Health Committee on Feb. 28th, 2018

[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?

[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?

[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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

I see not further debate, so we will go to a vote on NDP-4.

(Amendment negatived)

Now we'll go to LIB-5. My note here says that if it's adopted, NDP-5, LIB-6, and NDP-6 cannot be moved because of a conflict if adopted.

Mr. McKinnon.

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

I will be withdrawing this amendment in favour of LIB-6.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

We'll go to NDP-5.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This amendment would remove the provision in the bill that allows vaping product lifestyle advertising in bars and in publications sent to an adult. We've heard lots of evidence on this. It's very clear that even though vaping products have measurable health advantages over tobacco products, clearly we as a health committee, nation, or government do not want to be encouraging anybody to start the habit of ingesting nicotine in any form. The problem with this bill—and I think this was also squarely addressed by the minister—is that when you allow lifestyle advertising in places frequented by adults, such as bars, you are subjecting non-smokers who are still relatively young—18, 19, 20, or 21 years old—to advertising that is not meant to inform them of the harm-reduction properties of vaping products. Rather, the way the bill is currently structured, they'll be subjected to measures, promotions, and advertising that will encourage them to take up the ingestion of nicotine by vaping products. There was no evidence before this committee that suggested that this was desirable or our goal. In fact, it's the opposite.

I would encourage my colleagues to support this.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Dr. Eyolfson.

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Thank you.

I agree with everything that Mr. Davies said about the importance of this.

The only reason I'm not supporting this is simply that we're proposing an amendment that has exactly the same sentiment and addresses exactly the same problem, but our staff who were reviewing it found that the language was better and clearer. For no other reason I'm opposing this in favour of the next amendment, which is LIB-6.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you for that.

Can you maybe help me out? It may affect whether I proceed with this or not. How is the Liberal wording preferential?

[Doug Eyolfson, Liberal, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I can't find the current wording right now of the NDP amendment, but our amendment says:

That Bill S-5, in Clause 36, be amended (a) by deleting lines 22 to 29 on page 21; (b) renumbering the remaining provision and amending all references to it accordingly.

I don't have the comparison to that at this moment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Oliver.

[John Oliver, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

I think we should be dealing with each amendment as it is and not looking forward in what's to come. I think we should vote on this one and move on to the next one, personally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Ms. Gladu.

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

I prefer LIB-6 because it renumbers the remaining provisions and amendments—all the references to it—so it's a better amendment of the exact same thing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Let's be clear and then we can move on. My amendment says:

That Bill S-5, in Clause 36, be amended by deleting lines 22 to 29 on page 21.

Here's the Liberal amendment:

That Bill S-5, in Clause 36, be amended

(a) by deleting lines 22 to 29 on page 21;

It does exactly the same thing, except that it adds—and Liberals have referred to this before:

(b) renumbering the remaining provision and amending all references to it accordingly.

We all know that's unnecessary. Whenever you amend the bill, obviously everything else gets renumbered. There is zero difference between the NDP and the Liberal amendments, and the Liberals know it. The only reason they're voting against the NDP motion right now is that they don't want to support an NDP motion to improve a bill that the Liberals proposed, which went through the Senate and which allows lifestyle advertising for vaping products in bars, which we know is an undesirable provision in the bill. The Liberals want to look like they're the ones who are removing it, not the NDP. Let's be clear about this. It's going to happen one way or the other, because the NDP has the majority on this committee, but let's be clear: the only reason the Liberals are voting against the NDP motion here is that ours was in first and ours does exactly what they want to do, first. Let's not insult anybody's intelligence by trying to suggest that the Liberal amendment is better than the NDP's. It's identical to the NDP amendment.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Lobb.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I agree exactly with what Don is saying. I wonder if our clerk here could tell us if part (b) of amendment LIB-6 is redundant. Obviously, you would do that anyway. If amendment NDP-5 passes, you're obviously going to adjust everything. Is that correct?

[Olivier Champagne, Legislative Clerk, House of Commons]

Yes and no.

With regard to the renumbering, it is. Amending all references to it accordingly normally requires other amendments, and those other amendments exist. The Liberals have submitted them. They are amendments LIB-8, LIB-12, and LIB-14. In my opinion, if we adopt amendment LIB-6, those other amendments will be adopted as a consequence of that.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

If there were no amendment LIB-6 and we only had amendment LIB-5 to deal with, can you tell us what we would do then? Sorry, I mean amendment NDP-5. If we had only amendment NDP-5 and we didn't have amendment LIB-6 at all, what would you do?

[Olivier Champagne]

I would say that amendment NDP-9 is the consequence of amendment NDP-5, because removing that element, which is what NDP-5 does requires removing a reference to that element, and that's what amendment NDP-9 does. I think the Liberal package goes a bit further in terms of renumbering as a consequence of what amendment NDP-9 would do. I know it's a bit confusing, but I have to say that the amendments are different even though they have the same effect on the clause, the portion of the bill we're looking at right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bill Casey]

Mr. Davies.