moved that Bill C-71, an act to regulate the manufacture, sale, labelling and promotion of tobacco products, to make consequential amendments to another act and to repeal certain acts, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased today to begin the second reading debate of Bill C-71, what is known as the tobacco act.
This bill is a central element in our government's comprehensive tobacco control strategy. It complements the tobacco tax increase and the anti-smuggling initiatives announced last week, as well as the education programs designed to make Canadians more aware of the health consequences of tobacco use.
The focus of the bill is simple: health. Let there be no doubt on this particular point. While there are many interests involved in this debate, health, especially the health of young Canadians, is of paramount concern.
The government recognizes the complex and pervasive nature of tobacco use in our society. It designed a balanced and an integrated strategy that takes into account the various factors that influence the smoking decision process, particularly how these factors affect young Canadians.
This bill addresses the environment, messages and opportunities that affect attitudes, beliefs and behaviours about tobacco use. It does so by restricting the access young people have to tobacco products. It places reasonable limits on the marketing and promotion of these products. It increases health information on tobacco packaging and it establishes powers needed to regulate tobacco products.
Canadians want us to take these steps. They expect us as parliamentarians, regardless of our political ideologies, to do our job.
According to a recent Angus Reid poll, 91 per cent of Canadians support efforts by governments to discourage young people from becoming addicted to tobacco. Seventy-three per cent of Canadians support efforts to discourage smoking among people who smoke already. In short, Canadians want us to do the right thing.
This debate is about people and about the impact tobacco has on their lives. There are seven million smokers in Canada. Far too many of them and their families must deal with the tragic health consequences of tobacco use.
Each and every day in this country more than 100 people die of tobacco related causes. How many of us have lost loved ones to heart disease brought on by years of tobacco use? How many of us have watched friends die of cancer that could have been prevented? Those deaths stand in stark contrast to the glamorous, exciting and often healthy images that tobacco promotions invariably portray. Yet those are the true faces of tobacco use.
The human toll of tobacco use is immense, not only in Canada but throughout the world. In 1991 the most recent year for which we have had full data on tobacco related mortality, 41,408 Canadians died of diseases attributed to smoking, one of every five deaths that year. That is more than three times the number of deaths caused by murder, automobile accidents, AIDS, suicides, and drug abuse combined. Those are startling figures.
In one year tobacco use killed more than 14,000 people in Ontario, almost 12,000 people in the province of Quebec, some 6,000 people in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and more than 5,000 people in British Columbia and close to 4,000 people in Atlantic Canada. This is a human toll that cannot be ignored and stands alone as the primary reason why we as parliamentarians must take action on tobacco.
Tobacco use also generates a significant financial burden on the economy. To begin with, it is a drain on medicare. In 1991, smoking cost our health care system about $3.5 billion. I invite
hon. members to think of the health priorities in their communities which could have been addressed with that money.
But where did the money go? It paid for 3.1 million extra visits to doctors and the four million days that people were in hospitals for smoking related reasons. It also covered the cost of the 1.4 million drug prescriptions that were required to treat smoking related illnesses.
Smoking costs the economy in other ways as well. Canadian smokers are absent from work for 28 million days a year because of tobacco related causes. Lost productivity arising from smoking related deaths amount to $10.6 billion in 1991.
The simple reality is that the harmful effects of tobacco use are not restricted to smokers alone, despite the rhetoric that we might hear about smoking being a matter of individual choice. Smoking costs Canadians approximately $15 billion a year, a staggering figure.
As alarming as those numbers are, the data suggests that matters will probably get worse before they get better. Tobacco takes years to exact its toll. We are now only seeing the results of the smoking surge among women during the 1960s and the 1970s. Lung cancer has overtaken breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer deaths among women. Researchers predict that deaths due to smoking among Canadian women may equal or even exceed the level among men by the year 2005.
Of particular concern is the pattern of youth smoking. Approximately $250,000 Canadians each year take up smoking. Eighty-five per cent of these new smokers are under the age of 16. Right now-