Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Legal and
Constitutional Affairs
Issue 54 - Evidence - Afternoon Sitting
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 3, 1997
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs, to which was referred Bill C-71, to regulate the manufacture, sale, labelling and promotion of tobacco products, to make consequential amendments to another Act and to repeal certain Acts, met this day at 12:30 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Hon. Sharon Carstairs (Chair) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, we are back for our afternoon session. We have a number of witnesses who will be appearing this afternoon. Our first group represents sports organizations.
We will ask Mr. Scrimshaw to begin the presentation.
Mr. Brent Scrimshaw, President, Molstar Sports & Entertainment: Honourable senators, thank you for this opportunity to speak on the subject of Bill C-71 and to present what I hope you will agree is a responsible and reasonable request for a very specific amendment.
I have two teenage boys, aged 13 and 16. I share the government's goal to curtail tobacco consumption by under-age Canadians.
I am not here to argue the merits of the proposed legislation because we believe that Minister Dingwall and his officials created this bill with the good health of Canadians as their only objective; nor do we have an intent to lessen the impact of the bill through our amendment. Our request to you is straightforward -- that the Senate pass an amendment that both supports the government's goal and that allows Canadians from coast to coast to continue to enjoy one of the most popular adult sporting events this country has known.
Specifically, we propose an amendment to clause 18(2) that would redefine the definition of "promotion." We request the addition of subclause (d) so the clause would read:
This part does not apply to
(d) the equipment and clothing of competitors and participants used in an international motorsport race that is part of a series in which over 75 per cent of the races are held outside of Canada.
Minister Dingwall has stated that Bill C-71 is only a health bill, but the reality is this bill goes much further. It may be the most significant piece of sports legislation ever presented to Parliament.
It has been marketed as an instrument designed to restrict tobacco promotion in Canada. The ministry has stated time and again that Bill C-71 controls not prohibits tobacco sponsorship. However, when applied to international motor sport, Bill C-71 is a total sponsorship ban, an absolute prohibition.
A letter I have just received from the chief executive officer of the CART/Indy Car series, the sanctioning body for Indy Car racing in Canada, reinforces that fact. It states in part:
I must confirm that without an amendment to the Canadian legislation that would permit the international events such as the CART/Indy Car series to operate in Canada as it does in every other country, we would not be in a position to bring our event to Canada.
The letter is signed by Andrew Craig.
Based on this official notification, I regret to announce today to all Canadians that without an amendment to the legislation, the final running of the Molson Indy Vancouver will take place on Labour Day weekend this year. The Molson Indy in Toronto will disappear after July 1998.
Recent developments in Vancouver make its loss that much more disheartening. As recently as last month, the Vancouver city council under the leadership of Mayor Owen unanimously approved a new site for the Molson Indy Vancouver. However, the large capital investment required to install new race facilities to run the race for one year simply makes no sense. Let me clarify why the current bill forces us to accept Indy Car's decision.
As the promoter of the Molson Indys in Toronto and Vancouver, Molstar Sports & Entertainment controls some of the commercial rights to these properties, including ticket sales, merchandising, and site sponsorship which includes track signage.
Bill C-71 will control the size and placement of tobacco messages on-site and will effectively eliminate promotion of tobacco involvement off-site, minimizing the value of any tobacco company sponsorship.
The financial impact for Molstar will be significant; in fact, it will be enormous. However, that is not the central issue for us. Why? Because even if domestic tobacco companies were willing to continue as sponsors at some level after October 1998, there would be no races to sponsor. Twenty per cent of Indy Car teams carry some level of tobacco signage to the 17 races in which they compete.
Bill C-71 in its present form bans equipment and personnel with tobacco identification. It is pretty tough to stage a race without cars. The two-year phase-in period offered by the government as applied to motor sport is really a two-year phase-out.
Even though the Canadian Indy Car races are considered among the very best, with Bill C-71's prohibitions the Indy Car series will simply not race in Canada. Mr. Craig's letter made that clear.
With that in mind, and with information provided in our discussions with senior Health Canada officials, a more realistic scenario for Molstar would be the staging of the Molson Indy Buffalo. In Buffalo, we could stage a highly successful race without limitations on participating teams or track signage, and with full broadcast access back into Canadian living rooms, live on CBC and ABC with no impact from Bill C-71. So instead of generating 20 plus million dollars in direct economic benefits for Toronto, the event would be an economic boost for a U.S. border city and not a bad day trip for Canadian race fans. Under this scenario, has the government achieved anything but the loss of Canadian jobs?
The irony is clear: Bill C-71 creates an unlevel playing field with a clear advantage for American operators and does not achieve the government's objectives.
Our proposed amendment will ensure the races remain in Canada and that the government achieves its goals. Please consider these facts: Sponsors support events not for what happens on track as much as for what happens off track. As we heard yesterday, television advertising, promotional event support and point-of-purchase materials are key. The government has closed the door on these media. Our proposed amendment does not affect those provisions.
Bill C-71 will restrict the display of tobacco signage on site through yet-undefined regulations. Despite the fact that 31 is the average age of our on-site audience, we seek no change in respect to on-site signage.
Clause 31 deals with broadcasts. It provides for the continuation of Canadian coverage, inclusive of unrestricted tobacco identification, provided only that the races do not originate in Canada. This position has been confirmed in discussions with Health Canada.
Are you perplexed? We are. A.C. Nielsen tells us our TV audience is overwhelmingly adult. Thus we understand the government's disinterest in broadcast, but why only ban broadcasts originating from Canada? Is it because race cars travelling at speeds of 200 miles an hour carry tobacco identification in an otherwise tobacco-controlled environment? It makes little sense. So the Indy, Daytona and U.S. 500s survive in Canada via television but the Molson Indys die. Tobacco, in an uncontrolled environment, flourishes; responsible representation of that product is disallowed.
Honourable senators, auto racing in Canada is in a very unique situation. We seek an amendment that would allow all international race teams to bring their cars to Canada and operate them on Canadian tracks with their cars, their transporters and their clothing bearing the identification of all their sponsors.
We are prepared to live with all other restrictions imposed by the government with respect to on- and off-site promotion of tobacco without any changes despite the very real financial impact on our business.
We believe that the goals of Health Canada can be achieved without sacrificing what some would say is a rallying point for national pride. You may argue the merits of introducing national unity as a strong defence for national sport, but I think my next point will be appreciated by this audience and should be obvious to all.
Canadian motor sport champions such as Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier, Paul Tracy, David Empringham, Greg Moore, and many others have contributed to our Canadian identity. These athletes have been unifying factors in Canada. They have drawn together cheering Canadians as they compete and win against the best in the world simply because Canadian racers are the best in the world.
Senators, help us keep Canada racing. I would like to close with a very brief video of what a Molson Indy race would look like on track under the terms of the amendment we propose. Please remember that the track signage that is visible in these clips would be significantly reduced under Bill C-71.
I ask that you focus on the cars and judge for yourself as to whether this moving medium is predominant enough to be the cause of the demise of Indy car racing in Canada.
Thank you for hearing our appeal.
(Video shown.)
Mr. Rick Dearden, Legal Counsel, Molstar Sports & Entertainment: Honourable senators, we have the rare luxury of having a recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in the RJR-Macdonald case which is directly on point and which provides guidance to you as to the constitutional validity of the provisions of Part IV of Bill C-71.
That decision has set up signposts to direct you on the road to constitutional validity. I want to highlight five of those signposts for the committee. I invite you to carefully follow those signposts as set out in the decision and to keep those in mind when you make your decision on whether you will recommend the amendments suggested by Mr. Scrimshaw.
First, dealing with infringement of section 2(b) of the Charter which constitutionally guarantees freedom of expression, you just heard from Mr. Scrimshaw that 4 of the 20 teams that race in the cart series are sponsored by a tobacco brand. That sponsor wants those teams to race in all the races, including the two in Canada.
Bill C-71 absolutely prohibits teams that race in the Molson Indy races from displaying tobacco logos on the cars or the uniforms. I have circulated a letter which we just received on March 17 from Health Canada after we met with them to get their interpretation of the provisions of Part IV. After that meeting, we received this letter which corrects an error made in an interpretation given to us at the meeting.
In short, Health Canada's interpretation of the bill is that racing cars and regalia which are part of an event taking place in Canada will not be permitted to bear logos or brand elements of any tobacco products whether or not such products are sold in Canada. That is their position.
Bill C-71 absolutely prohibits Molson Indy from displaying Player's or any other tobacco logo on tickets. I have some tickets which I will leave with you from last years' events showing a driver with "Player's" on the helmet. These tickets, over 90 per cent of which are purchased by adults, are absolutely banned. I have brochures which contain rather critical information about the event. They contain a picture of a race car or a driver which has a tobacco logo on the uniform. These are absolutely prohibited from being distributed in a tourism kiosk, in hotels or restaurants.
Event merchandise like a baseball hat that says "Marlboro Team Penske" or "Player's Forsythe Racing Team" are absolutely prohibited by Bill C-71. If our Canadian race car drivers, like Greg Moore or Paul Tracy, win a race, they cannot thank the tobacco sponsor. That is absolutely prohibited. They cannot thank their team sponsor. That, too, is absolutely prohibited.
Each one of those absolute prohibitions, Madam Chair, is an infringement of section 2(b) and no one doubts it. The argument lies in whether it is saved by section 1.
In my respectful submission, if you follow the reasoning of the majority of the Supreme Court of Canada in the five signposts that I am about to highlight for you, you must come to the conclusion that provisions 19, 21, 22, 24 and 27 are unconstitutional. They are not saved by section 1.
We all know the onus is on the government to prove that these infringing measures are a reasonable limit, prescribed by law, demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. The burden is on them.
As signpost number one, Madam Justice McLachlin said:
...to meet its burden under s.1 of the Charter, the state must show that the violative law is "demonstrably justified". The choice of the word "demonstrably" is critical. The process is not one of mere intuition; nor is it one of deference to Parliament's choice. It is a process of demonstration...
It is our respectful submission that you have not heard any proof as to why those absolute prohibitions that I just pointed out to you are necessary and why they meet the section 1 burden.
Section 1 requires that the means chosen to achieve the objective must be proportional to the objective and the effect of the law. You must first look at the objectives. Signpost number two in Madam Justice McLachlin's reasoning is that the objective relevant to the section 1 analysis is the objective of the infringing measure since it is the infringing measure and nothing else which is sought to be justified.
You must look at the provisions of Bill C-71 that impose the absolute prohibitions I just mentioned and then you must test those with the proportionality requirements of the legislation which are rational connection, minimal impairment and overall proportionality.
Does an absolute ban of tobacco logos on cars and uniforms for brands not sold in Canada reduce tobacco consumption? Do you have any proof that the other absolute bans I mentioned reduce tobacco consumption? That is the question that this committee must ask itself and on which it must come to a conclusion.
The means chosen must be rationally connected to the objective. The third signpost is critical. I ask the Senate to consider this carefully in considering the amendment proposed by Molstar.
As Madam Justice McLachlin said:
There does not appear to be any causal connection between the objective of decreasing tobacco consumption and the absolute prohibition on the use of a tobacco trade mark on articles other than tobacco products... There is no causal connection based on direct evidence, nor is there a causal connection based in logic or reason.
Here is the part of the passage that is critical:
It is hard to imagine how the presence of a tobacco logo on a cigarette lighter would increase consumption. Yet such use is banned. I find s. 8 of TPCA fails the rational connection test.
The test banning "Player's" on a lighter is struck down as unconstitutional. What about logos on cars and uniforms? If Player's is authorized to go on a lighter, why can it not go on a car?
The Minister of Health conceded on March 19 before this committee that a youth seeing Jacques Villeneuve wearing a Rothman's logo would not run off and buy a package of cigarettes. I put to you that they will not run off to buy cigarettes if they see it on his car or his uniform. Event merchandise like the baseball hats I mentioned are no different than "Player's" being put on a lighter.
The law applies even to tobacco brand names. As I just read to you in the letter of March 17 from Health Canada, tobacco brands that are not even sold in Canada are included in the ban. I ask, is it irrational to ban a logo on a product that cannot be purchased in Canada and argue it will reduce consumption? Of course, that is irrational.
If they get over the rational connection test, then the government has to prove also minimal impairment, that is, that the infringements have been carefully tailored to respect freedom of expression. Bill C-71 actually takes the opposite approach. It absolutely prohibits tobacco company sponsorships except as authorized and those authorizations are de minimis. The RJR case requires that the impairment be as de minimis as possible, not the authorizations.
That true intent was picked up out of the blueprint for tobacco control where the government says it is committed to introducing the most comprehensive restrictions on sponsorship possible.
The approach and the methodology are wrong. You cannot start with the absolute prohibition and then carve out the de minimis authorizations.
I ask, what evidence do you have that the absolute prohibitions I have mentioned would reduce tobacco consumption more than a partial ban such as the amendment that Molstar is proposing?
What evidence has been provided that there is a less intrusive measure that would or would not achieve the objective as effectively? That is the question you have to ask.
We know that the Alliance for Sponsorship Freedom proposed amendments. We have not heard any reasons or evidence as to why those were rejected.
Molson's has put forth an amendment. No reasons have been put before this committee as to why that less intrusive measure would not work. There was a international event exemption proposed to the Minister of Health by CART itself and you have not heard why that international event section would not be equally as effective to achieve the objective.
Lastly, on minimal impairment, another critical point to keep in mind is that the Supreme Court of Canada authorized brand preference advertisements. Player's on a car or a uniform is a brand preference. That was authorized by the Supreme Court of Canada, but it is illegal under Bill C-71. That flies totally in the face of the following statement which is signpost number five by the Supreme Court of Canada.
Madam Justice McLachlin held that:
Purely informational advertising, simple reminders of package appearance, for new brands and advertising showing relative tar content of different brands -- all of these are included in the ban. Smoking is a legal activity yet consumers are deprived of an important means of learning about product availability to suit their preferences...
...there is no indication that purely informational or brand preference advertising would...
-- increase consumption.
while one may conclude as a matter of reason and logic that lifestyle advertising is designed to increase consumption, there is no indication that purely informational or brand preference advertising would have this effect. The government had before it a variety of less intrusive measures when it enacted the total ban on advertising, including: a partial ban which would allow brand preference advertising...
I submit to you, honourable senators, that brand advertising is authorized; that is what you see on these brochures; that is what you see on the tickets; that is what you see on the cars and uniforms; and it is allowed.
The last test that has to be overcome is overall proportionality and I conclude with this. That is, the statements prove that the harmful effects are outweighed by the beneficial effects of the law.
The Supreme Court majority did not have to deal with that in RJR because they did not have to get to it. I put the question to you; in this case, what are the harmful effects? You have just heard the Indys will be cancelled. That is a form of entertainment and entertainment is protected under section 2(b) of the Charter. That is being lost to race fans, to watch it live. They can watch it on TV if it goes in Buffalo or Seattle, but they lose it live in Toronto and Vancouver. Denying that form of entertainment to Canadian race car fans, the economic spin-offs, et cetera, does the harm outweigh the benefits? Yes, it does.
I submit you can save the Molson Indys in Toronto and Vancouver by recommending the amendment that Mr. Scrimshaw has proposed to this committee and we invite you to do so.
Thank you very much.
[Translation]
Mr. Léon Méthot, President and Director General, Grand Prix Player's Ltée de Trois-Rivières: Thank you very much for giving us the opportunity of making our views known here. I am here to represent an event that is very important to us and to which we have devoted a great deal of our energies over the past 27 years: the Grand Prix Player's de Trois-Rivières. It is the oldest racing event in North America.
There are three such important events on the Canadian market: the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal and the Molson Indy races in Vancouver and Toronto. You may not know that the Grand Prix Player's de Trois-Rivières is recognized as being the fourth largest event in Canada. It is the oldest urban race in North America. We began this trend at home in Trois-Rivières, during the year Expo 67 was held.
Trois-Rivières has hosted the biggest names in car racing, those who now race in Indy Cars, such as Bobby Rae, Al Unser, James Hunt, the world champion in 1977, Allan Jones, and others.
Everyone knows Jacques Villeneuve today, the star of Formula 1 racing; did you know that Jacques Villeneuve began his racing career in Trois-Rivières in 1992? The promoters were the ones who first had this idea and they managed to make it a reality with the support of Player's. The Trois-Rivières racing course was his first professional race in North America and we all know today where this led him.
More recently, Patrick Carpentier, who know races on the Indy circuit, was also one of the big stars in Trois-Rivières.
The Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières attracts 85,000 visitors to a region with 48,000 inhabitants; the event draws more people from the outside than actually inhabit the region normally. Eight hundred volunteers take part in the presentation of this event year after year.
The economic benefits are on the order of $10 million and contribute a great deal to the regional tourist industry. The broadcasting of the Grand Prix de Trois-Rivières races in more than 141 countries has a major impact. Several million TV viewers thus have the opportunity to know and appreciate Trois-Rivières which contributes to promoting the town way beyond our borders. This is a showcase par excellence for the promotion of the region.
Which takes me to the core of my topic, the sponsorship of tobacco products manufacturers. The Trois-Rivières Grand Prix could not be held in 1986, 1987 and 1988 because of the loss of a sponsor in 1985. In 1989, with the support of the Chamber of Commerce, we managed to revive the Grand Prix. Player's was the only sponsor to take an interest in the project and help us out. Thanks to their support the people of the region managed to get the Grand Prix off and running again, to make it the success that it has become today .
The sponsorship of Player's is fundamental to the survival of the Trois-Rivières Grand Prix. Bill C-71 as it is worded will reduce to nothing all of the efforts the people in our region have invested in this event, which have allowed it to go on year after year.
The reason why Bill C-71 will squelch all of these efforts is because the event is called: The Grand Prix Player's de Trois-Rivières. In order to continue having the same success by promoting the event, we have to be able to benefit from publicity in medias such as television, radio, and posters in public places such as convenience stores, et cetera.
Bill C-71 prohibits the use of a tobacco manufacturer as a sponsor in the media. The organizers of the Grand Prix will have to drop the sponsor the event has been named for if they are to continue to promote the event on off-site markets, using effective media such as radio and television.
This brings us to the fundamental problem: what value will the sponsorship have if the sponsor's name is deleted from the name of the event? There is also the breach of contact issue.
The sponsorship we enjoy is related to the fact that Player's name is in the official title of our event. There is a contract issue there that we are going to have deal with. If Player's name no longer has any visibility, the value of sponsoring the event becomes entirely incidental. Player's is not our only sponsor, we have 12 important sponsors in Trois-Rivières such as Firestone, General Motors of Canada, and Unipro, who provide enormous support.
Year after year, we work to conserve, renew and find new sponsors. A $500,000 sponsorship for a market such as Trois-Rivières cannot be obtained from large Canadian companies at this time.
The amendments submitted by the alliance would solve our problems. Specifically, they would allow us to continue to include Player's in our official name and to continue to advertise in the media necessary for the promotion of our event such as radio and television. This is fundamental and these amendments must be passed to ensure the survival of an event such as the Grand Prix. The other point raised by Mr. Scrimshaw is the problem related to the series of races. The sanctions imposed on the Molson Indy races in Toronto and Vancouver apply to Trois-Rivières. As Mr. Andy Craig from CART wrote, those sanctions apply also to one of the series of races held in Trois-Rivières, a series known as the Indy Lights.
The Indy Lights series is made up of 12 teams sponsored by international tobacco manufacturers: Marlboro of Brazil, Cool of the United States, and Player's. All of these teams could no longer come to Canada, so they would no longer have any interest in holding the Indy Lights series in Trois-Rivières.
As for the Atlantic series, which allowed the drivers I mentioned earlier to make their mark, this series is sponsored by the Cool company, a United States tobacco company, and the manufacturer's logo must be placed on each car; as soon as Bill C-71 is passed, it will be all over for Canada insofar as those events are concerned.
You can see we have several problems on our hands, and that is why we felt very strongly about coming to express them to you.
Over the past few weeks we have become aware of an amendment, clause 66, which governs the date on which certain measures would become effective. The amendment applies only to clauses 24 (2) and (3). It applies to no other clauses and is drafted in such a way that those clauses would only come into effect on October 1, 1998 or on another later date to be decreed by the Governor in Council.
Over the past few years, certain things have been going on; we hear things, but concretely, we realize that the reality is different. It might be refreshing, if we are told that amendments will not affect races before October 1, 1998, to note that the bill is drafted to reflect that. What has been happening until now is that we are told such things, but something else is put down in writing. It would be nice if you could make sure that what is said is respected in the text of the bill; an amendment is required along those lines.
The minister testified that this amendment applied to automobile racing generally. I would like to draw your attention, since we are before the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, to the fact that the minister stated that clause 24(2) covers all sponsorships, the sponsorship of cars and teams. But if we read the bill, we see that clause 24(2) applies to the sponsorship of events. As concerns clause 27, which I will read for the purposes of our discussion, it is extremely vague, and I quote:
No person shall furnish or promote a tobacco product if any of its brand elements is displayed on a non-tobacco product... or is used with a service, if the non-tobacco product or service... is associated with young persons...
In other words, this is a definition of "lifestyle", which has been included in the bill.
I respectfully submit to you that when you are talking about a race car, you are certainly talking about a "non-tobacco product". The amendment made by the minister does not cover clause 27. There is no guarantee whatsoever that cars will be covered by that amendment. One can say one thing, but draft something different. I am not reassured by the wording of clause 27.
The minister's argument was to the effect that clause 24 is more specific and should take precedence over clause 27. If that is the case I would ask you to put it in writing; this would be entirely in compliance with the will of the minister and the intent of the bill.
I am the father of three daughters: I have been a smoker, and I have given up smoking. My choice is quite personal and closely related to the fact that I have children. I think that by providing the right example I can influence my children so that they do not start to smoke. The testimony I have heard over the past few weeks do not lead me to believe that the fact of having a manufacturer's logo appear somewhere will aggravate the problem of tobacco addiction in Canada in any way. This is a fundamental issue. There won't be fewer smokers when all of the manufacturers' ads have disappeared from our events. There will be as many smokers the morning after the law comes into effect, and that is certain. What is also certain is that there will no longer be any racing events.
The decision handed down by the Supreme Court of Canada was to the effect that measures taken by the legislator must ensure that the result sought will be attained. I respectfully submit that this bill does not meet that test. The only thing we will be creating in Canada is chaos and stagnation where racing events are concerned, and the number of smokers will remain the same. According to professor Luik, these means will not allow us to reach the objective of reducing smoking in Canada. This completes my presentation.
Mr. Richard Legendre, Director, Tennis Canada (Montreal): Madam Chair, on behalf of Tennis Canada, I want to thank you for giving us the opportunity today to tell you who we are, what we do, and, most of all, what we will no longer be able to do in the future, following the adoption of Bill C-71.
Accompanying me here today are my colleagues Jane Wynne, who is my counterpart in Toronto, and our legal counsel, Mr. Brian Flood. I am the Director of the du Maurier Open tournament in Montreal. Our President, Mr. Moffatt, was unavoidably out of the country and could not join us today.
Tennis Canada has been in existence for 106 years and is responsible for the promotion and development of tennis throughout the country.
Today, we represent: our 10 provincial associations as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories; the 75 full-time and part-time employees in our Montreal and Toronto offices; the thousands of volunteers who organize our international events and hundreds of junior and senior tournaments throughout the country; over 4,000 coaches certified by Tennis Canada who teach tennis throughout the country; 3,000 junior competitive players who strive to become better athletes; about 3.5 million recreational tennis players -- over 10 per cent of our population -- who benefit from Tennis Canada's leadership; and finally, the top players who represent Canada internationally with distinction.
[English]
The first thing I want to tell you today essentially is that over the last 20 years, Tennis Canada has contributed very positively to improving the fitness and the quality of life of Canadians. We are concerned, of course, by health. Actually, it is our priority.
We have done this by successfully promoting and developing tennis across the country. How? By becoming a stronger and more resourceful organization. How? Through the profits of our two major championships and the du Maurier Open. Over the past 18 years, $22 million in profits have been made by those two events and been reinvested in the development of our game in all age groups in all parts of Canada.
In 1996, to give you an example, our profits with the three events were $2.5 million for a non-profit sporting national association. What do we do with that money? We put it back into the game with all kinds of programs which have no linkage at all to the source of the funds. During this time, we have been held up as a model by Sports Canada and to other sports governing bodies on how to be self-supporting and free of reliance upon government resources.
How have we been able to increase our profits at the same time that the expenses were increasing? Because our title sponsor, du Maurier, has regularly increased its contribution up to a level of close to $8 million per year now for the two cities. It is this level of sponsorship which allows us not only to stage our events and make them better but also to fund the sport in Canada.
Tennis and tobacco may be a paradox but not a contradiction, because the end result of this association is enormously positive for all Canadians.
Now comes Bill C-71. What does this bill do to us if it is passed in its current form? It is clear that the strong restrictions that have been described by my colleagues keep us from having a tobacco company as a title sponsor. The Minister of Health claims that Bill C-71 does not eliminate sponsorships. Perhaps he is right. However, it will eliminate sponsors. It will eliminate our sponsor.
[Translation]
The entire value of a title sponsorship is in the usage of the name of the event -- in our case, the "du Maurier Open".
If the name cannot be utilized in TV and radio advertising or promotions, if the name cannot be put on a ticket brochure off-site; if the name cannot be shown on billboards or posters off- site, then the title sponsorship is no longer a valuable means to communicate.
Bill C-71 is telling us that yes, we can own a car, but we have to leave it in the driveway. With the loss of this very supportive title sponsor, the quality of our tournaments will suffer tremendously. We will not be able to offer world-class prize money. We will not attract a world-class field of competitors and we will cease to be a world-class event.
The profit from the tournaments will therefore be eliminated and we will no longer be able to reinvest them in developing our sport. This results in the loss of 75 per cent of the money we make available for our programming and eliminates the grants and support services we provide to the provinces. It wipes out senior teams, substantially reduces the level of support to our juniors and to our international athletes.
This means that we will be totally reliant on government funding, which only represents 25 per cent of the discretionary funds in our current budget.
[English]
Bill C-71 is also coming at the worst possible time of our history. We have recently learned that within the next two years the worldwide international tennis circuit will be going through a major restructuring of its top events. Only five tournaments in the world will have the opportunity of joining a super series of events which will be comparable to what you probably know as the Grand Slam tournaments -- the U.S. Open, the French Open and Wimbledon.
These premier events will be combined men's and women's tournaments in the same week and will feature all of the best male and female players in the world over 10 days in prime tennis locations. Already, three of these locations have been chosen. Canada is in the running for one of the two remaining spots, in competition with a major U.S. city. Actually, we found out about a rumour two weeks ago that Canada would not be part of it. The first questions we were asked when we went to the source to find out why Canada would not be part of it were: What is happening with Bill C-71? Will you still have a title sponsor?
One of the critical issues will be a guarantee to the international sanctioning body that we will be secure in terms of our financial stability in the future. What do you think Bill C-71 does to us in terms of guaranteeing our future financial stability?
The obvious question is: Can we replace du Maurier as a title sponsor? Can we find another corporation to spend close to $8 million each year, in this economy, to sponsor tennis? The answer is: We do not know. We believe it will be doubtful at best and most likely impossible. We just do not know whether we can find another title sponsor at this level of commitment, and it is this level of commitment which enables us to funds our sport in Canada.
As we all know -- and, I surely hope you know this -- sponsorship is very difficult to secure at the best of times. We need more money now and we need it urgently to be able to meet this new challenge. Imagine how difficult this will be when all of those events <#0107> that is, 250 and more -- will be looking for sponsors? We need more money. We need it now, and there will be 300 looking for more.
[Translation]
What do we propose as a solution? Clearly as a member of the Alliance for Sponsorship Freedom, we support the series of proposed amendments to Bill C-71 already presented back in February, and have from the beginning.
The amendments you will be seeing are reasonable and represent the adequate solution to attain the government and the minister's objectives and allow us to continue to exist and reach our objectives.
[English]
However, we have a very unique situation at Tennis Canada. We are a not-for-profit organization owning a property that gives Canada the incredible opportunity of presenting a world-class event to Canadians which has a huge impact on Canadian tourism and which brings extensive television visibility in over 125 countries around the world. At the same time, it provides the majority of funding necessary to support the development of tennis in the country.
We are in trouble if Bill C-71 is passed as is. We need your help. If these amendments do not receive approval, we must find a way for Canada to find a solution, as other countries such as Australia did, in order for us to benefit from the new international opportunities which are ahead of us and not lose this prestigious event to the United States.
If the amendments are not accepted, we suggest that you seriously consider a special limited exemption which could be applied to events of major international significance that could otherwise be lost to Canada as a consequence of Bill C-71.
[Translation]
In conclusion, Madam Chair, I want to emphasize again the fact that Tennis Canada greatly contributes to improving the health and well-being of the Canadian population. It is incumbent upon Parliament to find a solution that will allow us to continue to exist.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Legendre.
All of you, perhaps with the exception of Mr. Méthot, mentioned these events are all going to the United States. My understanding is that the Food and Drug Administration of the United States will, in August of 1998, ban sponsorships even further than we have gone in Canada. They will not allow any signage.
Why are you so fearful of these events going to the United States when the FDA has already indicated that they will not allow sponsorships at all?
Mr. Scrimshaw: We are aware of the FDA regulation that is proposed in the United States. We are also aware of the court challenge that is in place right now of that legislation. Our understanding is that it is very uncertain that that legislation will ever come to pass. I may differ from my colleagues here.
We have said in our presentation that we need a level playing field. If someone here can guarantee that that level playing field will exist, then perhaps the situation is different than what we are now looking at. However, our best intelligence is that that will not be the case, certainly not in our time frame.
Mr. Méthot: It is true that Mr. Clinton has given to the FDA the mandate to write up regulations which should be in force in 1998. There are two things being discussed and challenged. The first is the jurisdiction of the FDA to pass on these regulations, and the core of it, once the jurisdiction is decided, is freedom of speech. That must go through the same process as it went through in Canada.
In the U.S., whenever you go to court challenging regulations from an administrative body, you can immediately ask for a stay. Until the Supreme Court of the United States has decided on the issue of freedom of speech, there will be no rules applied in the U.S.A.
As to how long that will take, your guess is as good as mine. It will take no less than six years and it may take 10 years, as did the last bill here in Canada. During that period, racing will continue there as it is today. Racing will drop out of Canada because here the law, if passed, will apply as of October 1, 1998.
Mr. Legendre: Our situation with the tennis tournament is not the same, because we are competing with a city in the United States which has a title sponsor which is not a tobacco company. Therefore, we may lose the battle if we cannot guarantee to the international bodies that we have the financial security to follow the new pace, if you wish.
Senator Maheu: My question is on the Canadian Cancer Society report to us dated February 10 which, in effect, claims that the U.S. will be passing the law in August 1998.
Mr. Scrimshaw, I beg to differ just a little with you when you say that car racing is overwhelmingly an adult sport. I have a 12-year-old grandson who insists that we all watch television when the races are shown. He is a non-smoker and detests smoking. I agree with you that the Rothmans sign is not bothering Jean-Philippe.
Senator Kenny: We heard the legal arguments and I do not intend to get into them. Previous witnesses have said that this legislation will meet all the Supreme Court tests. We will leave that aside and see what happens. We are told that this will go to the court in any event, so we will see what happens when it does.
We have also heard from economists that the economic impacts are vastly overstated and that this will just shift the money from one city in Quebec to another city in Quebec. I asked specifically about whether tourist spending made a big difference and was told that it made a difference but not a huge one.
How can you tell us that your events are more important than the 40,000 people who will die in Canada next year because of the products you are promoting? How can you tell us that your events are more important than the $3 billion in direct health costs and $7 billion in indirect costs to Canadians? Why are you here acting on behalf of the tobacco companies, making their case for products that will kill Canadians?
Mr. Méthot: With all due respect, senator, I am here on behalf of the community of Trois-Rivières and the $10 million in economic fall-back from which we benefit upon hosting the event. I am here also to answer the questions about the 40,000 people. If I were sure that scrapping the signage from my site and my event would change anything on that issue, I would agree with you. However, I cannot do that. With everything that has been said as of this day, there is no evidence that scrapping these signs will change anything with regard to smoking in Canada. There will be as many smokers the day this bill comes into force as there were the day before.
Dr. Luik made that clear yesterday. He was clear that it is by setting a good example that we will ensure that people will not start smoking. He spoke of peer pressure on youngsters and all of that.
Had this bill stipulated that at all events being sponsored by tobacco companies booths must be put on site to provide education on the hazards of smoking, I would be in complete agreement with that. That would be very beneficial because a lot of people attend these events. Such initiatives might serve the purposes of health. Scrapping the signage will not fulfil that purpose. It will create havoc and will not change a thing with regard to smoking.
Senator Kenny: I agree with you and with Professor Luik that advertising alone will not solve the problem. Education and taxation combined will probably be the most effective combination.
I have not heard a thing from you folks about the problem of smoking. I have not heard a thing about what you want to do in terms of assisting with education.
If your events are so good, why are they not paying for themselves? If your events are so terrific, why are people not paying enough for their tickets so that you do not need sponsorship? If your events are so worthwhile, why is it that the only companies that want to sponsor them are the tobacco companies? Why can you not find other sponsors who will fill in, if your events are so fabulous?
Mr. Scrimshaw: We have a difference of opinion here.
We are not here to debate the 40,000 lives. You have used that number over the last couple of days. Whether it is true or not, so be it.
Senator Kenny: So you accept it then?
Mr. Scrimshaw: I do not know whether I accept it. For my purpose, it is not relevant. My point is that the bill, as written, does not work. It has created an environment that will allow, in our case, our races to move to the U.S. and be broadcast back into Canada to a broader audience. This legislation takes them away from a live audience on site, which has an average age of 31, and transport them to the U.S. and an uncontrolled tobacco environment, to be beamed back into Canadian living rooms.
The amendment we have put forward ensures that, if they are in our cities, they will be broadcast to Canadians in a controlled tobacco environment. That is the issue.
Senator Kenny:Turning to the tennis question, I have before me an article from the Montreal Gazette. There is a picture of Monica Seles between two Mounties. She has her arms around both Mounties, and she has just won what the headlines says is the du Maurier Open Championship.
When I saw this in the paper, I asked myself what on earth two Mounties are doing promoting cigarettes in Canada? What are these guys doing at this event? This is an institution which we all think has some merit, and here they are.
Senator Nolin: You should ask that of the government, Senator Kenny.
Senator Kenny: I called up Commissioner Murray and asked him why we have these Mounties promoting cigarettes that are killing Canadians? The answer that came back to me was: No, no, they are not promoting cigarettes; they are there at the women's Canadian World Tennis Championships.
I said: You must be kidding. Have you turned on your television set? Have you read the paper? Have you looked at any of the pictures? Do you see in any of the promotion that this is the women's Canadian World Tennis Championships?" It does not show up anywhere. It shows up as the du Maurier Open.
Mr. Legendre: That is the name of the event.
Senator Kenny: That is the name of the event. That is exactly it, and that is what the kids are buying. Do you not think kids are interested in tennis? Of course they are.
Mr. Legendre: We were promoting tennis. The spectators who come to our events also think that we are promoting tennis. I do not think that when they come out of our stadium, they feel like buying cigarettes. I think they feel like playing tennis.
The best way to encourage health -- and I might be wrong -- is still sport. When I hear of the government placing health as a huge priority, I agree. Tennis and sport and health have been my life. Where is sport right now on the government's priority list? Can you tell me to which ministry sport belongs? Sport is on the bottom of the list of priorities, yet health is important.
Yes, we believe health is important. That is what we are promoting. You tell me that we are not doing anything against smoking, but what are we doing today? We are saying "amendments," not "no law." We are not saying the bill is no good. We are saying we need to amend part of the bill. The Minister of Health has said himself he did not want to ban our sponsorship.
Senator Kenny: I am not the Minister of Health, and I am not speaking here for him.
Mr. Legendre: I think we are here to find a solution to a problem that our country has right now. The solution is right in the middle. I heard yesterday that the amendments were a smoke screen. That is a nice play on words. Have you read them? Some of the items in the amendments have more severe consequences for us than what is in the bill as it is now. Let us get to the basic point to find the solution. That is all we are saying.
Senator Kenny: When you place an ad, people discount it accordingly. They say, "Oh, it's an ad; I don't have to look at it; it's not part of the deal." When the cigarette companies get into the promotion, every time you see a shot on television, you see the product mentioned. Every time the announcer talks about it, you hear the product mentioned. The next day, when you open the papers, you do not see anything about the women's open tennis championships but you do see your product being mentioned.
I am afraid to say it here again now because it will end up on TV tonight. Your product should not be mentioned like that because it is the combination of seeing it as part of the news and the lifestyle that is driving our kids into smoking. You pretend that the only issue at hand is car racing or tennis tournaments, but those are not the only issues. The issue is the health and safety of Canadians. The issue is whether we will be killing these people. The issue is the health costs that we have to pay. You seem only to be concerned about your bottom lines.
Senator Nolin: They are not saying that; you are.
Senator Kenny: I am saying it.
Mr. Dearden: We are accused of pretending. Madam Justice McLachlin was not pretending when she indicated that it is hard to imagine how the presence of a tobacco logo on a cigarette lighter would increase consumption. That is what you are bound by. This is a legal and constitutional affairs committee. You must abide by that law, sir.
Senator Kenny: We will see what happens when it goes back to court.
Mr. Dearden: Put a tobacco logo on a car and prove that it will do all the things you just said. Madam Justice McLachlin has held for the majority of the Supreme Court that that will not happen and that it defies reason and logic.
Senator Kenny: Madam Chair, I made the point at the beginning --
The Chair: Senator Kenny, we will to move on to Senator Pearson now.
Senator Kenny: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Senator Pearson: The issue at stake -- and I would say that you have probably agreed with it -- is how to diversify the support that you get. I have not heard any of you seriously say that you think it is a great idea to be too dependent upon tobacco companies. Of course, I wish the tobacco companies would spend their time and energy and money, or some of it, in finding another product that was equally attractive but not so harmful. It looks like tobacco, smells like a cigarette and so on, but it does not actually kill. That would be my long-term solution.
I have enjoyed watching the tennis tournament, but I am also conscious of the fact that it does have that association. I know that you cannot draw a direct line between Logo A and Kid B. However, one of the many reasons that young people take up smoking is the fact that it is associated with so many glamorous and exciting and wonderful things.
I do not think that any of us can disentangle our responsibilities. It is a dilemma. You have an important program, and you are doing many good things for it. As we look at this legislation, we are trying to determine what is most beneficial and least harmful. With the World Health Organization and the pressures going on in the States, yes, they may delay it through all kinds of legislation and so on, but you are also seeing states charging tobacco companies. You would not want to end up in a legal position where one of your events were held responsible because it was associated with a tobacco company. The whole world is becoming aware of the fact that tobacco is a major killer. We are all trying to work toward diminishing the attraction of tobacco to young people.
If it works, there will be less money coming from tobacco, and we need to be getting it from somewhere else. Part of what we must consider is where else to get it from. I know it is a problem for you.
Mr. Legendre: Madam Chair, in our case, for one tournament, the direct du Maurier contribution is $2.5 million. We have looked for other sponsors. We have 30 major sponsors in Montreal. They totalled $1.3 million. With 30 sponsors, we get to $1.3 million, the highest one being $200,000. How will we do if we lose the $2.5 million? Will we have to go to one of those sponsors and tell them they will have to pay 10 times more?
Yes, spectators come. Yes, we do everything to be profitable. Our bottom line is making kids play tennis. If that is wrong, then I am lost.
Mr. Scrimshaw: Our concern with the bill goes beyond the direct financial benefit we might receive from a tobacco company. Clearly, we have built our case on our product, car racing, becoming illegal because of the legislation.
The cars that currently race within the Indy car series that would be affected by the bill are primarily, with the exception of Player's, sponsored by U.S. tobacco companies that do not market their products in Canada. There are Marlboro and Cool. The third one is actually Brazilian.
We are in the position of losing these car races primarily for brands that are not even marketed here. We have made a case that we will accept the regulations in terms of on-site and off-site promotion. We just need the cars. It is more than an economic issue.
Senator Beaudoin: I would like to come back to the very good question you asked first. I have not seen any answer yet, Madam Chair. They say, okay, those events will take place in the United States. Then I heard a reply saying, well, in the United States it will be challenged before the courts.
[Translation]
The Senate is a legislative chamber and we must adopt, reject, or amend bills. We are aware of the fact that some might challenge the constitutionality of bills and we do our best to pass laws that are constitutional and respect rights and freedoms, while knowing that they can always be challenged before the courts.
I wonder, Mr. Méthot, if you can answer that this is not important because in the United States it will be heard before the Supreme Court, within a period of six to eight years? The same thing can happen in Canada. As a legislative chamber, we must make an immediate decision, we cannot wait for the courts to decide. We try not to pass illegal or unconstitutional laws, but we cannot prevent people from going to court, quite the contrary. That is the rule of law.
How would you respond to the argument of our chair to the effect that it does not solve the situation to say that everything will be possible in the United States, because these questions will be before the American courts during six, seven or eight years? The same thing can happen in Canada, the bill could be challenged. The bill is essentially good, we agree with its general principles, but it could still be challenged.
I don't think it's the solution to say that it will be challenged and that we cannot act in the mean time. You also alluded to the "stay rule" for administrative tribunals. I'd like to hear more on that topic.
Mr. Méthot: While I don't claim to be an expert in American law, I am a lawyer and a member of the Quebec Bar. It will be a pleasure to broach this issue from a legal perspective. I'll have to draw a parallel. When I am asked about the FDA regulations, which are to come into effect in August 1998 --
Senator Beaudoin: Only the regulations?
[English]
The Chair: It is not a bill in the United States.
Senator Nolin: That is the argument.
The Chair: It is a regulation.
[Translation]
Mr. Méthot: Those regulations will come into effect in 1998. There are two aspects involved: the strictly interpreted legal aspect and the commercial aspect involving trade in North America.
When we discuss things with people who have had sanctions imposed on them, CART for instance, and talk about the laws that are coming in the United States, they don't seem bothered by this proposed regulation. They know that when the FDA passes regulations they are challenged through injunctions, and nothing applies until the highest court has handed down a decision.
Senator Beaudoin: Is it an injunction?
Mr. Méthot: Yes, an injunction.
Senator Beaudoin: It's automatic?
Mr. Méthot: It's automatic, when an administrative governing body is involved, and that is what the FDA is. They won't worry until the Supreme Court of the United States has handed down a decision on commercial freedom of expression. We often hear that. They say that they have five, six or seven years --
Senator Beaudoin: -- of freedom in the interim.
Mr. Méthot: Yes, of freedom. We don't know what the decision of the Supreme Court will be. I don't know if you are a film buff; in the movie The People versus Larry Flynt we see that the Supreme Court of the United States interprets freedom of expression very broadly.
Senator Beaudoin: Yes, of course.
Mr. Méthot: We can't presume to know what the American Supreme Court will do, but we do know that practically speaking there will be a fairly long delay before we know the answer. The regulations will not apply until a determination has been made. We don't have the same legal system and we know that as soon as Bill C-71 comes into effect it will be applied. You know as well as I do that we don't ask for injunctions to barr the application of a law when it is challenged. There is some debate on that, but that is not clear. Bill C-71 would be applicable here, while the Americans will benefit from a delay. If they cannot race here with their teams and their equipment, they will abandon Canada. That's clear! It will be a business decision for them. That is what we are looking at this time.
[English]
Senator Beaudoin: You say that because of the legal and constitutional system of the United States, everything will be stayed for a certain time. This may lapse in six, seven or eight years. During that time, of course, you are at liberty to do what you want. Is that your argument?
Mr. Méthot: In the U.S., by that time, our rules will be in force, so they are dropping out.
Senator Beaudoin: That was my question.
The Chair: In order to clearly answer this, we would have to have an expert on American constitutional law.
Senator Beaudoin: Why not?
The Chair: In reality, there has been a clear differentiation in American law between commercial speech and free speech. The courts in the United States have made a very careful distinction between those two things.
Senator Nolin: It is the same thing here with our courts.
Senator Beaudoin: It is settled here. Commercial law is part of the freedom.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Gentlemen, you represent the world of automobile racing in Canada. I would have liked to hear the representatives of the Montreal Grand Prix, but we thought that by hearing representatives of automobile races other than the Montreal Grand Prix, you would be able to defend their point of view.
Were you consulted by Health Canada while this legislation was being prepared? Were you asked for opinions, or did you offer any?
Mr. Méthot: The proposal which had been made at the beginning by the Department of Health, which was that we express our point of view in the preliminary stages of the bill...
Senator Nolin: In January 1996.
Mr. Méthot: Yes. We wrote them at that time to say that the bill would have consequences for us that would depend on how it took form, concretely. We wanted to be heard to put forward the perspective of the racing world and see how things could be circumscribed in order to allow events to continue to exist while meeting the objectives of the bill and of the Department of Health.
Senator Nolin: You put it in writing?
Mr. Méthot: Yes. We sent letters asking to be allowed to express our point of view, but there was no reply. All we got were comments. That is when the alliance was formed to try to understand what was going on and obtain whatever information was available.
There was no meeting as such, either, until Bill C-71 was tabled last November; that is when we met with some people. I asked all along for a meeting with Health Canada representatives, but this never happened. We never were granted the right to a meeting to put forward our point of view. We met with a lot of people over the past few months and it seemed clear to us that we could not claim to know what the consequences of this bill, as it is worded, would be on events; there was a lack of understanding. The more things unfolded, the clearer became. That is why we followed the bill through its legislative stages in order to be able to present our viewpoint.
Today there is a better understanding. The bill will have very serious consequences.
Senator Nolin: Is it fair to say that the current legislative debate is creating a problem? What is happening in the world of tennis, for instance?
Mr. Legendre: On the international scene, this is the first question that was put to us: What will happen with this bill? You will lose your title sponsor. Will you be able to follow, internationally? Will you be able to be one of the super 7s?
Senator Nolin: Mr. Legendre, you have easier access to people from Sports Canada; did you discuss with them the effects of the document tabled in January 1996? Did they listen to you? Did they at least begin discussions with you?
Mr. Legendre: You have to understand that we had no knowledge of certain specific elements of the bill before last November. That is why it became problematic.
We have to take the time needed to compare Bill C-71 and the amendments, because it isn't that easy to understand. Not everyone is familiar with the business of sponsorship, and still less with title sponsorship.
If we tell a title sponsor that we can no longer use his name on television and radio and that his folders will not be distributed in tennis clubs, this is a major development. Perhaps Parliament did not understand that. There is currently an enormous misunderstanding, an enormous rift between the two clans. The draft amendment is a reasonable compromise that would meet everyone's objectives. Why not consider it seriously? I don't think there will be an increase in smoking or smoking-related deaths if the draft amendment we are proposing, an amendment that would meet everyone's needs, is accepted.
Senator Nolin: You are talking about the amendment tabled yesterday by the alliance?
Mr. Legendre: Yes, indeed.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Senator Nolin. I have two very quick questions.
First, to you, Mr. Legendre, has du Maurier indicated to you one way or the other whether they will continue sponsorship as a result of Bill C-71?
Mr. Legendre: They have indicated that if the bill passes as is, they will not renew.
The Chair: Mr. Scrimshaw, I am not an expert on motor racing, I must say, but I understand that France has had a complete ban on sponsorship since 1993 including displays, logos, all of the things included in this legislation. Has that affected the motor sport industry in France?
Mr. Scrimshaw: There are a couple of things to remember when you look at the French example. Perhaps the most important one, from our perspective, is that we are dealing with two very different series. Formula One is the world championship. Essentially they have, in most instances, one race in a number of other countries, and that is their national race.
At the time Formula One accepted the legislation in France, I think it would be fair to say that that was the most important jurisdiction for them in terms of their race series. They had Peugeot and Elf and Renault as their primary backers. I am not sure they would accept those conditions today.
More important is the structure of the CART/Indy Car series itself. For all intents and purposes, we are dealing with a U.S. series. There are 17 races: one in Brazil, one in Australia, two in Canada, and 13 in the United States. For Indy Car, they have much easier options to move those races to other centres in the United States, and that is frankly what they are considering right now.
We know, for example, that there are a number of U.S. cities waiting for this legislation to pass -- Houston being one of them -- with their eyes on Vancouver. Where Formula One would be hard pressed to pull a race from a location, Indy Car races can be gone overnight.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentations this afternoon.
Honourable senators, our next panel includes representatives from the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Institute of Child Health and the Canadian Medical Association.
Welcome to you all, and please begin.
Ms Jenny Tipper, Research Coordinator, Canadian Institute of Child Health: Thank you for this opportunity to address you with regard to Bill C-71 and the consequences that it holds for the future health and well-being of children of this country.
For 20 years the Canadian Institute of Child Health has worked in the fields of health promotion and prevention to support the healthy development of all children. Our work is guided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Canada is a signatory.
I am sure you are all aware that the convention sets out the basic human rights to which all children and youth are entitled. Of particular relevance to today's discussion are Article 17, which encourages the development of appropriate guidelines for the protection of the child from information and material injurious to his or her well-being, and Article 24, which recognizes the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health.
I cannot overstate the importance of Bill C-71 to the health and well-being of all Canadians, in particular children and youth. Enacting this legislation offers Canada an important opportunity to move one step closer to fulfilling its obligations to our nation's young people.
One of the stated purposes of Bill C-71 is to protect the health of Canadians in light of conclusive evidence implicating tobacco use in the incidence of numerous debilitating and fatal diseases.
Children are particularly vulnerable to these effects. It is the tragic reality that each day an estimated 2.8 million Canadian children under the age of 15 are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke in their homes. Millions more are forced to breathe tobacco smoke in schools, restaurants, childcare settings, cars, buses and public places. Children are especially vulnerable to the effects of tobacco smoke because they are smaller. Their bodies absorb proportionally more substances than adults. They breathe more rapidly and take in more air and pollutants per kilogram of body weight. A child's biology is less developed so their immune system is less supportive and protective. The cells in a child's body are still developing and may be more vulnerable to chemical alteration than adult cells which are fully developed.
The harmful effects of tobacco use on adults' health are well known and well documented. The ways in which tobacco damages children's health are perhaps less well known but the scientific evidence is equally compelling. The effects on the health and the lives of children include increased risk of low birth rate. Women who smoke are at least twice as likely to give birth to a low birth weight infant, that being a baby who weighs less than 2,500 grams. Children are also vulnerable to increased risk of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Exposure to tobacco smoke by a woman during pregnancy increases the risk of SIDS in her newborn.
Babies exposed to environmental tobacco smoke are at least twice as likely to die of SIDS. Children who are exposed to tobacco smoke have increased risk of reduced lung function. They have 1.2 to 2.4 times greater risk of suffering from respiratory symptoms such as cough, phlegm and wheeze. They have more ear infections, runny noses and throat infections. They are hospitalized more for bronchitis and pneumonia. They are more likely to have asthma than children of non-smokers. Asthmatic children exposed to environmental tobacco smoke have more frequent and more severe asthma attacks. They have more sore eyes, noses and throats. They are more likely to be irritable and cranky and, as babies, are more likely to refuse feedings and to spit up.
Children of smoking families are also at increased risk. Children whose parents smoke are at greater risk of death or injury from house fires caused by careless smoking. Children who grow up with parents who smoke are more likely to become smokers themselves. Breast milk from smoking mothers may contain more than five times the level of nicotine compared to that of non-smoking mothers.
These are all outcomes which are directly attributable to exposure to tobacco smoke. The evidence is clear. Restrictions need to be placed on the extent to which children are exposed, either indirectly or directly, to the damaging effects of tobacco smoke. Given these facts, the CICH argues that regulating the sale and promotion of tobacco products is critical to protecting the future health and well-being of all Canadians and of children and youth in particular.
Tobacco sales pose a direct threat to children. The statistics on youth smoking are alarming. Since 1994, smoking among youth aged 15 to 19 years has jumped from 21 to 29 per cent. Tobacco manufacturers claim they do not support the sale of tobacco to minors, yet it was estimated in 1991 that the Canadian youth market, being aged 12 to 19, generated $450 million in retail cigarette sales. Strict regulation on tobacco advertising is necessary to protect children because, simply, advertising works. It does exactly what it is intended to do. It sells cigarettes.
Several studies have shown that children can identify cigarette brands and slogans in edited ads that eliminate the brand names and that the association is stronger for under-aged non-smokers.
Tobacco companies market directly and aggressively to children. In a confidential 1988 marketing strategy, Imperial Tobacco acknowledged that firms which respond more effectively to the needs of younger smokers will dominate the market. Because of the vulnerability of children and youth and because they cannot be fully protected from advertisements intended for adult populations, the Canadian Institute of Child Health supports the restrictions which Bill C-71 places on the promotion of tobacco and tobacco products.
Similarly, tobacco industry sponsorship must be restricted to protect children's health. It has been the industry practice to use "shells," company names and logos nearly identical to tobacco product brand names to market aggressively and without restriction to specifically targeted consumer groups, many of which are youthful.
As an example, Imperial Tobacco has promoted its Matinée cigarettes, a popular brand which has female-oriented advertising, through a shell company called the Matinée Limited Fashion Foundation. The fashion foundation has ostensibly been set up to award grants to young Canadian fashion designers, but it also provides Imperial Tobacco with a vehicle to associate Matinée cigarettes with an industry that appeals to young women, more specifically, to young women and teen-aged girls.
Sponsorships associate tobacco with the glamour and excitement of sports and cultural events. This is in direct contradiction to the health and safety messages children receive in schools about this product. The subtle distinction between sponsorship advertising and tobacco product advertising is not lost on most Canadian youth. In a recent survey, 53 per cent of youth polled indicated they thought a Player's Limited racing poster was about cigarettes. Only 4 per cent recognized it as promoting Player's Limited racing.
The Canadian Institute of Child Health is not suggesting that tobacco companies have no role to play in supporting sporting and cultural events. In fact, it is important that the benefits to children and youth currently arising as a consequence of sponsorship not be lost. There is nothing in this legislation which inhibits the extent to which this industry should participate in providing stimulating opportunities for Canadians to participate in sport and culture.
In conclusion, we all have a role to play in supporting the role of healthy development of children and youth in this country. Canadians need to know the risk at which we are placing our children when we expose them to tobacco smoke or when we make it easy for them to access tobacco products.
Bill C-71 provides the Canadian government with an effective tool to regulate the manufacture, sale, labelling and promotion of tobacco products. The CICH calls upon members of the Senate of Canada to honour its commitment to protect and promote the health and well-being of the children and youth of this country and enact Bill C-71 immediately. Thank you.
[Translation]
Dr. Judith Kazimirski, President, Canadian Medical Association: Madam Chair, on behalf of Canada's physicians, the Canadian Medical Association thanks the committee for giving us this opportunity to present its viewpoint on Bill C-71.
[English]
I am president of the Canadian Medical Association and a family physician in Windsor, Nova Scotia. Canadian Medical Association legal counsel is present in the room and, if it is the wish of the committee to ask detailed legal questions, I would ask your permission to refer those questions to counsel, should that need arise.
The Canadian Medical Association is the national voice of organized medicine. Our mission is to provide leadership for physicians and to promote the highest standard of health and health care for Canadians.
On behalf of our 45,000 members and the Canadian public, the Canadian Medical Association performs a wide variety of functions, including advocating health promotion and disease\accident prevention policies and strategies. It is in this capacity that we appear before you today.
Bill C-71, the Tobacco Act, represents a new assault on the number one cause of preventable death and disease in Canada. The battle against tobacco is one in which physicians and the Canadian Medical Association have been on the front lines for a long time. In fact, the Canadian Medical Association issued its first public warnings in 1954 and has spoken out against tobacco ever since.
Let me be very clear: Tobacco is lethal. Tobacco is addictive. Tobacco kills more than 40,000 Canadians annually and costs the Canadian health care system $3.5 billion each year in direct expenses. This dollar figure does not even take into account the cost of disability, lost productivity and human pain and suffering.
As physicians, we treat patients who suffer from the effects of prolonged addiction to tobacco and witness the carnage that this hazardous substance wreaks on Canadian families.
Like the Minister of Health, the Canadian Medical Association believes that tobacco is a serious health risk to our young people. As a doctor, I know that many young people start to smoke at 12 or 13 years of age. Some 250,000 young people between the ages of 10 and 19 will start to smoke this year. A third of those young people will eventually die of smoking-related disease.
Currently, the fastest growing tobacco market segment is among teenage girls. No one can possibly disagree that this lethal substance requires regulation.
Senators, over the last few months, the tobacco controversy has not been about the need to protect young people from tobacco. The controversy has surrounded the proposals in Bill C-71 to restrict advertising and the extent to which tobacco companies can use their tobacco brand names in association with sponsored events.
There has been much discussion about whether advertising and sponsorship increase tobacco consumption. We believe they are closely linked. For that reason, the Canadian Medical Association is on record as recommending a total ban on tobacco advertising and sponsorship.
An increasing number of studies link tobacco advertising with tobacco consumption. A recent exhaustive literature review conducted by the National Cancer Institute of Canada concluded that a link does exist, particularly among young people. Our youth are more sensitive to advertising than older smokers. Our youth are three times more likely to switch brands than long-term adult smokers who have developed brand preference.
An important study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that Camel cigarettes had the second highest market share among young people, a market share that had grown over 200 per cent since the manufacturer repositioned the product by reintroducing the well-known, smooth, cartoon character Joe Camel.
The tobacco industry is well versed in the sale of its product. In a recent landmark U.S. case, Liggett Tobacco Co. admitted not only that tobacco products are addictive but, more important, that the tobacco industry markets to the young. This admission only confirms what has been suspected for many years and what is now being proven with scientific evidence. This evidence is mounting monthly.
Would an advertising ban lead to a drop in consumption? In 1992, the Department of Health of the United Kingdom studied world trends and identified a drop of 2.8 per cent in tobacco consumption in Canada which it attributed to the advertising ban of 1988. That extrapolates to over 200,000 fewer Canadian smokers.
Recently, the tobacco industry has sponsored countless sports and cultural events, often using these events as an opportunity to display a brand name, logo or other identifiable characteristic. Is this sponsorship a form of advertising? Yes, in the minds of young people, it is.
In Health Canada's 1994 youth smoking survey, our youth answered very clearly; smokers and non-smokers alike saw sponsorship primarily as a way of advertising particular brands of cigarettes. Half of the young respondents felt that sponsorship was a way of encouraging people to smoke.
Last year, in its brief to Health Canada on the blueprint discussion paper, the Canadian Medical Association recommended banning the use of names, logos and colours associated with tobacco products at public events sponsored by tobacco manufacturers. Tobacco promotion is but one of many factors that influence children to take up the smoking habit. Other important factors include social influences, peer pressure and price. Smoking initiation is the result of not one individual factor but a very powerful combination of many factors.
We recommend a comprehensive strategy that includes restriction on advertising and promotion, high prices and taxes, a ban on sales to minors, combined with public education campaigns to discourage smoking and counselling by physicians and other health professionals to help smokers quit. This comprehensive list of activities, with strong legislation as its cornerstone, is essential to produce an overall impact on the uptake and cessation of cigarette smoking in this country.
Bill C-71 is a powerful tobacco control measure when combined with increased taxation and with counselling by health professionals. The Canadian Medical Association and its provincial medical associations, in partnership with Physicians For a Smoke-Free Canada and Health Canada, have contributed to those efforts through the project called Mobilizing Physicians for Clinical Tobacco Intervention.
It is important to know that 70 per cent of Canadians see their physician every year. When the Canadian public is polled, they indicate they believe their physicians provide valid, sound, scientific information. This intervention program creates an opportunity for early identification, for proposing cessation options and for offering support. It is promoted among all the members of the Canadian medical community.
Last year, in our brief to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health with respect to Health Canada's blueprint discussion paper, we called for the development and implementation of strong tobacco specific legislation to replace the Tobacco Products Control Act as soon as possible.
We acknowledge that Bill C-71 does not go as far as the Canadian Medical Association would wish. However, accompanied by strong, enforceable regulations, it represents a new and significant assault in the ongoing battle against tobacco. We support this legislation to improve the health of Canadians and to stop the needless death of over 40,000 Canadians each year.
Bill C-71 is not about economics. It is not about culture. It is not about sports. It is about life and death. As a physician, and on behalf of the members of the Canadian Medical Association, I urge you to pass the tobacco legislation without delay.
[Translation]
Thank you, Madam Chair. We are ready to answer your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Kazimirski. I would welcome Ms Bedford-Jones to the table, just in case there are legal questions.
Mr. Cunningham, please proceed.
[Translation]
Mr. Rob Cunningham, Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society: I work as a senior policy analyst for the Canadian Cancer Society. I am a lawyer by profession. I am also the author of this new book, The Canadian Experience: Smoke and Mirrors.
[English]
-- Smoke and Mirrors, the Canadian Tobacco War, copies of which I will leave for members of the committee.
[Translation]
I thank you on behalf of the thousands of volunteers who work for the society, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Groups who will not be appearing as witnesses asked that I express their support for this bill: the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Lung Association and the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health.
[English]
April is Cancer Month. It is fitting that, while I am wearing my daffodil today, this committee is considering a bill that will reduce tobacco use, the leading cause of preventable cancer deaths in this country.
In my hands I have two products. Both deliver nicotine. Both are partially legal in Canada. One is a nicotine patch. The other is a package of cigarettes. They are regulated in very different ways. The nicotine patch, used for health purposes, requires a prescription. The regulations for it are extremely tough under the Food and Drugs Act. You cannot advertise it at all to consumers. You can have no sponsorship advertising for it. There is no "Habitrol Arts Festival," just as there is no "Prozac Tennis Championships" or "Valium Grand Prix."
On the other hand, we have cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable disease, disability and death in Canada, the smoking of which causes 40,000 deaths per year, 30 per cent of cancer deaths and more than 85 per cent of lung cancer deaths. Lung cancer is extremely fatal. If you are diagnosed with lung cancer, you have less than a one in two chance of surviving 12 months. The number of deaths from lung cancer among women now exceed the number of deaths from breast cancer. It is a national tragedy and an epidemic.
Despite 45 years of medical evidence, today, in the absence of Bill C-71, we have almost no regulations for this product. Our regulatory frameworks are backward. Bill C-71 is a way to begin to remedy that so that we suppress the marketing of a hazardous product and facilitate the marketing of the nicotine delivery product that is beneficial for health.
In the quitting process, these products are competitive with each other. When the tobacco industry <#0107> that is, the nicotine industry -- is competing for market share, that includes competing with the nicotine patch during the quitting process. Internal tobacco company documents from Philip Morris indicate that they see this as part of the nicotine market. We have internal documents from Imperial Tobacco and BAT. That company considered buying a nicotine patch manufacturer and having it as a brand extension. When we talk about market share, let us talk about market share.
We support this bill. It will reduce smoking among adults and among children both in the short term and in the long term. It will protect young people from exposure to tobacco marketing advertising and promotion. However, this bill could have gone farther. We recommended that it go much farther. It has already had a compromise. The federal government has backtracked from what it proposed in the blueprint and what we enthusiastically endorsed. There is not a ban on tobacco advertising, as the World Health Organization recommends and which dozens of country in the world have implemented. There are only partial restrictions. There is not a total ban on sponsorship promotions -- even though the United States has a law in place today. Yes, there is a two-year transition period, but that is not a proposed law; it is law. Parts of that law have already come into force with respect to sale of tobacco from February 28, 1996. There is no stay in place. There is no injunction. We could even have an adverse court decision, but I do not expect we will, especially with an appeals court in this particular circuit that has already ruled to uphold the constitutionality of a Baltimore ordinance restricting tobacco advertising on billboards.
We also have a president who will veto legislation, if Congress should ever pass it. The tobacco lobby's power is significantly diminished in the United States, but he will veto legislation if the Congress should vote to override the FDA provisions.
France and other countries have total bans on sponsorship advertising. There is not a total ban on trade marks on non-tobacco goods as other countries have. The World Health Organization recommends a total ban on indirect advertising. There is no plain packaging. This bill does authorize regulations to require plain packaging but the government says that it will not move in that direction. We regret that. The health committee conducted an extensive study into this issue and recommended the implementation of this measure.
A number of senators and all of us, myself included, recognize the importance of evidence. Last week, six organizations submitted to the committee a number of boxes of evidence from the previous court case. This looked at the evidence submitted and at the exhibits by the Attorney-General of Canada, as well as at internal company documents submitted as exhibits by tobacco companies.
You have before you a list of those exhibits. All of these exhibits are accessible to you through the clerk for your consideration and review. Those six organizations -- the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, the Lung Association, the Canadian Council on Smoke and Health and the Canadian Medical Association -- provided those for your consideration.
As well, before the House of Commons health committee were seven boxes of evidence that touched not only on the health consequences but also on the marketing impact, that is, tobacco marketing. Those were tabled with that committee. You have distributed before you a bibliography of those documents. The titles indicate the extent of the evidence that is published in this area.
May these two summaries be received as an exhibit by the committee?
The Chair: Yes, they will be.
Mr. Cunningham: Thank you.
Prior to any questions you may have, I should like to concentrate on two areas. First, I should like to respond to some of the arguments that we have seen from opponents of the bill; and, second, I should like to talk about some of the evidence of the impact of advertising and sponsorship.
First, I will address freedom of expression, section 2(b) of the Charter. It is clear that the legislative drafter has gone to great lengths to respond to the Supreme Court of Canada's judgment. Indeed, our position is that in some areas they have taken an overly cautious approach. A majority of the Supreme Court of Canada said that a ban on lifestyle advertising was justified. There are two kinds of advertising: advertising which conveys information and advertising which conveys imagery.
The heart of the constitutional protection of commercial freedom of expression in Canada is the conveying of information. We have seen that in cases of legal services or dental services, where consumers have access to factual information. Imagery has nothing to do with the conveying of information.
When we look at sponsorship advertising, it is pure imagery. It is the best form of lifestyle advertising. With the authority of the Supreme Court of Canada, this Parliament could have a total ban on sponsorship advertising, as the United States has done, and be responsive to the Charter and the Supreme Court of Canada judgment, but the bill does not go that far.
This bill has multiple objectives. Obviously, a very important objective is to reduce smoking, but that is not the only one. Clause 4(b) refers to an objective to protect young persons and others from inducements to use tobacco products and the consequent dependence on them. This is a separate distinct objective for consideration under section 1 under the Oakes test. Is this a valid objective in a democratic society? My submission is, yes. I look at the Irwin Toy judgment from the Supreme Court of Canada and I see the importance of protecting young people from exposure to advertising. That helps, and we can build on that. We should be protecting them from the marketing of a product which is highly addictive, lethal and carcinogenic.
When we go through the Oakes test, is it rationally connected? Absolutely. Does this bill protect young people from exposure to these inducements? Yes. If we look at minimal impairment, if we were to have provisions which were less strict or less onerous, then we would be less effective. It is clear that young people would be exposed to more advertising. We can satisfy the minimal impairment test and I would say that we can satisfy the proportionality portion of the Oakes test in its entirety.
We have heard that jobs will be lost. It is worth noting that, in 1987, the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturer's Council said that 25,000 jobs would be at risk if Bill C-51 passed. They told this to a Commons committee in their written submission. That never materialized. The cries of Armageddon are routine every time we deal with tobacco legislation throughout history, whether it is Parliament considering issues in 1903 or in 1993 or in 1997.
Regarding consultation, with respect to the government's blueprint, approximately 2,000 to 3,000 submissions were received. There was a public opportunity for anyone to make comments. It was on that blueprint that the government subsequently prepared its bill for introduction.
Some witnesses have said that this bill, because of it broad definition of lifestyle advertising, has a total prohibition on advertising. I disagree. I can give you lots of examples of information advertising that can be communicated: "Du Maurier cigarettes, $24.95 a carton." That is permitted, as are: "Du Maurier cigarettes come in lengths of 75 and 85 millimetres," or "Du Maurier cigarettes contain two additives, glycerine and ammonia," or "Du Maurier cigarettes contain only Canadian-grown tobacco," and it goes on and on. If we want to talk about the Supreme Court of Canada's protection of disseminating information to consumers, that protection is maintained.
We have heard the industry testify -- and, frankly, I was stunned at that testimony -- that they do not advertise to young people. We have heard the admission in recent weeks from Liggett Group in the United States; we also have a judgment from the Supreme Court of Canada. They looked at internal tobacco company documents. You have those documents now for your consideration.
The Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the tobacco industry targeted young people with their advertising and stated that, importantly for some brands, not only do target groups include adolescents as young as 12, but youths age 12 to 17 are weighted far more heavily than older age groups.
I refer senators to the exhibits, including ITL-13, AG-223 AG-35, AG-224 and others.
We have heard some people talk about their campaign to educate retailers to refuse to sell tobacco to minors. This is the recycling of a similar educational campaign that they have brought out several times over the last 10 years, typically when they are faced with a legislative threat. It is good public relations; it is not good to release the sale of tobacco to minors.
Similar campaigns in the United States have been organized and funded by the tobacco industry, but the reality is that they have not had a material impact on reducing stores selling to minors compared to stores not participating in the program. Good public relations are not something we can rely on, especially when we note that the after-tax profit of the tobacco industry of sales which eventually end up in the hands of minors is some $17 million a year. Pre-tax profit is higher. Yet they spend only slightly more than $1 million a year. Where is their commitment if they really do not want to sell tobacco to minors?
We have heard that smoking rates in Canada have been flat during the period that the Tobacco Products Control Act was in force. Even though the TPCA partially restricted promotion, because they shifted money from direct advertising to sponsorship -- $10 million in 1987 and $60 million in 1995 and in 1996 -- we have to look at the rates.
You have a handout which I have reproduced from the book. This is based on tobacco industry data. There are different ways to measure smoking rates. One is prevalence, the percentage of adults who smoke. Another is per capita consumption which not only looks at the percentage of adults who smoke but also at how much they smoke per day.
Under per capita consumption, we see that there is a clear decline from 1988 to 1993. It must be noted that in 1994 taxes were rolled back and there was a change in the trend.
Imperial Tobacco's prevalence data is annual. It shows a significant decline in prevalence and shows that the rate of increase accelerated from 1989 to 1993. We do not have data from Imperial after that date, and again we had the tax roll-back.
Mr. Potter acknowledged that Imperial Tobacco does surveys on 15-year-old teenagers. They have done this for decades and have concealed this information from parliamentarians, health departments and organizations like ours that work in education. I invite this committee to ask Imperial Tobacco to provide that research for your consideration.
With regard to the enforcement sections, some of the other countries in the Grand Prix circuit have provisions which prohibit the use of brand names. When Jacques Villeneuve goes to the Grand Prix in Great Britain, Germany or France, he cannot have "Rothmans" on his Jersey. Canada would be the fourth country to have this provision and Belgium would be the fifth. A bill passed before the chamber of deputies there, which is now before the Senate, would impose a total ban on direct and indirect advertising.
Comment was made previously about the United States and the Indy car circuit. It is stunning that they did not even mention the existence of this rule in their initial testimony prior to questions by this committee.
If tobacco companies want to use their corporate name, they can use a name such as Imasco Limited, which does not contain a brand name, and have unlimited promotion of sponsored events. Imasco could garner as much corporate goodwill as they wanted in that way. The objection is to the use of the brand name, the association with the tobacco product.
In the Supreme Court of Canada judgment, the court recognized that the required standard of proof varies with the circumstances. Because of the magnitude of harm, the standard of proof that must be met by the government is lower than in other cases. It is also lower because it is a purely for-profit commercial expression. As Justice Iacobucci said, very little tailoring would be needed to make this law constitutional.
The Canadian Cancer Society works on the front lines of tobacco control. We work in the schools with educational programs and also with patient services. Through decades of work, we have developed expertise on what messages impact on smoking behaviour. We have no doubt that advertising, sponsorship and other forms of promotion increase smoking. We took that position in 1969 before the House of Commons committee on health and we continue to take that position today.
We have heard that the Supreme Court of Canada did not find that advertising has an impact on consumption. In the majority judgment, Justice LaForest said that it:
...is difficult to believe that Canadian tobacco companies would spend over 75 million dollars every year on advertising if they did not know that advertising increases the consumption of their product...The evidence can be conveniently subdivided into three categories: internal tobacco marketing documents, expert reports, and international materials...
Although the appellants --
the tobacco companies
-- steadfastly argue that their marketing efforts are directed solely at maintaining and expanding brand loyalty among adult smokers, these documents show otherwise.
...the companies understand that, in order to maintain the overall numbers of smokers, they must reassure current smokers and make their product attractive to young and to non-smokers; they also recognize that advertising is critical to maintaining the size of the market because it serves to reinforce the social acceptability of smoking by identifying it with glamour, affluence, youthfulness and vitality.
The internal marketing documents introduced at trial strongly suggest that the tobacco companies perceive advertising to be a cornerstone of their strategy to reassure current smokers and expand the market by attracting new smokers, particularly among the young.
In Canada, we have seen monopolies continue to advertise -- Rogers Cable TV, and Bell Canada before there was long distance competition. They had no competitors for market share. If advertising only had an impact on market share, why would these monopolies be advertising? There are countries in the world in which there are tobacco monopolies, yet they continue to advertise.
In the Canadian context, we have seen how education has worked to reduce smoking. It has been a contributing factor. We heard a very important admission from Mr. Robert Parker of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council who said that anti-smoking advertising can work to decrease smoking among young people.
How is it possible that anti-smoking messages can work while pro-smoking messages, which are 20 times as expensive and much more sophisticated and created by the best minds in the business, can be ineffective? There is no logic in that position. Both messages can have an impact.
From everyday experience we know that suggestive selling works. In a bar we hear, "Would you like another round?" At McDonald's we are asked, "Would you like fries with that?" This is a type of advertising that stimulates sales to a higher level.
In 1969, the House of Commons health committee recommended a total ban on advertising. That conclusion was reiterated by a Senate committee and a House of Commons committee in 1988, a House of Commons committee in 1997 and a House of Commons committee on plain packaging in 1994. Each time there has been a significant debate, with the same arguments you have heard for decades, parliamentarians have concluded that the restrictive measures should be implemented, as they have in dozens of countries around the world.
The tobacco industry has done extensive internal marketing studies on the impact of their sponsorships. Not a single one of those studies has been tabled before this committee. I believe that is an omission. If they wanted to present all their evidence for this committee's consideration, they would have tabled those studies.
We see that, in the tobacco industry's voluntary code, they will not advertize within 200 metres of a school. Even the proposed amendments by various groups recognize that you should not advertize near a school, just as in 1961 they said they would not advertize on television before 9 p.m. That is an implicit admission that young people are susceptible to the influence of tobacco advertising. Why else would you have these restrictions to protect young people from exposure?
Of course, as we know, young people do not restrict their lives to a little bubble of 200 meters around their school. They go through life, and they are exposed to ads. There are direct admissions from tobacco companies cited in some of the material tabled before the committee. We have heard the U.S. Surgeon General conclude that advertising can increase consumption. We have an extensive consideration of the evidence just completed in 1996 by the Food and Drug Administration in which they received some 700,000 comments. They had an extensive debate. They considered all the available literature. You can bet that the tobacco industry was extensive in their submission and very thorough. The Food and Drug Administration concluded that sponsorship advertising increased consumption and should be banned completely.
Senator Doyle: I thank all of you for your submissions. I found them exceedingly helpful after a day of being somewhat misled on the motivation or the absurdity of the objections to the legislation.
How much money does the Canadian Cancer Society receive from tobacco companies?
Mr. Cunningham: We do not receive any money from them. In fact, we have a policy that we will not accept any such money.
Senator Doyle: Does that mean that you have refused money from them?
Mr. Cunningham: I cannot be sure of the answer to that question. Certainly at the present time we have that policy. I do not know if they have even offered it to us.
Senator Doyle: Can the Canadian Medical Association tell us how many major research contracts do involve sponsorship from this very sponsoring industry?
Dr. Kazimirski: The Canadian Medical Association has not sponsored with the tobacco industry any research projects. We have collaborated extensively with Health Canada on many of the research initiatives that we have taken in the area of tobacco, but not with the industry.
Senator Doyle: Do you know of any research projects in the cancer field that may be ongoing in other institutions funded by the tobacco industry?
Mr. Cunningham: The tobacco industry funded research in the 1950s in Canada with respect to cancer issues. Much of the research was done through the Council for Tobacco Research in the United States, the conclusions of which diminish the possibility of a link between smoking and lung cancer or second-hand smoke and lung cancer.
Senator Jessiman: Dr. Kazimirski, you said that the Canadian Medical Association would go further than this bill. Would you go as far as Mr. Cunningham has suggested?
Dr. Kazimirski: Yes, I believe we would. I also believe that this legislation is essential now if, indeed, we want to make an impact on the young people smoking tobacco in this country. Yes, our originals stand, and we would still prefer to see a complete ban on advertising on all of the elements that I indicated in my presentation to you. However, this legislation now is an essential cornerstone for us to begin further activities that will reduce smoking in this country. If this legislation dies now, 40,000 Canadians die with it.
Senator Jessiman: Being the president of the association and being a doctor, do you think that tobacco should be sold in the same way as liquor is sold, regulated through government stores? Have you given that any thought?
Dr. Kazimirski: One now needs to show proof of age in order to purchase liquor. I believe that under this legislation one will need to show proof of age. That is a valuable adjunct to the battle against tobacco in this country.
Senator Jessiman: I am asking whether it might be sold in the same way that liquor is sold, as in a cigarette store?
Dr. Kazimirski: That would be my own personal conjecture. Speaking on behalf of my association, we have not considered that.
Mr. Cunningham: We would support that.
Senator Jessiman: Would you consider making it illegal?
Mr. Cunningham: It would be impossible. It would not succeed. Too many Canadians are addicted, and we would have contraband overnight. If we banned the products, it would not do anything for those groups currently receiving sponsorships because that money would dry up anyhow.
Senator Pearson: Dr. Kazimirski, for many of us, an interesting question has arisen about the nature of addiction. I am calling upon your professional capacity here. Some who wish to play it down say there are all kinds of things that are addictive such as chocolate and so on. Others would feel that cigarettes are in a place apart. Would you tell us a bit about addiction? Are children and adolescents more vulnerable to physical addiction than adults?
Dr. Kazimirski: Thank you for the question. The nicotine addiction report of the United States Surgeon General in 1988 indicated that pharmacologic and behavioural processes that determine tobacco addiction are similar to those that determine addiction to heroin and cocaine. The addiction to tobacco is very real. It is chemical, it is behavioural, and it also is as a result of some gene alteration. I am sure this committee has already heard some of the most recent evidence that was put forward in the autumn of 1996 showing that researchers have discovered the compound in cigarette smoke that damages the gene which prevents development of tumors in smokers and non-smokers alike. There is accumulating scientific evidence on the reasons why tobacco causes cancer and also accumulating evidence on the basis of the addictive component of tobacco.
Senator Pearson: Due to their physical immaturity, are children more vulnerable to addiction?
Dr. Kazimirski: Yes, children are more vulnerable to addiction, partly because of their immature metabolic processes. We have already heard from my colleague about the increased effects of nicotine on children because of the immature processes in their lungs that lead to increased infections and problems. Yes, they are also more at risk for addiction to this chemical.
Senator Beaudoin: Mr. Cunningham, you said that even if the ban had been total, it would still be constitutional. You refer to the RJR-Macdonald case where four judges have said that a total ban is not unconstitutional. If my reading of the cases is correct, one or more other judges would have added that a total ban is possible if there is direct evidence that it is necessary to go as far as the total ban. Is that what you said?
Mr. Cunningham: Not quite. The point I was trying to make was in terms of lifestyle advertising. We could have a total ban on lifestyle advertising, which in my view includes sponsorship advertising, based on that judgment alone. If you were to ask me if we could have a total ban on advertising, we clearly cannot on the basis of that judgment alone. We would need to have evidence for that. I believe that evidence is there. We could go back to court and justify a total ban. That is not in this bill. I think we could do that successfully in court. I think the RJR-Macdonald decision stands as authority to ban lifestyle advertising.
Senator Beaudoin: Lifestyle is clear cut.
Mr. Cunningham: Right, and that is my point.
Senator Beaudoin: But Bill C-71 is not a total ban.
Mr. Cunningham: Correct.
Senator Beaudoin: Of course, some witnesses appeared before us to say that it is the equivalent of a total ban, but this, to me, is quite debatable. This is not what you are saying?
Suppose the government had selected another way. Let us say the government took the position today that smoking is so harmful that it will ban all advertising. Then you say that that would be possible, constitutionally, providing the government can prove that it is necessary.
Mr. Cunningham: It must be justified, that is correct.
Senator Beaudoin: That is my reading of the RJR-Macdonald case as well.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I only heard the first part of Dr. Luik's testimony, and I will read it later today. He said something quite remarkable; he said that, finally, all of the countries who had prepared and passed laws banning tobacco publicity almost completely had only managed a surface prohibition. He said that this was more of a political debate than a serious medical debate. He recognized, as we all do, the importance of the medical problem. But Mr. Luik told us that eliminating tobacco publicity did not give the expected results. We have heard witnesses over the past three days, and the objective we seek is clearly defined in the bill in clause 4. There are divergent opinions on the means to be used to attain that objective. There is no doubt that our committee is looking for that solution. Will we find it? I hope so.
Have you read Mr. Luik's testimony? Do you agree with him? What are the points you would not agree with?
Mr. Cunningham: I reject Dr. Luik's conclusion. Dr. Luik has on several occasions over the past few years worked as a consultant for tobacco manufacturers.
Senator Nolin: He admitted that.
Mr. Cunningham: I know. You can always find an expert to say something. In 1969, a group of experts appeared before a committee of the House of Commons to deny that tobacco caused cancer and heart diseases.
Senator Nolin: We aren't calling into question the disease aspect.
Mr. Cunningham: This is how the manufacturers operate, by creating doubts. The manufacturers often present experts who defend their point of view. There are a lot of examples in several countries where smoking has decreased after controls were imposed. Some people claimed that there was no change in France, for instance, after the 1993 law was brought in.
Senator Nolin: That's correct, we have testimony to that effect. We had in fact asked for data on this topic.
Senator Beaudoin: What is the situation in France?
Mr. Cunningham: There are two ways of measuring the effects of smoking. First, the incidence, that is the percentage of the population who smokes; the other way is to measure consumption. There are always two sides to a coin, as you know, and so we feel fortunate to be here and we appreciate the opportunity of testifying before your committee.
Another very important aspect concerns financial analyses or companies' strategies. Imperial Tobacco spends around $100 million a year for publicity and promotion. Mr. Parker agrees with the statement that each percentage point represents an increase of $20 million; but it is less than that, if you consider the tobacco they must purchase and the cost of manufacturing products, that figure is closer to $10 million for each percentage share of the market. So, to reach $100 million a year, Imperial Tobacco has to increase its market share between 5 and 10 per cent. Imperial Tobacco has never done that. Most people who switch cigarette brands move to another brand made by the same company, for instance, they go from Player's light to Player's Ultra Light. So if this had an effect on the market, they would be very happy to increase their profits and eliminate all of their expenses. In a good year, Imperial Tobacco increased its market share by 2 per cent; their objective is 1 per cent per year.
If you look at the other two companies, that are not so large, they spend their money and lose market share. Why spend money to lose market share if your promotion has no effect on overall consumption? You see that one can, through a simple financial analysis, throw all of their arguments out the window.
Senator Nolin: If I look at your diagram and the one you referred to earlier, there's definitely a contradiction between yours and those we have examined since the week began. I would like us to look at it a bit more closely. Let's look at table number 2: smoking frequency in male adults of 15 years and more, women, and a figure for both groups, men and women from 1958 to 1993. After that, you identify your sources. You have one source for the period from 1958 to 1970, then it is Imperial Tobacco for the figures from 1971 to 1989, and Imasco for 1990 to 1993. We have examined the Statistics Canada data; do you challenge the Statistics Canada data?
Mr. Cunningham: Yes, there are three sources, but this comes from Imperial Tobacco. Imasco is a company associated with Imperial Tobacco, and Mr. Rose was an employee of Imperial Tobacco. We have figures for each year which come from Imperial Tobacco studies. Generally, government figures are similar. The problem with government figures is that we don't have figures for all of the years; we don't have figures for 1982 and 1993, but we have them for the period from 1991 to 1994.
Senator Nolin: Mr. Parker is focussing more on the period between 1986 and 1995, so a ten-year period. In your table, you provide data for the period from 1988 to 1993.
Mr. Cunningham: Nineteen-ninety-three was the last year they published their figures; they did not publish them after that.
Senator Nolin: Did you examine that table?
Mr. Cunningham: Yes.
Senator Nolin: Why are they different? It seems to provide reference points for all of the years.
Mr. Cunningham: The methodology is different for government surveys.
Senator Nolin: In other words, according to you there's a decrease, and according to them it remains stable?
Mr. Cunningham: Yes. Using the Imperial Tobacco figures, it is clear that there is a decrease. On page 11 of the English version of our brief, you see that the decrease accelerated from 1989 to 1993, as compared to the previous period from 1971 to 1988, before the law.
Senator Nolin: I still have questions in my mind. How is it that Statistics Canada, which costs us a few million dollars a year to operate, does not have appropriate calculation methodologies? We are going to question them seriously when they ask us for so much money, if they do such poor work. I understand that there may be different approaches to statistical analysis, but not to the extent of drawing contradictory conclusions. There might be a difference of .5 percent over a 10-year period, perhaps. But there shouldn't be such a difference that one concludes in one case that it was stable and the other concludes that there was a decrease.
Mr. Cunningham: The other diagram on the back of this page is instructive.
Senator Nolin: Yes, that one. It is for a much longer period of time.
Mr. Cunningham: These figures come from the industry; they provide their sales figures to Statistics Canada every month. Moreover, for the period when there was a lot of smuggling going on, adjustments were made reflecting the volume of smuggling as estimated by the manufacturers. If you look at the percentage of the population that smokes, and its consumption on a daily basis...
Senator Nolin: That is the per capita consumption?
Mr. Cunningham: Yes.
Senator Nolin: It is not the number of consumers, expressed as a percentage?
Mr. Cunningham: No.
Senator Nolin: In other words, someone could smoke more cigarettes, but it is still the same person smoking. You're not comparing apples and apples, you're talking about two different things.
Mr. Cunningham: It's another method.
Senator Nolin: I'm trying to concentrate on some information we received in the beginning of the week which states that over a period of 10 years, including when the law came into effect in 1989, and since that time, consumption has been stable.
Mr. Cunningham: There is a difference between incidence and consumption.
Senator Nolin: You say that there has been a decrease.
Mr. Cunningham: Yes.
Senator Nolin: I'm trying to see where the error lies. According to me, there is an error. There is no bad faith.
Mr. Cunningham: The manufacturers did not present figures for per capita consumption. So, if you ask them if these figures are accurate they will answer that they are, because they are their figures. The other way of looking at this is that there are a few years missing from the government figures and that methodologies are good, but not consistent. You have surveys with a particular objective that include questions on smoking, and Statistics Canada's methodologies are good, but if you look at the figures from Imperial Tobacco, it is clear that there has been a decrease.
Senator Nolin: Mr. Cunningham, let's get back to the experience in European countries. We were told in the beginning of the week that in the best case consumption had remained stable and in the worse scenario, that in Norway, there was an increase of 30 to 45 per cent between 1989 and 1995 in the prevalence of tobacco. What do you say to that?
Mr. Cunningham: I know several European countries where there has been a decline in per capita consumption. I can send you documents confirming that.
Senator Nolin: Yes, please. I'm coming now to this document you have just distributed to us concerning the French experience specifically. Can you tell us whether this document was released by the State, or by an agency?
Mr. Cunningham: The document was prepared by the Comité national contre le tabagisme, the national anti-smoking committee. I suppose they prepared this summary using government figures.
Senator Nolin: According to the document, there seems to be a large decrease.
Mr. Cunningham: Yes. You can see from the curve in the diagram that there was a large decrease. But if the curve ran from zero to a hundred, it wouldn't be so dramatic. It's just for presentation purposes.
Senator Nolin: I'm going to reread the information we have on France. The information came from the Comité français d'éducation pour la santé, the french committee on health education. This information is contradictory.
Mr. Cunningham: Given the two ways of measuring smoking, you may have different results. If a smoker smokes 10 cigarettes a day instead of 20, that is progress because the dangers to health diminish. So, even if you have the same percentage of smokers, if the smoker smokes less, that is a fantastic result.
Senator Nolin: I understand. So that is where the difference lies between these data and the information we received in the beginning of the week?
Mr. Cunningham: According to me, for the period from 1989 to 1993, there has been a decrease in the incidence of smoking and in tobacco consumption in Canada. You can see it even in the annual report of the Imasco company. They were complaining that taxes were too high. Now they need another point of view for political reasons, and so they express another point of view.
[English]
Senator Nolin: After the tabling of the blueprint in January 1996, you have obviously been consulted or you have offered to give your advice to the government all during the process?
Dr. Kazimirski: Yes.
Senator Nolin: Or did that happen only when the bill was tabled in December?
Dr. Kazimirski: We did respond in writing and made a presentation at the time of the blueprint document.
Perhaps I could respond to Senator Nolin's comments. It is important to recognize that the evidence you have heard is valid and represents an increase in both incidence and consumption. However, let us turn that back to Canada. In Canada, since the changes in relation to both taxing and advertising, we have seen an increase in the incidence and consumption of smoking in young people. We have seen an increase in the incidence and consumption in women. We now know that cancer of the lung is the leading cause of cancer death, above breast cancer, for women in this country.
This is a national, Canadian problem. This problem is being dealt with effectively by this legislation as a beginning step to set the cornerstone for a comprehensive tobacco strategy.
Senator Nolin: The graph that we have here is incomplete then, because it shows only a decrease. It should show an increase at the latter end; is that correct?
Mr. Cunningham: That is my expectation according to Gallup polls. I would love to have Imperial Tobacco present its data to the committee.
Senator Kenny: I wanted to ask, first, whether anyone on the panel is familiar with Proposition 99 in California.
Mr. Cunningham: Yes, sir.
Senator Kenny: I accepted the arguments we heard earlier from previous panelists that getting people to stop smoking is a pretty complicated thing. Many indicators were useful, such as graduating from school, self-esteem and peer pressure; however, a whole lot of buttons had to be pushed in addition to price and advertising. Proposition 99 in California dealt with price and advertising and yet appeared, if we can believe the Berkeley study, to have had a pretty fair impact.
Are you of the view that a proposal like Proposition 99 is a reasonable starting point? I am not suggesting that one should exclude all of those other motivators, but if the government has to start somewhere, perhaps price and an educational program are as good a place to start as any.
Dr. Kazimirski: I am not familiar with Proposition 99, but in answer to your question, I do believe that the framework that this government has put forward, which includes the legislative cornerstone and all of the other elements such as price and taxes, will go a long way to help control tobacco addiction.
You have indicated that it is a very complex problem, and you are absolutely right. I can give you a practical example from my practice. My practice is largely women and women's health. I see young adolescents coming to me for, say, their first well-women's exam and a discussion of birth control, and we talk about smoking. They may say, "I am not a smoker. I only smoke three a day." I ask them, "Why do you smoke?" They say, "It is cool. I see it in magazines. I only smoke three a day; do not worry, doc'." The next year when they come in, they are smoking half a pack a day. The next year they are smoking a pack a day. I try to see them through a pregnancy and encourage them to quit smoking, but it is impossible, they cannot do it. This is a real addictive problem.
I think this legislative framework, this comprehensive package, is absolutely essential to try to meet the problem faced by the young people that I am seeing in the system on a day-to-day basis.
Senator Kenny: Proposition 99 did not include an advertising or promotion ban, so that is another element if you would care to add to that in your response.
Mr. Cunningham: I think price is very important for young people, and I think anti-smoking advertising campaigns in the mass media can be effective. The evidence from California is that both of those factors contributed to a reduction in smoking at a rate faster than in the rest of the United States. A similar thing happened in Massachusetts. They had a modest tax increase with extensive advertising in the mass media to discourage smoking. Per capita consumption decreased at a higher rate among adult smokers in Massachusetts compared to the United States as a whole.
Could we be doing more in terms of anti-smoking advertising? Could the government be doing more in Canada? Absolutely. One of the unfortunate things is that when this legislative strategy was announced, there was a tremendous reduction in funding for the government's anti-tobacco strategy. Fifty million dollars over five years, that is all that is left.
Senator Kenny: I share your concern that that is not enough. What I wanted to ask in conjunction to this was the following. One of the difficult parts of this hearing, at least for me, has been to see the surrogates that have been coming forward on behalf of the tobacco companies and who are effectively addicted to tobacco money, and they have been making the case for the tobacco companies that the legislation is not satisfactory.
Do you have any solutions? Do you have any thoughts on how we should take care of those groups? Are there things that you believe this committee should be recommending to the government to deal with those groups which have been receiving tobacco money for some time but who feel in jeopardy now?
Mr. Cunningham: Certainly. I think public health must come first, and this bill should not be weakened. It should be passed as is. Second, when this committee completes its report to the Senate, it might have an option of recommending to the government, along with passage of this bill, that the government consider a replacement fund that would be implemented prior to October 1, 1988, with the money coming from tobacco manufacturers.
Everyone would win except tobacco manufacturers, but they have lots of money anyhow -- a 90 per cent pre-tax return on assets. That is one option for the committee to consider in its report.
Dr. Kazimirski: If I may respond to the same question, I believe, having heard some of the last presentation, that sporting events and sports are extremely important as part of the contributor to the health of Canadians. This legislation is about health, and this legislation should be passed in its present form now. When one looks to sporting or cultural events, history has shown that when the event has a value in itself, its sponsorship is often picked up by others.
I would refer you here to sponsorship of a very important event, the women's tennis circuit championship which was once sponsored by Virginia Slims. Who sponsors it now that Virginia Slims no longer does? Corel.
I would also refer to the Canadian Men's Open golf championship. Who used to sponsor that? Du Maurier. Who sponsors it now? Bell Canada. When the event has intrinsic value, there are others who are out there who will pick up the cost of those events.
The Chair: I have a brief question. Both Mr. Cunningham and Ms Tipper made reference to an Imperial Tobacco study. Were you both making reference to the Viking study? If you are, is that the one that has been tabled along with the rest of the documents?
Ms Tipper: I will have to double-check.
Mr. Cunningham: I can assure you that the Viking study is among the documents tabled with the committee.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Honourable senators, we welcome our next panel.
Please proceed, Mr. Hagen.
Mr. Les Hagen, Executive Director, Action on Smoking and Health: Thank you for allowing for regional representation from the health community on this important bill.
Action on Smoking and Health is Western Canada's leading tobacco control agency. From our headquarters in Edmonton, we have been providing provincial and regional leadership on the tobacco issue for 15 years. On behalf of ASH, I should like to commend the government and Parliament for making tobacco reduction a priority by introducing legislation to curb the tobacco epidemic. We applaud the government's efforts to gain control of an industry whose products are responsible for more deaths than all other forms of preventable illness combined.
While Bill C-71 is far from perfect, we should like to offer our support in principle for the bill and for the government's intent to address this issue in a comprehensive and effective manner.
We have stated previously before the health committee that we believe the bill's predecessor, the Tobacco Products Control Act, was severely and fatally flawed to the point of being virtually ineffective in curbing tobacco promotion in Canada. Because of the tobacco's industry exploitation of the sponsorship loophole within that bill, tobacco brand name advertising has continued to appear in print, broadcast and outdoor media in thousands of venues and millions of publications across the country. The truth is we have never experienced an advertising ban in this country or anything close to it.
This house has an opportunity to learn from the experience of the Tobacco Products Control Act and to develop a bill that will achieve its stated purpose and that will prevent the tobacco industry from circumventing its provisions.
Bill C-71 establishes crucial regulatory authority that will help prevent tobacco companies from exploiting loopholes. This approach is consistent with the regulation of hundreds of products and substances through the Hazardous Products Act and the Food and Drugs Act. We know that the industry will find loopholes in the legislation, and the regulatory scope of this bill will allow the loopholes to be plugged in an effective and expedient manner that will not require lengthy Parliamentary approvals.
Although we would have liked to have seen the full specifics of the regulations beforehand, we do not believe that the drafting of the regulations should slow the passage of this important health legislation. We understand that the passage of other bills of this nature, including the Hazardous Products Act, precipitated the development of subsequent regulations.
Over 100,000 young people have taken up smoking since the Supreme Court decision in September of 1995. It is very difficult to justify any further delay with this bill. We are disappointed that Bill C-71 does not reflect all of the proposals contained within the tobacco control blueprint, particularly the call for a total ban on advertising. However, from our agency's perspective, we feel that the bill has the following advantages.
First, the bill provides for product regulation and disclosure. I have a product here with me which is quite prevalent in the Alberta marketplace. These are Skoll flavour packs. They are a prime example of the need for product regulation in Canada. They come in flavours like mint and cinnamon and they are even sugar-coated. This is basically sugar-coated nicotine. I will pass these around to committee members. We believe that these products are initiation products that are not only intended to draw new users but to help new users adjust to harsher brands.
This type of product needs to be banned. Tobacco companies should not be allowed to put kiddie cans of snuff on the market. In Alberta, we have a real problem with the use of spit tobacco. Alberta youths are using spit tobacco at rates that are more than double the national average. These types of initiation products need to be prohibited and we believe that Bill C-71 provides the necessary regulatory authority to achieve this.
Bill C-71 also prohibits the use of false, misleading or deceptive claims on tobacco packaging, although these terms are subject to further definition. The bill provides authority to prohibit most forms of direct advertising and sponsorship advertising, although these exemptions need to be better defined. Mail order sales and interprovincial mail order promotions are prohibited. Self-serve displays are prohibited. There are improved regulations on youth access, including photo identification and optional statutory sales bans upon conviction. There is better reporting on the tobacco industry information regarding the manufacturing, distribution and promotion of their products.
One of the limitations of the bill as we see it is a return to full product and sponsorship advertising in publications with adult readership. I hope by adult readership we are not referring to such magazines as Readers' Digest and the TV Guide. Children read newspapers and magazines and they should be encouraged to do so as part of their learning and growth. It would be a shame to see this type of ad appear in publications to which children have easy access.
Another major limitation of the bill is that it specifically sanctions sponsorship promotions which are targeted at youth. Here is an example of an event in Calgary <#0107>- Little Orphan Annie -- that was sponsored by du Maurier last spring. It was held over the Easter break. Kids along with their families were invited to take part. Is this the type of promotion that the Senate and Parliament would like to sanction? This is what Bill C-71 currently would sanction.
The bill, as worded, would also allow for brand name promotions on buildings. This could include the Skoll Bandit Saloon or the Player's Sports Bar or what have you. This is a very serious exemption that could seriously jeopardize the intent of the bill.
The very definition of lifestyle advertising in Bill C-71 contradicts the sponsorship advertisings that are specified in the bill.
Please take a close look at the sponsorship advertising. This is appearing in stores across the country. The definition within clause 22(4) of Bill C-71 states:
..."lifestyle advertising" means advertising that associates a product with, or evokes a positive or negative emotion about or image of, a way of life --
or an aspect of living
-- such as glamour, recreation, excitement, vitality, risk or daring.
This is the type of sponsorship of advertisement that Bill C-71 attempts to deal with through lifestyle advertising provisions. The continued appearance and allowance of sponsorship advertising will directly contradict that definition.
The bottom line is that sponsorship advertising is tobacco advertising. A national survey of youth smoking among 10- to 19-year-olds conducted in 1994 found that 84 per cent of young people felt that sponsorship advertising is a way of advertising particular brands of cigarettes. The majority of these youths also agreed that these advertisements are a way of encouraging people to smoke.
As stated previously by Mr. Cunningham, sponsorship advertising is the purest form of advertising. The images portrayed in tobacco brand advertisements are identical to those portrayed in tobacco sponsorship advertisements. These images include sophistication, slimness, social acceptability, sexual attractiveness and status. If 10-year-olds can understand this, then surely our Canadian policy-makers can as well.
Sponsorship advertising is a form of affinity marketing, which is a rapidly growing trend in consumer marketing. Tobacco companies realize that by positioning their product with prestige events and respected organizations, they are getting extra mileage that they would not achieve on their own. Just as importantly, they are building a solid constituency support for the continued promotion of tobacco products. It is a win-win situation.
Through sponsorship promotions, the tobacco companies also gain access to television and radio broadcasts for their brands. These broadcasts are viewed or heard by millions of young people on a continuous basis.
Health groups, sport and cultural organizations have a common interest in our efforts to improve and promote the quality of life of Canadians. However, this common interest is jeopardized when support and cultural groups assist with the promotion of the leading avoidable killer.
There is a clear distinction between tobacco and other consumer products. Tobacco has no safe level of consumption. It is highly addictive and it is the only legal product that is known to kill when used exactly as intended by its manufacturers.
Members of this committee should not be fooled by industry arguments that sponsorship restrictions will lead to similar restrictions on other consumer products. This dire prediction simply has not come true.
The tobacco control blueprint promised to restore Canada's position as a world leader in tobacco reduction. Unfortunately, Bill C-71 falls short of this promise and does not even restore Canada's position as a continental leader in tobacco reduction.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is taking far more comprehensive action on tobacco than the Canadian government. In declaring nicotine as a drug, the FDA has decided to eliminate tobacco brand name sponsorships altogether and to place other controls on the sale and promotion of tobacco.
In addition to sponsorship restrictions, the FDA rules include the following: age verification of tobacco purchasers; a ban on mail-order sales, vending machines, free samples and self-serve displays; a ban on outdoor advertising within 1,000 feet of schools and playgrounds. Black-and-white advertising only will be permitted on billboards, transit signs and points of sale promotions. This will eliminate Joe Camel advertising and the like as well as lifestyle advertising. The sale or give-away of products like the Camel and Marlboro gear will also be prohibited.
Further, tobacco companies will be required to fund a multi-million dollar smoking prevention campaign. While some committee members may find the U.S. restrictions to be excessive, I should like to provide some perspective on other products which are subject to similar regulation in Canada. Mr. Cunningham touched on this earlier.
When was the last time that you were invited to a Prozac jazz festival or a Ritalin jamboree? These type of brand-specific drug promotions are strictly and appropriately prohibited by Canadian law. However, the tremendous irony is that Prozac, Ritalin and other prescription medications were developed specifically to improve health and not to destroy it. Obviously, the same cannot be said for tobacco, a product that kills when used exactly as intended by its manufacturers.
If Parliament has the constitutional ability and resolve to place these promotional restrictions on prescription medications, then it surely has the ability to control brand-name tobacco company sponsorships.
The tobacco industry would have you believe that their advertising has no impact on kids and that sponsorship promotions are not an effective means of advertising. However, the evidence suggests otherwise. Here are the summaries of several leading reports on the relationship between tobacco advertising and consumption among youth.
First, the Journal of the American Medical Association stated in 1994 that the tobacco advertising campaigns targeting women were associated with a major increase in smoking uptake that was specific to females younger than the legal age for purchasing cigarettes.
The second study, from Tobacco Control in 1995, stated that the historic changes in the initiation of cigarette smoking and their temporal association with gender-specific marketing and promotional activities lend support to a link between cigarette smoking and promotional activities and initiation of cigarette smoking by adolescents and young adults.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 1995 stated that the increase in rates of smoking initiation among adolescents during 1985 to 1989 may reflect increased real expenditure for cigarette advertising and promotion. The increase in rates occurred during a period when real expenditures for total cigarette advertising and promotion doubled and expenditures for cigarette promotion more than quadrupled.
There are several others and they are included in the brief.
The tobacco industry in Canada has a long track record of exploiting public health to its economic advantage. It is not coincidental that Canada's most heavily advertised brands are also the brands of choice among adolescents. The tobacco companies have long realized that their economic future depends on their ability to recruit new customers and the vast majority of these new customers are children and adolescents.
On behalf of ASH, I urge committee members to seize this opportunity to promote and protect public health in Canada by supporting Bill C-71 without further delay or dilution.
[Translation]
Mr. Louis Gauvin, Coordinator, Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac: First, a few words to introduce the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac, as this is a first for Quebec. Originally, the Coalition was launched by eight health- related groups in June 1996. Its objective was and continues to be the passage of effective, vigorous anti-smoking legislation.
Last December 9, when we appeared before the Standing Committee on Health, we represented 312 organizations. Today, our group represents close to twice that, or 617 organizations from all regions in Quebec.
I will give you a few examples: the Association of Cardiologists, the Association of Quebec Pediatricians, the Quebec College of Physicians, the Heart Institute, the Federation of CLSCs and over half of those CLSCs, hospitals, seniors' centres, the Lung Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Scouts, student associations, youth groups; CEGEPs, school boards, 225 cities and municipalities, ecological groups, community groups, and the Museum of Quebec.
Why did I read that list? You still have present in your minds the series of opponents to Bill C-71 whose words and actions the media reported on fully sometime ago; among these, there was a demonstration in Montreal.
If I took a few moments to present our coalition in greater detail, it was to bear witness to the existence of another reality that has been less visible but is just as present, that reality being a broad support for anti-smoking measures such as the ones contained in this bill, and particularly for the prohibition of sales to minors, restrictions on promotion, and controls on the manufacture of tobacco products.
One last point of information concerning our membership. For each of the 617 member organizations of the coalition, we have an official resolution of support proposed and supported in due form, and voted for by the board of directors or the city council, in the case of municipalities. Why such a public commitment, when Quebec has always been rather quiet on the tobacco issue?
It is because the associations we represent are made up of parents, physicians, teachers and others who are responsible for young people, many of whom have on repeated occasions expressed to us their deep concern with the increase in smoking by children of 9 or 10 and teenagers.
Four other motives also led over 600 organizations to intervene publicly. These are features that characterize tobacco consumption in Quebec, as compared to Canada as a whole. They are not features we have reason to be proud of.
The first is mortality and suffering. Quebec pays a very heavy tribute to the use of tobacco. According to the most recent data, tobacco is responsible for the death of close to 12,000 Quebeckers every year. If all of the deaths occurred in a single place, this would be equivalent to the disappearance of Joliette and Val d'Or in a year and half; Rouyn-Noranda and Baie-Comeau in two years; Chicoutimi and Hull in five years; Sherbrooke, six years. Every two years, a Montreal neighbourhood would disappear.
As you probably know, Health Canada's most recent study shows that smoking is more prevalent in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada, not only in young people from 11 to 14 years of age and 15 to 19, but especially among young girls. Our own observations confirm this sad reality. One has only to observe the behaviour of young people in places where they gather to see that many of them have a cigarette in their hand, sometimes up to one out of two.
There is also the matter of tobacco sales to minors. Two independent national studies done in the fall of 1995, one for the Health Canada Tobacco Control Bureau and the other for the Canadian Cancer Society came to the same conclusion: Out of all the Canadian provinces, it is in Quebec that young people can obtain cigarettes most easily. According to the study we are referring to, the number of merchants concerned ranged between 75 and almost 100 per cent.
Finally, Quebec is certainly one of the places in Canada where the tobacco industry's sponsorship is the most visible. This is the subject of a great deal of debate these days.
Several of our members are worried to see such a toxic product raised to the rank of sponsor of arts and sports events, linked by association to the virtues of beauty, strength and courage.
Does the sponsorship of cultural and sports events encourage young people to take up smoking? The question has been raised. Tobacco manufacturers reply that their sponsorship is not aimed at young people. They claim that at best, they hope that they will encourage smokers to change brands. When they are asked whether they have carried out studies on the matter they answer in the affirmative but they refuse to share their results. This is what a La Presse reporter reports in an article published in the March 5 edition; copies of his article have been appended to our brief.
We are aware of two important characteristics of smokers. Smokers are very faithful to their brand of cigarettes; at the tender age of 15 or 16, young smokers have already chosen their brand of cigarettes and will be faithful to it as long as they continue to smoke. Secondly, between 70 and 80 per cent of adult smokers today started smoking before they turned 18.
Thus, the tobacco industry does not have any choice. If it wants to survive, it must target and recruit youngsters. Sponsorship is an excellent vehicle to do that, and the industry does not hesitate to use its considerable means in that way.
In Appendix B, in the second file we distributed, you will find an ad published in the Tobacco Reporter. This is a magazine addressed to the tobacco industry. What does this publicity page say? You see a Formula 1 car. The ad describes the sponsorship logo on a Formula 1 vehicle as being the most powerful ad space in the world. The name of the brand will thus reach 18 billion TV viewers in 102 countries throughout the world. The minimum -- not necessarily modest -- investment is $50,000. and it can reach $40 million and more if you are sponsoring a car or a team on a yearly basis. The purpose of the ad was to invite the tobacco industry to sponsor Formula 1 racing vehicles.
Several experts in this field have carefully documented what happens with sponsorship. Messrs. Claude Cossette, a communications pioneer who is very well known in Quebec, Vincent Fischer, whom many consider a sponsorship guru, and Normand Turgeon, professor of marketing at the École des hautes études commerciales, agree that tobacco manufacturers do not invest $60 million a year in sponsorships just for the heck of it, but because it is a productive investment. On this, the experts are unequivocal. Sponsorship increases sales and encourages young people to smoke. A document has been appended to our brief in this connection. This is what Claude Cossette has to say, and I quote:
In primary school, young people are repeatedly given the message that cigarettes are bad. But if they attend or view interesting cultural or sports events, tobacco, which they used to view as a negative thing, winds up acquiring positive qualities.
Elsewhere, Cossette explains why sponsorship is interesting to tobacco manufacturers; because it associates cigarette brands to the names of racing stars, the prestige of these stars then attaches itself to the cigarette brands. Jacques Villeneuve brings recognition and prestige to Player's and the Grand Prix it sponsors. Steffi Graff enhances the image of du Maurier and the International Tennis tournaments it sponsors in Montreal. From the lung-filthying product that it was perceived to be, tobacco is subtly transformed in young people's minds as a synonym for excellence in sports performance, strength and courage. And Cossette concludes:
The type of subtle persuasion exercised by sponsorships reaches the viewer when he is at his most vulnerable, in a receptive state: he is relaxing, having fun, and absorbs the sponsor's brand and image; the products finally acquire the qualities of the events or of its heroes.
Like Claude Cossette, we feel that sponsorship is a form of publicity that influences young people and by denying it the tobacco lobby is spreading disinformation.
Moreover, Normand Turgeon, professor at the École des hautes études commerciales, carried out a study of some 150 businesses who sponsor sports and cultural events, tobacco manufacturers among these, and he states that the sponsorships aim to increase sales. When he is told that tobacco manufacturers say that this is not the case, he replies that they are simply not telling the truth. The article quoting Mr. Turgeon's words is appended to the documents we have circulated.
The bill's provisions meet the Coalition's objectives to a large extent. We consider them to be enormous gains for public health. They don't go as far as we would like, but this in no way diminishes our support.
The representatives of the Fédération québécoise du sport étudiant (Quebec student sport federation) also told us that they support the restrictions to be imposed, on sports events in particular.
According to them, the sponsorship of sports events by the tobacco industry is an aberration. Sports exalt physical performance, stimulate health and increase the quality of life. The use of tobacco, however, diminishes performance, destroys health and reduces the quality of life.
We are sure you will be interested to know that for all of these reasons, representatives of students sports in Quebec have chosen to never accept a tobacco sponsorship.
In conclusion, the Coalition is convinced that this is far from being an extremist measure that in any way runs counter to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as the industry claims. In reality, this bill gives a power to government, and imposes a regulatory framework on the tobacco industry, that is comparable to the one the pharmaceutical and food industries, for instance, have adjusted to quite well for a number of years.
In fact, tobacco manufacturers are the ones who have always enjoyed exceptional status, if one considers the toxicity of their product.
Through its Tobacco Act the government is finally setting things straight where tobacco is concerned and giving to this product a status that reflects its noxious qualities.
That is why we urge you not to concede further delays to the tobacco industry and to proceed with diligence so that this bill receives royal assent as quickly as possible.
[English]
Mr. Eric LeGresley, Legal Counsel, Non-Smokers' Rights Association: Madam Chair, I realize it is late in the day. As such, I have the advantage of being able to defer to many of the statements that have been made by my colleagues on this panel and on previous panels. Therefore, I will be exceedingly brief. I have only three points that I want to drive home in my introductory comments.
First, Bill C-71 was not foisted upon anyone quickly and without their consultation. We need only think back on what has been happening in terms of tobacco control. In 1987, approximately 10 years ago, the government introduced a bill whose intent included a prohibition on new sponsorships by tobacco companies. The tobacco companies did an end-run around all that, as senators know. Player's Limited, Matinée Limited, du Maurier Limited and du Maurier Council for the Performing Arts were all incorporated on December 28, 1988. The Player's Cigarette sign came down and the Player's Limited sign went up. The sponsorship ban had no effect.
However, all those arts and sponsorship groups were on notice that the intent of the government was to end the tobacco companies' use of these organizations to promote their brands. That was 10 years ago. They have had lots of notice.
The Supreme Court's decision came down 18 months ago. It sets out the route that the government was to use to respond to the striking down of the TPCA. It was clear to the tobacco companies that new legislation would be brought in. They had a good idea of what would be coming because of the commentary in the Supreme Court's decision. The tobacco companies have known for 18 months what this legislation would look like.
If they did not get it back then that this was coming, they got it when Minister Marleau stood up and introduced the blueprint 15 months ago. Bill C-71 does not go nearly as far as was promised in the blueprint. Many of us are having to accept that we did not get what we wanted on the health side. However, none of these groups can come before you now and say, "We did not expect this."
With all of that, we are still here looking at this legislation. In the political process, we have given an extension to some of the arts and sports groups in the other place.
I do not think anyone here imagines that, after that transition period is over, those very same groups will not be out arguing again for another extension or other changes. You are just deferring the decision to come down on this. That will take place. You are just deferring it to another time.
Over the course of the last 10 years, when many of these art groups started to accept their money, after they should have been on notice that the flow of money from the tobacco industry to them would be terminated at some time, the tobacco companies have continued to throw more money at them. This has served to increase the magnitude of the political problem and to increase the number of kids who are seduced into tobacco addiction and who, ultimately, die.
This legislation is not extreme, not at all. Perhaps the health groups have been far too quiet and have not come out to voice some of their concerns about provisions in this legislation not going as far as we believe the Supreme Court would have let us go. The other side has been able to characterize this measure as extreme.
As someone who deals with tobacco control in many countries around the world, I can tell you categorically that this is middling legislation at best. We are in the middle of the pack of developed countries here. Many countries have more onerous restrictions on tobacco. Some 31 countries in the world have a complete ban on tobacco advertising. Bill C-71 does not come close to a complete ban.
Sponsorship restrictions, product content controls and honest labelling requirements are all things that Bill C-71 either does or can do with the regulations. All these measures exist in other countries.
My third point is with regard to the legal procedures used in Bill C-71. You have heard the industry raise concerns about those procedures. There is the reverse onus provision, the permissive framework upon which this is set. Advertising restrictions and search and seizure provisions -- every one of these exist in other Canadian statutes. They exist in statutes that are dealing with products a lot less lethal than tobacco.
Nothing is new here. It is just that we are starting to apply it to the tobacco industry. The industry has money and clout and they will argue it every step of the way.
On the sponsorship issue, my first point is that sponsorship promotions are tobacco ads, period. I agree with comments made earlier that they are lifestyle ads. You do not have to believe me. Ask kids. The studies from the Health Canada youth smoking survey and the University of Toronto and the University of Illinois show that kids say sponsorship materials are tobacco ads.
It is better than that. You do not even have to listen to kids although kids are the experts. Kids are the ones with whom we are most concerned here. It is how they perceive it and not how adults perceive it that matters. It is also important that the tobacco companies perceive them as ads.
I have with me this year's annual report from Richemont, which is the company that eventually controls Rothmans. With respect to five or six of their major brands around the world, it is shown in this year's annual report that it sponsors one event. The terms that they use to describe their sponsorships around the world are telling. They state:
Sponsorship of the Malaysian football league is the focal point of the marketing support for Dunhill King Size.
About their sponsorship of Craven "A" Today's Country, they state:
This provides vibrant and contemporary marketing support for this important brand.
The tobacco companies are saying that sponsorships are ads. In fact, they have been saying for a long time that sponsorships are more important than traditional sorts of advertising.
In the United States, where in the past we had -- and we continue to have -- open advertising and open sponsorship, there has been a transition. The money for traditional ads has been going down while the money for sponsorship has been going up. There is an authenticity about sponsorships that they cannot manufacture with the ads. That is why they choose them, in my opinion.
Finally, I wish to address the point specifically to those of you who have repeatedly asked for more evidence. I understand that request. I believe that even though the Supreme Court said that we can move based on reason and logic on some of these issues, that it is proper to request more evidence. If we have it, we should be providing it to you. Everyone who is fair-minded, everyone who is open-minded, will accept scientific evidence as one form of evidence. The admissions by the tobacco companies who, after all, know more about their products and their marketing than anyone else, is another form of evidence.
I wish to read to you two sentences buried in a very boring, bland, financial statement by a tobacco company. This statement was made by Imperial Tobacco Group PLC of the U.K. in a prospectus to potential investors. If one misleads investors, one can be sued. Therefore, the companies do not want to mislead their potential investors.
The first sentence comes under the heading, "Restrictions on advertising, sponsorship and product design":
Since 1971, the tobacco industry in the UK has negotiated voluntary agreement with HM Government covering advertising, sponsorship and product design.
On the next page, they talk about the effect of restrictions on sponsorship and advertising. In my mind, this is the proof. It states:
The Directors believe that the various restrictions and regulations, together with the substantial increases in excise taxes on smoking products, have had, and are likely to continue to have, a detrimental effect on market size.
It is an effect on the size of the tobacco market, not on market share. These regulations, these restrictions, apply to all of the companies in the British tobacco market. The directors are saying that restrictions on sponsorship reduce the size of the market. In plain language, that means it reduces the number of kids who are coming into the market. As we all know, kids are basically the only new entrants into the market.
If you have kept an open mind about this, that is your proof. The tobacco industry will say this opinion applies to only this one tobacco company somewhere out there in the U.K. That is what they say about Liggett. They say that every time that information comes from a tobacco company.
In my mind, you can only say that so often. Eventually, the admissions by the tobacco companies must have some credibility.
These people are not willing to say that sponsorship has no effect on market size. They are saying that sponsorship does have an effect on market size and that when you restrict it, you reduce the size of the market. That is all I have to say on sponsorship.
I do not think I should go through the constitutional issues in detail here with you although I would be pleased to answer any of your questions as best I can on them. I note that almost every lawyer who has been before you who is not in the employ of a tobacco company has said that this legislation was well tailored to the RJR-Macdonald decision. I agree with that. I think it was conservatively tailored to that decision.
Some of them may have an odd concern about a particular point, but many of them have said that they believe this to be constitutional. The tobacco lawyers disagree. Of course they disagree. They are in that business. They represent the same companies that tell you that their products do not cause harm to consumers, that it has not been proven.
I have only one fundamental point of disagreement with the Supreme Court in that decision. While I might have read things differently, there is one point that Madam Justice McLachlin got wrong, and that is with respect to the use of tobacco trademarks on non-tobacco items. That is the only one I will illustrate in my opening comments.
Everyone knows the Marlboro brand. It is the most widely known brand in the world. This is lifestyle advertising, I believe, according to Madam Justice McLachlin's decision. These ads are not giving you information about the product; they are trying to associate the product with a lifestyle, the cowboy imagery.
This, however, is not a tobacco ad. This is an ad for a tobacco trademark on a non-tobacco item. This is an ad for a lighter. Madam Justice McLachlin would say that it is okay to run this ad because it is for a lighter, but if you make it into a tobacco package, you could not restrict that. She did not see the rational connection.
I submit to you that people driving by in their car and kids walking along the street do not notice that this is an ad for a lighter. How many of you noticed that it was an ad for a lighter before I mentioned it to you? They actually run ads in France now where they do not even say the word "Marlboro." They say "A step closer to the west." The imagery is all there and you get the impression that it is a tobacco ad.
With respect to the constitutional issues and meeting the concerns of the industry, you can amend this legislation until the cows come home and the tobacco industry will still challenge it. They will challenge it for two reasons. First, they can, as they have done in Canada, deter implementation of some of the regulations during the course of the court challenge. That is very valuable to them, even if they lose. It does not cost a lot of money for these companies to run a court challenge. It is a pittance for them. If they deter the regulations from coming in, they have won.
Second, and most important to me because I often work in other countries around the world, as part of the global strategy the tobacco company will run around the world saying, "Don't pay any attention to what is going on in Canada because that legislation is still before the courts." I saw them do that with the Supreme Court decision. Within weeks, they were in countries all around the world, Mongolia, Fiji, and Israel, impacting upon tobacco control.
Your mandate here is to look at what takes place in Canada. Unfortunately and fortunately, that has effects beyond our own borders. Simon Potter, who appeared before you the other day on behalf of Imperial Tobacco, is often sent by British American Tobacco into the Third World to train people there on how to defeat tobacco legislation there. Therefore, what takes place here has implications in the developing world, and that is where the industry is focusing its attention.
I want to conclude by appealing to everyone's better instincts. In order to do what is right for Canada's children, each of us must rise beyond our own narrow parochial interests. We must put kids front and centre, and that includes the health groups. The health groups must bite their tongues and accept legislation that does not go as far as we wanted it to go, does not go as far as it was promised it would go, and that was further watered down by a very well financed tobacco lobby. We have to accept that and fix any problems we have with it at some other time.
After many years, the arts and culture groups will have to finally face up to the reality that was presented to them in 1987 that reasonable restrictions, in this case -- not a ban, but reasonable restrictions -- on tobacco companies' use of their sponsorships to promote tobacco products will become a reality. They have had lots of time. They cannot look only to their narrow interests.
I understand that some people have concerns about particular areas of the country. Community leaders, both elected and unelected, will have to look beyond their own back yards. They will have to ask themselves whether the children's lives, which they are trusted to protect through their role as public citizens, are worth calling the tobacco industry's bluff on the these issues. We have to look at the totality of Canada's children, not just an alleged effect that may occur in one place or another.
Finally, I will appeal to the best senses of the tobacco industry. They will have to accept that they are into a new era now; that public health interests, not shareholders' interests, will determine how their products are made, marketed and sold. Essentially, they must accept that their products will be treated like every other consumer product and especially like the dangerous product that it is.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. LeGresley.
Mr. Gauvin, for the first time this afternoon I saw what I think is a correlation between the heavy amount of sponsorship in Quebec vis-<#00E1>-vis the rest of the country and the smoking statistics from Quebec. No one has made that point before.
Do you think that there has been a deliberate attempt by the tobacco industry to have more sponsorships in Quebec because of the high number of smokers in that province?
[Translation]
Mr. Gauvin: Quebec is what you might call the "backyard" of the industry. The greatest number of manufacturing jobs are located in Quebec. Seen from the outside, this is my interpretation: When the industry wanted to put Canadian government policies regarding tobacco off balance, it chose as its strategy to have Quebec spearhead the campaign. There is the example of the famous case which began with Judge Chabot's decision in 1990 or 1991 and eventually led to a decision by the Supreme Court quashing the Act forbidding publicity; that case was heard in Quebec, that is where the challenge was launched. If you look at what led to changes in tobacco taxation, at the federal level, in 1994, you will note that contraband began in Quebec as well. You are right to mention that there is some vulnerability there. Unless I am mistaken, I have not seen so-called spontaneous demonstrations in other Canadian provinces by ordinary folks, artists, taxi drivers, restaurant owners, in opposition to Bill C-71. These spontaneous events took place in at least two cities on the same day, at the same time in Quebec: this smacks of organization, at some level.
The tobacco industry is very strong in Quebec. The mayor of Montreal came here; I don't believe the mayor of Toronto came here, nor the Vancouver mayor, but the mayor of Montreal did. There are two plants in Montreal and one in Quebec. We have a big problem on our hands; you are correct.
[English]
Senator Kenny: Mr. Gauvin, would I be stretching it, in your view, to say that the tobacco companies are playing what I would call the "Quebec card?" That is, they realize that in national politics today there are sensitivities regarding Quebec and that if the federal government causes unhappiness in Quebec, it will have other implications?
[Translation]
Mr. Gauvin: These people are very skilful. They have a good pulse on what is happening in Quebec in regard to certain sensitive or delicate issues. They have the capacity of mobilizing opinion in their favour against this bill. We don't have that capacity, we couldn't do that. There are approximately 620 groups now who are members of our coalition and when we try to have access to the media it is more difficult for us than for organizations sponsored by tobacco or for any other group that comes out in favour of the tobacco industry. The tobacco industry probably knows full well that if it tried the same kind of mobilization in other provinces it would be incapable of doing so, for all kinds of reasons. Clearly, to us, it is in Quebec that the industry must strike, of all places in Canada, if it wants to attack federal government bills. I saw no demonstrations like the ones we had in our province elsewhere in Canada. Does that answer your question?
[English]
Senator Kenny: It does, yes.
Mr. LeGresley, you talked about an Imperial Tobacco prospectus. It was not a Canadian prospectus you showed us, but I am assuming that the other manufacturers in Canada must have to go to the market from time to time for funds. I am guessing that they are traded on the American exchange, and they probably have to file a 10K or something like that. Have you had an opportunity to examine any of the Canadian filings to see if there are comparable admissions? The law would fall equally heavily if they admitted that here in Canada.
Mr. LeGresley: You are right. Two out of three Canadian companies are publicly traded in Canada. RJR-Macdonald is 100 per cent owned by RJR. I have not seen any similar admission made in a financial statement by the publicly-traded Canadian companies.
Senator Kenny: When RJR Nabisco files, when the barbarians were at the gate, or when they had to file their 10Ks to be traded in New York, what was their disclosure like?
Mr. LeGresley: On the issue of litigation -- and that is the only one I can recall -- they make a pro forma statement that they cannot predict the outcome of litigation, but they have been successful in the past. They try to cover themselves off. I have not seen them make an admission on this point either. I would love to be proven wrong. Quite frankly, I have not looked at those documents in detail or in quite some type.
Senator Kenny: It is intriguing because the standards in this area are getting progressively higher and regulators are demanding more information. These people are obviously vulnerable to class action suits. You would think that at some point a shareholder who did not like the performance of their stock would say, "Look, I bought a share or two of your stock, and I have the filing here. Why did you not warn me that these things might happen?"
Mr. LeGresley: You are very right. I think this sort of thing is coming.
Senator Kenny: Should we be sending researchers off tonight to check this out?
Mr. LeGresley: I do not know. I wish I had the answer to that. It is not the sort of document that people generally read. People read the flashy documents.
Senator Kenny: People do not have to generally read it. Only a few of us have to read it, and then we can hold it in front of that camera and everyone will know about it.
Mr. LeGresley: To answer your question, I have not seen any other company make a specific admission apart from Imperial Tobacco. I have not seen anyone else make this sort of admission in that form. There certainly are internal documents from some of the tobacco companies with respect to their marketing strategies indicating that sponsorships can be directed at youth and things like that. Some of those are before you, but it is an admission in a different form.
Senator Kenny: You have made some persuasive arguments about how their promotion is used not just to increase market share but to attract new smokers. An economist appeared before us yesterday who suggested that, in many respects, some of the promotions do not in fact increase the revenues to the country in a general sense. In fact, they may localize it in one area. People would spend the money in any event. If they did not spend it going to the Jazz Festival, they would have spent it bowling in Sherbrooke or they would have gone to a movie in Magog or done something else. They went to the Jazz Festival because it was there. There was no net economic benefit to Montreal, if you will, because the money was already designated in peoples' minds as entertainment money.
One might draw the conclusion that if that were true, the tobacco companies had other motives for putting on these promotions, and one of the motives was in fact to build a political coalition in order to impact on legislatures.
Mr. LeGresley: I fully agree with you. There are several different reasons that the tobacco industries undertake these sponsorships. One reason for some of the major events is brand recognition. They are doing it for commercial reasons. However, supporting that little theatre in Magog and dropping a few dollars in Timiskaming and supporting a Red Deer voluntary association of some sort will not attract people. They are picking up political constituencies along the way, in my view. It is an insurance plan, and now is the time they are cashing it in.
We have seen the parade that has come before not only this committee but the health committee. I phoned some of these organizations, and the phones ring at the same place. One I phoned a little while back, and it rings at the CTMC. It has another name on the organization. These are front groups. I have no problem in stating that. Many of these organizations -- and some of them have come out and said so -- are paid for by the tobacco industry. They are there for this reason. That is why the sponsorship is there for that class of events, in my view.
[Translation]
Senator Pearson: I was very impressed by what you said concerning the Quebec students sports association and the fact that they have chosen to never accept a tobacco sponsorship. Are there any other groups, do you know, who have had the same courage?
Mr. Gauvin: There are no other Quebec groups who have publicly voiced their support for our position or made such a position public. One example that does comes to mind is Steve Podborski, who a few years ago refused the Canada Ski Export trophy cup for those same reasons.
Senator Pearson: This is good news.
Senator Beaudoin: Mr. Gauvin, I'd like to go back to the point raised by Madam Chair, which I find extremely important in the current debate. My impression is that people in Montreal and Quebec are very interested in these cultural events -- this is the case throughout Canada, of course -- but let's take the case of Quebec at this time. I'm thinking of the Jazz Festival, of the Festival des films du monde, a world film festival, held in August in Montreal, and I'm also thinking of Jacques Villeneuve, but that is in the sports arena and is more international, more Canadian.
In the absence of tobacco company sponsorships, these cultural events would be very popular nonetheless. In other words, I wonder to what extent the tobacco companies did not fill a vacuum by getting involved in them. I'm not saying whether this is right or wrong. I'm not questioning their motives, but the fact is that they got involved. Had they not become involved, Quebeckers would have had the same interest in theatre, films, jazz and sports in general, be it tennis, hockey, or other sports. I always draw a parallel with Radio-Canada which was launched in the 1930's, in Quebec, where I am more familiar with the context, and its arrival on the scene was completely revolutionary. It was a cultural driving force that greatly changed the face of Quebec and of Canada, of course, as well as of French Canada outside Quebec. Radio-Canada may have done more for culture than many educational institutions. In short, I wonder whether these events would not have come into existence anyway, and had the tobacco companies not stepped in, perhaps others would have. The results might have been the same. I'd like to hear your opinion on that. I don't know why, exactly, those companies got involved at that time, but I think that these cultural events would have come into being in any case even if others had funded them.
Mr. Gauvin: Culture certainly isn't the business vehicle, so to speak, that is the easiest to support. The State provides a good deal of support. Arts and letters benefit from many subsidies, otherwise there would be too few practitioners, since they would have trouble making a living from their art. There is a type of tacit agreement between the private sector and the public sector to get together to help these people, initiatives, groups, festivals, theatre groups, et cetera, who promote culture in various forms. This is part of the social contract our society lives by.
To reply to your question, concerning events in Montreal and Quebec, in my opinion, an alarm is being sounded by those who state that the bill before you will mean the cultural death of artists, groups or events, festivals of all kinds, cultural and artistic events important to the population, and they should be so. These are what I would call fear-mongering tactics; they are sounding the alarm, but the evidence is not there. There has been a great deal of talk about evidence before this committee but nothing proves that these events will disappear. Personally, I don't think they are in any danger. No one has proved that they would disappear because the bill would restrict -- not prohibit-sponsorships that are generally on the order of 4 to 5 per cent. I say on the average, some provide more, and some much less, generally. As my colleague Eric LeGresley said, small sums are shared out here, there and everywhere. I'm far from convinced that this will be the death knell of these events.
You used Radio-Canada as an example, and its effects continue. I listen to Radio-Canada very faithfully, on a daily basis; the FM programming has just been subjected to considerable changes, particularly the evening programming, because of the reorganization due to budget cuts. I haven't followed Radio-Canada's financial situation and of course I'm not a specialist, but it seems to me that it has been subjected to many deep cuts these past few years. We're talking about dozens of percentage points. But Radio-Canada is still there, and I still get colour TV at home, not black and white!
Senator Beaudoin: When you say that even if the bill is passed, nothing proves that sponsorships wouldn't continue, I tend to agree with you. I think that events would continue; others might sponsor them. I agree with you, there is no evidence. What has struck me throughout the current debate is that people say that they like jazz, or this or that, and X, Y and Z are willing to finance these events, and people say, great. That is the reaction people have, you don't need to analyze it further. If the State were sponsoring events instead of companies people would be just as pleased. If funding came from other private businesses, from Quebec, Ottawa or the city of Montreal, if people received as many million dollars as they do now, they would be very happy and would have nothing against Bill C-71.
In other words, I think a vacuum was filled because there were needs to be met, and others could meet those same needs tomorrow. That put a whole different light on the situation.
But I was interested to hear you say that even if the bill were passed these things would not necessarily come to an end. There is no proof for that, either.
Mr. Gauvin: In reply to your question, did the tobacco industry meet a need that was not being met?
Senator Beaudoin: That is the question I'm wondering about.
Mr. Gauvin: So am I, and it is relevant. I would say two things in reply to that; the tobacco industry was interested in ensuring visibility. Experts told us -- and I'm not a marketing expert, of course -- that sponsorships were a growth phenomenon, not just in Canada, but also in the United States. Publicity budgets were being moved from traditional advertisements to sponsorships, and this is a North America-wide phenomenon, which may also be occurring in other developed countries and which is spreading. What accelerated the process in Canada was the 1989 Act prohibiting publicity so that companies had to sponsor events using a brand name associated with another company. As Mr. LeGresley was saying earlier, the Player's cigarette brand disappeared and was reincarnated as Player's Limited in conjunction with the name of an event.
The tobacco industry may not have filled a vacuum, but when you organize events and someone offers you $100,000 or one million dollars in exchange for association their name to your events, and the company asks you to use its colours and the name of its brand of cigarettes... I am from Quebec and I have witnessed the birth of the Quebec summer festival, the Festival d'été de Québec. It became the Festival international d'été de Québec, and then the Festival international du Maurier d'été de Québec. This isn't filling a vacuum anymore, it is using the event to promote your brand of cigarettes. Im not trying to convince you, I'm simply expressing my opinion.
Senator Maheu: You made a comment on one topic which I found quite shocking as a federalist and a Quebecer. When it is said that a federal bill can create a movement in Quebec, without actually mentioning it, the word "political" could almost be used. It was almost used, but no one actually said it. Allow me to repeat that I was quite upset by this. I wanted to make that comment, because as a Quebecer and representative of the Senate, and having been a member of Parliament previously, I refuse to accept innuendo indicating that this is a political bill and that for that reason as Quebec men and women we may expend more efforts to put forward our opinion on cigarettes and its dangers, or on the good faith and honesty of tobacco companies.
You said two other things, Mr. Gauvin. You said that smuggling began in Montreal. Didn't contraband begin in Cornwall, in Ontario, and not in Quebec? I'd like to hear what you think about that. You used three words and I would like you to tell me exactly what you meant by, in French "la cour arrière", and in English, the "backyard". What did you mean by that exactly? I find it less than acceptable. Quebec is not the backyard to anything, especially not in our country. I'd like to hear your comments.
Mr. Gauvin: I will begin by the federal bill, in quotes. I certainly did not want to offend anyone here. I simply wanted to mention that there has been a school of opinion that translated into interventions, in particular by the Bloc Québécois in the Canadian Parliament, that presented this bill as a bill aimed at Quebec, because of events and different reasons.
I won't claim that I agree with that analysis but it was in the public domain and may have influenced opinion. That is what I meant by my comment and not that this is a "federal" bill and that this characteristic might have had some impact. I am sorry if my comment offended you.
The other thing I mentioned was contraband. I didn't mention time or place. However, what we did see in the development of smuggling was that it took on huge proportions in Quebec which led the provincial government to intervene and make decisions that then had a domino effect, the perception being that they had an effect on federal government decisions, as well as decisions taken by Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, who reduced their taxes on cigarettes, because smuggling was also taking place in those provinces. But seen from Quebec, what I was commenting on was that in Quebec the problem seemed to take on enormous proportions.
Moving now to the third element, the expression "the backyard of the industry". There are four main plants in Canada, and of these, three are located in Quebec. They provide thousands of jobs, on the order of 2,000 to 3,000 jobs, I think. I don't have the exact figures with me. These are 2,000 to 3,000 direct jobs, without counting the indirect, downstream jobs. It is in Quebec that smoking is the most prevalent among young people, sometimes very young people, adults, young women and adult women also.
When I say we have a lot of work to do, I am thinking of that whole situation, of the health issue as well as the fact that the industry is very present.
I imagine that if the tobacco industry had its processing plants in British Columbia, for instance, and there were none in Quebec, the situation would be completely different. It is in that sense that I said that Quebec was the backyard. The industry has considerable resources, concentrated in two cities in the province of Quebec in particular.
Senator Maheu: Let's talk about economic consequences now. I know that you are from the City of Quebec. The economic impacts would not be the same for Quebec as for Montreal, far from it. The economic benefits for the City of Trois-Rivières are on the order of $10 million. I have no idea what this means in terms of number of jobs and economic spin-offs for Montreal. It is not only 2 to 4 per cent; millions of dollars are injected by the industry, and generated by secondary industries.
Perhaps you are not as concerned with the impact these measures would have on Montreal as we are, we who come from that city, because you are from Quebec City? Do the economic impacts this would have on Montreal not seem serious to you? I would like to hear your comments.
Mr. Gauvin: No, I work in Montreal. I have lived there for several years. The economic impact of cultural events is considerable. From my perspective, the economic impact will be maintained with the passage of Bill C-71; there will be no change in that regard. That is what I was saying. I know that the tobacco industry still has sufficient latitude to continue its sponsorships. I'm not at all convinced that it will cease to sponsor.
In fact, at the Standing Committee on Health last December Dr. Hill who was the spokesperson for the Reform Party on the issue asked the following question to each arts and sports representative sports that appeared before the committee, "You say that your event is threatened, but have you heard from any business that they would stop sponsoring you?" He put the same question to every person. Mr. Richard Legendre from Tennis Canada was present. The Jazz Festival was also represented, as well as the Just for Laughs Festival, by Mr. Andy Nolman. All said that they had received no notices to that effect.
Senator Maheu: Perhaps not at that time.
Mr. Gauvin: The industry still has some latitude. That is my opinion, in any case. In spite of the restrictions, the industry can still act. If we look at the worst case scenario, should the industry withdraw, which is not certain, I believe events would continue, with some adjustments, because it probably would not be easy; adjustments would be necessary, but events would continue and would not be jeopardized.
Senator Maheu: I hope so.
Mr. Gauvin: So do I.
[English]
Senator Doyle: I thought perhaps our witnesses shared our interest in Marlboro posters. I think they are a fine example of early American art, and I am usually fascinated by their progress.
When I was travelling in the states earlier this year, I saw one that I had not seen before. It would have been twice the height of this room or more. It was very narrow, no wider than the lighted portion of our ceiling. All you could see at one side of the poster was the back of the head of the rider and his curly locks down around his bandanna. Below that you could see the great behind of the horse and two hooves, both off the ground. Beyond that, there was a tree. You could see, after you looked about, that at the top of the picture in the classic style, there was the letter "M" and the letter "A" which looked as if it were broken off in mid-writing. It struck me that I did not need any more than that. It may not be minimalist, yet they may have to take off the "M" or drop the leg off the "A". However, they do not need to say "lighter," "cigarette," "Marlboro," or "country." The use of colour and the use of image is all there -- the shape of things to come.
Mr. LeGresley: When the war was going on in the Persian Gulf and there were Kurdish refugees moving north in Iraq, Philip Morris, in their wisdom, sent aid packages to the Kurds. They arrived in red and white boxes that had the shape you see on them. They did not say "Marlboro" or "tobacco." There was no tobacco in them. They were generating good will. They have been so successful with these brand elements that they do not need much else. They were laying the groundwork for future sales. This is long-term strategy. What you have noticed applies around the world.
The Chair: I have one final question. Does anyone on this panel have knowledge about arts or sports groups, beyond the information that you have given us, that they have taken any steps to move off sponsorship or advertisement from tobacco during this nine- or ten-year period when they knew they would eventually need to do so? I know that the Royal Winnipeg Ballet two years ago made the deliberate decision not to be sponsored by du Maurier because what they were organizing was an outdoor event primarily for children called Ballet in the Park. They just did not want to be associated with a tobacco company.
Do you have other examples of that kind of thing?
Mr. LeGresley: Perhaps my colleagues can add something different, but I cannot give you a list of organizations which have withdrawn because they knew that eventually the tobacco money would go so they wanted to get their financial issues straight first. There are other organizations that decide, based on the product mix, et cetera, that it would be inappropriate for them to be associated with tobacco money or they decide on a principled basis that it would be unseemly.
Senator Kenny, you talked earlier about replacement funds for these organizations that are presently accepting tobacco money. I would be concerned that those organizations which rejected tobacco money would be somehow penalized if other funds were to flow, and we would penalize them for making a good public citizens' choice.
Senator Kenny: Do you know of any of the so-called ethical mutual funds that refuse to invest in tobacco products?
Mr. LeGresley: I believe there are some. We will undertake to provide that information to you. I cannot provide the names to you right now.
Mr. Hagen: Ethical Fund is one, the Ethical Group of funds.
Senator Kenny: I know of numerous school funding drives that have refused tobacco money.
The Chair: If you can give us any more information on that, it would be appreciated.
Mr. Hagen: Regarding whether or not groups have decided to voluntarily remove themselves from tobacco company sponsorship, approximately three years ago in Edmonton, the city council was considering a ban on tobacco company sponsorship on all city property which would have resulted in two or three events having to move from city premises. The motion did not pass because of the lobbying by the industry and their supporters but, in fact, the organizations which fought the hardest appeared to get rewarded in following years by increased sponsorship. Subsequent to that, they have increased their dependence on tobacco company sponsorship.
[Translation]
Mr. Gauvin: To answer a question that was raised earlier, one organization, the Cirque du soleil, has already stated publicly, a few months ago, that it refuses to accept any sponsorship from the tobacco industry.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senators, we have an interesting panel to finish our day. We have asked two law professors to speak to us about regulatory authorities and powers. I would ask them to join us now.
Professor Ruth Sullivan, Law Faculty, University of Ottawa: Thank you. There is not a great deal to say about my subject which covers the legal constraints on delegation and, more particularly, the legality of the proposed delegation scheme in Bill C-71.
There are not many legal constraints on delegation of powers by Parliament. Parliament can only delegate the powers that it has, which means that it cannot delegate the power to enact legislation that is within the purview of the provinces. It cannot delegate a power to enact legislation that violates the Charter. Short of that, it can delegate whatever powers it has in whatever mix it chooses. It is true that it cannot delegate to a provincial legislature; it can only delegate to its subordinates, but the only entity in Canada that is not a subordinate of Parliament is a provincial legislature. Short of that, it can delegate to whomever it likes.
Finally, Parliament has to observe any manner and form requirements on its delegation.
I would suggest to you that none of these legal limitations apply to the delegations set out in Bill C-71. That is, none of them purport to delegate a power that Parliament does not have. None of them violate a manner and form requirement. None of them delegate to a provincial legislature. From a purely legal point of view, I would suggest that there is nothing wrong with any of the delegations set out in the bill. It is true that a number of them are quite broad. In particular, the delegations contained in Part I and clause 7 of the bill hand over very broad power to the Governor in Council to set the norms or standards for tobacco products, and that could be politically shocking. We may consider it anti-democratic in some fashion, but it is not illegal. It is open to Parliament to delegate broad, sweeping policy-making powers and there is no legal reason why it cannot do that.
Similarly, some of the delegations contained in the bill might appear to violate the rule of law in that they permit the Governor in Council to create exceptions for particular persons. Under rule of law, we like everyone to be governed by the same rule. Under this legislation it is open to the Governor in Council to exempt particular persons on a fairly ad hoc basis. This, on the face of it, violates the rule of law, but it is open to Parliament itself to violate common-law rule-of-law principles. Parliament is not bound by common-law rule-of-law principles and it is also open to Parliament to authorize its delegate to do so.
In my view, there is no legal problem with those delegations. Once again, they may be politically offensive and strategically inappropriate but they are not, in my view, illegal.
Finally, you will notice that many parts of the bill end with sweeping delegations which allow the Governor in Council to pass whatever regulations are necessary to carry out the purpose of that part. Academics in particular strongly and repeatedly object to this sort of delegation because it is so broad and sweeping in its terms but, once again, there is nothing illegal about it.
This is not to say that there are no constraints. It is only to say there are no legal constraints on delegation. The main way in which delegated powers are controlled is through judicial review. There are a number of constraints that have to be observed. First, the regulations themselves cannot violate the Charter of Rights. The regulations themselves cannot be inconsistent with any provision of the Constitution Act.
Just as Parliament cannot, in the act itself, violate freedom of speech, the regulations cannot do so either. Any constitutional constraint that would apply to the legislature would equally apply to its delegate. That is one comforting constraint.
Second, any manner-and-form requirements imposed by statute must be observed. There are quite a number of these set out the Statutory Instruments Act. That ensures a certain amount of publicity and scrutiny as the regulations are being made.
In addition, the amendments proposed to this bill introduce an additional manner-and-form requirement, namely parliamentary scrutiny. If that were included in the bill, then that would be an additional safeguard and no regulation enacted would be valid unless that particular manner and form requirement had been met.
Finally, regulations are valid only if they have been either expressly or by implication authorized by the enabling provision set out in the legislation. This, of course, is a matter of interpretation. It is open to a person who does not like a particular regulation to argue that that regulation was not authorized by the enabling bill; in fact, it exceeds the powers that were conferred on the Governor in Council.
Here the courts can actually do quite a lot indirectly that they are not allowed to do directly. Even though it is not open to the court to say that Parliament is bound by the rule the law and it is not open to the court to say Parliament cannot authorize its delegate do violate rule of law, the courts can say: We strongly presume that Parliament would never do such a thing; it would just be shocking and surely Parliament would not behave that way.
You can accomplish quite a lot through interpretation that you cannot accomplish through straightforward constitutional law. The main thing for Parliament then is to be clear. If it wants to violate the rule of law, it must make it very clear in its enabling legislation that that is what it had in mind. In my view, this legislation is fairly clear. It clearly states that it is open to the Governor General in Council to enact ad hoc exemptions and so forth.
I do not know how much comfort one can take out from those interpretive principles here. I would say that Parliament has clearly anticipated the way in which a court would respond to that type of regulation. It has clearly expressed its intention to allow the Governor General to do that even though we might object to it as being contrary to the rule of law.
The other aspect of Bill C-71 which I was asked to address includes the proposed amendments for a parliamentary scrutiny provision. The idea behind such provision is to try and make regulations more democratic. Regulations are made by the Governor General in Council away from the limelight. If Parliament can be given some sort of role in enacting those regulations, then it might appear to be more democratic.
I suppose it is rather rude of me to say so, but it is not clear that this rationale would apply to the Senate which is, itself, not an elected body. It is arguable, at least, that the cabinet is a more democratic instrument than the Senate from the point of view of being the people's representative.
The other somewhat cynical remark I might make is that there are alternative and perhaps much more effective ways of ensuring that the content of regulations are brought to the attention of those affected by them. A more obvious approach might be to introduce a notice-and-comment procedure where whoever is making the regulations is obliged to give notice that the regulations are forthcoming and to create an opportunity for everyone who is interested to make comment and to have input into the actual making of the regulations.
The problem with parliamentary scrutiny is it comes too late. It comes after the regulations have already been made. The only thing Parliament can do is either to make pious remarks about it or to say yes or say no, but there is very little opportunity for Parliament to participate in revising them in order to address the concerns of their particular constituents.
In my view, the parliamentary scrutiny provisions tend to be more window dressing than anything else, particularly when we are talking about Senate resolutions as opposed to House of Commons resolutions which tend to go on in greater privacy and not with elected officials.
Despite my cynical remarks -- and somehow law professors do not seem to run the world -- it turns out these parliamentary scrutiny provisions are fairly common in the Commonwealth. Legislators seem to like them even if law professors do not.
There are typically three kinds of review. One involves transmittal of the regulations to Parliament simply to give parliamentarians an opportunity to inform themselves. This generally is conceded to be fairly ineffectual. If you just lay them before Parliament, it tends to just get buried among all the paper.
The second method is to provide for referral of the regulations to a committee with the report back from the committee to Parliament. The chief purpose of that method is to give the committee an opportunity to notice anything unusual or offensive or inadequate about the regulations and then to signal to Parliament or to the public at large that there is something wrong here that we should perhaps address. Perhaps it is serious enough to warrant axing the regulations all together. That is the main purpose of the second method.
The third method involves positive or negative affirmations by Parliament by way of resolution. Parliament, either the House or the Senate or both together, can resolve to confirm the regulations or to axe them, in effect exercising a veto power.
What struck me about the proposed parliamentary scrutiny procedures offered by the Liberals, the Reform Party and Bloc Québécois, is that none of them conforms to the standard model which I just laid out for you. They are all variations on the theme and quite interesting variations on the theme in the case of the Reform and Bloc Québécois proposals. We have the conventional transmittal to Parliament and then we have a referral to a committee, but the committee is not to report back to Parliament. The committee itself approves the regulations or does not approve them. I have not encountered that before. It is an interesting variation, I think.
In the case of the amendment proposed by the Liberals, I have to say I do not really understand it. I find subclause 4 quite unclear and I could not exactly grasp the scheme. I had some concerns about that simply because I was not able to tell under what conditions the proposed regulations would be permitted to be made and when they would be axed. Those are my comments on those two topics.
The Chair: For the purpose of clarity, we should indicate which of those proposals actually made it into the legislation. It was the proposal by Rose-Mary Ur, was it not, that made it into the final version and with which you have some difficulty?
Ms Sullivan: That is the one by the Liberals?
The Chair: Yes.
Senator Beaudoin: Is that subclause 4?
Ms Sullivan: I could not tell from my materials which had made it in. Yes, I do have difficulty with it. As I say, subclause 4 is quite unclear to me. It says that the proposed regulation may be made on the expiration of 30 days -- that is clear enough -- or where, with respect to each house of the Parliament, the committee reports to the house or the committee decides not to conduct inquiries or public hearings. At the very least, we need to add whichever comes last or whichever comes first.
The Chair: Apparently, that is not the one that found its way finally into the legislation. I can provide you immediately with the one that did make it into legislation. While you are studying that, perhaps we could move on to Professor Salter.
Professor Liora Salter, Law Faculty, Osgoode Hall Law School: Thank you for the invitation to be here. You know that I am a professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, but you may not know that I am one of three non-lawyers on the Osgoode faculty and that my expertise is on regulation and not on law. More particularly, my expertise is in regulatory accountability and in the use of science and policy-making and regulation. We have had a lot of references to science in the proceedings here. These are different sets of issues from what you have been dealing with and the ones that have been highly controversial in this bill. In the final analysis, we care that whatever is to be done should work. These issues about accountability and regulation have a great deal to do with whether whatever is decided will work in the final analysis.
Let me begin with a couple of observations. I am not an expert on this bill and this is not my area of expertise, but reading the bill over several times, the most interesting part of it is clauses 5 through 7, which I assume are not new clauses but which give the power to set the standards about what will be allowed in the manufacture of tobacco products. That allows Health Canada to step in and say, "This much of these ingredients under these kinds of conditions will be allowed." It also permits Health Canada to request information for filing with Health Canada from the tobacco firms and it specifies what tests will be used to evaluate this information.
I raise this here not because there is much to be said about this, but because it would be very easy, in looking at the regulatory scope of this bill -- particularly in the light of the public controversy -- to lose sight of some of the most important parts of the bill, that is to say, the parts which allow us several different kinds of levers to control the harmfulness of smoking among a population who is not likely, notwithstanding whatever you do here, to give it up tomorrow afternoon.
My second observation is one which I am sure you have made yourself many times over, namely, that when you deal with science, there is no such thing as certainty. It is always possible, and it will always be possible, to argue in the courts that harm has not been fully proven. Think how long it has taken to get to the point now where you can have warning labels on a cigarette package. How many studies? How much research? How much representation in the research? The uncertainty is virtually given and any skilful lawyer or non-lawyer, as the case may be, can make use of that in arguing that the case has not been proven.
As I read this bill, we are dealing with a kind of science that is even more uncertain than the science that deals with the dangers of tobacco. We are dealing with the social science, the psychology of why people smoke and the role of advertising and images promoting why people smoke. I could take the hard line and say that if we needed certainty about the effect of advertising or the effect of images on what people will and will not do, we will not get it. If that is the standard by which this bill is to be judged, then this bill can be thrown in the garbage. It is not possible to arrive at that level of certainty from the kind of science that is brought into play here.
Lawyers promise certainty -- at least they promise a high degree of comfort in that you get in an opinion and you can live with it -- but law is as blunt an instrument as science. It, too, is always amenable to challenge. There is no such thing as a Charter-proof piece of legislation. You can err badly and set yourself up for a Charter challenge, but you cannot preclude the possibility of a Charter challenge no matter how well you fine-tune a piece of legislation.
Similarly, you can walk into a situation where what you do will be challenged in a court of law, but there is nothing that can be done that would preclude there being challenges in courts of law. If our American cousins are any example, this is an area of very intense litigation and it is not likely to stop being an area of intense litigation in the near future.
The third observation, before I get to regulatory accountability, is that no matter how tightly one drafts either a bill or regulations, there will always be areas where discretion is required. Maybe this is proof that law professors do not always agree, or maybe it is a subtle point where we do actually agree. Discretion is part and parcel of the exercise of law-making. When do you enforce it? Where do you go hard line on the enforcement? How do you determine when compliance has been achieved? No rule could ever be clear enough or precise enough so that you could avoid the exercise of judgment or discretion. No government would ever have enough resources to monitor every possible case of non-compliance and to be there at the right moment and to do the right thing according to a firm rule which made it very clear exactly what is to be done.
Discretion may be a problem. It may be something that we would like to do without, but it is genuinely a fact of law. Discretion is why one needs regulation. As opposed to laws and pieces of legislation, regulation lays out when and where discretion can be exercised, by whom it can be exercised, what general guidelines should govern those people who have a job of making those judgment calls and what kind of redress there will be if someone makes a judgment call that is unfair or whatever.
You could define regulation as bringing expertise and guidelines to the exercise of discretion. Since you probably cannot have law that goes into effect without some form of regulation and you cannot have discretion without judgment calls, then regulation is part and parcel of what we will always be facing.
If that is true, then that puts the accountability issue right at front and centre. If we have learned anything in the last 15 years from what the university professors have said, what the public have said and what politicians have said, it is that regulators have a tendency not to be as accountable and they perhaps ought to be.
Let me now turn my mind to the question of accountability. It is a slippery term. What is accountable to you -- that is, what meets your standards of accountability or the standards of accountability of this senator over here -- will be different. Moreover, depending on which kind of regulation we are talking about <#0107> and the bill talks about several kinds of regulations -- then accountability will be different.
It is really difficult to get a firm handle on "accountability" and how to achieve it. We do know what will not achieve it. We know very clearly what you can do wrong such that the result will be no accountability. Let me state it in the negative because I think that will be quite useful for your purposes.
You will not have accountability if you do not have enough information, that is, if you have no public record, no capacity for monitoring the effects of what you have done or no notice-and-comment provisions, which will probably be there. That is the first rule, if you will.
Second, you have no regulatory accountability if you do not have the resources to carry out and implement the law and to carry out and implement the overseeing function that in this act is assigned primarily to parliamentary committees.
If you cannot do what you have said you will do, then you have a symbolic law. Symbolism is quite powerful. It says, for example, we could pass this and have no inspectors and there would be a symbolic value in passing this legislation in any case because people in Canada would understand that the government cares about this issue.
That is worth something, but that is not the expectation that ordinary people have when we pass a bill like this, that it will simply be symbolic. Their expectations are that once this bill is passed, certain things will come to pass; certain rules will not only be passed, but there will be someone there to check whether they are being obeyed and there will be someone there taking action as a result of the rule.
If there are not enough resources to carry through on what is said in the bill, and if the public expects that someone will carry through on what is said in the bill, then that is not accountability.
The third Salter rule about accountability is that those who are doing the overseeing are making sure that regulators are held accountable. Those who are doing the regulation even, have to be in a position where they are not in a conflict of interest.
I will give an example from a fundamentally different kind of regulation, pesticide regulation, which I actually know a little better. If Agriculture Canada is regulating pesticides but at the same time they are doing everything in their power to promote better productivity of our farms which involves using pesticides, then you have an accountability problem because you need some way to make it clear to the public and Parliament which of these two priorities will take precedence. Which one is more important? Is the safety more important than the productivity and more food, or is more food more important than having some vague concerns about safety?
The point is that if those charged with doing the regulation or overseeing the regulation are in a situation where they have conflicting priorities, and they are making their decisions under tremendous pressure of resources and they are not required to justify their decisions in public and not just to each other, then you have a situation where there is no accountability.
Now, I want to end my remarks with an assessment, a cliché and a warning. My assessment is that the real issues concerning regulation have not been reviewed in this bill. There is much to be said and done. The controversy and the attention have been elsewhere and that is fine, but it should be noted for the record that there are many issues which are fundamentally important to making this bill, if it is eventually passed, work. These have not been addressed because of the other matters that have been addressed.
My cliché is the old one, excellence is the enemy of the good. What that leads to, in my view, is a warning that if one were to try to deal with all of these things that I have raised today in this bill, one would lose the bill. This bill is an act of political will, a decision to do something. It may not be perfect. It has been blind to some of the issues that I have raised. It has dealt with some of the other ones only peripherally. However, were one to start again, it would be tantamount to saying we will not proceed. That is the warning.
The other part of the warning is that, even presuming the Senate, in its wisdom decides to go forward, and Parliament in its wisdom decides to go forward with this act of political will to do something, however imperfect it may be, there are a series of issues here which will not rest after the passing of this legislation. Thank you.
The Chair: Before I turn to questions, Ms Sullivan, did you have a comment to make on clause 42(1)?
Ms Sullivan: Yes. This is beautifully drafted and answers many of the concerns I had. It is quite clear and really much improved over the draft that I was looking at.
Senator Beaudoin: I agree with everything Ms Sullivan said about the delegation.
What I should like to know from you is whether you had a chance to study some other parts of the act, for example, the reversal of the presumption of innocence. Mind you, according to the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, clause 23 is all right, but since you are there and since you know about it, I should like to know your reaction.
Ms Sullivan: My reaction is partially tinged by my politics, of course. It is just fine. It raises a concern, certainly. It is a flag. It could be challenged. It could go either way, but the better view is that it is constitutional, that this will pass muster, given the latest jurisprudence. However, that is a political evaluation more than a legal one, not that the two are that separate.
It will come down to a section 1 evaluation of whether you think this is sufficiently pressing and substantially a concern, whether there is adequate proportionality here. That is so difficult to predict on the part of the deciding court. My own view is that it is okay but it is close to the edge.
Senator Beaudoin: We had a long discussion yesterday and the day before on those two points and, of course, when we are in the presence of a difficult problem, it may always be challenged in court. We cannot avoid that, but since we have to do something, since we have to make a choice with respect to this bill, we have to go ahead.
Your inclination is that this bill is probably or even mostly constitutional?
Ms Sullivan: I believe so.
Senator Beaudoin: After all, the way it is drafted, it might be sufficient for the government to say that this exemption is reasonable in a free and democratic society and that you do not have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt; you just have to bring evidence to the effect that it is reasonable.
Ms Sullivan: Yes, I would agree with that. Parliament has also been quite clever in setting up its section 1 defence. You can see the section 1 defence was in the back of the mind of the drafter. We therefore have a clear preamble which sets out the pressing concern that is met by this legislation that Parliament has in mind. The way this bill is structured and laid out strikes me that the drafter was well aware that this bill will have to be defended before the courts. He or she has done a good job of setting the stage for a good section 1 defence. It is then clear with the material that accompanies the bill that the government will be ready with a section 1 defence and will have reams of material to show why each potentially vulnerable section is indeed required.
That is part of what influences my answer. It turns on section 1 and the government has probably done its homework on section 1.
Senator Beaudoin: We heard an argument yesterday to the effect that even if the bill is not a total ban -- in which case it would have been against the Charter or against the decision in the RJR-Macdonald case -- that it is tantamount to a total ban. That is the first time I have heard of such an argument. My conclusion is that it is not the equivalent of a total ban. It is a restriction of the freedom of expression. If that is the case, then the whole problem is whether it is justified by section 1 of the Charter. Of course, some people will disagree. It may be that it will be challenged. However, the restrictions seem to be reasonable. What is your opinion?
Ms Sullivan: I must say that those very words passed through my mind as I was reading the bill. The way the restriction is put is that such advertising is available only in a place where children are not reasonably likely to be found. I suppose that means bars. You could argue that is tantamount to a total prohibition. It is a very severe restriction, in my view.
However, I predict that the Supreme Court of Canada will accept it. I predict that the Supreme Court of Canada will not buy that argument that it is tantamount to a total prohibition.
Senator Beaudoin: We have already the right-to-vote case. It is stated in our laws that if you are not 18 years old, then you cannot vote. In that sense, it is a total prohibition. However, it is a total prohibition for those who are under the age of 18.
Ms Sullivan: I would distinguish that case from this one by saying that prohibiting those under 18 from voting does not affect the access of those over 18 to the voting machine. This prohibition, however, in its effort to protect those under 18, will cut off access to advertising on the part of many. That is because many places to which adults have access will be prohibited from displaying this advertising because children reasonably have access to them, too. Just about every public place will become inaccessible to the tobacco advertiser. There are very few places to which children do not reasonably have access in our society. Therefore, that strikes me as being, perhaps, the basis for saying that this is tantamount to a total prohibition.
Senator Beaudoin: There are not many places like that, except bars.
Ms Sullivan: That is where it is allowed.
Senator Beaudoin: I think it is still restricted, but not totally forbidden or prohibited, in that sense.
Ms Sullivan: That is true.
Senator Pearson: Professor Salter, I enjoyed your intervention. Personally, I feel that the issue of regulation is something that those of us who spend a lot of time looking at a lot of bills do not have enough time to consider. That is because, in the end, when they do not work, the problems are caused by inadequate regulations.
I have just been to a conference on child labour in the NAFTA context where we were looking at some of the problems in Canada concerning child labour. The regulations are great, but no one is supervising them. Therefore, there are all kinds of contraventions. That is something to which we should always be paying attention when we get a piece of legislation before us. We must ask ourselves, how will it work? What is the process by which we can improve the implementation of the legislation?
Ms Salter: The first thing is quite simple. There are resource implications with regard to any bill that has, as this one does, quite a significant regulatory component. We are in an era in which everyone is looking to cut governments, not increase them. This is a countervailing force, if you will. If new laws are to come forward, and if they have within them, as this one does, a significant regulatory component, then Parliament needs to be conscious of the fact that there are resource implications which will play out later. If that is not done, then, as I say, this will become a piece of symbolic legislation which has some value but is not accountable.
We have all, and I include myself, been quite fierce critics of regulation as costing money, of government spending costing money, and government programs often being inefficient. The pendulum has swung very far. If legislation is about to come back, then I think it is incumbent on people in positions such as you are and I am to help push the pendulum the other way. If we do not, then we should simply go home, pass the bill and have nothing to make it properly operational.
We should monitor whether it is working. We should be in a position to have discretion about where it needs to work most, since we will not have the resources to make it work everywhere. That is fundamentally important to the intent of this bill.
Senator Nolin: Professor Salter, you made an interesting remark at the end of your presentation. Can you be more specific as to what area of the bill is weak in terms of regulation?
Ms Salter: The remark I made at the end of my presentation was in the context of a caution.
Senator Nolin: It was in the sense of, "Do your job properly."
Ms Salter: It was more than that.
Senator Nolin: I mean do "my job" properly.
Ms Salter: I would like to believe that the drafters of this bill, and the departments which produced it, put their minds to these issues, but I am not convinced they have. I am not convinced that we can make this legislation, as it stands, do the job without killing it. There are some issues here which would require more than is there and different kinds of thinking than is currently there.
What is there now in the way of accountability mechanisms is the notion that a parliamentary committee would be the oversight body. A parliamentary committee, like a Senate committee, is once in a while overworked and is under-resourced in many instances. It is not that a parliamentary committee should not be there. It is not that some of the main burden for oversight should not be with a parliamentary committee. However, it may not be sufficient. Nothing in the bill addresses whether it is sufficient. No amount of tinkering with the bill would simply solve that problem.
I do not know if I have answered your question.
Senator Nolin: No, not really, but it is not my bill.
Ms Sullivan: Earlier, you talked about the importance of discretion, and I completely agreed with that remark. To some extent, implementation has to be done on a discretionary basis. The discretion has to be exercised by someone other than a parliamentary committee. You are too remote from the implementation problems to make sensible decisions about implementation of the sort that Professor Salter was mentioning. That is why we have regulations.
We delegate decision making, rule making, case-by-case decision making and prosecutorial decisions, all of which have to be delegated because you cannot go out and apply the bill yourselves to people offering to buy cigarettes at the corner grocery store. That will not work.
I feel equally pessimistic, in a way. However, I do not think there is anything in the structure of this bill that prevents it from being implemented in a successful way. Given the very broad delegations you have here, it would be possible for the department to come up with a scheme that included reasonable oversight and accountability mechanisms. Whether it will do so, of course, is another matter, and there I share your pessimism. However, I do not feel that, in terms of the bill design, it is impossible simply because the delegations are so broad.
Ms Salter: It is not that the bill is wrong, but that the bill will not do the job it was intended to do.
Senator Nolin: We have been saying that since the first day.
Ms Sullivan: That does not mean it should not go forward. That was my cautionary note. There is another job to be done, and a Senate committee would have some useful words to say about the other job to be done.
The Chair: The amendment which the House of Commons added to this bill, clause 42(1), sent these regulations to a committee of only one of the houses of Parliament. It did not send the bill to, for example, a joint committee of the House of Commons and Senate.
I can understand why they would not want it to go to a committee of the House of Commons and a committee of the Senate, because then there may not be concurrence between those two bodies. Do you think there would be any reasonableness, instead of assigning it to just one house of Parliament, to assign it to a joint committee of the House and the Senate?
Ms Sullivan: Let me back up a bit. In the 20 years previous to about 5 years ago, the trend was to move regulation outside the closed walls of government departments and into the public light wherever possible. There was, as you know, a big move to put in notice and comment provisions, to have public scrutiny, to have public information, and to have public participation.
In the last three or four years, we have tended to move regulation back into the dark. This is a disturbing trend because it will not satisfy, for reasons I detailed in my presentation, the accountability provisions.
Whether by a joint committee or some other way, any way that the regulation envisioned in this bill can be brought into the light must be a good thing. There should be sufficient information and sufficient public record and sufficient notice-and-comment time, et cetera, to allow there to be light shed on what is being done here. In the end, we will avert the next level of public controversy after this one.
Senator Beaudoin: It is an extremely interesting problem, and it is unfortunate that it comes at this time of the day.
Senator Nolin: It is always late, and it is always the last witness.
Senator Beaudoin: We have a joint committee of the Senate and the House of Commons for the scrutiny of regulations, but it is always after the fact.
Senator Kenny: It does not have to be.
Senator Beaudoin: Now that we have more and more regulations. This does not simply apply to Canada, but also in the United States. Parliament cannot legislate more than they are doing, and they must delegate, and we must have some regulations. The problem is that now it is so big that it comes as a problem in itself. When the Joint Committee of the Senate and House of Commons is looking at the regulations, it is after the fact.
Should we involve the joint committee of both Houses before the cabinet makes the regulations? That is a difficult question. I doubt that the government would ever accept that. However, we must find a way to have a better control in both houses of Parliament.
Senator Kenny: I was not going to intervene, Madam Chair, but I feel compelled. I had the opportunity of meeting briefly with three table officers yesterday, and one was from the House of Commons. We were discussing this very matter. It is certainly within our competence to have the regulations reviewed before they come into effect, and there is absolutely no reason why we could not have a joint committee do it. There are precedents.
Senator Beaudoin: Before they come into force?
Senator Kenny: Yes, before they come into force, and there are precedents for it happening. We have the time to look into these things, whereas the other place does not. They may have a democratic legitimacy that you see, madam, but that legitimacy is not very helpful if you do not have the opportunity to exercise it.
One of the beauties of the public exposure we are getting today is that the feedback comes instantly. Every time I make a mistake when speaking here, phone calls occur in my office before I even get back there. If that does not create some form of accountability, I do not know what does. We do have that opportunity, Madam Chair, and I think the committee should discuss this issue at greater length.
The Chair: The clerk of our committee has just come back from the House of Lords, which has a very interesting procedure. They have a committee which looks at the regulatory provisions of a bill and must comment on those before dealing with the bill itself. Every single bill must go to the regulatory committee of the House of Lords only to examined for the regulation section. If the regulation section is then deemed to be too broad or too narrow, then they must make a report immediately to the ministry with respect to that. I understand further that their recommendations are generally accepted.
Senator Beaudoin: It works.
Senator Kenny: Do they also have an opportunity to review the regulations when the government comes forward with them?
The Chair: I cannot tell you that, Senator Kenny. Perhaps we should ask our law clerk.
Ms Salter: I have one further point in connection with anything that might come forward from this committee concerning the issues we are now discussing. When regulation is scrutinized now, most often it is scrutinized in terms of balancing the costs and benefits and asking whether we really need this, et cetera. Some of the questions I was raising about regulation have to do with whether the resources are there to make this regulation operational, and those are questions which quite often are not asked and have not been asked. If this committee pursues this issue, then it should pursue it not only to determine whether regulations are too broad, too narrow, too much, too little, but whether the regulation can be put into practice in a manner that delivers what the public expects will be delivered.
Senator Kenny: Madam, it is asked regularly in this house, and I have to tell you that the answers are scary. For example, when CEPA was passed, we asked how many inspectors we will have to put in CEPA to enforce the act. The answer came back as 28. We concluded it was 2.8 for each province to put into effect an act that was quite thick. The dilemma facing a legislator is that an act may make sense and may send the right signal, but if the government does not have the resources to enforce that act, the legislator has two choices -- to vote against it because the resources likely are not there, or to vote for it because it looks like a good bill and perhaps sometime in the future the resources can be found to make it function as intended.
Ms Sullivan: I wish to comment on your notion of the joint committee playing a larger role. I completely agree with you that if you want to be effective, you must deal with the regulation before it is instituted. One of the virtues of what you have here is that it does just that.
I think a joint committee is not a good venue for this. They check regulations from the point of view of legality. They do not check them and cannot check them from the point of view of the issues raised here, such as effectiveness. In practice, they do not seem very interested in that part. They are very much concerned about the rule of law.
Senator Kenny: Excuse me. You are talking about scrutiny of regulations, which is a joint of committee.
Ms Sullivan: I thought that is what Senator Beaudoin referenced.
Senator Kenny: He referred to that, but that is not the committee I am referencing or that Senator Carstairs is referencing.
Senator Beaudoin: It is better in my opinion.
Senator Kenny: Scrutiny of regulations just says, "Does this thing work?" Someone has to do that, and it is a terrible job. However, the sort of committee we are talking about here is not that at all. It is a committee that sits down and says, "How many inspectors are there?"
Ms Sullivan: I suggest in order to do that effectively, it must be a committee that is not about regulations but about the subject matter being legislated.
Senator Kenny: Precisely.
The Chair: Thank you both very much for your presentation this afternoon. It has been very helpful.
Senator Nolin: Madam Chair, the first day of the hearing, you asked the department to provide this committee with the draft regulations. We are missing one part, Part IV, dealing with all the advertising regulations and all the advertising restrictions. We need that part.
The Chair: I will ask the department to provide them to us when they are available.
The committee adjourned.