Health Committee on Feb. 28th, 2018

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Go ahead, Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Thank you very much.

I'll be supporting this motion and the accompanying one that comes out in clause 22 that Mr. Davies mentioned, for very much the same reasons that Mr. Davies has raised. In fact, we were bringing this motion forward as well. He was in first, so we're happy to support the NDP.

On this particular motion, though, I do want to recognize the contribution that the Canadian Cancer Society has made. They've been incredibly thorough in working through this legislation, working with the department, and coming to the committee and making presentations. I think they've been present at every single one of our meetings, and I know this is one of the areas where they were quite passionate about seeing change. I think at times we have to recognize the stakeholders and those who are working with the committee to ensure the health of Canadians, and I think the Canadian Cancer Society is an exemplar of that kind of work.

I support the motion and send a big thank you to the Canadian Cancer Society for bringing this to our attention.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Thank you for the acknowledgement.

If this NDP amendment passes, Liberal-1 will not take place.

Mr. Lobb, wonders never cease! We're going to see, I suspect, an opposition motion pass here.

(Amendment agreed to)

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

For the record, Mr. Chair, I'm as surprised as anybody.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

As I say, you never know.

I'm going to eliminate Liberal-1, because that has been taken care of.

Now we have CPC-4.

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

One of the concerns expressed by the workers in the tobacco industry is that they produce cigarettes for sale in Canada but they also produce quite a proportion for export. Obviously if they're competing in the U.S. market, which is a market that doesn't have plain packaging yet, they would like to be free to comply to the laws and regulations of whatever country they're shipping into. I didn't see that specifically called out in the legislation, so I wanted a clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is there any debate?

Ms. Sidhu.

[Sonia Sidhu, Liberal, Brampton South, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to oppose this amendment.

Bill S-5 amends the Tobacco Act to clarify that tobacco products that manufacturers sell for export are included in the scope of the act. Tobacco regulation [Inaudible] 12% to the legislation can be drafted to exclude products for export from the scope of their application if needed. For example, labelling regulations for tobacco products that require the display of a graphic health warning are not required for manufactured products for export. Foreign jurisdictions can apply their own labelling requirements to products sold within the market. That's why I'm opposing this amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Finley.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

If this is to be explicit in regulation, we haven't received assurances of that.

What we're talking about here is the number of.... Manufacturers have indicated to us that hundreds and hundreds of jobs will be leaving this country if that exemption for export is not included, because a vast percentage of the export business is produced in this country not just for the U.S. but for Europe and indeed around the world. Those jobs would be leaving this country permanently if these people were not allowed to produce what was required in those other countries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Is there further comment?

(Amendment negatived)

Shall clause 20 carry as amended by the NDP amendment?

(Clause 20 as amended agreed to)

(Clause 21 agreed to)

(On clause 22)

We have another NDP amendment here.

Go ahead, Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Mr. Chair, this is just the corresponding amendment to the one that just passed. It completes the amendment to give the regulatory authority to put health warnings on tobacco products.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

This is identical to LIB-2, by the looks of things. Once this one is voted on, LIB-2 cannot be moved—if it's passed.

Is there any discussion?

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

We'll be supporting the motion, as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Okay.

(Amendment agreed to)

That eliminates LIB-2. Is that correct? Okay.

(Clause 22 as amended agreed to)

(On clause 23)

Now we go to clause 23, CPC-5.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

The purpose of this amendment is to get past the limitations that are in the original bill, which would prohibit advertising of products that are deemed by Health Canada to be less harmful than cigarettes. That advertising, then, would—I presume—include zero advertising, not just billboards and such but also promotional materials and informative materials, because those are considered part of advertising, to doctors, smoking cessation clinics, and nurse practitioners so that these people could inform their patients, who are trying to find healthier ways to deal with a nicotine addiction, that these products indeed exist. We want to make sure we're helping Canadians who are trying to quit, whereas these people would not be made aware of these products legally, as the bill is originally written.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Are there any other discussions?

Mr. Ayoub.

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

I want to make sure I understand correctly.

The intent is to ensure that Canadians understand that this product is not good for their health. Is that what you are proposing to add?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

No, I was trying to say that as the bill was written, manufacturers of products that would be deemed lesser harm than cigarettes would not be allowed to advertise that fact to people like doctors and nurse practitioners in smoking cessation clinics, nor would those people, even if they were made aware of the products, be allowed to promote those to people who wanted to quit smoking or find a reduced harm product.

It's kind of hard for a doctor who doesn't know about a product to be able to recommend it, but even as the bill is originally written, the interpretation has been that even if they did know about it, they wouldn't be able to tell patients and I think that's contrary to the objective of this bill, which is to reduce harm.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies is next.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

I notice that this enemic also uses the term “heat sticks”. I have to say I'm not clear on what the evidence was about the relative health advantages or impacts of heat sticks were. This says that a regular patient using a tobacco product to inform that patient of the lesser health hazards and health effects of vaping products in heat sticks.

I don't know if the ministerial staff has any information to give us on “heat sticks”. I'm still not 100% clear that they're the same or different than vaping products, but for some reason I've formed the impression that “heat sticks” are a different product and so I'm not sure that I know that heat sticks have reduced health hazards than vaping products. I don't know if there's any information that could be provided by the ministry on that?

[James Van Loon]

Sure thing. When we look at vaping products where we're confidently saying these products are less harmful than cigarettes, that's based on an emerging global consensus of science. The most recent U.S. National Academy of Sciences paper on this was an overview of 800 peer-reviewed scientific journals.

On the other hand, testimony given here a couple of weeks ago by Philip Morris pointed at a Public Health England report that said that heated tobacco products might also be less harmful. That report looked at 20 studies, of which 12 were industry, and its number one recommendation was that we need more independent study.

Based on that, Health Canada is not of the view today that we can say that these things are less harmful.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Gladu.

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

In light of Mr. Davies' comments, I would move a subamendment to strike “and heat sticks”, because I see there is resistance to having that included in the bill.

Then I would argue in favour of this amendment, because we did have quite an expert testimony from a doctor who was working in a smoking cessation clinic who is recommending vaping products, which is really currently not allowed under the legislation. We really do want to have this in place so that doctors can recommend more healthy, or less harmful, solutions to their patients.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Your amendment is just to eliminate the three words “and heat sticks”?