House of Commons Hansard #84 of the 35th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was wildlife.

Topics

Canada Wildlife ActGovernment Orders

6:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Canada Wildlife ActGovernment Orders

6:50 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed.)

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill C-11, an act to amend the Excise Act, the Customs Act and the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act, as reported (with amendment) from the committee.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

June 13th, 1994 / 6:50 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

There are two motions in amendment on the Notice Paper for the report stage of Bill C-11, an act to amend the Excise Act, the Customs Act and the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act.

Motion No. 1 will be debated and voted on separately. Motion No. 2 will be debated and voted on separately.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

6:50 p.m.

Reform

Garry Breitkreuz Reform Yorkton—Melville, SK

moved:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 11, be amended: a ) by replacing lines 24 and 25, on page 5, with the following:

"way furnish a ) cigarettes except in packages containing at least 20 cigarettes per package; or b ) tobacco, other than cigarettes, in quantities of at least 20 grams.'' b ) by replacing lines 3 and 4, on page 6, with the following:

"package a ) cigarettes in a package containing fewer than 20 cigarettes; or b ) tobacco, other than cigarettes, in quantities of at less than 20 grams.''

Mr. Speaker, I would like to request support from the government and the Official Opposition for our proposed amendment to Bill C -11.

We have received representation from both the Canadian Cancer Society and the Action Committee on Smoking and Health. They have expressed concerns about the increase in the use of smokeless tobacco among young people.

Twenty-one per cent of grade seven students in Red Deer, Alberta, had tried smokeless tobacco and up to 11 per cent indicated they were currently using smokeless tobacco. It was also reported that the use of smokeless tobacco has more than doubled among males between the ages of 12 and 17 since 1987, more than doubled.

The main concern was again the smaller packaging targeted to younger persons. Our amendment would amend clause 11 to restrict the sale and packaging of tobacco other than cigarettes in quantities of at least 20 grams. This would make small packages of smokeless tobacco illegal, just like kiddie packs.

Smokeless tobacco includes oral moist snuff and chewing tobacco. Nicotine is released from the product and absorbed across the membranes of the mouth into the body. Long term use of spitting tobacco leads to significant damage to soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. It causes leukopakia, white patches in the mouth, some of which are premalignant. Between 3 per cent and 6 per cent develop into cancer.

Oral snuff has high levels of cancer causing nitrosamines with levels 10,000 times greater than allowed in regulated products such as beer, 10,000 times greater. Other cancer-causing agents are also present. Long term snuff users have a fifty-fold increase in cancer of the gums and mouth. Spitting tobacco is implicated in cancer of the larynx, esophagus, nasal cavity, pancreas, kidney and bladder. Gum disease occurs in 60 per cent of the users.

According to a health and welfare report the more immediate effect of chewing tobacco and snuff is probably on the dental health of youth as smokeless tobacco may contain sweeteners such as sugar, honey, molasses, syrups and licorice.

In addition to the statistics I have provided for Red Deer, Alberta, a 1991 Arkansas study found that 21 per cent of male kindergarten students were regular users. Among male school-age children in Ontario grades 7 to 13, 13 per cent reported using smokeless tobacco and cigarettes.

The most disturbing finding was that many students felt the use of smokeless tobacco was not as addictive as cigarettes, that is what the students thought, and that using it was a good alternative to help quit smoking.

In 1988 the World Health Organization issued an urgent call on the part of all governments with no history of smokeless tobacco use to ban the product before its use became widespread. It is not manufactured in Canada. We have to import these small little packs. I hope that the government and the opposition will support us on this.

All the Reform Party is asking is that we take this one small step to ensure that we do not make smokeless tobacco products any easier for young people to obtain than a package of cigarettes. I sincerely hope the members and the government will support us in this amendment.

I believe it is common sense to include this amendment in our legislation. That is why I propose it.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Vancouver Centre B.C.

Liberal

Hedy Fry LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, everything that the hon. member just said is true. In fact, smokeless tobacco is extremely dangerous, and I applaud his amendment.

However, it is inappropriate at this time for a few reasons. Eighty-five per cent of the tobacco sold is in the form of cigarettes in this country at the moment and, as he said, we do import all of our smokeless tobacco. Of the smokeless tobacco that we import, even of that small amount, only a very minuscule amount is in fact imported in sizes under 20 grams. What we have here is not a real marketplace problem. The act deals with banning the sale of tobacco to anyone under 18 anyway, so no one should be selling any packages of anything to people under 18.

However, we think it is inappropriate at this moment because there are some trade implications because all of our smokeless tobacco is imported and we need to analyze that. I would like us not to stall what is in fact an extraordinarily important bill right now in order to wait for that amendment to come through. You can always amend this at another time and it is quite acceptable to bring in an amendment later on. At this point while I applaud the amendment, I think it is inappropriate to do so.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Reform

Ian McClelland Reform Edmonton Southwest, AB

Mr. Speaker, when the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health responded a minute ago and said that this could be amended at any time, am I to assume that the government would support such an amendment at a future date?

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Liberal

Hedy Fry Liberal Vancouver Centre, BC

Mr. speaker, yes, I think we would like to look at some of the trade implications because of the fact that much of the smokeless tobacco is an import. We think it is an excellent amendment but inappropriate at this time.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is the House ready for the question?

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those in favour will please say yea.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those opposed will please say nay.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

In my opinion the nays have it.

(Motion negatived)

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7 p.m.

Bloc

Yvan Loubier Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC

moved:

That Bill C-11, in Clause 11, be amended by adding after line 30, on page 6, the following:

"(3) Sections 7.1 and 7.2 shall come into force six months after the day this Act is assented to."

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the next few minutes to explain the thrust of the Bloc Quebecois' proposed amendment to Bill C-11.

Let me begin by saying that the Bloc Quebecois supports this bill which is aimed, among other things, at amending the Tobacco Sales to Young Persons Act to prohibit tobacco manufacturers from packaging cigarettes in packages containing fewer than 20 cigarettes.

The provisions of Bill C-11 make it illegal to sell the packages containing 15 or 5 cigarettes which are currently on the market, or to sell single cigarettes. We support this bill because we care about people's health and in particular about the health of young people who are encouraged to smoke because of the availability of kiddie packs and single cigarettes.

Once again, my party believes that it is not enough to prevent young people from taking up smoking. A broad-based awareness campaign is needed to discourage young people from consuming products which are harmful to their health.

Despite the best legislation or the most stringent regulations, we will always have to contend with unscrupulous retailers, just as I did in my youth, who encourage young people to start smoking by selling them single cigarettes. I started smoking when I was just 11 or 12 years old because of an unscrupulous store owner in the neighbourhood. He would hand out free cigarettes to young people to get them hooked, and after that he would charge them 10 cents, 15 cents and then 20 cents. There is a profiteer, there is an unscrupulous store owner. You all know cases like that. I have known a few myself in my time.

We have nothing against the bill per se, but rather against the demand put on businesses, retailers, wholesalers and distributors to adapt quickly to the new provisions contained in Bill C-11 that provide that they take off the market almost overnight small size packs of cigarettes or tobacco. They stand to suffer substantial losses because of this, based on the representations made by The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, among others, which has testified before the finance committee to point out this deficiency while supporting government efforts to discourage smoking or tobacco use from an early age among young people. The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers asked whether it would not be possible to defer the coming into force of that part of the regulations for a while.

The intent of the motion the Bloc is tabling this evening is to give distributors, retailers, anyone who is holding stocks of packages containing fewer than 20 cigarettes time to clear their stocks without incurring excessive losses.

As you know, since 1990, retailers as well as wholesalers and distributors have sustained substantial losses because of the recession. And say what we may, we are still experiencing a slack in the economy although some level of growth can be expected in a near future.

I would call upon the leniency of the government and the Reform Party to pass such an amendment. Without adulterating or weakening in any way this bill, which we support, to discourage young people from starting to smoke early, our amendment nonetheless gives businesses a chance to adjust to the new context. Let us bear in mind also that we have been asking a lot from the tobacco industry and allied industries over the past seven or eight years in terms of adjustment.

So, six short months to turn around would be welcome and that is the motion I am putting to you on behalf of the Bloc Quebecois.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:05 p.m.

Vancouver Centre B.C.

Liberal

Hedy Fry LiberalParliamentary Secretary to Minister of Health

Mr. Speaker, I do not think that we can accept this amendment. Tobacco is the single most preventable cause of death and disease in the world today. There are 40,000 Canadians a year who die as a result of tobacco smoking.

It is a cost of $3 billion a year to the health care industry in this country and directly to the Canadian government. When this announcement was made that we would be banning kiddie packs, it was made by the Prime Minister in this House on February 8. That was a little over four months ago.

That has been enough notice, we believe, for the manufacturers and for everyone who sells kiddie packs to take notice that we were going to do this. Second, kiddie packs are very accessible to young people. They like to buy them because they are attractive, because they cost less money and because they are easy to hide from parents and teachers.

It is very important that we take steps now to prevent this very preventable cause of smoking among young people or this very preventable adjunct to smoking in young people.

This is an addictive drug and I do not know how long we can continue to keep saying it is worthwhile keeping it up and allowing us to continue to propagate what in reality is a lethal and addictive drug. I think we have given enough time to the manufacturers and retailers to take this drug off the market.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

Reform

Garry Breitkreuz Reform Yorkton—Melville, SK

Mr. Speaker, I would like to concur with what the hon. member has just said and also to add a few remarks with regard to kiddie packs. The ban will be implemented.

The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council denies that kiddie packs or 15s, as they are called, were designed for sale to young people. It said this recently in a written communication to the Minister of Health and again in its brief to the Standing Committee on Finance on June 7.

It is very clear. The statistics provided to us show the largest percentage of sales of kiddie packs were to young people. While the tobacco manufacturers may not have designed the 15 packs for kids, the end result is that the kids end up using them.

If the tobacco industry continues to make these kinds of claims that they are not designed for kids I think it brings into question its credibility and raises the whole issue of whether we can believe it on other issues as well.

It claims that $2 million of existing packaging supplies for kiddie packs will be wasted, resulting in a $2 million write-off that will cost taxpayers about $1 million. It also believes that selling existing stock effective September 12 is quite unfair and will lead to further write-offs. I am sure this has already been addressed and so I will not continue on that.

We have to balance the claims and the interests of the tobacco manufacturers, distributors and retailers with the interest of health of young people purchasing and smoking these kiddie packs. The Reform Party finds no difficulty in siding with the health of our young people.

Rather than support the Bloc motion which supports the claims of the tobacco industry we would rather support the claims of the Canadian Cancer Society and the committee for action on smoking and health and move to stop the sale of kiddie packs to young people as soon as possible.

If the tobacco industry claims that kiddie packs are designed to be sold to adults, we have an alternative proposal. Bundle them up in packs of two, put some cellophane or whatever around them, and sell them only to adults, which I think the law requires anyway, and we would no longer have kiddie packs. I think the solution is so simple the industry does not have to take this tremendous loss. We are saying simply sell them in packs of two and your problem is solved. I think it is very simple and only common sense.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

Is it the House ready for the question?

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Question.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

The Deputy Speaker

All those in favour will please say yea.

Excise ActGovernment Orders

7:10 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.