models had batteries, and there were some safety incidents related to that. Do you have any advice about what actually should go into those regulations in order to make sure that the products are safe for use?

[Boris Giller]

I think the nature of the industry is such that the products are developing faster than those in the cellphone industry are. In order to catch up with that, we need a mechanism that is a layer on top of regulation and legislation. That's why we bring up the accreditation program, because if it is run by industry members, we can catch those things early on. Another initiative we have been running at the CVA is Battery Safety Week, which is aimed at educating retailers and consumers, through those retailers, about the importance of battery safety.

We believe it is crucial to add a third layer to the current protections in place.

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

What amendments would you like to see specifically to S-5?

I'll go to both of you.

[Sherwin Edwards]

I've looked at the bill several times. It is so layered. As far as I'm concerned, there is an array of amendments I would like to see happen. There are amendments that should happen from a consumer standpoint and also from a manufacturing standpoint. If I want to answer from a manufacturing standpoint, one of them is the fact that we will be mandated to submit our private recipes to Health Canada in detail, and therefore they would become public knowledge and available through the Access to Information Act. Mr. Christie makes great cookies, but he doesn't tell you precisely what his ingredients are to get the result.

[Marc Kealey]

I think your question is very interesting.

We presented to the Senate committee. We put some amendments on the table and we're satisfied with what happened from that perspective, for the most part. We also agree that there will be some opportunity under regulation to change and to do things that we think would benefit the industry.

However, I think that one of the things I would really like this committee to consider is this whole idea of the notion of a certification program and to make it mandatory. We are holding on to a cliff's edge with every single province. It's been a mind-numbing siege to deal with this country on this issue because we not only have to go through the provinces but we've been waiting for this to happen. If this committee were really going to be responsible—and I can sense that you are—then you would make a certification program mandatory for everybody who is in this industry. That makes it viable.

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

Do you mean a certification program run by Health Canada or run by your industry?

[Marc Kealey]

I wouldn't say by the industry. I think you want to have qualified career colleges to be delivering that kind of service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thanks very much.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you for being with us.

I want to try to get as much information as we can about vaping. When someone is vaping nicotine, what other chemicals or substances are being ingested besides nicotine? Are there any?

[Marc Kealey]

There are four ingredients in a vape: propylene glycol, vegetable glycerin, flavours, and nicotine if they want it. When you look at that and compare that against cigarettes—I see this all the time, being compared to cigarettes—there are 1,400 chemicals in a cigarette.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'll stop you there, because I'm not trying to compare to anything. I'm trying to isolate purely what the products of vaping are. You've listed the ingredients, but how many chemicals are being ingested? Are you saying there are only four chemicals that are being ingested?

[Marc Kealey]

Propylene glycol is generally accepted as safe. Vegetable glycerin is generally accepted—

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I'm not asking you if it's safe. I want you to list for me how many chemicals I am ingesting when I vape one of your products.

[Marc Kealey]

I could get specific, Mr. Davies, about the chemicals that are in a flavour. I think I know where you're going with your question, but we have been very clear that there are four ingredients in a vape versus what you would get in a cigarette. If we want to compare this to something that's less harmful, I think that we have to put that out on the table.