moved that Bill C-337, an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning on alcoholic beverage containers) be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, beverage alcohol is the only consumer product in Canada known to cause harm if misused that does not alert the consumer to this fact.
What are the consequences in Canada due to the misuse of alcohol? Based on the most recent data available from Health Canada, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse and from the Addiction Research Foundation, the facts are as follows: 38,261 psychiatric and general hospital admissions; 17,080 cases of alcohol dependence syndrome; 966 cases of toxic poisoning; 19,163 deaths directly or indirectly caused by alcohol misuse; 10 per cent of all neoplasms or tumours; 5 per cent of all diseases of the circulatory system; 15 per cent of all diseases of the respiratory system; 5 per cent of all fetal defects; 45 per cent of all motor vehicle accidents; 48 per cent of all drivers killed in accidents are killed as a result of alcohol consumption, which means that 2,000 have been killed and over 10,000 injured in only one year; 40 per cent of all accidental falls; 30 per cent of accidents due to fire; 30 per cent of all suicides; 60 per cent of all homicides; 50 per cent of incidents of family violence and one in six divorces are all caused by alcohol consumption.
It is indeed tragic that one in ten deaths in Canada, or the deaths of about 19,000 Canadians are from alcohol related causes each year. All of this is due to the irresponsible use of alcoholic beverages. It is costing Canada an estimated $15 billion each year in higher health, social, justice and lost productivity costs, not to mention the devastating impact on family, friends and society as a whole.
I know the effect that this can have on a family. My own father abused alcohol most of his adult life, but we are not afraid of him anymore. Years ago following one of his violent rages, he lost touch with reality and is living out the rest of his life in a home. I have not seen my father for more than 10 years because he no longer could recognize who I was. Today he has a new family: three bottles of vodka, one for each meal.
Bill C-337 seeks to require that containers of all alcoholic beverages sold in Canada display the following message: Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs a person's ability to operate machinery or an automobile and may cause health problems or cause birth defects during pregnancy.
There are many reasons that we should have health warning labels on alcoholic beverages. The costs and other impacts of the irresponsible use of alcohol are far too great to ignore. At a time when all governments are seeking to reduce the costs of health, social, justice and lost productivity, we need to pursue, and I stress preventative, rather than remedial strategies. We need to let the consumers know that health experts recognize the hazards of alcohol use. We need to inform consumers about the risks of alcohol use.
Failure to label alcohol when medical drugs, foods, cleaners, solvents and other dangerous products all carry health warnings falsely assures consumers that alcoholic beverages are safe at all times. All levels of governments and the alcoholic beverage industry itself have a social, moral and societal responsibility to reduce the misuse of alcohol. Labelling is a reaffirmation in the ability of consumers to make responsible decisions. Labelling will
also promote consumer consistency and indeed will lead to changes in drinking behaviour.
Labels in themselves are an integral part of any comprehensive strategy to promote the responsible use of alcoholic beverages. Any prevention program would be incomplete without these health warnings. In the words of Denny Boyd, columnist for the Vancouver Sun: ``The intended purpose of warning labels on alcoholic containers is to act as a consumer lighthouse sending a signal of impending danger''.
Labels represent an efficient way to continually remind consumers of the need to drink responsibly. As one element of our overall preventative strategy, it could be implemented quickly and efficiently with the potential of reaching all consumers and with a repeated effect.
I will take a moment to talk about fetal alcohol syndrome. All Canadians are well familiar with the problems associated with drinking and driving and that is due to the relentless education of consumers. But there is another problem virtually unknown yet far more tragic. It is called fetal alcohol syndrome, otherwise known as FAS.
In 1992 there was a study called "Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, A Preventable Tragedy" produced by the House of Commons standing committee on health and welfare. The report states:
There is no question that maternal alcohol consumption can have devastating impacts on the fetus. The basic fact is that when a pregnant woman drinks, her unborn child drinks also; that is, the alcohol in the mother's bloodstream circulates through the placenta into the bloodstream of the fetus. It is possible the blood alcohol level in the fetus will remain at an elevated level for a longer period than that of the mother because the immature fetal liver metabolizes the alcohol more slowly.
Research shows that 5 per cent of all fetal defects are due to alcohol consumption during pregnancy. According to Health Canada, FAS occurs in about one in 500 live births. Therefore, it is in fact more prevalent than Down's Syndrome which occurs in about one in 600 live births. FAS children can reflect the following: severe neurological disorders, social dysfunction, permanent behavioural problems, reduced lifespan, restricted brain development, learning disorders, hyperactivity, mental retardation, pre and post natal growth retardation, speech and vision impairment and physical deformities.
In addition to retarded growth, FAS children usually display facial distortions, including a small head, small close-set eyes, flattened cheekbones, a very thin upper lip and no groove between the upper lip and nose.
FAS is estimated to cost $1.5 million during the lifetime of an FAS child. FAS is estimated to cost Canadians $2.7 billion each year in terms of increased health, special education and social services costs.
There is another aspect to this. Fetal alcohol effects or FAE is very similar to FAS, with the same range of problems in a less severe form, but without the characteristic facial abnormalities. FAE occurs two to three times more frequently than does FAS.
With regard to the alcohol industry, there is little dispute in the medical profession that alcohol consumption during pregnancy can have harmful effects to the fetus. The message they are trying to get out is that there is no recommended safe level of alcohol consumption during pregnancy and that drinking during pregnancy can cause alcohol related birth defects, including FAS and FAE. Both these diseases are totally preventable. I want to repeat that, both FAS and FAE are totally preventable. In the words of the alcohol beverage industry itself, drinking responsibly could mean not drinking at all.
As part of my research, I took the opportunity to speak with representatives of the Association of Canadian Distillers, the Brewers Association of Canada and the Canadian Wine Institute. I found that their position was very close.
They all support and promote responsible use of their products, to their credit. Industry representatives also note that alcohol has been shown to have health benefits in certain circumstances. I was given examples of programs they already fund and which they felt had better value in terms of the effectiveness of warning labels. They express concern however that warning labels may alarm pregnant women who may have consumed some alcohol and that the resulting fear or stress would result in consequential and negative health problems or even miscarriage.
They all held the same view that they did not think that warning labels would work and that there was no evidence that could prove that they would work.
Finally, they all specifically stated that they would not voluntarily comply with any recommendation to have warning labels on the containers of alcoholic beverages. Indeed they said it would have to be legislated.
The industry's position is clear. It fundamentally rests on the argument that health warning labels will not work. I believe this argument is fundamentally flawed primarily because the proof of effectiveness is indeed in the precedents of Canada, the U.S. and the entire world. Warning or caution labels directly on the packaging of products have been used for years for virtually every potentially harmful product except alcoholic beverages. Research
and long term monitoring have proven the effectiveness time and time again. That is why this element of every preventative strategy continues to be used today. Why? Simply because it works.
This is the common sense and practical reasoning. It appears that the industry insists on empirical evidence which it says does not exist. In fact the evidence does exist.
In 1988 the U.S. government passed legislation requiring health warning labels to be placed on the containers of alcoholic beverages. Implemented in 1989, a series of studies have been conducted to detect the impacts on knowledge, attitude and behavioural changes. Although early studies showed little effects, as the years went by literally dozens of research studies have started to show progressively improving results. Here are some examples:
In December 1993 the
Journal of Public Policy and Marketing in a report on public attitudes toward alcohol control since the warning labels were mandated in 1988 said: ``It is concluded that the label is serving the goal set out for it, to inform the public of the hazards associated with alcohol consumption''.
In 1993-94 the International Quarterly of Community Health Education in a report on the awareness and knowledge of alcohol beverage warning labels among homeless persons stated: ``Age and level of alcohol consumption were each associated with label awareness and content familiarity suggesting that alcohol beverage warning labels may be reaching homeless persons''.
The final example comes from the March 1994 International Conference on the Reduction of Drug Related Harm. In the research paper "Mandated Container Warnings as an Alcohol Related Harm Reduction Policy" it finds: "Within the U.S. results indicate an association between seeing the label and displaying behaviours relevant to limited drunk driving. Limited drinking before driving, 68 per cent, was associated with seeing the label in the last 12 months; limited driving after drinking was even more significantly associated".
The evidence is mounting and very powerful. That is why the U.S. started to use warning labels in 1989. That is why indeed in Canada, the Yukon and Northwest Territories started to use warning labels in 1991. That is why 77.5 per cent of Canadians surveyed by the Addiction Research Foundation in 1994 said they would support health warning labels on alcohol beverage containers. Why? Because Canadians know that warning labels work.
This initiative of having health warning labels on the containers of alcoholic beverages is not a recent subject in Canada. It was first raised in 1976 by the then Minister of Health, the hon. Marc Lalonde. In 1992, as I mentioned earlier the House of Commons standing committee on health and welfare recommended warning labels to the government.
How do current legislators feel? On May 23, 1995 the B.C. Minister of Health wrote the following to the federal Minister of Health: "I am writing to you in regards to alcohol warning labels. This was a topic of our discussion at the provincial, territorial ministers of health meeting held in Vancouver April 10 and 11, 1995. There was unanimous agreement that warning labels should be pursued by the federal government".
I repeat, the provincial ministers of health unanimously agreed that warning labels should be pursued by the federal government. In addition, the federal Minister of Health has clearly stated her strong support for health warning labels for the containers of alcoholic beverages.
The alcoholic beverage industry feels the consumer has the burden of proof that health warning labels work. I believe the burden of proof that they do not work must fall on the industry. If it cannot provide that burden of proof, then today I call on the industry to discharge its social, moral and business responsibility and voluntarily comply with this labelling recommendation.
Bill C-337 is the first piece of legislation on warning labels that has ever reached this point in our legislative system. The bill no longer belongs to me. It now belongs to all the members of Parliament.
We cannot afford to miss the opportunity to do the right thing. I humbly ask for members' support to pass Bill C-337 today at second reading so that we may more rigorously pursue the facts through public hearings before the Standing Committee on Health. In this way, members of Parliament who are not in the cabinet can once again demonstrate to Canadians that we can and do make a positive contribution to the well-being of all Canadians.