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.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Sonia Sidhu Liberal Brampton South, ON
Mr. Chair, I think that right now we are just making a decision on this point on the heated products. Right now, I think this is the point we are talking about in this legislation.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Ramez Ayoub Liberal Thérèse-De Blainville, QC
I cannot help but say that, when you compare marijuana to heat sticks, everything gets mixed up. So far, all the witnesses who appeared before us have always said that no one has died from using marijuana, but that people are dying from using tobacco. There is a big difference. It's actually comparing apples and oranges. We must not look for a problem and see one where there is none.
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
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.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
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.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
Thanks very much. I'm going to call for a vote now on CPC-8.
(Amendmenttt negatived [See Minutes and 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.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
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.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
All those in favour of CPC-9?
(Amendment negatived)
Will clause 29 carry?
(Clause 29 agreed to)
On clauses 30 and 31, I see no amendments.
(Clauses 30 and 31 agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
(On clause 32)
On clause 32, we have amendment Liberal-3.
Ms. Sidhu.
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
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.
5:10 p.m.
NDP
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, or the attraction, or the 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. 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.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
Marilyn Gladu Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Absolutely. I'm supportive to keep 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, and 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.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bill Casey
All in favour of LIB-3?
(Amendment agreed to)
Shall Clause 32 carry as amended?
(Clause 32 agreed to [See Minutes of Proceedings])
Clauses 33, 34, and 35 have no amendments.
Clause 36 has a whole array of amendments.
We will start with LIB-4.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Ron McKinnon Liberal Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC
Chair, I'm going to withdraw this motion. I will not move it.
5:15 p.m.
NDP
Don Davies NDP Vancouver Kingsway, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
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.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
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.