Evidence of meeting #93 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nicotine.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Consumers' Association of Canada
Probably what's happened in Australia and France is, though, is it not?
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
We heard much testimony to the effect that plain packaging actually works. We have heard somewhat selective representations, as I think Dr. Strang mentioned, that seem to be oriented in one direction or another. The broad base of evidence seems to be that plain packaging does have an effect.
I guess what you're telling me is that you don't actually have evidence yourself upon which you base this testimony.
President, Consumers' Association of Canada
No, we looked at other evidence, and the polling. The polling I think is very direct and very useful, but no, as far as what you're talking about is concerned, we'd be looking at what we see, our view of what's happening in France and Australia.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
If I were one of your members and you asked me whether I thought counterfeiting was going to be a problem, I might say yes. I don't know, and I haven't necessarily examined all the evidence or looked at the studies.
It seems to me the validity of your process is in question. I'm wondering why you think in particular that plain packaging will lead to more counterfeiting, given that legal products will have a difficult-to-counterfeit tax stamp?
President, Consumers' Association of Canada
I think it's just a matter of common sense. I think there are a lot of potential counterfeiters out there, not only with the product of tobacco, but with other things like handbags. You name it; these days, it's out there.
I think it's a matter of how you view the evidence, I suppose. Obviously, you and I disagree on that.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Your point about handbags is well taken. In fact, it suggests to me that handbags, for example, and many other products are counterfeited despite the fact that they're not simple and they're not very easy to counterfeit. To produce a package that looks like an existing colourful, official package is really not a big deal for an accomplished counterfeiter, so I would suggest to you that the main focus here on controlling counterfeiting is not whether the packaging is plain or not, but whether or not it has a valid excise stamp. Would you like to comment on that?
President, Consumers' Association of Canada
I think valid excise stamps are pretty easy to copy, aren't they? I've seen quite a few.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
They're designed to be hard to copy, but I guess if you can—
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Okay.
That completes our seven-minute rounds. We have a problem with our telecommunications, so we are going to try to hook up by telephone. We will not have the video, but we're going to try to hook up the telephone if we can.
The Clerk of the Committee Ms. Marie-Hélène Sauvé
Perhaps just to specify, we'll have Dr. Selby by video conference and Dr. Strang by phone.
Professor, University of Toronto, Director of Medical Education, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, As an Individual
Can you hear me?
Professor, University of Toronto, Director of Medical Education, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, As an Individual
It's Dr. Selby. I can hear everything. I guess you can hear me.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
All right, we're going to get you back on video conference. I apologize for this technical problem. We're going to have Dr. Strang just by phone, but it will take a few more minutes.
In the meantime, we're going to continue on now with five-minute questions, starting with Ms. Gladu.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Mr. Chair, may I have a point of order?
When Mr. Strang does come back, I would like to get him to finish his answer to the question I asked in my time, if I could.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I want to talk a little bit about the question of whether or not you should be able to advertise reduced harm or not. We feel that some of the vaping products and some of the heated nicotine products apparently are further along the risk continuum, and so they really do less harm.
Should we be able to advertise reduced harm in order to get people off existing smoking and onto those products? If so, who should be able to advertise? Should it be Health Canada? I would be interested to hear from Ms. Doucas and Mr. Cran on this point.
Co-Director and Spokesperson, Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac
Thank you for that question.
Absolutely, I think it should be Health Canada. We have a history in tobacco products of false promises regarding reduced harms for certain products that just didn't pan out, to a huge cost to smokers, first and foremost, and to society. I think information needs to come from a credible authority.
Certainly manufacturers can influence through their studies and so on, but I think that we do need to have third party validation and that the information should be coming from Health Canada.
Conservative
President, Consumers' Association of Canada
My organization regularly advertises on various set-ups, and I think that we would definitely like to have our say, if we had a say, and be able to freely advertise on whatever we saw fit. I think that's very important for choice and for consumer input.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Very good.
Dr. Selby, I want to talk about teens trying vaping and then getting converted to smoking cigarettes.
We heard some statistics in earlier testimony that almost a third of teens had tried vaping and that quite a number of them who tried vaping converted to cigarette smoking.
Do you have any data on that?
Professor, University of Toronto, Director of Medical Education, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, As an Individual
I don't have personal data that I've collected, but those are association studies at large population levels that look at people at baseline one, and then look at people at baseline two, at a follow-up time period.
There is this association, but what those studies cannot tell us is whether this is something along the way, such that somebody was basically experimenting with a lot of things and would have experimented with it no matter what. You cannot say that it's causing them to then go on to the next drug.
There has been a big debate in the field, whether it's tobacco or cannabis, about this idea of gateway drugs. Essentially, yes, I think we do see the association that occurs, but given the way the data is collected, we cannot yet say that because people tried it, it caused them to go on to become tobacco users.
I think that in general it has to do with availability, so if there were no cigarettes on the market, then maybe they would remain with vaping. We've seen that in many cases people who have used it then go on to stop and don't go back.
I think the data is not 100% clear. We can see an association, but is there causation? I'd be very cautious if anybody says that being exposed to vaping products causes youth to become smokers.