Alcohol causes fatal cancers. The more drinks consumed, the higher the risk. That’s why I have introduced Bill S-254, An Act to amend the Food and Drugs Act (warning label on alcoholic beverages), to put honest labels on alcohol products.

As you read this, the alcohol industry and their lobbyists are busy planning how to keep this important cancer information off their products. Over the coming months, industry spokespeople will argue that it is too burdensome, too expensive, ineffective and unnecessary to label their products honestly. They will try to persuade consumers that this effort is nothing more than government overreach. None of their arguments will change the fact that their product is a Group 1 carcinogen — with only one drink per day increasing the risk of at least seven types of fatal cancers.

Industry lobbyists will insist that a lengthy and prohibitively expensive consultation process would be needed, with any changes to labelling requiring years to fully implement. But we all know that packaging can change very quickly when industry is sufficiently motivated. Years were not needed to shrink many consumer goods we see in the stores right now. Shrinkflation has given us repackaged products seemingly overnight. They can do it.

Industry will argue that honest labelling is confusing for consumers. It is not confusing. Consuming their product increases the risk of fatal cancers — consumers should be advised of this through honest labels.

Anti-label voices will denounce this effort as anti-fun, or as an insult to the intelligence of adults. Nothing could be further from the truth. These efforts are not anti-fun, or even anti-alcohol. These efforts are anti-cancer. Cancer has taken the lives of too many loved ones. It would be rare to find a family in Canada that has not been devastated by the loss of at least one member to cancer.

Consumers have the right to know about the proven health effects of products they consume. Just as cigarettes are now properly labelled — after years of enormous and very well-financed industry resistance — alcohol products should also be properly labelled.

Three out of four Canadians do not understand that consuming alcohol greatly increases their risk of developing fatal cancers of the mouth, throat, vocal cords, esophagus, breast, liver and colon. Most still believe in the now-debunked idea that it has protective effects. Will honest labelling reduce fatal cancer rates overnight? Of course not. But honest labelling will inform and educate consumers about the well-established health risks of what they are putting into their bodies.

Dr. Tim Naimi, director of the University of Victoria’s Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research, recommends printed labels and QR codes giving consumers access to important serving size and cancer information. As Dr. Naimi says, one can easily locate the amount of calcium in a can of peas, yet when buying a calorie-dense, potentially addictive, intoxicating carcinogen, none of that information is conveyed on the label.

With Bill S-254 I am proposing to amend the Food and Drugs Act to mandate honest labelling to properly inform consumers. Please ask parliamentarians to support this bill. Senators and members of Parliament will need your help to resist industry pressures. It will take courage as the pressure will be intense and unrelenting. By acting together as Canadian citizens and holding government and industry to account, we can take bold steps to prevent cancer and protect our loved ones.

The Honourable Patrick Brazeau is a Quebec senator and a member of the Algonquin community of Kitigan Zibi.