There are two amendments here—NDP-2 and NDP-3. Just so that my colleagues can follow this, they're split over two clauses. Essentially the purpose of both together is to provide regulatory authority to the ministry to require health warnings on cigarettes and other tobacco products. Bill S-5 already provides this authority for vaping products, so already the bill says you can put health warnings directly on a vaping product. I think the reasoning applies with equal force to providing the regulatory authority to do so for tobacco products. Certainly the regulatory authority for warnings should not be less on tobacco products than it is on vaping products.
Among the benefits of this amendment is that it would respond to concerns regarding contraband. It would provide a marking, thus identifying product intended for legitimate sale in Canada. This approach is referenced in international guidelines under the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. The proposed amendment also arose from testimony from the Canadian Cancer Society and the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control.
In my preparation for these hearings, from the witnesses, and in a lot of information I've received from people working on tobacco control in this country, I heard that it's about making sure smokers can actually see the warnings in a prominent place. That's very critical to bringing the message home to smokers that we want to bring home to them. That's why the flip packages and the ability to pull out a warning on a piece of paper and throw it away are considered undesirable. We want to make sure people can see it.
I want to be clear: this doesn't say that the warnings have to be on tobacco products, but it provides regulatory authority to do so. I personally think that having a warning on the tobacco product itself, which I know is an innovation, is something that would increase the effectiveness of health warnings, and perhaps even bring information to the smoker. It may not necessarily be a negative warning, although it probably would be—a warning like “This product contains carcinogens” right on the cigarette. It could also have positive messages, perhaps encouraging the use of vaping products as a harm reduction measure as well.