Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, members of Parliament, my name is Flory Doucas. I am the co-director and spokesperson for the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac. On behalf of the over 460 organizations which form the coalition, I would like to express

Justice committee  Yes, that would be my personal preference. I also think that we would be better off both ethically and economically.

Justice committee  Obviously, we all agree that even one percent of contraband is one percent too much. No one is against virtue and no one is opposed to the fight against contraband. Currently, the outcry is getting louder and louder each time there is an initiative seeking to reduce tobacco use.

Justice committee  I'd like to remind everyone of something. On page 13 of the brief, we report the findings of Health Canada, which studied the level of toxicity of contraband cigarettes versus legal cigarettes. The findings show that the risks are comparable. Certain retailers have conducted cam

Justice committee  There are two fronts to that. When a group purports to be caring about kids and uses that argument, saying that this should be the priority for government—to reduce tobacco—and, indeed, when we hear retailers saying that smoking rates are not in decline among youth because of co

Justice committee  To our knowledge, no. We've asked the clerk and we've asked one of the senators, and they didn't receive an answer.

Justice committee  Our coalition is an initiative of the Public Health Association of Quebec. It is funded in its entirety by this association. It receives funding from the Quebec Department of Health, Public Health Branches, and its members.

Justice committee  That is an excellent question. Bill C-10 can definitely reduce contraband by providing other tools to police forces, especially when they are fighting organized crime. It will also be useful for them when it comes to dealing with reoffenders and when they have to deal with armed

Justice committee  I'll just add that I think that Quebec has done outstanding work on this front. Contraband went from 35% of the market to 15%—and that being been done through various controls on raw materials and machinery. You need licensing before you even sow your tobacco. There's a manifest

Justice committee  There have been controls on the machinery that's used. When Imperial Tobacco closed its plant in Montreal, the machinery disappeared, and one wonders where that went. There are controls and licensing on the importing of machinery parts. That's certainly something that the federal

Health committee  Thank you. I'll make a few remarks in French, and then I'll switch to English. Good afternoon. My name is Flory Doucas and I am the co-director and spokesperson for the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac. We appreciate your invitation to testify today in the conte

Health committee  Publicity promoting vaping products has not been prohibited on television, radio or the Internet. This opens the door to all sorts of clever ways of having these advertisements present another type of image, among others lifestyle images, as shown in these advertisements. As you

Health committee  Yes. An amendment was made to bill S-5 regarding relative risk. People thought it was important that Health Canada make a statement concerning relative risk, that there be a statement with regard to the level of harmfulness of a product, or a graduated ranking of the harmfulness

Health committee  The Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control doesn't have a position on cannabis. We're part of the Quebec Public Health Association, and there is a project and spokespersons for cannabis. That being said, our understanding currently is that the nicotine vaping devices are illegal an

Health committee  I think we should be concentrating on nicotine vaping devices, because nicotine is the basis of an epidemic that's killing 45,000 Canadians. That said, the legislation, Bill S-5 as it is written currently, covers the e-liquids or the accessories regardless of whether they have ni