Madam Speaker, I am speaking today on Bill C-71, an act to regulate the manufacture, sale, labelling and promotion of tobacco products.
I have quite a personal interest in this subject. In my 25 years in medical practice literally every day I faced people who were ill from smoking related diseases. I have also faced over and over again people who wanted to quit. I have tried nicotine gum,
nicotine patches and I have had patients go for hypnosis, recognizing full well that there is a big problem with tobacco in our country.
On a personal note, when I set up my practice I watched a number of my senior colleagues who smoked. In medical staff meetings when I started my practice, 50 per cent of my colleagues were smokers. By the time I resigned my position in the hospital to run for Parliament not one colleague smoked. I use that as an example. There has been a change in thinking in the medical community on tobacco as new evidence came to the fore. It became quite obvious that smoking was not just a benign activity.
I would like to express today the expectation that people at home have of an opposition politician. Opposition politicians traditionally find fault and criticize everything. That is part of the job of an opposition politician. In some cases it can be destructive rather than constructive.
I have had constituents say to me: "Surely there is something that those government MPs bring to the floor that you can support". And a specific quote: "You all fight like children rather than improving legislation co-operatively". I have taken that to heart and have tried to approach this bill with that idea. This should not be partisan. Partisan considerations should take a back seat when health issues are being considered.
To that end I am not going to nitpick about this bill. I will make a couple of broad comments about some deficiencies in it, but I will save my concerns for the committee stage. However, I think there are significant shortcomings. I hope that I will get the same constructive spirit of co-operation from my colleagues.
Reform asked to fast track this bill and I would like to explain to the House and to Canadians why. For over a year after the blueprint was presented which basically laid out where the tobacco measures would go I waited for action. The major press conference that was called over a year ago was followed by silence. Some promises were made but no action. During that period of time a new generation of smokers started smoking at an unprecedented rate.
I had my staff do a graph for me because I do not always trust statistics that come from various groups. This graph showed the per capita cigarette consumption in Canada and the United States between 1970 and 1994 which were the last figures that were readily available to me.
This graph was very interesting. It showed the U.S. and Canadian experience with per capita cigarette consumption following very closely. If the two lines were drawn it looked like the two were in lock step together. Because I cannot use this as a prop I have to describe what I have in the graph. It actually looked like a ski jump with a real nice downward slope, both the U.S. and Canada following that downward slope with per capita cigarette consumption a little bit better in Canada than in the U.S.
That lock step, that drop down, stopped in Canada quite abruptly in 1993. It actually then looked like a ski jump where it goes upward. The same thing does not happen in the U.S.
Here we are back from 1970 to 1994 with the two countries moving together with excellent reduction in per capita cigarette consumption.
Then boom, there was a change in 1993 which did not happen in the U.S. Two things happened in Canada to change our cigarette consumption, the tax rollback and the supreme court shut down of the legislative measures that Canada had in place.
Second, I looked at a chart on Canadian tobacco consumption. Because tobacco consumption can be measured in many ways I chose one that looked to be the most accurate. It included domestic sales of tobacco and also the contraband market. It showed the number of Canadian cigarettes smuggled into Canada as best could be ascertained and all the contraband. It included other forms of consumption like consumption by returning residents bringing back their imports.
The figures were really interesting. In 1991 compared to 1990 there was a drop of 6.16 per cent in Canadian tobacco consumption. In 1992 there was a drop of 0.39 per cent, not as big a drop. In 1993 there was a drop of 3.49 per cent. This is the same downward trend in total tobacco consumption in Canada. In 1994 there was a break in the trend with an increase of 9.2 per cent.
With those independent studies in mind I determined that there was a vacuum in Canada that was being filled by the tobacco companies with glee. I looked at the tobacco companies' profit picture, which was very very good. There was a new group of youthful addicts and a new market for the tobacco companies.
Because I believe in small government, the least intrusive legislation that is effective and enforceable and clearly specified regulations in legislation, I paused for a long time over legislative measures in this area. But the health of our youth is more important than restrictions on activities that are solely profit driven. That is why I have recommended to my colleagues that we push hard to see this legislation on the floor of the House of Commons.
What do tobacco manufacturers do that every Canadian should know? I have spent a lot of time on this issue. I have listened very plainly to tobacco manufacturers say that they do not, want not and will not conscript youth to smoking.
I have an internal tobacco company document that talks about the objectives of looking to sports as a mechanism of advancing the tobacco companies' interests. I will read part of it: "To brand the
events"-sporting events-"we sponsor via media advertising so as to increase the level of awareness particularly among smokers and potential smokers". The document goes on to say that these major world class sporting events and artistic productions will be the mechanisms.
Off to the side there is a little note on the groups being targeted by these proposals. The first target group is composed of males age 12 to 24. The second target group is composed of females age 12 to 17. This is from a lobby group that says it will not, cannot and must not target youth for smoking. That document directly and completely makes that comment inaccurate. I could use much stronger words.
On cancer, I have listened to the tobacco industry for years and years saying that there is no direct connection with cancer, that no direct connection has been proven. New genetic research has just surfaced which is conclusive: tobacco causes cancer. In fact, the member for the Bloc has actually mentioned the specific research.
I have waited, watched and hoped for a retraction from the tobacco companies of this long held statement that tobacco does not have a direct link to cancer. I have waited and will continue to wait because that retraction has not and will not come.
Another thing I pay attention to is the argument that sponsorship will cease and plunge the art groups into the wilderness if this legislation goes through. I went back to the record of the last round of tobacco legislation and found that this very argument was used. Without going into a long discussion on this, I extracted from hearings on Bill C-51 some information. The Royal Canadian Golf Association stated it would not be able to replace the tobacco sponsor of its Canadian open men's golf tournament if Bill C-51 came in. Today those members who are interested golf would know that the event continues very successfully and the sponsor today is Bell Canada, which stepped in on the issue, very comfortably taking up the sponsorship vacuum.
On the international experience, I am a real keen race car guy. Car races are sponsored by tobacco manufacturers. I have personally have competed in a big event where my car bore tobacco advertising. There is quite an international change away from allowing this type of advertising. Because I like racing, I watched the Formula I circuit. Jacques Villeneuve here in Canada has a very specific logo on his driving suit and on the wing of his car. I will not give the company extra advertising by saying what the company is. In France and Germany on the Formula I circuits there are no logos on the cars or on the suits.
Can Canada do the same? Will the Formula I circuit, the Indy circuit and the rest of motor racing fall into an abyss because the sponsorship will be reduced? Not a chance.
I have also watched the international moves by the U.S. It has taken some very dramatic steps on nicotine to recognize nicotine as
an addictive drug and to call the cigarette a drug delivery device. This is intellectually consistent and a very powerful way of changing the way tobacco is looked at in North America.
So why fast track this bill? I would like to talk for a moment about the bill. We have pushed this legislation to the floor of the House of Commons by saying that we would fast track it. I believe there were some internal division in the government and I believe they were actually paralyzing the government. It took 18 months for Jake Epp to bring Bill C-51 through the process. If it had taken 18 months to put this bill through the process, I could not face myself with a new generation of youthful smokers. I think Jake Epp went through a legislative process which was awful.
I said I would not try and nit pick on the bill, but I have a couple of criticisms. The undefined, unspecified powers granted in the bill are too broad. This is in the regulatory component. I and my colleagues will work to define and specify those powers.
We do not always have to be serious in the House of Commons. There are a couple of things in the bill that are a real chuckle. I am going to read this for the Canadian public. Clause 10(1) states: "No person shall sell cigarettes, except in a package that contains fewer than 20 cigarettes" and it goes on "or fewer than a prescribed number of cigarettes, which number shall be more than 20". I hope there is a wording mess-up in the bill because I have asked as many of my colleagues as I could what that clause means. I figured maybe I had gone senile. I hope it is a misprint.
There is a regulation which appears on page 12 of the bill: "The governor in council may make regulations"-and then we flip over to paragraph (i)-"prescribing anything that by this part is to be prescribed". We are talking about big powers. The governor in council could turn aircraft into land machines with that sort of power.
As I say, I believe those regulatory powers must be defined and specified. I would like to see and have continued to hope for the health committee, when regulatory powers come in, be the actual spot where these things are reviewed by elective representatives so the governor in council will not be able to just steamroller things along.
Finally, I would like to say something to my smoking audience. I know they enjoy smoking. I know they accept the risks of smoking. This is to my colleagues as well. I do not believe this bill is directed to them. It is directed mostly to the kids. However, I want to say to them that the most poignant quitters I have been involved with in my years of trying to get people to quit smoking are those who quit because of a comment made by little Johnnie, who comes home from school and says something like: "Daddy, please don't smoke. I love you. I want you to quit smoking. I need you nearby". Those smokers quit because a little one they love cares for them
and says"please quit smoking". I have very little trouble with those smokers. When they wanted to quit, they quit quickly.
This bill should now go to committee. Reformers will still work hard for specific improvements in committee. Consequently, I move:
That the question be now put.