Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Issue 7 - Evidence - March 25, 1998
OTTAWA, Wednesday, March 25, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, to which was referred Bill S-8, to amend the Tobacco Act (content regulation), met this day at 3:30 p.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Lowell Murray (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, although we do not yet have a quorum, the rule is that we may hear testimony even without a quorum. A quorum is required when it is necessary to take a vote, but as we are running a bit behind, I thought we should start now so as not to cause inconvenience to witnesses or to honourable colleagues.
The committee is meeting pursuant to the reference from the Senate of Bill S-8, An Act to amend the tobacco act (content regulation).
You will recall that we have already heard from the sponsor of the bill, our former colleague, the Honourable Stanley Haidasz, and that we have heard as well from the RCMP and from Revenue Canada.
Today we have as our witness Mr. Eric LeGresley, legal counsel to the Non-Smokers Rights Association. By way of introduction and for the record, let me say that Mr. LeGresley is a graduate of the University of Toronto Law School and obtained a Master of Laws from the University of London in England. His background also includes an M.Sc. in geology. In his work for the Non-Smokers Rights Association, he deals primarily with constitutional and international legal issues and was a lawyer with the Research Branch of the Library of Parliament prior to following graduate studies in law. He has been extensively involved in the plain packaging tobacco issue and has focused on the constitutional law issues relating to tobacco advertising restrictions and the development of legislative and regulatory structures to deal with tobacco advertising.
Mr. LeGresley has presented us with a short brief. I take it you will read that into the record, or do you have further comments to make?
Mr. Eric LeGresley, Legal Counsel, Non-Smokers Rights Association: I should like to add to those statements rather than repeat the brief verbatim.
I should like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today. Bill S-8 is an important piece of legislation.
When we first started to regulate drugs, we took the era of the snake-oil salesman and put it behind us. Prior to that, people were selling products and making all sorts of claims -- implicit and explicit -- about the effects of their products. However, we did not just stop the manufacturers of those products from lying about them. We started to set standards and requirements for the manufacturers with respect to public safety and public interest.
The automobile industry provides us with a good example. Once we started to require the introduction of safety devices in automobiles, padded dashboards, better bumpers, safety glass, seat belts, and so on, we did something new.
We fundamentally changed the market for automobiles. They started to compete on the basis of the safety of their products. We can do the same thing with the nicotine market. I suggest that Bill S-8 is the first seat belt for cigarettes that we have ever had.
We know that the public is concerned about the safety of the tobacco products they consume, and the tobacco companies market some products to play on the mistaken beliefs of smokers about the safety of their products. We know that "light" and "mild" cigarettes outsell regular cigarettes. The companies put products in lighter coloured packages and call them "ultra light" or "ultra mild", as compared to the regular products. They are no safer than the regular product, but the public believes that they are. Therefore, there is a viable economic market for products which are truly safer, if we can get the tobacco companies past the hurdle.
The real problem the tobacco companies have is that to introduce safer products into the market is to indict all their existing products. If they want to market a safer product properly, they must say, "This will not kill you as fast as our other products will." Unless we start to force that upon them, they will never get over that initial hurdle. We will never get to the point where market mechanisms will start to work in the interests of public health rather than only shareholder interests.
We end up in a strange situation. These are a few smokeless tobacco products. The companies compete by doing such things as adding cherry flavouring to these products to make them more palatable for children. They compete by putting them in nice little packages which are a lot easier for kids to pop into their mouths than having the loose tobacco. They could take all the nitrosamines out of the product, as this manufacturer in Sweden does, and compete on the basis of the safety of their product.
We have a perverse market right now in which they compete based either on the population's misperceptions about the health benefits or on illusory things. They compete in terms of packaging with nice, pastel colours aimed at young girls. That is what the competition in the tobacco market is now. With Bill S-8, we can start down a brand new path.
The central problem with tobacco is not the advertising of it; it is not the sponsorship, or the box that it is sold in; it is that it has an inherent defect. If we could get rid of that defect, we would not have our sponsorship problems or our advertising problems. I would not be opposing tobacco advertising if the product was innocuous. If we go to the heart of the issue rather than dealing with the box and the advertising, we can start to address these problems. That is where tobacco control is going in the rest of the world. If Canada is to keep up to the rest of the world, particularly the United States, we will have to do this over the next 10 years or so.
Specifically with regard to Bill S-8, one question will be whether the precise limits set out in this bill are the single best choice, and that is an open question. I can agree with some of them in their entirety. On others, we may have a debate as to what number we should use. However, we do know that it is unconscionable to continue to leave the control of those levels in the hands of the tobacco manufacturers because they certainly are not making the choices of what tar and nicotine levels should be in their products based on the public health interests of children or smokers. They are making those choices based on their own economic interest, which is to bring new entrants into the market so that they can continue to sell them products for the rest of their shortened lives.
I do not think Bill S-8 is sufficient by itself, though. I will speak about the nicotine regulation element of this. We end up in a dilemma. What might be in the best interest of child starters in terms of a public policy may not be in the best interests of the 6 million or 7 million existing addicted smokers in Canada who need nicotine on a daily basis. It is irresponsible for us to protect children and to cause additional harm to existing smokers at the same time. However, it is a much greater tragedy to leave that in the hands of the tobacco companies and do nothing.
We know that, despite all the education efforts in the world, we will never stop 12- and 13-year-old children from experimenting with cigarettes. However, we can stop the onset of addiction which results from that experimentation. Bill S-8 will make great strides toward addressing that problem by moving nicotine levels to a very low level.
However, we still have a problem, and we may exacerbate it with respect to existing smokers by moving nicotine to very low levels. We must team with Bill S-8 a redefinition of the entire nicotine market to encourage the tobacco companies, the pharmaceutical companies and other manufacturers of consumer products, to enter into the nicotine market and to create a viable market which will give consumers a real choice so that we can start to see the introduction of more products.
This is a nicotine product which a person could use 20 or 25 times a day every day for the rest of their life and never get carbon monoxide. They would be addicted to nicotine but would not get heart disease or lung cancer from this product. This is maintenance nicotine for the rest of your life. This is the product of a pharmaceutical company. We would see competition which would encourage the introduction of new technologies.
This product, which is from a tobacco company, does not burn. It will vastly decrease the amount of lung cancer, although it will probably increase the amount of heart disease. This is not innocuous. It is like the Model T of the generation of automobiles that we have ended up with today. We must create a climate in which competitive pressures encourage the manufacturers to produce ever more safe products -- not because they are trying to save lives, but because they want to sell more product and they sell product by competing based on the safety of their products.
The Chairman: You are not saying that a nicotine addiction is harmless, are you?
Mr. LeGresley: No, I am not. I am saying that 6 or 7 million people are currently addicted and we cannot abandon them. While I would not want to see one more person addicted to nicotine, I would want those people who are presently addicted to have more choices with respect to how they get their nicotine.
The Chairman: Mr. LeGresley is full-time legal counsel with the Non-Smokers Rights Association. I read his brief biographical note into the record.
Mr. LeGresley, will you tell us something about the background of the Non-Smokers Rights Association and what your charter empowers or mandates you to do?
Mr. LeGresley: The Non-Smokers Rights Association was formed in 1974, at a time when non-smokers were being subjected to tobacco smoke in a variety of areas. The organization has since grown beyond just seeking to protect the rights of non-smokers to addressing the tobacco epidemic at large. We are a significant public interest advocate with respect to health issues related to tobacco.
The Chairman: Where do your members come from and how does one become a member? How many members do you have?
Mr. LeGresley: I do not have the numbers with respect to membership, but we have members from every province and territory in the country. We certainly have membership from coast to coast.
The Chairman: Do they meet or communicate?
Mr. LeGresley: We must have an annual general meeting and things like that, so there are meetings. We send out information to the members, but principally the organization is run not by the diverse membership we have but by the employed staff which operate the offices. We have offices in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
The Chairman: How many employed staff are there?
Mr. LeGresley: In the neighbourhood of 12 or 13.
The Chairman: Among the three offices?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes.
The Chairman: You are a public organization. What is your annual budget?
Mr. LeGresley: It is in the neighbourhood of $1 million. I could get back to you with a precise figure, but it is in that ballpark.
The Chairman: Would most of that be for overhead or promotional activities?
Mr. LeGresley: The single largest feature would be salaries and overhead rather than promotional activities.
The Chairman: Is there a president of the organization?
Mr. LeGresley: There is an executive director of the organization.
The Chairman: He is an employee?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, he is. There is a president of the Non-Smokers Rights Association with respect to the board.
The Chairman: Is there a president and a board of directors?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes.
The Chairman: The full-time employees work under the direction of the president and the board of directors, who I presume are elected by the membership, are they?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes; that is true.
The Chairman: How is the organization financed?
Mr. LeGresley: That is done with the contributions from the members. We have grants from several levels of government, membership fees that people pay, and so on.
The Chairman: By levels of government, I suppose from the Department of Health?
Mr. LeGresley: Both the federal government and the Ontario government, and a smaller amount from the Quebec government, yes.
The Chairman: Those are the only provincial governments involved?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes; that is correct.
The Chairman: The membership is in all parts of the country?
Mr. LeGresley: That is correct.
The Chairman: I presume that most of your budget comes from those government sources?
Mr. LeGresley: It is probably the greater part of our budget, but you are not speaking to someone who handles the money for the organization.
The Chairman: I appreciate that. In your advocacy, I presume you are in touch with departments of provincial, federal and even municipal governments since they are involved in these issues?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes.
The Chairman: It says here that in your work for the association, you deal primarily with constitutional and international legal issues. I am curious about that. In general, could you describe what those issues would be -- that is, constitutional and international legal issues?
Mr. LeGresley: The tobacco industry is a very well-financed, vigorous opponent of any effective regulation of their industry. The cigarette package is the most effective advertising vehicle that the tobacco companies have. When the Government of Canada considered placing cigarettes in generic packages, the tobacco industry argued that that would violate the Paris Convention on Industrial Property, a couple of provisions under the GATT and NAFTA. I was then bought in to address some of the international issues related to the trade obligations that Canada would have with respect to any legislation which may come forth pursuant to that.
The Chairman: Those issues did not go to court, though, did they?
Mr. LeGresley: The policy has not been acted upon as we speak, no. As you can see, the packages are present-day packages, they are not generic.
The Chairman: In your view, the idea of generic packaging would not violate those international conventions?
Mr. LeGresley: No. In my opinion, generic packaging is defensible if undertaken in a non-discriminatory manner.
The Chairman: In other words, it applies to all of the manufacturers but could not apply, I suppose, to imported cigarettes?
Mr. LeGresley: There is no problem with respect to applying it to imported cigarettes, no. That is my view.
Senator LeBreton: At the bottom of the first page of your brief, you stated that the senator has laid the groundwork for the next decade of tobacco control. You then state:
For Canada to keep up with the world, especially the Americans, we have to embark upon the kind of the path set out by Bill S-8.
I found that to be an interesting statement. As a Canadian sitting here -- maybe we have always believed this of ourselves -- I have always believed that we have been doing better than the Americans and, particularly, better than some of the European countries where smoking seems to be much more prevalent in public places, and so on.
I should like you to comment on that statement. Will you tell us whether or not you believe that we are behind the Americans in this whole area?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, I think we are. Approximately three years ago, I would have said, "No". I would agree with you that, historically, we have been ahead of the Americans, at least in the past 15 years. I wish that was still the case, but the pendulum has swung quite markedly in favour of the Americans at a time when Canada is stepping back.
Senator LeBreton: What are the Americans doing? What evidence do you have to support that statement, namely, that we have fallen behind the Americans?
Mr. LeGresley: On August 26, 1996, the Food and Drug Administration set forth a rule in which they asserted jurisdiction over tobacco products as drug delivery devices. Their legal challenge is ongoing with respect to that. The Americans are embarking down the next path on tobacco control -- that is, getting away from dealing with the box and the ads and starting to deal with the product.
With the Tobacco Act, we have done that. Sections 5, 6 and 7 of the Tobacco Act provide for that, but we have seen no motion on that front whatsoever. There seems to be an aggressiveness in the United States with respect to engaging on this path that has not taken place in Canada.
On several less important fronts, Canada has been out in front of the United States, but the United States is catching up very fast there with respect to tobacco advertising. We have largely been behind the United States with respect to indoor air quality for a long time.
Things are moving forward in the U.S. at a great clip and one would be hard pressed to say that the momentum that we once had in Canada still exists.
Senator LeBreton: In the United States, this is all under the umbrella of the federal government so that you do not have different laws from state to state?
Mr. LeGresley: No. In a federated system like the United States there is action at the state, federal and municipal levels.
Senator LeBreton: I find that hard to believe. Having spent a fair bit of time in the United States, I am always amazed at the number of restaurants where three-quarters of the premises are reserved for smokers. Perhaps it is a sense of Canadian pride. We were the first to deal with the whole issue on airlines and I remain to be convinced that the Americans, somehow, are ahead of us on this issue.
The Chairman: Perhaps I missed something here. Is it your testimony that with regard to advertising and sponsorship, for example, that nationally, the United States has more stringent restrictions than us?
Mr. LeGresley: No. That is not my testimony at all. I was talking about the broad context, the trends in development. Events are happening on a wide number of fronts in the United States, as you have seen with much of the discussion with respect to some of the court cases and the settlements pursuant to those cases. You have discussions with the industry with respect to their removal of their ads in some places, on some fronts moving beyond what Canada has done.
Generally, we are fairly comparable. I was trying to make the point that, in my opinion, Canada is slipping back while the United States is coming forward and we are crossing paths right about now.
Senator LeBreton: In the United States, you will see major sporting events sponsored by cigarette companies. You see Virginia Slims ads in the magazines and Marlboro Man ads alongside the road. You see none of that in Canada.
Mr. LeGresley: With respect to the sponsorship issue -- and this does not relate to Bill S-8 -- when I mentioned the Food and Drug Administration rule, that would end tobacco sponsorship as of 1998 in the United States. We introduced legislation subsequent to that rule, which would restrict the size of the wording. At the present time, tobacco brand sponsorship would continue to exist in Canada at a time period when the United States was removing it in its entirety. All of those events that you have discussed are on their way out in the United States.
Senator LeBreton: It remains to be seen if they in fact are on the way out.
Perhaps, again, I have a false sense of security here, but you make the statement:
What we do know is that the limits proposed in Bill S-8 are far, far better than leaving the product unregulated, as it presently is.
Is that really solved -- that is, there is no regulation at all on the tar?
Mr. LeGresley: You can put any level of tar or nicotine that you want in these tobacco products. There is lots of documentary evidence. This document is evidence obtained in one of the trials in Texas. People from Imperial Tobacco or Imasco; people from Canada, including Purdy Crawford, then CEO of Imasco, were sitting in meetings at which they were discussing the introduction into Canadian products of an ultra-high-nicotine Y-1 genetic strain of tobacco. This would produce higher nicotine delivery for Canadian tobacco products. They tried it in Player's cigarettes. They were also discussing the introduction of ammonia into their products and they stated that they tested it. Ammonia changes the PH which increases the bio-availability <#0107> that is, the delivery of the nicotine to the consumer.
The Chairman: They tried this in Canada, did they?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, they did.
The Chairman: With what effect?
Mr. LeGresley: I am reading between the lines here. They say that they eventually took the ammonia and the Y-1 out of their products.
The Chairman: Did it sell or was there government regulation?
Mr. LeGresley: No. There is no government regulation. There is nothing to say that you cannot add this genetic strain or an additive such as ammonia, which has only one effect, namely, to increase the level of nicotine being delivered to the smoker. No one was saying what they could or could not do. They were making the choices based on their own assessment of what would sell more product. Their imperative is not to protect the health of Canadians but to sell more product in order to increase shareholder wealth.
The Chairman: I understand that.
Senator LeBreton: I asked that question because we heard a witness last week and discussed the possibility of lowering the nicotine level. We wondered about cigarettes manufactured beyond our borders which could then be sold with this higher nicotine level. We were told very clearly that if that were to happen, they would analyze the product, as they do all the time, and they would pick up quickly that the product being sold in Canada was above the levels that were allowed. Do you remember the witness who said that?
The Chairman: Yes.
Senator LeBreton: That led me to believe there is an agency of government -- perhaps it is Health Canada -- which keeps cigarette manufacturers from adding any old thing they want to a tobacco product.
Mr. LeGresley: There is none. For example, under the Food and Drugs Act, nicotine is found on one of the schedules. There is a line exemption for nicotine except when it is in a "natural" product.
The Chairman: I will ask Mr. LeGresley to leave that document with us. We will make it an exhibit here so that senators can consult it.
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, nicotine is regulated, except when it is in a cigarette. You must obtain a prescription to get the patch, but you do not have to get a prescription to get a cigarette. It is an odd situation that we take the only product that kills when used exactly as intended and we do not say what you can put into it, what you cannot put into it, and what you must put into it.
The Chairman: The incident that you cite regarding Players involved Canadian executives from Imperial Tobacco or Imasco who attended a meeting and had a discussion about introducing tar levels?
Mr. LeGresley: The discussion was about several issues, including putting Y-1 and ammonia into Canadian cigarettes.
The Chairman: The document that you have in front of you indicates that this was tried with Player's cigarettes in Canada?
Mr. LeGresley: That is correct.
The Chairman: You also indicate that, after a while, the Imperial Tobacco or Imasco executives took it out. I am curious to know why that happened. Did it not sell?
Mr. LeGresley: You would have to ask Imperial Tobacco or Imasco that question. I am not privy to their marketing.
The Chairman: You have not looked into that? All you know about it is what you see in this document?
Mr. LeGresley: All I know is that the executives from Imasco or Imperial Tobacco -- I forget which company they were from at the moment -- were reporting to their sister companies. These were international meetings in the British-American tobacco family, which is a large, international tobacco group. They reported that they had tried both ammonia and Y-1 in Canadian products and had ceased to do so. They did not say that they had tried them in products that were on the market for sale. They could have been tried in their internal tests; I am not sure.
The Chairman: What is the date of the meeting?
Mr. LeGresley: I do not know. I could give you that. It is a series of minutes of meetings which run through for more than a decade. It is somewhere in that decade.
The Chairman: Did that document come from the depositions in a lawsuit or a civil trial?
Mr. LeGresley: They came from a trial under way back then in Texas between the state attorney general's trial with respect to suing the American tobacco companies to recover health care costs.
The Chairman: Are you involved in any such litigation here?
Mr. LeGresley: There is no public litigation against the Canadian tobacco industry right now.
The Chairman: Why is that?
Mr. LeGresley: There are a variety of different reasons. British Columbia has introduced legislation to facilitate it. The reasons are several. First, the tobacco industry does not seem to be able to block effective legislation in Canada to the same degree that they have in the United States. In order to bring about any fundamental changes in the United States, people had to embark upon legislation as another alternative.
Second, civil procedure in Canada is different from that in the United States, particularly with respect to costs, such that litigation is a less desirable option. You may get hit with the cost of the tobacco industry's defence should you lose. You must accept the fact that the industry will quite likely win many of these cases.
Third, the damage awards in tort cases in Canada typically are significantly less than those in the United States.
We have been more aggressive on the taxation front as a cost-recovery mechanism, although it is not fully adequate in my view. There are options available politically and economically in Canada which were not on the table in the United States. Those are principally the reasons.
Senator LeBreton: My confusion is that last week we had someone from whom I got the direct impression that the government does analyze and monitor the content of cigarettes.
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, I am sure Health Canada and other organizations within Canada do analyze and monitor contents of Canadian cigarettes. Whether they then go and direct the manufacturers with respect to what they can and cannot do, they certainly do not do that.
Senator LeBreton: I find that interesting.
Senator Johnstone: You state here several products and that the desirable effect would be to move the nicotine content down to a lower level.
The tobacco lobby is very well financed and powerful. Are you meeting with much resistance? In moving the nicotine level downward, does that affect their viability or profit level?
Mr. LeGresley: You are right when you characterize my comment as saying that the product is the central issue.
I agree with Senator Haidasz with respect to the desirability of moving the nicotine level down with respect to children -- that is, new entrants into the market. We can decrease the likelihood that they will become addicted if we decrease the nicotine levels down below a threshold at which addiction takes place.
I am a lawyer. I am not an expert in addictive drugs. so I cannot comment on what the absolute level would be for that. However, I do have some concern about the effect of that on the rest of the marketplace. Moving the nicotine level down so that you decrease the entrants into the market may increase the number of cigarettes that an existing smoker must smoke in order to obtain the nicotine that they need. That might create an expansion of the market and its overall sales which would increase the profitability of the tobacco companies in the short- to medium-term as they deal with the 6 or 7 million smokers they have now.
Without seeing new entrants into the market, as those products are killing off existing customers and as people are quitting from that market, they would see a depletion in the number of smokers even if the number of cigarettes each one of those smokers was smoking was increased.
Senator Johnstone: Are you saying, then, that the tobacco companies might even welcome the lowering of the nicotine?
Mr. LeGresley: I do not think the tobacco companies will be short-sighted enough to welcome handing over control of the contents of their products to legislators. They will kick and scream in order to prevent you from going after the products. They would love to see us fight about advertising, freedom of expression, and those issues where they believe they have a plausible political case. I do not think they want to sit down and say, "You should be able to control what goes into strawberry jam but not what goes into Du Maurier." That is an argument they will not lose. They would like to divert us to other things. Even if the choices that were made would result in an increased market, they know that you would eventually get it right and would be implementing those changes that would reduce their market in the long run and decrease the death and disability resulting from the use of their products.
[Translation]
Senator Ferretti Barth: Do you really believe that this bill is actually going to change the behaviour of smokers? If you decrease nicotine levels in cigarettes, persons who are accustomed to smoking will simply smoke two cigarettes in order to ingest the same amount of nicotine.
I do not believe that this legislation will benefit our society, particularly the young generation. I believe education is the key. Schoolchildren first experiment with smoking at the age of 10 or 12 years. They become accustomed to a certain level of nicotine. They will not buy cigarettes from tobacco companies that reduce nicotine levels, because they get used to a certain level of nicotine in cigarettes.
In your capacity as association representative, do you really believe that altering the content of cigarettes will reduce the number of smokers, prevent illness and so forth?
[English]
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, I think we will.
This bill addresses four elements that are found in clause 3 of this proposed act and section 6.(1) of the Tobacco Act.. Paragraph (a) deals with nicotine; paragraph (b) deals with reconstituted tobacco; paragraph (c) deals with additives; and paragraph (d) deals with tar. You are expressing concern with only one of those four elements.
I share some concerns with respect to nicotine as well. I should like to speak to that later. I have far fewer concerns with respect to the other elements of this.
It would be wonderful to reduce the amount of tar that children and existing smokers are getting. However, they are not smoking in order to obtain the tar. That is a by-product. By reducing the tar levels, we are contributing to their health.
We know that additives are put in products in order to do things such as make them more palatable. They add cherry flavouring for a specific reason. If we took out those sorts of additives and prevented them from putting the ammonia in the product, we would be assisting children.
We know that reconstituted tobacco is one of the means by which they can manipulate this product. They want to pretend that it is only an agricultural product that is wrapped with paper around it, but it is a carefully created and designed drug delivery device.
On all those fronts, we can rest quite safely with this bill. With respect to nicotine, though, we must be a bit more careful.
I disagree with you that by reducing the amount of nicotine in the product, we would not be benefiting children. I think we would, because the new entrants into the market are not smoking in order to obtain nicotine, they are smoking in order to assert themselves as adults. They are smoking for social reasons rather than pharmacological reasons. That is what happens when you are 12. By the time you are 14, however, you are smoking to get nicotine.
We have a problem with the existing nicotine addicts when we affect the nicotine levels, but for the new entrants -- that is, the 10-, 11- and 12-year-old children who are entering into the market -- reducing the nicotine level of cigarettes below which they can become addicted to that product will contribute to them making a better choice when they are 15 or 16 and stopping after they have experimented for a little while.
Senator Ferretti Barth: I still believe that we must undertake education programs in the schools so that we can tell young people about the dangers involved with smoking.
I was a smoker and I still smoke.
[Translation]
I have tried to switch from regular-strength to mild cigarettes, but I have been unsuccessful. My reaction has been the same as other people. You might as well throw packs of light cigarettes in the trash. I would rather smoke only one cigarette during the course of a day, provided that cigarette gave me some satisfaction.
Rather than waging this kind of battle, because we will have a formidable battle on our hands with tobacco companies, I think we should focus our efforts on educating people. Tobacco companies will never agree to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes.
Even though tobacco companies have tried to be accommodating by manufacturing light cigarettes, the fact remains that people are not that easily influenced. Everyone is entitled to have some flaws.
We should concentrate on conducting prevention and education programs involving small groups of children and students in order to hear their suggestions.
People really do not care whether there is more or less nicotine or tar in cigarettes. Real results are achieved through prevention and education programs.
[English]
Mr. LeGresley: Thank you for your comments. I agree with some of them. I agree that education is an essential component to this. I agree that we cannot simply mandate lifestyle choices for people and that we must encourage them to make good choices for themselves.
The difference between this epidemic and every other epidemic is that there is no advocacy group or lobby promoting the plague. There is no HIV promotion group that will come before you and try to prevent laws that would reduce that. There is no counter-education campaign being undertaken by the pro-HIV lobby.
We can educate children. I agree that we should be engaging in that and in the education of adults, but you must realize that this is an $8 billion a year industry in Canada that undertakes counter-education in order to encourage people to believe that their products are not as harmful. That is why you end up with the introduction of "ultra light" cigarettes, namely, to play on the mistaken belief that they are less harmful. This industry tries to de-educate everything that we are trying to do with respect to public education for children. We agree that education is needed, but the question is whether that is the entire answer. I think it is not and that we must address the product itself.
I agree with what you said earlier in your comments, namely, that people might begin to smoke two cigarettes. That is why you need a twin approach: One to reduce nicotine levels for those products to which children have access; and the other to provide viable alternatives to those existing smokers who will need to get that nicotine. We do not want them to get that nicotine by smoking more cigarettes because every available cigarette has a low nicotine level.
We need to give them viable nicotine devices that operate both for their pharmacological and social needs with respect to smoking. It cannot just be a patch that we stick on someone's arm. I am talking about maintenance nicotine for the rest of someone's life or for a long period of time, not just remedial nicotine to assist them to bleed the market. We need a multi-faceted approach.
Senator LeBreton: On that point, does that not just compound the problem? Are you saying that nicotine by other means is not as bad as nicotine through cigarette smoke?
Mr. LeGresley: This product will not kill you, but you can become a nicotine addict. It may be your entry vehicle and then you end up smoking. This will not give you lung or esophageal cancer and it will not give you heart disease, but you will be addicted to it.
Senator LeBreton: What are the side effects of it?
Mr. LeGresley: I do not know. You would have to bring in someone who knows about the effects of nicotine. It is not good for you, but it does not kill you, as I understand, except in extremely large doses.
Senator LeBreton: I am not a smoker, but it seems to me that for people who smoke a cigarette, it is a bigger problem than just giving them a nicotine alternative. They smoke for relaxation or at social functions or after they have had a big dinner. One hears these stories about why they smoke. I do not know if popping a pill or chewing a piece of gum is the answer.
Mr. LeGresley: I agree with you that you must answer their needs beyond their direct physiological needs for nicotine.
There is no reason why the nicotine delivery device cannot be in a long, white tube that looks like this. This will deliver nicotine to you, but it is not a traditional cigarette. It does not burn tobacco but it can fulfil many of the social functions of cigarettes.
If we put this in the hands of the tobacco industry or in industry's hands -- because I think you will have entrants from the pharmaceutical companies, as well -- they can produce products which will deliver the nicotine needs to the consumer in a variety of fashions. They can make it look like anything they want. It is the objective of government to say, "These are the targets that we need to hit. We want you to find a way to deliver your products in a manner which does not exceed "X" amount of nicotine."
We should set nicotine levels the way we do with automobiles. That is to say, you have a gas mileage target required for your fleet. If weighted sales had to be at a certain level of nicotine -- and, we might ratchet that down through time -- that might be a desirable approach.
The Chairman: That is not what the bill provides.
Mr. LeGresley: You are correct. However, that would allow the manufacturers to introduce nicotine products that might meet the needs of existing smokers without having them increase the number of cigarettes that they smoke. There should also be a sales-weighted figure where we could move down below the threshold for addiction.
Senator LeBreton: It would be desirable if the people who are addicted to nicotine would go that route and would not pollute everyone else's air.
In Ontario, you do not need a prescription for Nicorette. You can buy it at the drug store. Do you have any data to suggest that people who are trying to get away from smoking cigarettes take advantage of products such as Nicorette? Is there anything to suggest that people are buying their own nicotine products to satisfy their needs and yet not have to smoke a cigarette?
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, there is evidence. These are commercial operations that are selling these products to make money.
The most important part of Senator Haidasz's bill is it the first stamp saying that we can do something about the product rather than the manufacturers holding all the cards. We can dicker about whether or not the nicotine levels are correct.
With respect to reconstituted tobacco -- that is, the additives and the tar -- we do not have much disagreement. We might disagree about the nicotine levels, but the most important element is that the government will begin to control what cigarettes will look like, not the manufacturers. The means by which they reach those targets can be left in the hands of the manufacturers. However, that is why Bill S-8 is such an important bill. It starts us down the right path. It is not the final answer to this, though.
When we introduced the Income Tax Act, we knew that people would find ways around certain elements of it; therefore, we re-visit that legislation often. The tobacco companies will not rollover and play dead as soon as you start to play with their products. They will try to evade things. For example, if you did not control the nicotine levels in the entire cigarette <#0107> that is, if you only controlled the nicotine content in the tobacco -- they would remove the nicotine from the tobacco and put it into the paper.
Senator LeBreton: Yes, or the filter.
Mr. LeGresley: They can place the nicotine anywhere they want. However, Bill S-8 starts us down the correct path.
The Chairman: You understand that the choices before the committee will be to pass the bill without amendment, to pass it with amendments, or not to pass it at all.
Do you want this bill passed into law as it is?
Mr. LeGresley: Passing this bill into law as it is before us today is better than the status quo. I would prefer that proposed sections 6.(1)(b), (c) and (d) be passed into law and that we think more about the nicotine levels that we should be imposing.
If the choice is between letting the tobacco companies choose the nicotine levels or to have Senator Haidasz's bill regulate the nicotine levels, I would choose Senator Haidasz's bill.
I do have some concerns with respect to mandating all tobacco levels going to a low level when we do not have alternative nicotine products on the market that existing smokers could have access to when those products are economically and socially viable for them.
The Chairman: Have you tried your hand at any amendments?
Mr. LeGresley: No, I have not. The setting of levels for nicotine is a complicated issue. I could wave my arms and say, "We must be put on a track that marches nicotine down below a level at which addiction sets in."
The Chairman: That would involve a different bill.
Mr. LeGresley: I understand that.
The Chairman: I am not asking you to draft anything because we have draftsmen. I am asking you if you want to suggest amendments to this bill.
Mr. LeGresley: No, I am happy to see the bill go forward as it stands.
Senator LeBreton: You said something that was curious. You said that indicating what levels we would accept in tobacco is a step in the right direction. You then said something about the paper and the filter. I may not be reading this correctly, but it seems to me that we are not including the paper and filter.
Mr. LeGresley: Yes, it does.
Senator LeBreton: Proposed section 6.1 says:
No tobacco product intended for use by smoking shall be manufactured unless every gram of the tobacco product, as expressed per gram of the tobacco product not including the weight of paper or other wrapping material or filter material...
Mr. LeGresley: The definition of "tobacco product" in the Tobacco Act, as passed last year, includes the cigarette paper, tubes, filters, et cetera.
Senator LeBreton: If I were a tobacco manufacturer, I would be looking at that. Perhaps it needs to be worded more clearly.
Mr. LeGresley: In my opinion, the wording works, as written.
The Chairman: We have run out of time, Mr. LeGresley.
Before you leave, I want to give you the opportunity to comment on the testimony we heard last week from the police and from the representatives of the Customs and Revenue Canada Customs concerning the possible impact on smuggling. Do you have a view on that or any information on that?
Mr. LeGresley: I have not read the testimony.
The Chairman: They were not forthcoming, to be perfectly honest. They said that they believe this bill, if passed into law, would have some impact in terms of increasing the smuggling threat -- if you want to call it that -- but they could not quantify it. Do you have any view on that at all?
Mr. LeGresley: I believe that the tobacco industry will do everything within its power to subvert the intent of this bill. Facilitating the smuggling of products into Canada would be a part of that.
Quantifying the levels of smuggling is something I would not venture to guess at. It would depend a lot on the other anti-smuggling measures we implement.
The Chairman: I appreciate your view of the tobacco industry.
Senator LeBreton has provided me with the sentence in question, which states:
...the RCMP and Revenue Canada Customs judge that any significant decrease in the rate of tar and/or nicotine in tobacco products would likely provide an incentive for some consumers to seek alternate (possibly contraband) sources of tobacco. Although we recognize a probable direct correlation between levels of tar and nicotine in tobacco and the level of contraband market, neither the RCMP nor Revenue Canada Customs is in a position to offer a qualified opinion on the magnitude of such a correlation.
For the record, that is what they said.
Our next witness is our former colleague, Dr. Haidasz.
Dr. Haidasz, you testified fully before this committee. You spoke on second reading in considerable detail, and you testified fully before the committee when we opened our hearings on this matter. We heard also from the Department of Health and later from the RCMP and Revenue Canada Customs. We heard also today from Mr. LeGresley of the Non-Smokers Rights Association.
If there is any comment you should like to make on what we have heard, I wish to give you the opportunity to do so in the few minutes that we have left to us today. I would then invite colleagues to ask you any questions, if they wish to do so.
Hon. Stanley Haidasz, P.C.: Thank you for the opportunity to appear here a second time in the study of this bill.
In my testimony when I was here last, I mentioned that there was, by oversight, a clause missing with regard to the sale of tobacco products. We have drawn amendments to that effect, which we want to give you for inclusion in the bill.
We suggest that Bill S-8 be amended by substituting for the word "manufacture" at line 7 on page 2 in English, the words "manufacture or sell; and by substituting for the words in French "de fabriquer" at line 7 on page 2, the words "de fabriquer ou de vendre".
As well, we suggest that Bill S-8 be amended in clause 3 by substituting for the words "shall be manufactured" at line 13 on page 2 in English, the words "shall be manufactured or sold"; and by substituting for the words "de fabriquer" at line 13 on page 2 in French, the words "de fabriquer ou de vendre".
Senator LeBreton:Although it is clearly defined in the Tobacco Act, were you concerned with the wording of section 6.1?
There seems to be a slight loophole there. If one wanted to get around the nicotine level, instead of putting it in the tobacco product, one could put in either the filter or the paper.
Mr. Gary D. Knight, Research Assistant: There was quite a bit of discussion with legal counsel about that over a period of two years. At the time, Senator Haidasz gave thanks in the Senate for the help of legal counsel in that regard.
The tobacco manufacturers have proven themselves to be very wily. The purpose of what would be proposed section 6.1 is to ensure that the weight measures that are established as acceptable for a product are not obtained by dividing by a denominator that is too weighty. If you have a heavy filter that weighs one-third of a gram and the rest of the product is about one gram in weight, when you divide by 1.3 grams, you get a low number. You could put in more nicotine and still end up with a low number. That is why the terminology is "expressed per gram" of the tobacco product.
When we say "not including", this is really with reference to what we are doing when we "express", not what we are doing when we talk about the actual content of the harmful constituents.
Does that help clarify?
Senator LeBreton: I do not pretend to be a lawyer, but it was not clear to me. If I were a tobacco manufacture, I would say, "I will simply put the nicotine in the paper or the filter." However, I accept your explanation.
Mr. Knight: In the first definition, "reconstituted tobacco", the spirit of this same approach is there. "Reconstituted tobacco" means any substance that settles out by sedimentation when the contents of a tobacco product, not including paper or other wrapping material or filter material, are floated in acetone or other organic non-acid solvent, including water or alcohol. That was intended not to mean strong nitric acid. If you use that, everything will dissolve.
The point is that while there may be things that turn out to be sediment, are they parts of the filter? We do not want to conclude that there. It is somewhat the same idea.
We are addressing the content of the smoking tube, including any impregnation of, say, the smoking tube's paper with nicotine, ammonia, or other nitrogenous compounds that help to enhance the intake or the uptake of the nicotine.
Although those things are being measured, their final expression of "per gram" is per gram of everything, not including the filter and the paper.
Health Canada would have to take two cigarettes, smoke one of them through whatever method it uses, determine what level of nicotine was delivered, and then state that it was so many milligrams. Now, by what would it be divided? Take the second cigarette all apart and measure the weight of everything in the tube, not including the paper.
Senator Haidasz: I wish to add further to my testimony with respect to the conclusions of Dr. Kaiserman from the Department of Health, the Office of Tobacco Control, who said that the department would like to have more time to make further studies about the possible effects of less nicotine and how that would produce in some people the act of more smoking.
These reservations of Dr. Kaiserman should not prevent the committee from going ahead with passing the bill. The bill does allow the minister, at all times, to amend this bill in any way if further tests or studies prove that these amendments should be made.
As the previous witness has said, we must start somewhere. I am starting at modifying the amount of nicotine and tar, especially the additives and the reconstituted tobacco. We must start somewhere. Ever since tobacco has been manufactured, there has always been this high level of nicotine and tar, which are the main toxic substances. That is why people become addicted to smoking. When they smoke, they inhale the harmful tars. This causes the 20-odd clinical conditions of tobacco-related diseases, plus cancer. This is what we are trying to stop. Unless we start somewhere, as soon as possible, we are delaying, as in the past, the inevitability of more people smoking; therefore, more people dying and more costs to the health care and to the Canadian economy. We must stop that, and we can only do it by starting to modify the things that we know are harmful. After that, the bill allows the minister to come in at any time and make any amendments in light of any studies they have made which they think should be made to ameliorate this bill.
Someone mentioned the levels of nicotine and its effects. If the committee could get this book which was produced for the Health Protection Branch by the Royal Society of Canada entitled, Tobacco, Nicotine, and Addiction, they would find the answers, first, about why nicotine is so toxic; and, second, why the levels must be modified and controlled by the government. This was published on August 31, 1989.
The Chairman: Thank you, Dr. Haidasz.
Mr. Knight: I wish to comment on one thing that came out in the last testimony. You mentioned in the questioning of the previous witness that it would be a different bill if you were to consider that approach of starting with, say, a higher level of nicotine and then having the opportunity to ratchet that down, to use the expression that Mr. LeGresley was using.
With all deference to your view of that, this was deliberately worded at clause 4 under the first subclause, which talks about establishing standards for a tobacco product, including reducing the allowable amount of nicotine.
The Chairman: In other words, the Governor in Council could do this?
Mr. Knight: That is right. For example, if the Minister of Health brought about an amendment to start the level at a higher number than the one that was ultimately passed, he would always have, through Governor in Council, the means of ratchetting this down to whatever levels he or she finds appropriate for that purpose.
The Chairman: I see that now.
Honourable senators, we will adjourn at this time. We have an amendment that has been proposed by the sponsor of the bill. At the first opportunity, I will ask colleagues whether one of you wishes to propose that amendment. In any case, we will go into clause-by-clause study of the bill, and the chairman will then entertain motions to report the bill without amendment, with amendment, or to recommend that the bill not be proceeded with. Those are the options that are before the committee with respect to the bill.
To summarize, if it is possible next Tuesday or Wednesday to deal with this matter after we have completed our consideration of the child support guidelines, we will do so. Otherwise, we will have to wait until probably April 22, unless we schedule a special meeting in the meantime but time is at a premium these days around here.
Within the next little while, our friends at the Library of Parliament will prepare a short summary of the evidence that we have heard on this bill to assist you in your contemplation and consultation with your caucus colleagues.
Thank you, Dr. Haidasz and Mr. Knight.
The committee adjourned.