Good evening. My name is Sherwin Edwards. I want to thank you first and foremost for your time in allowing me a moment to bear witness. I am the President of Vap Select Inc. based in Mirabel, Quebec. Vap Select is a proudly owned and operated Canadian company, which was created in 2011 with the consumer in mind. We produce affordable, innovative vaping products for consumers, giving them an alternative to cigarettes. All Vap Select products are manufactured in GMP facilities and adhere to strict global certifications. To meet the growing consumer demand for these products, we recently expanded to a 6,500-square-foot facility.
However, that is only part of the reason why I am here today. I am also the sponsor of a 10,000-plus signature petition that has been tabled in the House of Commons on Bill S-5, January 30, 2018. That petition calls on the government to halt and review Bill S-5, and to create a fair and logical category for vape products clearly setting them apart from tobacco.
Let me start on that point. It should be obvious to anyone that vaping products and tobacco products are two completely different things and do not belong in the same piece of legislation. You don't put alcohol and soft drinks in the same legislation because you drink both of them. Therefore, you shouldn't put vaping products and cigarettes in the same category because both are inhaled.
Vaping products like e-cigarettes are a much safer alternative to tobacco for those people unwilling or unable to quit smoking. They provide the nicotine that smokers crave without the harmful effects of combustion. That's an important point. Nicotine on its own is no more harmful than caffeine, and nicotine occurs naturally in many products that we all consume daily. It's the combustion that causes the negative health effects of smoking, not the nicotine.
That is why esteemed medical and scientific bodies like Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians have said that e-cigarettes are at least 95% less harmful than smoking.
Last week, Public Health England came out with an updated report on e-cigarettes, and let me quote directly from that organization's press release on the main findings:
vaping poses only a small fraction of the risks of smoking and switching completely from smoking to vaping conveys substantial health benefits
e-cigarettes could be contributing to at least 20,000 successful new quits per year and [probably] more
e-cigarette use is associated with improved quit success rates over the last year and an accelerated drop in smoking rates across the country
many thousands of smokers incorrectly believe that vaping is as harmful as smoking; around 40% of smokers have not even tried an e-cigarette
there is much public misunderstanding about nicotine (less than 10% of adults understand that most of the harms to health from smoking are not caused by nicotine)
the use of e-cigarettes in the [United Kingdom] has plateaued over the last few years at just under 3 million
the evidence does not support the concern that e-cigarettes are a [gateway] into smoking among young people (youth smoking rates in the UK continue to decline, regular [e-cigarette] use is...almost entirely confined to those who have [previously smoked cigarettes])
I want to pick up on the fourth and fifth points that I cited from the Public Health England report, both of which deal with public misunderstandings regarding the risks of vaping and nicotine. I put the blame for this squarely on the shoulders of governments and health groups, some of which, deliberately or not, have misled Canadians about the risks of vaping products. Those who continue to do so deserve public shaming for scaring people away from these devices, which usually means they continue smoking, which is more harmful to their health.
I ask the committee a question. From whom would you rather get advice from vaping products such as e-cigarettes, organizations like Public Health England and the Royal College of Physicians, or high-paid lawyers lobbying for tobacco groups? For me, when I want medical advice, I go to a doctor, not a lawyer.
You may have seen or heard that a public debate on vaping products was recently held here in Ottawa during National Non-Smoking Week. I was there. Dr. Ostiguy, who you heard from on Monday was there, as was the University of Ottawa's David Sweanor and a representative from the Tobacco Harm Reduction Association of Canada.
We had a great discussion on the value of vaping products for reducing tobacco use, but completely absent from the discussion was Health Canada, or any of those so-called health groups who are misleading the public about the risks of these products. None of the anti-vaping products groups or health advocates accepted the invitation to debate their position in public, but I see a couple of them appeared before your committee on Monday. They won't shy away from that.
These groups know their position is indefensible, which is why they refuse to debate people like myself, or Dr. Ostiguy or Dr. Sweanor, in public. If this committee wants Canadians to stop smoking cigarettes, as does the health minister and likely all Canadian citizens, then stop listening to the moralist and public health community who are deliberately misleading Canadians about the risks of vaping products. With that in mind I have two recommendations for the committee.
First, the vaping provisions of Bill S-5 should be stripped out entirely and Health Canada told to go back to the drawing board to come up with legislation that treats these products as completely separate from tobacco. Health Canada didn't throw marijuana, which when consumed via the combustible process actually has higher levels of tar content than cigarettes do, into the Tobacco Act, so why are you letting them put vaping products in there? Tobacco products and vaping products are completely separate, different products that require their own distinctive legislative framework.
Second, whether in a new bill, or if Bill S-5 is passed, smokers need to be properly informed about the relative health risk of tobacco products versus vaping products. Sweden has virtually eliminated tobacco-related cancer because smokers switched to non-combustible products. The U.K., which embraced the principles of harm reduction, has also seen smoking rates and smoking-related illness drop to an all-time low, hence, also reducing the burdens and the cost on their health system overall. There's enormous public health potential if Canadian smokers are well-informed and given choices to switch as well, but they will only do so if they know about vaping products such as e-cigarettes and understand the relative risk being greatly lesser than smoking tobacco. I have serious concerns about the constraints in Bill S-5 that would prevent the vaping industry from communicating and sharing this information with smokers.
Finally, I want to make one more point about this whole debate and particularly the anti-smoking groups who continue to spread information about e-cigarettes and suggest that there are better ways of quitting such as cold turkey, or using the patch, or the gum, or something else. The people making those claims are not smokers and, quite frankly, I would encourage them to butt out. Some smokers do succeed in quitting through some of these methods I just mentioned, but for others it is a monumental struggle, in some cases impossible. For those people and the people who want to continue to use nicotine, vaping products are a lifeline. For governments to put unnecessary restrictions on these products and restrict the ability of those offering these products is unjust, and some experts like David Sweanor from the University of Ottawa will tell you it is even unconstitutional. I am of that opinion also and so are the 10,251 Canadians from coast to coast who signed petition E-1237 tabled in the House of Commons on January 30. That is another reason why you have to hit the pause button on this bill and work to get it right. Vaping is not smoking. E-liquids are not tobacco.
As you can probably tell I'm very passionate about this subject. I thank you for listening and I look forward to your questions.