Evidence of meeting #94 for Health in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

James Van Loon  Director General, Tobacco Control Directorate, Department of Health
Anne-Marie LeBel  Legal Counsel, Department of Health
Denis Choinière  Director, Tobacco Products Regulatory Office, Department of Health
Olivier Champagne  Legislative Clerk, House of Commons

5:05 p.m.

Conservative

Ben Lobb Conservative Huron—Bruce, ON

I wonder if our officials could tell us what.... Again, I guess, your one comment was that there hasn't been enough research, but there has been some research done on the impacts of heat sticks and the different products after they're combusted or whatever you want to call it. If you're going to rank them, obviously cigarettes would be the most potent or toxic in terms of toxins that come out of them, but where would a marijuana joint rank between a heat stick...? Is a heat stick worse? Or is the joint worse?

5:10 p.m.

Director General, Tobacco Control Directorate, Department of Health

James Van Loon

I wouldn't have the information to answer that question. It is certainly the case that combustible marijuana, when consumed by smoking, has many of the kinds of dangerous constituents that you see in tobacco smoke, but I couldn't answer the question how it benchmarks against heat sticks or other heated tobacco products.

As I said, we're not confident in the information that we have to date.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Mr. Davies.

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

I don't know that we want to spend too much time comparing this, because we really didn't have evidence before this committee about that. I think it's an interesting question that Mr. Lobb is asking, but I don't think we have the evidence.

I would point out a couple of things. Many of the provisions in the act before us I think are replicated in Bill C-45. I know that many of the sections on promotion and advertising and restricting lifestyle advertising, etc., are similar, if not identical. I have seen a fairly common approach to this legislation in seeking to keep these products out of the hands of children, to discourage the use of the products, and to not have lifestyle advertising.

One other additional factor I would mention is that despite my attempts to have edible cannabis products and concentrates legalized, we had a bit of a compromise on that and they will be legalized within one year of Bill C-45 becoming law. My point is that, once that happens, one difference between cannabis and tobacco is that I'm not sure there are any edible tobacco products, but there certainly are edible cannabis products.

I know that many people prefer edible cannabis products. One of the reasons why I wanted to see edibles and concentrates legalized quicker was for the very reason Mr. Van Loon just mentioned. The least safe method of ingesting cannabis is by smoking it, yet ironically that's what this government preferred to do first, whereas I know that a lot of cannabis users would prefer to ingest cannabis in edible or vaping form, which is less harmful. I do think that's one difference between the products.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Thanks very much. I'm going to call for a vote now on CPC-8.

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

We now have CPC-9.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Notwithstanding that I've heard the discussion about heat sticks—so I won't go there—I think we need to have good science to support the harm reductions that come from all of these different products as they come forward. Once that information is available, I really think the committee should consider that people need to be educated about it. I worry that if we're restricting the advertising too much, you won't be able to actually impart information to the adults who you want to inform so they can get off smoking.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Ms. Sidhu.

Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON

The same as before, Mr. Chair, I want to oppose this amendment because there is not enough evidence. When there's not enough evidence, we cannot reach a decision.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

All those in favour of CPC-9?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Will clause 29 carry?

(Clause 29 agreed to)

(Clauses 30 and 31 agreed to)

(On clause 32)

On clause 32, we have amendment Liberal-3.

Ms. Sidhu.

Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON

Mr. Chair, I want to amend Bill S-5 in clause 32 by adding after line 7 on page 19 the following:

23.3 No person shall promote or sell a device that is a tobacco product or a part that may be used with such a device, whether or not the device or part contains tobacco, if the device or part has an appearance, shape or other sensory attribute or a function for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that it could make the device or part appealing to young persons.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Mr. Davies.

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

I want to speak in strong support for this amendment. I hope it would get unanimous support by all members of this committee. If there's anything we can agree on, it's that we should be doing everything we can to prevent the marketing to children, the attraction, or taking up of tobacco products by children. If we're going to err on any side, I would much rather err on the side of doing everything we can to make sure products are not marketed that could be appealing to children.

I would point out one thing. The history of the tobacco industry over the last decades has been one of unbelievable marketing expertise as they get incredibly sophisticated in terms of how they try to make these products attractive to people.

I must also say for the record that it has been a documented history through litigation that the tobacco industry has a documented history of suppressing important information about their products that are damaging, about the health impact of their products. For years, they suppressed evidence linking cardiopulmonary disease and cancer about their products from the population and customers they sold to. Then they started marketing products under misleading terms like “lights“ or “milds“ when they knew that those products really had no corresponding lack of damage to their customer base.

There was just a recent court decision in Quebec ordering damages of I think $15 billion against tobacco companies for similar kinds of misfeasance.

I think in this bill here we should all be supporting any measure that seeks to close every door possible to tobacco companies trying to make their products attractive to anybody—but most importantly, to children and young people.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Ms. Gladu.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON

Absolutely. I'm supportive in terms of keeping all of these products away from young people. The only comment I would offer is it looks like it's a very hard-to-enforce thing. What “appearance, shape or other sensory attribute or function“ is appealing to a young person? Who will judge that? Is a candy-pink vaping tube? I have seen some of those. To me, that would be something appealing to a young person, but is it, or not?

While I will support the motion, I do think that needs to be very well considered in the regulation.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

All in favour of LIB-3?

(Amendment agreed to)

(Clause 32 as amended agreed to)

(Clauses 33 to 35 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 36)

Clause 36 has a whole array of amendments.

We will start with LIB-4.

Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC

Chair, I'm going to withdraw this motion. I will not move it.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Is that legal?

That's legal.

On NDP-4, Mr. Davies.

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

The purpose of this amendment is to restrict the advertising of vaping products, particularly to make sure they are not accessed by young people. This amendment would establish strengthened restrictions on the location of vaping product advertising to match the provisions restricting tobacco advertising in the Tobacco Act, and also, for that matter, the cannabis advertising in Bill C-45.

At present Bill S-5 contains few or no restrictions at all regarding the location of advertising. That means that such advertising could appear on television, on billboards, at movie theatres, on public transit buses and shelters used by children going to school, at ice rinks where minor hockey is played, and so on. Bill S-5's current vaping product advertising restrictions are weaker than those of every other developed country with similar legislation except the U.S. The provisions regarding the location of vaping product advertising are in fact so weak they resemble those in the 1964 tobacco industry voluntary advertising code in Canada.

I think it's incumbent upon us to tighten these up. I think we heard the minister say that she was very supportive. In fact, she wants us, I think, to tighten up the advertising restrictions on vaping. This one in particular states:

If the promotion is made using a means of telecommunication, the promoter must take reasonable steps to ensure that the promotion cannot be accessed by a young person.

So this one deals specifically with telecommunications. It's consistent with what I recently said, that we have to close every single door to make sure that nicotine cannot be marketed in any way to children. We should do everything possible to accomplish that. That's what this motion does for telecommunications.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Is there any further debate?

Mr. Ayoub.

Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Although I agree with the principle of protecting young people and even the general public or adults, I find this amendment to clause 36 unclear. It has a notion that is vague and does not provide a reasonable definition of the steps to limit young people's access to advertising through telecommunications. Clearly, it prohibits advertising targeted at young people. This is the case for both tobacco and vaping products.

I understand the meaning of the amendment, but I think it is somewhat vague. In any case, to protect young people, they are already prevented from having access to those advertisements. Perhaps our legislators could elaborate on this.

There is already a legal structure that prevents companies from making ads like that and that protects young people. But it strikes a certain balance, allowing adults to discover certain products, especially vaping products.

For those reasons, I am not convinced that we should pass this amendment.

The Chair Liberal Bill Casey

Mr. Davies.

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

I have two things. I have a comment and a question to our ministerial staff.

One of the benefits of this amendment that I understand—this is what I've been informed, anyway—is that presently you cannot ban tobacco advertising, let's say on television. What our regulations say is this kind of thing: putting in a law that says promotion on telecommunications—reasonable steps have to be taken that they can't be accessed by a young person—effectively eliminates advertising tobacco products on television. That's what I'm advising is the purpose of this type of amendment.

Mr. Ayoub has raised some concerns that I'd like to put to Mr. Van Loon.

Is it the case that in the bill currently that without this amendment there are restrictions on vaping advertising on telecommunications, that we could prevent those from reaching children?

5:20 p.m.

Director General, Tobacco Control Directorate, Department of Health

James Van Loon

There are numerous restrictions about advertising and how it can target young people. Advertising cannot be appealing to young people. Particular flavours that might be appealing to young people are not permitted. Advertising that is directed at youth is prohibited. That would cover anything telecommunications-wise.

In the other place, this discussion of where young people are going to see ads took place. They were concerned as well, and introduced an amendment to the bill that provides this strong regulatory authority for Health Canada to propose regulations respecting advertising for vaping products. That's a very broad regulatory authority.

We've already put out a consultation document on what sorts of things we would be proposing to do as part of using that regulatory authority. That's kind of the state of play as it stands today.

Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC

I want to make sure I understand. Thank you for that.

My information is that Bill S-5 currently contains no restrictions at all regarding the location of ads. When I said that advertising could appear on billboards, at movie theatres, on public transit, near shelters, at ice rinks, is that correct, or are you telling me that Bill S-5 prohibits that or there's regulatory authority under the act that could prohibit that?

5:20 p.m.

Director General, Tobacco Control Directorate, Department of Health

James Van Loon

A direct answer to your question is that on the day that Bill S-5 passed, it was unamended from here. Yes, that would be possible to put on billboards and stuff like that. Those ads would not be allowed to be appealing to kids; they would not be allowed to be lifestyle advertising. Furthermore, we do have this very broad regulatory authority to narrow that right down. With regard to any consultation document we put out about the regulation of vaping products in August of last year, we put some additional parameters about how we would propose to use that regulatory authority. It does talk about sports arenas and other places where there are lots of kids congregating.