Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-47. Based on the debate I heard from the member for Regina--Qu'Appelle and others we would not know it was Bill C-47 because they talked about the airport security tax, the Tobin tax and all these things. I will follow his lead and talk about something else myself.
Bill C-47 is a housekeeping bill that would do a lot of things to clean up the act as far as tax collection goes and to define things for people involved in the wine, spirits and tobacco industry. It would do a variety of things including increasing the tobacco tax by $240 million annually, which will be the lead-in to the subject I want to talk about.
I feel obligated to mention a few things about Bill C-47. It would change the framework governing taxes on spirits, wine and tobacco. It would make the duty charged on wine the same as the duty currently charged on spirits.
The bill would bring in licensing registrations and regulations for the transportation industry to prevent trafficking and control of the movement of spirits and wine. It would create new provisions for offences for those breaking the law with regard to wine, spirits and tobacco.
The legislation would merge some already existing taxes which should make it simpler for industry to handle. It would make the federal tax on cigarettes the same all across the country which it should have been all along in any case.
I was watching television the other evening and I saw a Health Canada ad that said 45,000 Canadians die from smoking cigarettes every year. I thought to myself that figure could not be right. That is 10 times the number of people killed in the World Trade Center attack, and according to the ad it happens every year. I thought it must be wrong.
I contacted the Department of Health to clarify the figure and to ensure it was not providing the wrong information to Canadians. The department sent me a report confirming that in Canada 40,000 to 45,000 Canadians die of smoking related diseases. That is the same as having a World Trade Center attack every month. It is absolutely incredible. If we were to think about this, 45,000 Canadians die every year, year in and year out.
The report goes on to say that this impacts on the cost of living in our society of $15 billion a year. It is $2.5 billion directly to our health care system at a time when it is strained to its very edges, and yet we have this extra burden that does not have to be there.
The report from the Office of Tobacco Control, Health Protection Branch, stated:
According to this analysis, smokers cost society about $15 billion while contributing roughly $7.8 billion in taxes.
If it is killing 40,000 to 45,000 people a year it hardly seems like good value. A rough calculation indicates that at 41,000 people dying per year with a $7.8 billion tax revenue, that amounts to $190,000 per person. This is crazy. It is absolutely ridiculous that 45,000 people a year die from tobacco related diseases.
I commend and encourage the health minister to use these ads more that tell us about the dangers of smoking and about the incredible costs incurred. I encourage her to do more of these ads and make them clearer. I want her to point out the number of people who die every year in Canada is the same as 10 World Trade Center attacks. In the U.S. it extrapolated into an unbelievable number, but we are not talking about the U.S. we are talking about Canada.
The Canadian government, the military, everybody in Canada has turned a focus on the horrible terrorism act in New York which killed 4,000 people, but we have 45,000 people dying every year from smoking related diseases. It seems to me a misguided focus. If we are to address this issue the government has to come up with more ways to discourage people.
In the documents provided on Bill C-47 the government says it would increase the taxes on tobacco by $240 million annually. It claims that this would discourage tobacco consumption. I do not think that $240 million will discourage tobacco consumption enough. It does not provide educational material for young people, for smokers and does not help people get off the smoking habit. That is not nearly enough based on the numbers available and based on the study on the costs of smoking in Canada.
The numbers are absolutely incredible. They just go on and on in this report about the damage. It says that in 1991 approximately $2.5 billion in health care costs was attributable to smoking. That was 4% of the total health care budget in Canada.
That is just the beginning. There are extra costs for hospitals, physicians and absenteeism, and all other costs attributed to the smoking habit, which in 1991 was estimated at $15 billion. If we were to think about that, the whole health care budget was only $66 billion and the smoking attributable costs were $15 billion.
While we are talking about Bill C-47 and extra taxes on tobacco I raise the alarm bell and encourage the Minister of Health to increase those ads and put them into perspective for people so they can understand how dramatic the damage is that smoking is doing to our health, especially to young people, based on the charts and information that Health Canada supplied me. I hope we can raise the level of public awareness on this.
I compliment the Minister of Health for placing these ads. I have spoken to her today about how effective they were on me. In fact, they were so effective I thought they were wrong. The numbers are so high, they are hard to believe. I hope the Minister of Health will continue those ads, maybe even broaden them out and put them into perspective for people.
When I say that 45,000 people a year die in Canada people shake their heads and say that it is a lot. However, when I put it into perspective and say that it is 10 times the number of people that were killed in the World Trade Center they are flabbergasted. That is almost a World Trade Center catastrophe every month in Canada.
We should not accept this. We should not stand for it. We should do everything we can to bring this awful disease or addiction or whatever we want to call it to a minimum level at all costs because the real cost in money and in lives is incredible, especially at a time when much of the time we spend in the House is talking about health care.
Here we are spending $3, $4 or $5 billion on health care costs which could be controlled or reduced. I hope we do that in this case. I want to say those numbers again. That is $3 or $4 billion in health care costs because of smoking related and smoking attributable ailments.
When the government is talking about raising an extra $240 million in taxes as opposed to the cost directly attributable to our health care system of $4 billion, it is incredible. We should all be aware of this and the government should be doing more to raise public awareness of the situation and push for a correction.
I will now go back to Bill C-47 which is what the bill is about, although the bill does mention tobacco. It has several clauses with respect to tobacco, tobacco controls and tobacco taxes. I would like to see much more of that restriction. I would like to see a more concentrated, focused and increased effort on controlling tobacco and helping people get off the tobacco addiction.
Does Bill C-47 have some positives? We think it does. Bill C-47 would merge taxes which already exist to make it simpler for businesses to handle. It would make the taxes on tobacco the same right across the country, which is what it should have been all along. It would change the form of penalties resulting from excise tax, and we support the move in that direction. The increase in the export duties should discourage smuggling Canadian cigarettes back into the country which has been a problem in the past although it is reduced now.
On the down side, Bill C-47 increases the taxes but again does not specify where the taxes will go. Will it go toward helping people to understand their addiction to tobacco and the terrific price it costs in human lives, sickness, dollars and the strain on our health care system? Will that be where the money goes or will it go into general revenue like the EI fund? It is absolutely wrong for the $40 billion surplus in the EI fund to be going into general revenue. I consider that to be fraud. Every employee in Canada who gets a paycheque pays an EI premium but it is not an EI premium. It is an extra tax. If the government wants to take this money and put it into general revenue as a tax it should be marked extra Liberal tax, but it is not. It should be designated as a Liberal tax and not an employment insurance premium.
I appreciate the chance to speak to Bill C-47. We will be supporting Bill C-47 but I do hope my comments have not fallen on deaf ears. I hope the Minister of Health understands that I appreciate what she has done in the direction of raising public awareness of the damage smoking does to health and the costs to our health care system but I hope she will enhance that. I hope she will put more money into that budget and maybe take some of this money and put it into a budget to increase public awareness and help people get off the addiction to tobacco.