HEAL Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HEALTH

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE LA SANTÉ

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, June 1, 2000

• 0833

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Lynn Myers (Waterloo—Wellington, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We'll begin the health committee. As you know, it's pursuant to the orders of the day, that is, Standing Order 32(5), consideration of proposed tobacco regulations.

The witnesses we have this morning are the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, as well as the FTQ from Quebec. We'll begin hearing those witnesses in a minute. But before we do,

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard wishes to raise a point of order.

Mr. Réal Ménard (Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, BQ): In fact, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to verify something with my colleagues on the committee. It came through quite clearly to me yesterday, following the appearance of the companies, the printers to be more precise, that it would most probably be useful for the committee to go and visit certain companies before adopting its report: a printer in Quebec and a printer in Ontario. I share in the committee's will to adopt its report before we adjourn, and this report will be forwarded to the House, but I believe it would be worthwhile for us to take the time to go and visit these companies.

I believe that in Mr. Jordan's riding, or close to it, there is one company we might visit. As for Quebec, we could ask the labour group. Mention was made to me of the Lawson company in Ville Saint-Laurent.

It is important to understand the process. For example, when people talk about cylinders, it would be important for us to understand the adjustments that are involved so as to make enlightened recommendations.

Perhaps this should be set up at a time other than during a committee meeting, but I think I would be much more comfortable, as a parliamentarian, if we made such a visit before going ahead with our report. I am a very visual person. I need to understand the technical aspect of things. We are talking here of rather specialized expertise.

• 0835

I am not making a formal proposal here, but I would like us to reach some common understanding and to give instructions to the clerks or to the organizers so that this does take place.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Ménard.

[English]

What we'll do is we'll take your point of order under consideration, and more to the point, we'll ask the clerk to investigate precisely where we could go and when—under direction, of course, from this committee—and we'll get a handle on costs as well. We'll report back Monday at the latest, because it does take some time to formulate these kinds of things and we need that kind of time to do that. But you raise a very good point of order.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: As usual, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Yes, as you always do. Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Chair: Now let's move on to the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union. Who's leading off? Mr. Kelly, is it you?

[Translation]

Mr. Massé.

Mr. Henri Massé (President, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec (FTQ)): I would like to begin by introducing to you the people who have accompanied me: Clément Godbout, Émile Vallée, Daniel Rondeau, Gordon Wilson and Sean Kelly.

I will begin the presentation and Sean will finish. First of all, we wish to thank you for having allowed us to present our views on this very important issue.

The FTQ is the largest central union in Quebec, representing some 500,000 employees in all sectors. The union is recognized for its pragmatism. We try to do the necessary arbitration when it is a matter of jobs and social goals.

We also represent the Tobacco Union, that is affiliated with the FTQ and that has 2,000 members in Quebec. There are hundreds of other salaried workers in sectors such as the printing business, paper making, transportation and retail sales, whose jobs are directly related to tobacco.

At the outset, the FTQ is opposed to the proposed regulations because it believes that they are badly conceived and that they will not achieve the desired results.

They are badly conceived because they are based on one of the lowest common denominators of human nature: fear. The regulations that have been presented supported by many surveys are based on one sole premise: if we make smokers feel ashamed with horrible messages, even worse messages than the current ones which are supposed to solve the problem but which, it seems, are no longer able to do the job, and if we make these same smokers feel embarrassed at buying tobacco products, they will be so frightened that they will stop smoking. In my view, this is a bad premise.

We do not share the optimism of those who see these measures as the silver bullet against tobacco use. Let us remember that tobacco advertising has diminished considerably over the last several years and that the messages on cigarette packages are they too based on fear. However, tobacco use does not seem to have diminished, particularly among young people.

We must emphasize that if these measures do not work, the only thing to do would be to sell tobacco in controlled outlets, as is done with alcohol, or to ban it. This is the direction in which these regulations are leading us.

This effort will not work also because the regulations are incomplete. If the objective is really to reduce tobacco use, important elements are missing, and we will discuss these later in the brief.

The proposed regulations do even worse. They condemn a sizeable element of the population—some 20%—to feeling guilty for doing something that is still legal in Canada.

Finally, as other employee representatives who have appeared or will appear before you have stated, the proposed regulations will have negative impacts on a large number of industry employees without helping to reduce tobacco use in any significant way. We will not repeat the details of their presentations, but we share their concerns that many employees in the tobacco industry, and in the printing industry to name only a few, are at great risk of losing their job, without these measures bringing about any major change in people's smoking habits.

In short, the proposed regulations will give some politicians the opportunity for a great media show in the short term. They might allow certain anti-smoking groups, that I would sometimes qualify of puritan, to give themselves the allusion that they have just decided upon the well-being of the good people, but once again, without changing anything. Over time, the effects will fade away, like many other measures based on fear. It is our members that will bear the brunt of this, because their employers can simply pull up stakes and move elsewhere.

• 0840

The FTQ has been opposed to this step by the minister ever since we first learned of it in May 1999, and we have truly tried to get the government to look at this issue through a “common sense” lens.

We suggested to the minister the establishment of a working group that would devote itself to the entire question of the control of tobacco use. In Quebec, we are used to consulting before making decisions. We had hoped that the minister would jump at the opportunity to approach the problem with the major stakeholders and to develop a consensus approach which would have allowed him to proceed in a more harmonious climate.

We submitted our proposal verbally to the Director of the Office of Tobacco Control at Health Canada in May 1999. When we had no response, we sent him a letter in August. We then communicated with civil servants in October 1999. Finally, in desperation, we wrote directly to the Minister on February 17, 2000. The minister did not deign to reply.

For us, a policy on tobacco use is more than a witch hunt against smokers. It is also more than an increase in tobacco taxes, which seems to be on the minister's drawing board.

We ask you to send the minister back to do his homework. We ask you to tell him to come back with an overall policy on tobacco use that would emphasize education, particularly that of young people. There are not many smokers, in our opinion, who would not want to stop smoking. It is not necessary to scare them with drawings and messages of horror to convince them. They know that smoking is not good for them. What they need is encouragement and support.

We really have the impression that what we are doing is a lazy student's homework. If we continue with this barrage of fear-based campaigns, we will wind up rendering very commonplace the fear that is well-rooted in the population. We would much rather have seen an education program similar to ParticipACTION, for example. This is a fantastic program that has been in place for years in Canada and that had led people to think more about physical exercise, but that is a much longer process. It is more of a medium term measure, but it is quite a bit more efficient and quite a bit more difficult.

As for young people, they should be the main objects of our attention through focussed and positive education programs. They must be convinced not to smoke. We know how difficult it is to stop smoking. If there is an inheritance we should leave to our children and grandchildren, it is the need to stop smoking.

In 1997, our governments collected almost 5 million dollars in tobacco taxes of all kinds. This is an enormous amount of money. We are not the kind of people who would say that governments are hypocritical in collecting taxes on tobacco while trying to reduce its use. We would be kidding ourselves if we thought tobacco could be banned and it would be unfair to do so. Perhaps this could been envisaged 100 years ago, but not today. This simply would not fit with our standards of behaviour.

We however believe that a large part of the public funds collected from the consumption of tobacco should be used for its control and we consider the most promising and desirable spending to be on education. We do not have the figures at hand to justify our assertion, but we are aware that education programs on tobacco use have undergone budget cuts and we have seen nothing to indicate that these budgets have been increased since the country and the provinces have reached budget surplus situations. We therefore implore the government: if you really want to reduce tobacco use over the long term, include an active education policy for young people and smokers in your overall policy.

An active policy should respect the millions of Canadians who smoke. As long as smoking is legal, smokers have the right to be protected against the social ostracism and banishment to which the proposed regulations condemn them.

Finally, the tobacco policy should make provisions for workforce adaptation programs for those employees affected by the policy. Where the government is directly responsible for the loss of jobs, it must ensure that those affected employees are not condemned in the short term to the inadequate protection of an employment insurance plan which does not respond to the needs of unemployed workers so that they find themselves on social welfare. The cost of an adaptation policy would not be exorbitant.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the approach that the FTQ had intended to propose to minister Allan Rock and which we outlined in our February 17 letter to him. Help us to convince him that this approach has a much better chance of getting the expected results than the witch hunt that is being proposed.

The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.

• 0845

[English]

Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Sean Kelly (International Vice-President, Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union): Thank you. I'd first of all like to introduce my two colleagues, Tom Belbeck and Robert Janawski. They work for Imperial Tobacco in Guelph.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health. I appreciate this opportunity to appear before you today to address the proposed regulatory changes to the Tobacco Control Act.

My name is Sean Kelly. I am international vice-president of the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, with responsibility for Canada.

The BCTGM union represents nearly 4,000 workers directly employed in the Canadian tobacco industry.

I appear before you today to strongly urge the committee to reject the most recent changes to the Tobacco Control Act proposed by the health minister, Minister Rock.

The BCTGM opposes the proposed changes for several reasons.

First and foremost, these changes pose a direct and serious threat to the jobs of our members working in Canada's tobacco industry. Our members are hard-working men and women who earn some of the best wages and benefits anywhere in Canada. Because of their wages and benefits, they are able to provide an excellent standard of living for their families and share in building prosperity within the communities in which they live. Their jobs, the taxes they pay, and the money they spend are critical to the economies of these communities.

The jobs of tens of thousands of other workers around the country employed in industries that supply and service the tobacco industry are also put at risk. Among the affected industries are retail and wholesale sales, printing and graphics, paper production, textiles, transportation, warehousing, building and construction trades, commercial inks and glues, and agriculture.

The simple laws of business economics will dictate the fate of our members' jobs should these proposals be implemented.

The cost to tobacco companies associated with complying with the proposed graphics, packaging, and reporting regulations would be exorbitant. It would no longer be cost-effective. Companies would be forced to eliminate and scale back production of smaller, less popular brands. This will lead to reduced hours, layoffs, and possible plant closures.

As you are undoubtedly aware, major decisions pertaining to Canadian manufacturing facilities within the tobacco industry and the possible offshore relocation now reside in the United States, Japan, and Europe.

In today's global economy, business considers carefully a country's business environment when they determine the location of production facilities.

The result of Mr. Rock's proposals will be less Canadian production and fewer legal sales. Consumption will not change. Canadian workers will be left to join unemployment and welfare lines.

Mr. Chairperson, it is important for committee members to understand that the Canadian tobacco companies are part of large, multinational entities that have production facilities all over the world. The plain and simple truth is that the Canadian tobacco companies can shift production offshore very, very easily and export the product into their Canadian market.

Mr. Rock's government assured this access to the Canadian market and maintain the current provisions within NAFTA.

If the Liberal government continues its relentless assault on the Canadian industry through packaging proposals such as those contained within the proposed regulations, lawsuits, or massive tax increases, I have no doubt that the companies will certainly move offshore. The only losers will be our members and other Canadian workers whose jobs depend on the Canadian tobacco industry. These direct and indirect jobs number in the tens of thousands.

• 0850

Mr. Chairperson, we are deeply concerned with the way the regulatory process was handled by the health minister. There was never any meaningful consideration given to the legitimate job issues associated with his proposals. There was a lot of lip service paid to organized labour and to the affected workers, but no real action was taken by the health minister's officials to determine the true impact these proposals would have on Canadian workers.

Promises and commitments for extensive consultation were not kept. The minister and his officials have engaged in a completely biased, unfair, and dishonest process of information and introduction of these proposed regulatory changes. Despite repeated requests by workers and their representatives for an open dialogue, only promises of dialogue have been forthcoming. Despite our repeated attempts for a labour impact study, our requests have fallen upon seemingly deaf ears.

Mr. Rock, in his news conference release of March 31, 2000, would have Canadians believe he has consulted with workers as to the impact his regulations would have upon well-paid Canadian jobs. He has not.

Although workers have participated in three meetings with individuals from the Bureau of Tobacco Control, the format was that of information meetings, where we were told what the health minister was going to do. Our views and concerns were not on the agenda. Indeed, the cavalier manner in which the livelihoods of workers and their families have been ignored is best illustrated by MP Ms. Brenda Chamberlain, who, on April 27 of this year, in Guelph, Ontario, stated to the media that she supported Mr. Rock's initiatives, which she acknowledged would be at the cost of sacrificing the jobs of her constituents and of other workers as well.

Ms. Chamberlain was not moved to account for Mr. Rock's flippant remarks that 33 of her constituents need to find another industry to work for. No doubt Mr. Rock will shortly have his officials hand out “Mr. Hamburg” minimum-wage employment applications to those workers who would suffer from his indifference towards their futures.

The BCTGM international union has a long history of consistently supporting effective policies and programs addressing the problems of underage consumption of tobacco products. Expanded youth education and stricter enforcements of existing laws and penalties make sense. They would be effective, but they wouldn't penalize adults who choose to use tobacco products. Most of us are working men and women and wouldn't punish workers employed in tobacco and related industries.

Our view is contained within a tobacco industry job statement that has the support of many labour organizations. Mr. Rock may not appreciate the value of a job, but workers and their unions do.

Finally, Mr. Chairperson, I feel compelled to discuss for a moment the government's current approach to the tobacco issue. Our members are outraged by the government's non-stop assault on the industry they work in. It is a legal industry. They are making a legal product that is already highly taxed and regulated by the government. In fact, the government is also already a major shareholder in the Canadian tobacco industry. Nearly 60% of the revenue generated by tobacco sales already goes to the government.

Our members cannot understand why their own government is pursuing policies such as ridiculous packaging regulations and massive new taxes that will put them out of work. They are tired of having their hard-earned tax dollars spent on glitzy multimillion-dollar public relations campaigns that don't work and demonize them and the industry they work in.

• 0855

I close, Mr. Chairperson, by relating to the committee an “accident” that happened early this year. A large sign on the property of one of our employees was seriously vandalized. Degrading anti-tobacco slogans were painted on the sign. This unfortunate accident coincided with a round of severe government anti-tobacco ads on television. Mr. Rock and his officials are as responsible for this discrimination as those who committed this outrageous act.

We believe that by demonizing and demoralizing the Canadian tobacco industry the government creates a dangerous, inflammatory atmosphere that is unfair and harmful to our members and their families. These men and women should not have to fear harassment simply because of where they work. That is wrong.

Is this really what the government should be doing to address youth smoking issues? I don't think so. It is unfair and counterproductive for the government to single out particular industries and groups of workers for negative treatment. The people of Canada are better served by government policies that are effective at getting to the heart of the social problems.

I thank the committee once again for the opportunity to appear before you. The BCTGM appreciates your consideration of our position on these important amendments. Our members appeal to you to support their livelihood and their families, their future and their communities. Posturing and scapegoating does nothing to improve the health of Canada's youth, but can it ever create hardship, victimization, and unemployment. We want to be a part of a solution, not a combatant upon a political stage.

I would be glad to answer any questions from the committee.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Kelly, for that brief and those remarks.

Is anyone else presenting at this time or are we prepared now to take questions?

I think perhaps questions—

Mr. Sean Kelly: Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: Mr. Kelly.

Mr. Sean Kelly: —we have a list of the endorsements of unions that—

The Chair: Yes. We'll get the clerk to receive that.

Is there anyone else wishing to speak at this point?

Mr. Mills, then, would you lead off, please?

Mr. Bob Mills (Red Deer, Canadian Alliance): With regard to much of what has been said about the consultation process and so on, I think most of us would agree that it is important, that it is consultation, understanding of each other's issues. But I think the bottom line really comes down to the fact that 45,000 people die from tobacco each year in this country. More young people seem to be attracted to smoking. Obviously we have an obligation to protect the health of Canadians.

I wonder, what kinds of options...? Things change. Society changes. Habits change. I haven't heard anything positive in terms of other options that some of these workers could choose. The government should, could, be involved in helping that sort of thing, like growing grapes instead of tobacco, and those kinds of things. Are those options? Has that been looked at? Does the union consider those kinds of options for their workers? It seems to me that's how you protect the workers as things change—because there will be fewer smokers in the future.

Mr. Sean Kelly: Maybe you've misunderstood me. We're not talking about farmers here; we're talking about industrial workers—

Mr. Bob Mills: Yes.

Mr. Sean Kelly: —earning $33 an hour. I really don't think we're talking about growing grapes.

As regards the youth problem, it's quite obvious that the government and all of these other bodies have been very successful at failure, and it's quite obvious that there must be a better way.

We think that with more dialogue with us we could be better equipped to help programs working with people, programs that could be more effective, such as working with the youth in schools through the teachers and that. I think that would be much more effective than trying to frighten the youth by TV ads and by packaging. I don't find that works. Were you ever 16? I'm sure you were, the same as myself, and there wasn't very much that frightened me at that age. I certainly wouldn't have taken the time, if I had wanted to smoke, to examine graphics or anything.

• 0900

Mr. Bob Mills: Then what sort of youth program would you have? What would be your best guess on what would work to stop a youth from smoking?

Mr. Sean Kelly: I think it would be an educational youth program right in the schools. Again, educate them at that level, but remember one thing: when they reach an age where they can make decisions, they don't need governments to make the decision whether they can smoke or not. That's a decision that, as a Canadian in a free society, they make themselves. It's the same as them making the decision to drink, drive a car, or go on a plane.

The Chair: Henri, do you want to go?

[Translation]

Mr. Henri Massé: The health and safety of workers are among the major concerns of the FTQ, of its worker organizations, of its affiliated unions and of the Canadian Labour Congress.

It is when we do not use the right means to achieve our goal that the shoe pinches. I will give you the example of a situation we saw in Quebec, the province I live in. There were very well-articulated education programs in all the schools of Quebec. Their purpose was to educate young people on smoking and to convince them to not start or, if they already had, to stop. Unfortunately, all of these programs were eliminated and there is not one single program of this type left in any school of the province. The same thing happened in numerous other provinces. The federal government stopped subsidizing and supporting these education programs on smoking. There are no longer any education programs on smoking aimed at young people anywhere in Canada. The first solution we should be looking at to solve the problem would be to invest in these programs.

My fear is that we are in fact making the situation commonplace. Remember the ads put out by the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec that showed very bad car accidents. In the beginning, the ads were very striking and had a tremendous impact. The Commission de la santé et de la sécurité au travail also started doing the same kind of campaign. But once you start seeing advertisements warning you about these imminent dangers and horrible accidents 22 times a day, you begin to not pay much attention to them. People turn on the television and do not even notice. These ads shocked us in the beginning, but they no longer have the desired effect today.

This morning, we are discussing packaging regulations. Throughout Canada, in all of the provinces, there are a series of regulations relating to smoking in the workplace. I am against these advertisements that are presently being funded by the federal government and are literally accusing the manufacturers of being criminals, despite the fact that tobacco continues to be a legal product. What is the purpose of these ads? They do not prevent smoking among young people and they do not contribute to reducing smoking among older people.

I would repeat once again that we must emphasize education. We are not saying that there should not be any regulations regarding tobacco, but we must ensure that the regulations reach the target and do not jeopardize jobs, and that is the risk that we are seeing now. We are convinced that these ads have but very little influence, whereas education programs are much more effective.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

Mr. Wilson, please.

Mr. Gordon Wilson (Consultant, Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers Union): Thank you. I just want to pick up on an earlier question. I'm pleased to hear that the government is seeking ways to try to receive some waiver input, but I'm a little confused. I have in my hand a letter the minister sent in April of this year to Elaine Price, who's the president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. Elaine had asked for some opportunity for input, and the minister said in his letter:

As well, union representatives were advised that Health Canada would conduct a cost/benefit analysis that would include an assessment of the proposed regulations' impact on employment.

We have been asking, as Mr. Kelly and Mr. Massé have said many times here this morning, for an opportunity to do that, but we haven't had that opportunity. We're now faced with the regulations, without having had any input into the process at all. So that's part of what we're trying to say here this morning. There is a better way to do this that is transparent and allows people to address the question of the economic side, as well as the health side, of the equation. That's what's absent in this dialogue.

• 0905

I also want to make one comment. As Mr. Massé said a moment ago, it strikes us as a little strange that there is such a focus on the health of 45,000 Canadians. I accept your figure. I don't know. I'm just a person; I'm not involved in statistical gathering of data.

But I have in my hand again documentation that was sent from the Ontario Federation of Labour to the Lung Association. They point out that according to Statistics Canada in 1994—I have to rely on my own government's statistical gathering of information, I don't quarrel with that—4.9 million workers were exposed to dust and fibres in the workplace. Another 2.7 million workers were exposed to chemicals and fumes in the workplace.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer states that there are 24 known human lung carcinogens, and at least 23 of these are the result of industrial processes. The 24th on the list is tobacco smoke. We're not quarrelling with the health consequences of tobacco, but why is nobody addressing this? Where is the government? It's not to be seen in addressing what international agencies tell us, as Canadians, are 23 more dangerous situations than tobacco smoke. So something's out of whack here.

If you're going to have a health policy for Canadians, you can't just pick and choose. You can't cherry-pick. You have to go after everything. We're saying we have workplace concerns. You have concerns on the general societal use of tobacco. We're saying, on the use of tobacco, give us a chance to get to the table where we can talk about putting together a policy that will not cost people jobs as a result of capricious actions of government. That's what we have before us.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.

[Translation]

Mr. Godbout.

Mr. Clément Godbout (Advisor, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec): The president of the FTQ answered Mr. Mill's question regarding young people. I agree that we must mainly target young people and that all we can do in the case of people aged 60 or 65 who smoke and will continue to smoke is to accompany and help them.

If you would allow me, I too would like to ask a question to Mr. Mills. Starting at what age can one legally buy or consume tobacco products in this country? Do you know the answer? What does the law say in this regard?

[English]

The Chair: That's a rhetorical question, I believe. We're not examining the—

Mr. Clément Godbout: Not at all. Do you know the answer?

The Chair: I'm telling you it is. We're here to question you, not the reverse. If you have something to add, that would be good. If not, we'll go to Monsieur Ménard, please.

Mr. Clément Godbout: The answer is there's no such legislation, sir.

The Chair: Thank you. I think we knew that.

Monsieur Ménard.

Mr. Clement Godbout: So if you want to attack the problems concerning young people, you have to address that question too.

The Chair: Point taken. Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: It is not unpleasant to have the witnesses ask us questions. This introduces a bit more variety in life, and this is something we need.

I would like to ask our witnesses four questions. First of all, I would like you to be aware that I have not forgotten that you represent people who get up in the morning to go to work and who do so in a very honourable fashion. I do not question this at all. Furthermore, I also know that you have not forgotten that we have the duty, as parliamentarians—it is you who stated this, Mr. Massé, and I am convinced that you are truly sensitive to this—to do everything in our power to dissuade people from smoking.

That being said, you began your intervention by saying that you were a pragmatic man. I believe that it is from this perspective that we must look at things.

The government is betting on there being 3.42% fewer smokers by the year 2006, which means that approximately 2 500 fewer people will die from cancer every year. This is what it is putting forward in its documents. In the economic evaluation the government has done, and I will make sure you have it before you leave, we are told that consumption activities will be reoriented and that 1 954 jobs will be created, except in the tobacco sector, in which it is estimated that some 129 jobs will have been lost ten years from now. I will give you a copy of this page before you leave.

What interests me in your brief, is the way in which you suggest that we help those people who could be threatened by a drop in tobacco product consumption, while maintaining a regulatory framework. I will not hide from you the fact that I have a lot of sympathy at the outset for the regulations proposed but, like you, I am pragmatic and the jobs question interests me as well.

My first question relates to page 5 of your brief, where you talk about adaptation programs. I would like you to explain further what you mean. Could these programs be integrated within a regulatory framework or should they be developed working more closely with HRDC?

• 0910

I agree with you that we need an overall policy. The Health Canada officials who appeared before us during our first day of meetings told us that in 1999 some 3 million dollars were spent on advertising to educate young people on ways to stop smoking. Tell me where the gaps are. What should our comprehensive anti-smoking policy be?

I will begin with these two questions and, if the Chairman is indulgent, I will ask you two others.

[English]

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Let me suggest that we should take some of that $3 million out of the pockets of advertising executives and give it to teachers, to put a community-based education program directly in the schools, targeted at young people who are vulnerable to peer pressure from their colleagues in the schoolyard, and to all of those other processes outside that cause young people to begin smoking. You'd begin to say to young people, “It makes no sense for you to begin”. That's one side of the equation.

The second side of the equation has to be asked at some point. If knowing all of the warnings and that all of the information is available to them, that all of the education programs have been available to them, and they're now 18 or 20 years of age and decide, notwithstanding all of that, they want to smoke, in the same way they know there's a risk driving a car or having a drink, the question to be asked is, “What is the state's role in prohibiting an individual from that process, as long as the state also recognizes that what they're doing is a legal process?”

We say that money is now being misdirected to advertising. After you watch three commercials, you turn off. After you see it on the package three times, you turn off, it's covered up by you, or you rip the label off and don't look at it any more. Take that money and get inside young people's minds. That makes a lot more sense.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Monsieur.

[Translation]

Mr. Émile Vallée (Political Advisor, Fédération des travailleurs et travailleuses du Québec): It goes without saying that these adaptation programs should be developed by specialists, including staff from Human Resources Development Canada and Emploi-Québec. We have already finalized agreements with Quebec, particularly with regard to the enforcement of active measures. We maintain that the government should create a special program when there are job losses directly linked to a measure it has taken. The government has the responsibility to put in place programs aimed at workers and we believe that it is Human Resources Development Canada that should be doing this.

We regard to education, it is obvious that the 3 million dollars the government is spending on advertising aimed at convincing people to stop smoking is a modest amount compared to the 5 million dollars in tax revenues it takes in. We nevertheless are not in a position to tell you how much it should spend, but we do maintain that these 3 million dollars are vastly insufficient.

The Chair: They are peanuts.

Mr. Réal Ménard: The convictions you have expressed are based on your own good sense given that no study on this has been done. It is the first time that images will appear on cigarette packages. What is being proposed is the printing of 16 different messages in rotation. I respect your opinion when you say that we will not reach the intended goal. Would you not however be prepared to admit that because of our social conscience we do not have the right to not try? I am not of those who would hope that the federal government intervene in schools, because I believe that education is the responsibility of the government of Quebec. But should we not, by virtue of our social conscience, at least try this strategy for three, four, five or six years? Do not forget, Mr. Massé, that Quebec is the province with the highest number of young people who smoke. Indeed, 37% of young Quebeckers smoke.

Five years ago, 29% of persons 15 years of age and over smoked, whereas as we speak, the proportion is 25%. The government is betting that the number of smokers will drop by approximately 4% over the next few years. Let us hope that the government is not wrong. Perhaps it is not using the proper means, but should our social conscience not lead us to the conclusion that we do not have the right to not at least give a strategy such as this one a try?

Mr. Henri Massé: The FTQ is a trustworthy partner. We are used to saying what we have to say and we do so at the right time. We are continuing to say that we believe that the policy that is being suggested is politically correct, but that it will have no influence. I remember having, along with Clément Godbout, approached the government of Quebec and the federal government when tobacco tax increases of all kinds were being proposed. We killed ourselves trying to tell you that you would be creating a smuggling network and that you were completely off base. That is precisely what happened. Today, there is a smuggling ring for alcoholic beverages. More than half of the alcoholic beverages produced in Canada are sold contraband. You could increase tobacco taxes even more, but we must not forget that the smuggling network is still alive and kicking. We are not opposed to any increase in taxes, but if we are not careful, this network will once again very quickly get underway. We simply want to warn you. This is what happened the last time.

• 0915

What is being proposed is to print on cigarette packages the picture of a smoker's lungs, to show people the horrible effects of cigarette smoking. This may have a very very limited effect for a few months. I come back to the example of the campaigns launched by the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec and that did not change a thing. We see guts and blood on television 10 times a day. I do not know what is going on these days, but there is hardly any police surveillance on roads at all. I have driven the Montreal-Quebec City route about 20 times over the course of the last two weeks and I can tell you that people are driving at awful speeds.

Mr. Réal Ménard: But you are not, are you?

Mr. Henri Massé: I do not know.

Some hon. members: Ah! ah!

Mr. Henri Massé: It is all fine and dandy to set up such programs and to tell ourselves that this should put fear into us, but after a while, you no longer feel any fear at all. Once again, this is the type of program that is being envisaged.

I will state again that we are in favour of certain programs. As Clément Godbout said, despite the fact that in most provinces the law says that it is illegal to purchase alcohol before a certain age, there is no similar law in the case of tobacco. But though the law prevents a merchant from selling cigarettes directly to a young person under a certain age, it does not prevent the merchant from selling to an individual who will turn around and resell the cigarettes to young people. This is the case in Quebec and we know that there is a black market around schools. These people buy tobacco products and resell them to young people. There is no law that prevents them from doing this. Why do we not worry about the real problems instead of simply pretending to do something? That is the question we are asking you.

Mr. Réal Ménard: But do you not believe that cigarette packages could be used as an information medium? Do you not believe in that at all?

Mr. Henri Massé: Absolutely not.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Very well.

Mr. Henri Massé: There are already messages on packages that no one reads.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

I wonder if anyone in the panel now has three or four questions for Monsieur Ménard.

A voice: No, I don't think so.

The Chair: Oh, I see. Thanks very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I have further questions.

[English]

The Chair: Yes. I understand.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I have other questions.

[English]

Mr. Gordon Wilson: I think Mr. Ménard is doing an effective job of getting at the issue. Can I make a comment on Mr. Ménard?

It's interesting and productive to have a debate about which is the best way to get into young people's minds, so we can deter them from beginning the process of smoking. But I want to tell you that as workers, what really incenses us is that our government is sitting down and cutting deals with the tobacco companies that ensure the survival of the corporations and put in peril the jobs of the workers.

If you think I'm kidding you...we're not stupid. We know what's going on. When the government's negotiating weasels words into the regulations with the corporations that allow them to survive, we also know that in today's global economy that's a downhill slippery slope, because they will do what all corporations do. They will find the cheapest suppliers available to produce the products and results they require in order to remain in business. That means for us that $33-an-hour jobs in the manufacturing sector are gone. It means in the printing sector we're going to lose $26- to $28-an-hour jobs. People who are 50 years old with 30 and 35 years of service with their employers will be gone.

This is the process you're putting in place that won't impact inadvertently and negatively upon the government. It will still have its handouts and collect excise tax, regardless of how the products come into the country and the Canadian market. It will still facilitate the operation of corporations in a multinational global economy, because we all know that the Canadian tobacco industry is no longer Canadian. It's a misnomer. It's owned by Japan, the United States, and Europe.

What will the workers be doing? As Mr. Mills suggested, we can chuck our $33-an-hour jobs, say we're sorry for ourselves, and go pick grapes. Well, thank you very much, we're not interested in that at all. We happen to think, as workers, our government has a responsibility to talk to us about what the impact will be on our lives, our communities, and our futures. That's what we're here to tell you today.

You can't shut us out of the process. You have to allow us a seat at the table. You have to allow us to fight for our own livelihoods and jobs.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Wilson.

It seems to me you're doing a very good job of doing precisely that today.

Mr. Charbonneau, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): Mr. Chairman, I listened to the presentations made by our witnesses, in particular that of the FTQ, with much attention and interest. It goes without saying that as elected representatives and as politicians, it is always very troubling to be told about the possibility of job losses because of such and such a measure.

• 0920

What unites us around this table, beyond our differences, is our interest in job creation in general, in the development of employment. When you come here with arguments relating to job losses, this is obviously very troubling to us.

Furthermore, I am very sensitive to the part of your presentation in which you speak about the attempts you made to get in touch with Health Canada. It seems to me that this proved to be very difficult and that the meetings you had were not very satisfactory. When you mentioned your letter of the month of February, I hurried to see if I was mentioned in it. Luckily, I was not, because I too would have been in an awkward position, but since I am not mentioned in it, I was not able to contribute to the facilitation of a meeting, which could have been done.

Mr. Henri Massé: There will be an opportunity the next time.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I will therefore look into the quality of the consultation that took place. I will ask for clarification on this.

As to the debate itself, you seem to be tackling the issue of legislation head on. You say that you are pragmatic, but you at the same time say that you want nothing to do with this. Perhaps we should also be looking at how we might change the regulations to make them more acceptable, if you truly wish to proceed in a pragmatic fashion.

The way things are going, there will be regulations. It would perhaps be better to work at making them more acceptable rather than saying that there will be no regulations. We are the Committee on health here. My colleague, Mr. Mills, quoted numbers and we all agree on them. No one has contested them. We are talking about 45,000 deaths per year. This is the most important single avoidable cause of death in Canada.

We therefore have the responsibility to work at reducing this annual slaughter. You say that we are counting on fear and that we are making a mistake. We believe that we are counting on information. It is information that instills fear in people who are given this information. It is a consequence. Is the information we are planning on printing on packages false? If it is, then we have a problem. If it is true, and if it does create fear, then those who have bad habits will take a closer look at their habits.

You say that there were similar campaigns in Quebec for alcohol consumption, and statistics have shown a tremendous drop in the number of traffic accidents attributable to alcohol, even though there are still too many of them. Despite the increase in traffic and the number of licensed drivers on the roads, there has nevertheless been a considerable drop in the number of alcohol-related accidents. Is this due to specific advertising or to a whole series of factors? It is difficult to pinpoint the specific factor, but it cannot be said that there has not been a drop. There has been one.

I would also like to say that it would be good to hear you talk about the fear or the misleading advertising used by the manufacturers. They spend tens and tens of millions of dollars to try to portray smoking in a pleasant, socially acceptable, attractive context for young people, etc. This is very serious. I did not hear any strong views from you on this. It is very serious, and now, we no longer have the right to not know, with the recent emergence of certain documents that had for years been hidden. We now know that there are extremely sophisticated strategies aimed at creating dependency; we know that there are tobacco mixes containing chemical substances that increase dependency. These are realities. We are obligated, just as Health Canada is, to deal with this.

You say that you are sensitive to health and education issues. I believe we are not investing enough in education. We are talking today about packaging regulations. That is one part of it. You are saying no. You are however opening the door as far as adaptation programs are concerned. My colleague, Mr. Ménard, has already brought up the adaptation program issue, and I would ask you if you have any examples of such programs that have worked in other areas. We could then seek out such programs and take a look at what might be done in this regard.

You are against tax increases. We do however need means to finance adjustment programs. I imagine that if there must be increases, they should come in gradually. In our view, this is but one means among many. It is not the only one and it is not the main one either.

• 0925

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Charbonneau.

Yes, Monsieur Massé.

[Translation]

Mr. Henri Massé: We did not say that we were against tax increases. One must be careful. There are people today who are suggesting increases that, we are convinced, would lead directly to contraband.

As far as advertising is concerned, there is no longer any advertising for tobacco products. When advertising was outlawed, you did not hear the FTQ crying out about that. We were in agreement with it.

I would like to remind you that 35% of the surface of a package of cigarettes is taken up by a message here in Canada. Canada was the first country in the world to do this and it still does not have very much company. This did not bring about the expected results. Now, you want to increase this percentage. It is our belief that this will have no effect.

We drew a parallel with traffic accidents. Yes, there was an advertising campaign on accidents and drinking and driving, but there was also a parallel series of measures. In the tobacco file, that is where the shoe pinches. In each Canadian province, rules and regulations are being legislated. Right now, people are working on packaging. I know that that will be followed by other regulations on display shelves. There is no overall policy on smoking in Canada. It seems to me there should first be discussions between Canada and the provinces. If we are serious about this, there should be an anti-smoking policy that is correct and that provides lots of room for education, but here measures are being put in place piece-meal. We are always working piece-meal.

We come to see you this morning. Of course, if we only take the regulations, you could say that we are completely against whereas we say that we are pragmatic, but we are always getting stuck in a corner somewhere, with some little regulation that comes out of nowhere and that does not tie in with an overall policy. This is why we are so angry.

When other regulations were adopted here and there, we tried to have discussions and dialogue, but it was not possible. You cannot say that we have not tried in this case. If there are solutions to be found, we are ready to look for them. We have come here to tell you that we already have solutions and that we are ready to look for more, but we are convinced that we will get nowhere. We can always find solutions, but we should perhaps stop tackling the smoking issue in a piece-meal fashion. If it is true that smoking causes 45,000 deaths per year and if we take this seriously, it seems to me we should be able to have a much more comprehensive and much more serious policy.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: What examples of transition or adaptation programs do you have?

Mr. Émile Vallée: The first transition program was established some 30 years ago in the automobile sector, when the Automobile Pact was introduced in the late 1960s, but there are more recent examples. There is the POWA program for older workers. There is also the CSTEC program in the steel sector; this is a joint labour-management organization devoted to assisting with worker readjustment even before lay-offs occur. This program has been in place for some twelve years now and works very well.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Is this a Canadian program or a Quebec program?

Mr. Émile Vallée: It is a Canadian program.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: And what about the fisheries?

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Szabo.

Mr. Paul Szabo (Mississauga South, Lib.): If I understood correctly, Mr. Wilson said the federal government has entered into deals with the tobacco industry. Could you provide the committee with an example of such a deal?

Mr. Gordon Wilson: We believe the regulations in their final form will not be as specific with regard to graphics. They will allow some movement around the question of colour on tobacco packages. The point I was trying to make was that we also know that in a global economy, that gets the corporations past the—

Mr. Paul Szabo: If I may, these are prospective deals you're suggesting. Are there any historic deals that you were referring to?

Mr. Gordon Wilson: No, no. I'm talking about—

Mr. Paul Szabo: So you're speculating that when this all shakes out—

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Well, we think it's a little more than speculation at this point.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay, I understand.

Secondly, both groups actually have made statements to the effect that the proposed labelling changes simply won't work. Could either of you undertake to provide the committee with copies of an authoritative research to substantiate your testimony?

• 0930

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Mr. Szabo, let me reply. I was referring to the graphics. We don't have any particular problem with the constituent printing on packages. People should have a right to know. In fact, we've argued in the labour movement that people should have a right to know what they have to work with all the time. We've argued and lobbied that all poisonous carcinogens should be posted in workplaces. Maybe someone should take a look at vehicle emissions and chemical runoffs, and explain to people why they're not warned about that.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Sure.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: In this situation we're saying we have a problem with the graphics, and it's based on life experience. I know I watch a commercial three times and then it goes past me. I'm a non-smoker, by the way. I've seen people who have a package of cigarettes on the table and they put their lighter on top of the warning to get rid of it.

We know there's some consideration of messages on the cellophane. What do you think happens to that the first time you peel it off? It's gone. People don't hold that to look at it while they finish their package of cigarettes.

Mr. Paul Szabo: I believe I understand.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Thank you.

Mr. Paul Szabo: It's anecdotal evidence.

This is my final question, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Wilson, in your closing remarks you indicated clearly in your statement, and I quote: “We want to be part of a solution”.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: Yes.

Mr. Paul Szabo: You do not support the changes in the tobacco labelling or the regs as proposed. What solution to the smoking challenge do you offer? The fact is that more than 40,000 people die each year and that our children and youth are the ones who are being targeted by the tobacco industry. What solution are you bringing to the table so that we can recommend an alternative solution to the Minister of Health?

Mr. Gordon Wilson: We're saying that fear as a motivator doesn't work as well as an intelligent approach that says to people: “This is the logic of not smoking versus smoking”. Surely when you put information into the minds of young people—I'm talking about grades 6, 7, 8—rooted in the public education system program, which systematically talks about why people shouldn't smoke at that age.... That's when kids are vulnerable. That's when they're subjected to peer pressure, which starts them to smoke.

Mr. Paul Szabo: But do you have a proposed solution or alternative?

Mr. Gordon Wilson: We know of one that's out there. I'm not at liberty to say. I know it's being tested in various parts of the country. I'm not at liberty to go beyond that.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Okay, that's fair.

Mr. Gordon Wilson: What we're trying to say here is that you have to get away from what hasn't worked in the past. As Mr. Massé said, we've had advertising bans on tobacco products for years in this country. We've seen television commercials recently. I'll tell you what most people do; they just turn away. They don't want to see it. It's like when the wounded came back after World War II. They were waving flags when they went, but they didn't want to see them when they came back.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

To all members of the panel from the Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco and Grain Millers Union, as well as the FTQ, we appreciate your briefs and your comments. Thank you very much.

We're running a little behind now, so we'll get the next group up as quickly as possible, starting with Professor Rob Donovan from western Australia, the Canadian Lung Association, the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, and the Canadian Cancer Society, please.

• 0935

• 0938

The Chair: Ladies and gentlemen, we'll go to the next panel. There are four participants. We'll lead off with Professor Rob Donovan from Curtin University in western Australia. Then we'll go to the Canadian Cancer Society. Mr. Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst, is here. Then we'll go to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. Dr. Peter Glynn is chair of the external relations committee. Finally, we'll have the Canadian Lung Association. Louis Brisson is the vice-president.

Professor Donovan, thank you, and welcome to Canada. We understand you have a plane to catch this afternoon, so we'll want to get through your testimony as soon as we can and have questions accordingly. Please proceed.

Professor Rob Donovan (Curtin University, Western Australia): Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, members of the House of Commons, for giving me the opportunity to testify here today.

By way of background, I have a doctorate in psychology and my topic was visual perception. I worked as a market researcher for approximately 15 years. During that time I developed a packaging test, which is now part of a North American textbook. The packaging test is designed to measure attention-getting capacities and the ability of the pack to get across the information that's desired.

I've taught marketing and consumer behaviour in Australian and United States business schools. I commenced tobacco research some 20 years ago, and as part of that I carried out some of the first research for the Australian government that introduced the series of warnings in the mid-1980s on Australian cigarette packs.

• 0940

For the last 15 years or so, I've been mainly involved in health promotion and social policy research, and I'm now professor of behavioural research in the division of health sciences at Curtin University. I'm also a member of the national expert advisory committee on tobacco that advises the Australian government.

I have a series of comments to make, about four or five. First, on the size of the packs, I fully support the increased size of the warnings. I guess if you're in a foreign country and you see two signs, one in 10-centimetre-high type and the other in 50-centimetre type, even if you don't understand anything about what's on the sign, you'll immediately pay more attention to the larger one and you'll also assign more importance to it. So size really does matter. The greater the size, generally, the greater the authority, the greater the importance, and the greater the credibility of the message.

In terms of using visual images on packs, it's a fact that with sweeping movements of the eye you can easily pass over words and written information. Visual information is far more intrusive. It only takes a fraction of a second to take in a visual picture. I guess to reverse the old saying, it's really one word is worth a thousand visual elements, because that's an approximate ratio there.

The other point about using visual images on packaging is that commercial research studies have shown that where that visual image relates back to the advertising images, you get a greater impact at the point of sale in terms of favourable attitudes toward the product. So using images that can be related to other elements of the communications mix on the packs should give you a synergistic effect and reinforce the impact of advertising elsewhere.

We also know that it's the health effects that are the primary predictors of people wanting to give up smoking, and in fact giving up smoking. Having a visual image on a pack provides a means of continually reminding people of the reasons they already know as to why they should give up. The fact that people put their cigarette lighters over warnings on packs, by itself is an indication that they in fact do notice the warning. They have read it. Otherwise, they wouldn't be putting their cigarette lighter over it. I should imagine people will perhaps be buying bigger cigarette lighters to put over the images on these packs.

If you look at the product category, the imagery in the category is the sum total of all the brand images in that category. So changing the packaging in the proposed way is going to weaken the brand images even more than they already have been—weaken them considerably. This should weaken the overall imagery of the product category, and we know that with respect to kids smoking, the imagery associated with smoking is one of the factors influencing them to take up smoking.

I think an area where these will have major potential impact is in a new emerging area in the field of public health and moralization. Recent work has been looking at the emotions of disgust and how they relate to values. Whereas other likes and dislikes may be related to attitudes or preferences and can be changed fairly easily, emotions like disgust cannot be changed very easily. They generally condition to the autonomic nervous system, and, like one trial learning of adversive conditioning, they're very difficult to move.

Research we've been looking at in Australia with some of our recent ads generate what's called a “yuck” response. A common comment in many of both the focus groups and quantitative surveys—and I notice similarly in Canada—is that people refer to some of these images as disgusting. The more we can condition disgust responses to cigarette smoking, the more resilient they will be to change. So I think that's a major potential area to look at.

A final comment on a couple of the points of the previous panel. Fear is one of the most powerful biologically adaptive emotions we have. Without fear we wouldn't last very long. The point about fear is that it is extremely effective, provided the target—the threat—has a way of averting the threat. Clearly, there is a simple way of averting the threat of smoking cigarettes, and that's to quit. That's not to say that quitting is easy, so all sorts of supports need to be in place. But fear is effective, and the common consensus now in all the literature and among practitioners is that it is.

The other point is about habituation, that we turn off fear messages after awhile. Habituation is certainly a problem. All advertisers face it, whether they're commercial advertisers or health promoters. The answer is not to throw out the approach, but rather to look for ways to revitalize and renew the images you're getting. I think the concept of six to eight images, more or less, rotated over the packages will certainly meet the problem of habituation. But it is something to always look at and continue to bear in mind.

• 0945

Finally, I thank you again for the opportunity to appear here. I congratulate Health Canada and the Canadian government for taking this initiative. It's certainly one that I think will give other jurisdictions something to aspire to, and I'll be recommending it to the Australian government.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Donovan. It's always interesting to get a different perspective from another country, so we appreciate your time today, your attendance and your advice.

We'll move on to the Canadian Cancer Society and Rob Cunningham.

Mr. Rob Cunningham (Senior Policy Analyst, Canadian Cancer Society): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Rob, before you begin, this is a brief from the Cancer Society. Is that correct?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: That's correct.

The Chair: Are you planning to read through that as part of your submission?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: I'd prefer that we finish the testimony this millennium.

The Chair: Oh great, thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Rob Cunningham: My name is Robert Cunningham and I am legal counsel and senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society's national office. I would like, on behalf of all our volunteers from one end of the country to the other, to thank the committee for having given us the opportunity to appear before it and express our views on the two regulations we have before us, aimed at improving advertising relating to health and increasing reporting requirements for the industry.

[English]

At this point I would like to formally table our written submission to the committee. Copies have been distributed to members and to the committee staff. This submission is in six volumes with the material in English and French and there are 208 tabs. In addition, there's a summary that selects excerpts from each of the 208 items that are particularly relevant to the issues under consideration by the committee.

A number of members of the committee have indicated their interest with questions about evidence and research supporting the warnings. We anticipated that question and we have gathered what I believe is a mountain of evidence in support of the new labelling requirements, and I will go through some highlights of that.

Before doing so, I would like to comment on the trademark issue that arose yesterday. There are some questions that came up as to whether or not tobacco manufacturers would give up the colours in their trademarks and potential different printing processes. If they wouldn't, then we wouldn't be able to go forward with this.

Well, the fact is that a company or an owner of a trademark has the ability to register the trademark and to prevent others from using their trademark. It does not give the owner of the trademark.... Imperial Tobacco with du Maurier, for example, does not have the ability to use the trademark however and whenever they want. For example, right now they can't use du Maurier to advertise directly on television and they can't have du Maurier on T-shirts.

The use of a trademark is subject to other laws in a particular jurisdiction. If these regulations that are before the committee are adopted in this form, the companies would have to use their trademarks on the bottom 50% of the package, in that space that's available to them, but still complying with the requirements of the regulation, complying with the other laws.

Just to note, we see that tobacco companies are successfully able to get their trademark on much smaller spaces than the 50%. For example, in many stores we see cigarette packs stacked end on end and all we see is a side panel, which is a much smaller space. Yet it's sufficient to display the trademark and gives the ability to the store clerk to identify the cigarettes for the consumer.

Matchbooks and matchboxes contain trademarks on space that is much smaller than the 50%. Apparently, some matchbooks are printed with the lithography printing process. Now, I don't know if this particular Rothmans is with rotogravure or lithography, but it looks pretty good in lithography. Yet we heard some testimony yesterday questioning the comparativeness. If it is indeed rotogravure, we can see that it can be done in a very small space. We can see the same thing that is reproduced on billboard advertisements reduced to the size of a matchbook.

Some highlights of the material—

• 0950

The Chair: Mr. Cunningham, I was giving some thought to this whole issue of trademark, and as you pointed out correctly, there was some great discussion yesterday about that and exactly where we were with respect to the whole process of colour and the flexibility of the tobacco companies vis-à-vis their trademark. It seems to me, and those of you who were here yesterday will recall, the tobacco people indicated there was not flexibility. We asked Mr. Parker, through his emissary, to bring forward a brief in advance of him coming on Tuesday.

I think, with the committee's permission, it would be wise to get a legal opinion based on the whole issue of trademark and the use of colours. If the committee agrees, we'll instruct the clerk accordingly and we'll get Justice officials involved, as well as Health Canada people, because it seems to me this is a very pivotal question and we need to get to the bottom of this.

I respect your opinion as a lawyer, Mr. Cunningham. Having said that, I would also like to get a second opinion—in this case, the Government of Canada's opinion.

Do I have permission to do that? Thank you very much.

Mr. Cunningham.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: We hear with respect to the health awareness from tobacco manufacturers that Canadians are fully aware of the health effects. Yet there is recent research that demonstrates that Canadians underestimate the health effects.

For example, when they were prompted with certain health effects, on clogged blood vessels, 25% said that was not related in terms of smoking playing a role or they did not know. On tooth loss and gum disease, it was 38%; impotence, 66%; and sudden infant death syndrome, 65%.

So we see that for certain of the areas that are addressed by the new labelling requirements, they will address a lack of awareness among the Canadian population.

Between 1994 and 1998, we had approximately one million new immigrants in Canada. Many of our new Canadians come from places where there has not been traditional smoke and health education and where awareness is particularly low—China, for example. Many of these new Canadians speak neither English nor French. The pictures will help in communicating the message and increasing awareness that they presently do not have.

There are in here admissions by the tobacco industry that warnings have worked in the past. There are admissions by the tobacco industry that education works. There's lots of evidence that education works as well, whether it's through TV or other media.

We've heard previous witnesses who have been opposed to these regulations yet have called for education. This is exactly what this is. It's education, using a different medium. It's not television; it's not a pamphlet. It's the package. It is using the best medium. It has 100% reach, everywhere in Canada, to the smallest community, the most remote community, every smoker. That can't be beat. Of course, that's why tobacco companies are strongly opposed to what is being proposed.

There are examples in here of legal cases where the Supreme Court of Canada has expressed a very high obligation on manufacturers, through their duty to warn, to inform consumers fully of the health effects, and there are many health effects for which consumers are provided no information at present.

In here, at tab 44, there are 69 expert opinions from 14 different countries, experts from the fields of psychology, marketing, communication, and health promotion, including Professor Michel Laroche from Concordia, and Michael Eriksen, director of the Office on Smoking and Health in the United States. These experts have endorsed generally at an even higher percentage than 50%, saying 60% would be more effective than smaller percentages of the package being used for the health warnings, and that indeed the bigger the warning, the more effective it would be, and endorsing the principle of using pictures instead of pictures and text alone.

There is an array of studies, literature, and documentation supporting the fact that warnings are effective generally and that these particular proposed warnings will be effective as well.

The Canadian Cancer Society has some of the research that's included in here, and we've done seven or eight studies of our own in addition to what Health Canada has done. We've found that these are far more effective than what is currently on the package.

Let me give you two examples.

• 0955

In a nationwide, quantitative survey, we showed mock-ups of a package with a warning for emphysema, one with text alone and one with the text and a photograph. When asked which was more effective in discouraging smoking, among adults, 72% chose the one that included the photograph, versus 11%. Among youth, it was even more effective: 88% chose the one with the picture, compared to 7% the one with text alone. So when we hear these claims from tobacco companies that it's going to encourage youth smoking, that there's going to be rebelliousness, well, that is not the research that has established this, from Health Canada, from the Cancer Society, or from other sources.

Our focus groups, among adults and youth, in a very powerful way demonstrated that when they saw these mock-ups, information that was new to them, you could see the reaction and how this had an impact right away. Their comments are included in the report from those focus groups. This research was on both smokers and non-smokers.

Fifty percent is a compromise. It is a reduction from the 60% that was proposed in January 1999. There's evidence with respect to the promotional impact of packaging generally, including the benefits of having plain packaging. In 1994 this committee recommended that the federal government implement plain packaging as part of a comprehensive strategy. So using only 50% of the package is still not going as far as what a lot of evidence would indicate would be very effective.

With respect to toxic constituent labelling, the current test method that is resulting in numbers appearing on packages is deceptive and misleading. There's lots of documentation about that, including internal industry documentation. There is going to be an improvement. It's not perfect, but there's going to be an improvement with respect to having the more realistic yield included on the side of the package.

I know I have limited time to make my opening remarks. Of course, I'd be pleased to answer questions in due course. As well, I'd be pleased to come back to the committee should further questions arise at a later date.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Cunningham.

We'll now move to the Heart and Stroke Foundation, Dr. Peter Glynn, chair.

Dr. Glynn.

[Translation]

Dr. Peter A.R. Glynn (Chair, External Relations Committee, Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Peter Glynn. I am a member of the Board and Chair of the External Relations Committee of the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

[English]

As an aside, I'm also the president of Kingston General Hospital, and I can assure you that a very large proportion of our work is the result of tobacco use—cancer, lung disease, heart and vascular disease, and so on, which not only is most of our work but is the largest part of our costly work.

[Translation]

The foundation's mission is to encourage the study, prevention and reduction of disabilities and deaths due to heart disease and strokes. This is a goal that could be reached through research, education and the promotion of simple lifestyles.

[English]

In recent years, the foundation has also taken a leadership role in advocating for heart-healthy public policy. An important aspect of this role is the foundation's focus on anti-tobacco work. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada commends Health Canada for its proposed tobacco warnings regulations. We appreciate this opportunity to appear before your committee, and you have a copy of our submission on the table.

Today we know that tobacco, the number one risk factor for heart disease and stroke, has no place in a heart-healthy lifestyle. That is why the issue of appropriate tobacco warnings has been and remains so important to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.

The foundation was heartened by the commitment that Minister Rock made last January for improved regulations. We agreed with the minister when he stated:

With these hard-hitting health messages and compelling graphics, we will reach smokers directly and effectively.

From the outset, we would like to express our strong support for the regulations. The Heart and Stroke Foundation is supportive of their expeditious implementation. We believe these regulations will be effective within the framework of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy towards the reduction of smoking rates in Canada, especially among our youth.

We would like to share our thoughts regarding the regulations and provide some suggestions as to how they could be strengthened.

Specifically, I would like to speak to four issues: the need for expeditious implementation of the regulations; the importance of warnings on tobacco packages that are larger than the proposed 50%; the need for interior warnings among slide packages, printed on the slide rather than on an insert; and finally, the importance of eliminating the soft packs' exemption from interior warnings.

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Mr. Chair, heart disease and stroke represent the leading cause of death in Canada, accounting for 36% of all deaths in Canada, or almost 80,000 deaths. We estimate that cardiovascular disease costs Canadian society about $20 billion annually. Further, a growing number of Canadians are living in a state of disability as a result of heart disease and vascular disease.

As such, for those of us in the cardiovascular community, it is crucial that the utmost is done to reduce the most influential risk factor for cardiovascular disease, that is, tobacco smoking. The need for tobacco warnings is apparent when one takes into account the numerous negative health effects caused by tobacco smoking.

It prematurely kills three times more Canadians than car accidents, suicides, alcohol, murder, and AIDS combined. It costs the Canadian society about $15 billion annually. Smoking is known to substantially increase the incidence of all major forms of heart disease and stroke. Of the premature deaths caused by smoking-related disease in 1996 in Canada, cardiovascular disease accounted for almost 39% of these deaths, for a total of almost 18,000 deaths.

We also know that the moment you stop smoking, your cardiovascular health begins to improve. In fact, within 24 hours of quitting smoking the chance of a heart attack decreases, and within one year the risk of heart disease is half of that of a smoker.

Mr. Chair, current research indicates that the existing health warnings on tobacco packages are not as effective as they should be, given the scope of the tobacco problem in Canada. This is why the proposed tobacco warnings regulations are so warmly welcomed by the national health community. Ultimately, these messages provide information. It gives consumers the possibility of making informed decisions.

In the past, the tobacco industry has claimed that this is unimportant because smokers are already aware that smoking is injurious to one's health. The fact of the matter is there are a number of studies that suggest that smokers, especially among Canadian youth, underestimate the risks of tobacco use upon their health.

Particularly encouraging is the finding that the proposed warnings have public support even among smokers. In one Environics survey, 74% of the public reported that they were in support of larger, more informative warnings using photos and colour that covered 60% of the cigarette package. Strong support was also reported among smokers for this format.

Among the many factors in influencing smoking, advertising by tobacco companies has been shown to be very influential. For this reason, the two billion cigarette packages bought by Canadians each year are an ideal means of communicating with just about every smoker, but especially young, impressionable Canadians. Clearly, this is a cost-effective means of delivering information to smokers.

The new warnings are an effective means of denormalizing or changing the attitudes that Canadians hold about tobacco products and the tobacco industry. This aspect is important in that it reveals to youth the nature of the so-called lifestyle advertising and promotional initiatives of the tobacco industry. Moreover, the implementation of the revised warnings are especially crucial for youth, given that this demographic group has been shown to be very receptive to promotional advertising.

Preventing smoking among youth, Canada's future, is especially worthwhile, given that once a teenager begins smoking they typically continue this consumption pattern for at least 20 years. Special urgency is warranted when you consider that teen smoking has been growing since 1990 and it is increasingly becoming a young person's habit. Clearly, nipping the tobacco habit in the bud among youth can have profound effects upon long-term public health.

Mr. Chair, a substantial amount of time, effort, and research has been dedicated towards the crafting of Health Canada's proposed tobacco warnings regulations. We do not wish to see those who oppose the regulations derail these efforts by stalling and delaying the implementation process. We strongly urge the government to implement the regulations in an expeditious manner for the sake of Canadian public health.

Another important concern is the size of the warnings. There is substantial evidence as well as expert opinion that provide support for warnings that are 60% in size and larger.

Mr. Chair, as you are aware, interior warnings can be placed on either the slide panel within the cigarette package or they can be placed on loose inserts within the package, except, of course, in the case of soft packages.

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In the past, Heart and Stroke has written to Health Canada advocating for the placement of printed warnings on the slides of tobacco packages rather than on the inserts. And, again, Mr. Chairman, you've been shown a number of cigarette packages. The point we wish to make is that by having it permanently on the slide, it is evident and obvious each time the package is used.

Research has demonstrated that having warnings placed on slides versus inserts is much more effective. They are more likely to be retained and noticed, given that they're more difficult to discard. On the other hand, inserts are more likely to be disposed of by smokers, especially when you consider that they contain messages that may cause some psychological discomfort. We recommend that interior warnings should be printed on a slide rather than on an insert, and no option should be made available to manufacturers for using an insert over a slide.

Finally, we have one more concern. The proposed warning regulations exempt soft tobacco packages from having to include an interior message. There is no justifiable rationale for this. Consumers of brands in this type of format should be entitled to the same type of information that other tobacco consumers receive. There is a very real possibility, indeed a likelihood, that the tobacco manufacturers could take advantage of this exemption and switch to soft packs so as to avoid having to include the interior messages. For this reason, we strongly believe this exemption should be eliminated.

It is crucial to keep in mind that the proposed warnings are only one component of a comprehensive tobacco strategy. On their own, they will be insufficient to bring tobacco consumption down to the extent that is necessary or possible. Although they are most certainly an effective tool, they need to be partnered with strategies that, among other things, deliver smoking cessation programs, ensure smoke-free work and public environments, provide for higher tobacco taxation, and deliver effective mass media campaigns.

Indeed, one that is about to appear is a partnership between the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario and the Canadian Cancer Society, supported by the Ontario provincial government. This will, again, try to denormalize tobacco and show the profound consequences of tobacco use on individuals and their families.

At the international level, the foundation has played a leadership role in emphasizing the importance of comprehensive tobacco control strategies through the creation of a framework convention for tobacco control that was recently discussed at the World Health Assembly.

I understand Monsieur Charbonneau and Mr. Mills participated in those discussions at the WHA in Geneva a couple of weeks ago.

In conclusion, Mr. Chair, I would like to emphasize that the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada is fully confident that the new warnings will serve within the context of a comprehensive tobacco control strategy to effectively combat tobacco's consumption in Canada. You can be assured that the foundation strongly supports the proposed regulations when we believe that their expeditious implementation will help to firmly put Canadian public health on a strong footing for the 21st century.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Glynn. We appreciate that.

Before we move to the Canadian Lung Association, I want to welcome to the table Mr. Louis Gauvin, who is with the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. As well, we have from the United Kingdom, Mr. Clive Bates from UK Action on Smoking and Health.

We'll hear from you momentarily.

Before we do, from the Lung Association we have Mr. Louis Brisson.

Mr. Louis Brisson (Vice-President, Canadian Lung Association): Good morning. In addition to being vice-president, I also carry the title of executive director of the Quebec Lung Association and chairman of the tobacco working group for the Canadian Lung Association.

The Canadian Lung Association has been celebrating its 100th anniversary since January. Most of you would recall, I hope, that we were there when tuberculosis was the number one cause of lung disease in Canada. For the first 50 years the Lung Association educated the population on tuberculosis, and finally in the fifties, when antibiotics came into Canada, tuberculosis was almost eradicated from our country.

In the 1950s the Lung Association changed its name to the Canadian Lung Association, and it has 10 partners from every province. The number one cause of lung disease after the 1950s was tobacco use. The Canadian Lung Association was probably the first association in Canada warning people of the ill effects of tobacco.

So we have been fighting tobacco use or educating people about the ill effects of tobacco use in Canada for 50 years. It has not been easy. It has been a losing battle for most of those 50 years, but in the past 10 to 15 years we have seen quite a change in the way people in Canada perceive tobacco use.

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It was the realization by government agencies and government that, yes, tobacco is the number one cause of lung disease in Canada. If we break down the lung diseases in Canada, we can talk about lung cancer, of course, which is probably one of the main ill effects of tobacco use. We've looked at emphysema, which is caused by tobacco use. Today we realize that asthma in our children in many cases...probably 80% of asthma cases in Canada are caused by secondhand smoke.

The Lung Association has, from sea to sea, been telling people about the ill effects of tobacco. Our way to do that in the past years was to go to pictures. We have gone to graphics. We have shown people what it is, because just telling them that they will have lung cancer, they will have emphysema...emphysema doesn't have a colour, it doesn't have a shape, and it doesn't have a form. It's something you don't see, you only hear of.

Putting a picture on a poster, as we have been doing for the past 10 years, showing

[Translation]

a healthy lung,

[English]

a lung from a non-smoker versus a lung from a smoker, catches the attention of not only the smoker but also everybody around him. The poster we've been using for the past 10 years is probably the most effective means of showing people that their lungs will be affected directly or indirectly by tobacco use.

As Mr. Cunningham was saying, Canada has an open-door policy and it has been accepting immigrants from all over the world for the past 50 or 60 years, 100 or 200 years. Today the mother tongue of most of the people who immigrate to Canada is not English and it's not French. Showing them a picture of the ill effects of tobacco brings home the message, which we want to bring to these people, that smoking is not good for their health.

Having 50% of the tobacco package as

[Translation]

a medium for bringing a message to the Canadian population is more than what the Canadian Association could afford. It could not afford to pay for a sufficient number of photos to show people throughout the country the ill effects of smoking. The financial resources of our association are limited. All that we can do is to show thousands or hundreds of thousands of photos throughout Canada using cigarette packages so that people are able to visually realize the harm done to their health. We therefore sincerely believe that 50% of the space on the package is not enough, and that 60% would be better and 100% would be the ultimate means of communicating this message.

The Canadian Lung Association would therefore like you to give serious consideration to using cigarette packages as a medium to visually show people the effects of smoking. Thank you.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Brisson. I will now move to Mr. Gauvin from the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control.

[Translation]

Mr. Louis Gauvin (Co-ordinator, Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control): Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for having invited me and given me the opportunity to express to you our complete support of the measures being proposed by the Health minister with regard to these new warnings.

I am co-ordinator of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control. Our organization was created some four years ago, nearly to the day, with participation from eight health advocacy groups. Today, our coalition brings together more than 725 organizations. In fact, according to observations made from outsiders, we are the second-largest such organization in the world, this despite the fact that we are a provincial organization. The organization that ranks first for its size is in Brazil.

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Our members come from all regions of Quebec. You have our list of members at tab 1 of our brief. There are municipalities, CLSCs, regional boards, public health care institutions, hospitals, school boards, youth and parent groups, environmental and community groups. They have all supported a platform containing a series of global legislative measures aimed at preventing young people from taking up smoking, helping smokers wishing to stop smoking to succeed in their efforts and protecting the general population from second-hand smoke. As to the issue before us here today, they also support the principle of recognizing in a legislative framework such as that proposed here the dangerous nature of tobacco.

More explicit warnings on tobacco products are but the first step in treating these consumer goods on a scale that matches the risk they represent for human health.

Our coalition also has individual members, among them some 700 medical practitioners and other health service professionals such as nurses and public health service providers.

The health care community has for more than 25 years been asking for simple, clear and explicit warnings and health-related messages on tobacco products. This request appears today to be even more imperative now that we have learned this very week in the newspapers that the major tobacco companies in Canada had secretly agreed among themselves as early as 1962 to hide the health risks associated with their products, both in the packaging and in all of their advertising.

I am speaking here of an article written by a journalist, Mark Kennedy, that appeared in the Ottawa Citizen and that you will find at tab 3 if you wish to read it.

The regulations being proposed are the result of a long process of research and consultation including a multitude of studies and group discussion sessions. For the first time, new warnings will finally provide packaging that reflects the truly harmful nature of tobacco and its disastrous effects on health.

Several of our members have written to us. At tab 2, we have reproduced the letters that some of them addressed to us, but there are many more. We received some 80 letters in all. I would mention the names of some of their authors: the Collège des médecins, the Montreal Heart Institute, the Sainte-Justine Hospital and the Centre hospitalier universitaire de Sherbrooke.

In the opinion of several of our members who work in a hospital environment, the images that should be displayed on packages should be more than reproductions. Unfortunately, this is a sad reality that they observe every day in operating rooms with patients who smoke. We are of the view that these messages and striking photos will establish a balance between the appealing or glamourous image that the tobacco industry attempts to portray and the reality of illnesses caused by these products.

The tobacco companies use sophisticated graphics and highly colourful, attractive and positive photos on their packaging and in their advertising, and have done so for decades. Counteracting these messages can only be accomplished with images that are just as powerful.

If it is true that the public generally is aware that smoking is not healthy, most people are not aware of the multitude of illnesses that are caused by smoking, any more than they are aware of the risk of developing these illnesses. There are presently only eight health-related messages printed on packages and they have lost their impact. Furthermore, smoking causes many other illnesses and health problems that are never mentioned, such as genetic mutations, reduced fertility in women and asthma and lung disease in children.

As far as the level of detail required is concerned, the Supreme Court decided in 1995 that all warnings should clearly describe each specific risk attributable to normal use of the product. This was in the Hollis c. Dow Corning case. Indeed, an entire volume has already been required to describe all of the specific risks linked to smoking.

To borrow an expression that has often been used here this morning, we do not consider these warnings to be a “silver bullet”. They are but one measure in addition to those that already exist.

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We also favour a global approach including regulations, education programs, restrictions in the workplace, restrictions as to the visibility of the product, information for consumers, product regulation and the list goes on.

In response to an argument put forward by a previous speaker, the FTQ, I must tell you that despite the fact that the FTQ is expressing support for global measures, it two years ago opposed the Quebec tobacco act, that, it so happens, provided for a global approach to the control of tobacco use, including all of the measures I have just listed. The FTQ's representatives have attempted to convince us of their desire to contribute to a solution along with Health Canada, a department that, it would seem, they did not get an answer from. In 1998, we contacted the FTQ in an attempt to work in cooperation with it and to present it with anti-smoking measures. We never got an answer from it either.

In closing, I would like to say that we are convinced of the efficiency of the measures proposed. Try to imagine for a minute that two billion cigarette packages, considered until today to be the flagship of these brands, will now become a preferred information tool showing smokers striking images of the effects of smoking on health.

According to studies carried out by the Canadian Cancer Society, 99% of smokers will read these messages an average of twice a day. Not only will these warnings on packages increase people's awareness of the risks involved, but they will also contribute to increasing the desire to stop smoking. The main impact of these warnings will in our view become evident in the middle to long term.

Although adolescents are anti-authority and do not listen when adults tell them what to do, they listen much more closely to what adults say among themselves. These new warnings will show them that their elders are beginning to take the health risks of smoking much more seriously.

I will conclude my presentation with some statistics that are always terribly frightening for health sector workers. According to the data provided by a recent study, in Quebec, in 1994, 30% of young people aged 15 to 19 smoked. Today, in 1999, this percentage has grown to 36. Therefore, since the reduction in taxes in 1994, in Quebec as in a number of other provinces, smoking has increased among young people. We believe that the measures envisaged will have an impact on the consumption of tobacco products, that impact of course being a drop in usage.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Gauvin.

[English]

We'll now go to Mr. Bates from the United Kingdom Action on Smoking and Health.

Mr. Bates, please.

Mr. Clive Bates (Director, UK Action on Smoking and Health): Good morning. My name is Clive Bates. I'm the director of ASH, Action on Smoking and Health, an organization founded in 1971 by the British Royal College of Physicians with a mandate to try to generate action based on the analysis of the Royal College of Physicians' seminal 1960s reports on smoking and health. We are now funded by the British government, the cancer and heart charities, the European Commission, the World Health Organization, and members of the public in Britain.

It is my great privilege and pleasure to be here, and really my job is to say a few words about how these developments in Canada play outside Canada and the rest of the world.

The first thing I want to say is that the development of the new proposal announced on January 19 has been extremely influential in the development of European legislation in this area. That goes back some time before January 19.

The U.K. government in its white paper on tobacco and health cited the size and directness of Canadian health warnings as a reason for changing our weak, small, and virtually invisible warnings. That became British government policy, and it in turn influenced the European Union Council of Ministers' policy and the views of the European Commission, which produced a proposal in November last year for considerably increased warnings in black and white, with much bolder and more direct text.

The effect of the announcement on January 19 has been to intensify the concern around warnings that what we have in Europe is utterly inadequate, and has strengthened the hand of the European Parliament, the third of the three main European institutions involved in bringing forward warnings legislation in Europe.

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The effect of that announcement has been to impress the European Parliament's lead committee on health warnings legislation, and in fact all tobacco legislation, into making a proposal only last week that warnings should cover 50% of the back surface of the pack and 40% of the front surface, and that member states of the European Community should have the option to include pictorial warnings.

This was a compromise from a more progressive position advanced by the rapporteur, the lead parliamentarian in the European Parliament responsible for tobacco legislation, Jules Maaten, a Dutch member of the European Parliament. He had wanted to see warnings covering 60% of the pack surface on both sides, with greatly increased strength in the warnings.

I know for a fact that his proposal was made only because of the evidence base and the announcements made in Canada. He used the Canadian evidence base, the things that were published on the Health Canada website on January 19, to back up his case, and argued his case with his committee and with parliamentarians that this is what we should do, only because of that. So there's no doubt or ambiguity at all about this. The Canadian measures led straight to a European Union proposal.

Now, it's the nature of European Union politics that we have a labyrinthine process to go through. We have to get a reconciliation among the Parliament, the Council of Ministers, which is the governments of the member states, and the European Commission. We may come up with some compromise that is less than what the Parliament is proposing. But the effect of the Canadian announcement has been to drag the whole locus of debate in the progressive direction that we believe it ought to be.

It's widely accepted now that as far as warnings are concerned, size counts, and the bigger the message, the better. All it is is a matter of squaring all the various political interests and so on, and we'll have the biggest warnings we can get.

I think it's just worth reflecting on that. The European Union has a population of 350 million in the 15 member states. It's a very large bloc, bigger than North America, and this regulation will be influential on a further group of accession countries, such as Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, and so on—another 100 million or so who will harmonize their legislation and will start to come on side with whatever Europe agrees on.

So I think it's possible to see the Canadian influence very directly in what's happening in Europe.

The second main point I want to make is the quality of the evidence. What really impressed people initially was the strength of evidence presented on the Health Canada website. We have passed that link and that evidence to everybody we can in the European Parliament, the Council of Ministers, and the commission, and they are impressed by it. It's the best-quality evidence in the world; it's very convincing and very compelling.

I should say it's perhaps not the best-quality evidence in the world, because the Canadian Cancer Society has, in its typical and inimitable style, produced the best, most complete, most comprehensive, most compelling case for larger warnings that one could ever possibly conceive of. It's an outstanding piece of work. I went through the summary. I haven't had time yet to read the whole binder. But the summary...if one ever had one scintilla of doubt about the importance of this measure, a dip into that evidence base should dispel any doubt at all.

A point we're constantly stressing in Europe—and it's gaining ground—is the idea of a precautionary principle. We say that even if these measures make only 0.1% difference in tobacco consumption in the European Union, that's 550 lives per year—a very, very substantial number. And 0.1% is a very small amount. The evidence from Poland suggests a change in quit rate of around 3%. So even on very, very conservative figures—0.1% change in consumption—we're talking about 550 lives per year. I believe in Canada that would translate to around 45 lives per year.

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Since I've been here, I've been struck by the concern and the furor over the E. coli outbreak in Walkerton. We're talking about nine lives. So a very, very small change in the amount of tobacco consumption could generate a saving in lives five times as great as something that has become a huge political hot potato in Canada.

It's always difficult with tobacco issues to get these numbers in proportion. They're so awesome. But to me what it means is anybody who wants to resist these changes has to have really good reasons that they are certain there isn't going to be a life-saving of only 45 lives per year and possibly many times that. That's a precautionary and sensible approach to take.

Finally, I want to talk more about the wider impact of Canadian tobacco politics. We have the same directive in Europe: a measure to force the tobacco manufacturers to disclose all the ingredients in the tobacco products they put on the market. The inspiration for that? The measures taken in British Columbia.

We are moving towards having more refined and better-quality measurements. Again, the Labstat measurements made for British Columbia are extremely influential. We have much greater skepticism on “low tar” and “light” measurements, and we're hopefully, I think, even going to go further than Canada here and ban the use of terms such as “light”, “mild”, and “ultra”, which give a misleading impression that one tobacco product may be less harmful than another.

When I started in my job, required reading was the Canadian advertising ban and the legislative approach there. That's helped to inspire some of the legislative changes we've had around banning advertising in Europe.

Finally, and most recently, the Canadian delegation to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control distinguished itself outstandingly by taking by far the most progressive, the most thoughtful, and the most insightful view of what that convention could achieve. I mean, if I'd been Canadian, I'd have been very, very proud of what that delegation was saying there on the conference floor. As a European, I was ashamed to find our collective position dragged down by some rather recalcitrant Germans.

So my final message is that Canada is in a position of leadership and inspiration around the rest of the world. I'm not exaggerating this. It's particularly important to us in Europe at the present time. I hope—and not only for the sake of people in Canada, but for the sake of people in Europe—that the distracting, dissembling counter-arguments of the tobacco industry about trademarks, intellectual property in trade, and so on will be weighed very carefully against what is potentially a very large body count arising from not adopting these measures. I hope those arguments will be given short shrift and Parliament will wave this measure through. It is a very, very important measure worldwide and very important to us. I just hope we do see the result, because it will help us in Europe.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bates.

I was interested in both your comment as well as Professor Donovan's with respect to the lead Canada takes in this area. Sometimes we here take these things for granted, but it's nice to have an outside perspective. So we appreciate that.

Mr. Mills, would you lead off, please?

Mr. Bob Mills: Yes.

Professor Donovan, you talked about how these pictures would be perceived better. Yesterday we went through why we can't use this many colours and that many colours and that many ways of printing. I think, Mr. Cunningham, you also addressed that. As I listened to that, it occurred to me that an easy solution would be to just have a plain package and just put the picture on it. Then we wouldn't have any of those problems.

I think, Mr. Cunningham, you pointed out that having red or blue or green or whatever on the side of it would be enough to identify the different brands. That obviously would be a printing solution, and then we'd keep all the jobs in the printing business and we would move on and could market quite well.

Would that have a dramatic effect, a bigger effect, than having all that colour? Because when I look at those packages, I see the colour first, before the picture. So I assume from what you said that that would have even a greater impact then. Would that be correct?

Prof. Rob Donovan: Yes. If you just had a picture on a plain white pack, it would certainly attract more attention and definitely have a greater impact.

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Mr. Bob Mills: The other thing is when we talk about fear. I think, Mr. Cunningham, you addressed this, and probably all of you could address this.

To me, if I had to rate the things that would affect me, fear would probably be one of the main ones—my health, living longer, having more time to do all the things I want to do, being healthier. That fear would be there certainly for me. I just wonder though if maybe it's different between adults and young people. Is that fear the major factor?

What are the factors? Fear, cost, peer pressure—all of those are factors. Could you tell me what would be in your opinion the rating of those things, and is fear different for different people?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: Different things affect smoking rates, and you've mentioned some of them, including the price, what education they are exposed to, and how much tobacco company promotion there is. One type of education can be more effective than another. There's a whole range of tobacco control measures. In terms of youth, is it accessible, are you able to smoke in your workplace, can you smoke inside your home, and so on?

Something to emphasize is that this is definitely going to have an impact on increasing awareness and reducing smoking, but it's not going to eliminate smoking. There is going to be a segment of the population for which this is not going to have an impact, or it may not have an impact until twenty years from now, when there's a triggering event, such as they know somebody who has a heart attack, and they may suddenly look at the warning differently.

But at the same time, inside the package there are tips on quitting. We have this message that has these visual impacts, and that gains attention, and at the same time there are some messages to provide assistance—positive messages, the types of messages that a different segment of the population will respond to. As well, there will be a reference to a web address. An increasing proportion of the population has access to the web and can get more information.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Monsieur Ménard.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: Mr. Chairman, I have four short questions.

Thank you to the Canadian Cancer Society. I did however note that seven or eight documents were supplied to us in English only.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: No, the documents are in English and in French.

Mr. Réal Ménard: The others are in English only, unless I missed something.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: They are in the official language of the publication in question.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Very well.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: There are therefore also documents that are in French only.

Mr. Réal Ménard: In any event, these ones are in English only. There is only one document that is in French, and it is this one. But it is not a serious problem.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: But this publication is in French only.

Mr. Réal Ménard: The first one is in French.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: Indeed.

Mr. Réal Ménard: But we are not going to be upset with you, considering the effort you have put into this. I was not saying this to be mean. You know me.

I have four questions and I would like to address the first one to our guest from Australia. Perhaps it would not be a bad idea, Mr. Chairman, for the committee to go to Australia to take a closer look at the information it requires.

In your brief, you make a statement that is not supported by Health Canada. You state:

It has been proven that size is linked to the ability to attract attention and, therefore, a warning that takes up 60% of the package would attract smokers' attention more than a warning that only takes up 40% or 50%.

But on page 2 of section 3 of the briefing book given to us by the officials, we are told the following about the impact tests done by Health Canada:

The conclusions show that a warning taking up 50% of the surface of a package would have an impact similar to that of a warning taking up 60% of the surface.

I too am having difficulty convincing myself that the rule is as mathematical as you are saying. Up to a certain point, it is a little bit like the law of diminishing returns in the field of economics. When you a thirsty, you can drink eight glasses, but drinking nine, ten or eleven will not do anything further to quench your thirst. I am led to believe that their might also be some kind of scientific ceiling as far as the size of messages goes. I would like to know your opinion on that.

Secondly, you say that fear is very efficient. That is perhaps why political parties have whips. But that is a whole other matter. How do you respond to the argument that habituation lessens the efficacy of the message? That is what all those who are opposed to the regulations are telling us.

The people from the FTQ, very reasonable people in certain areas, told us this morning that they did not believe that cigarette packages could become a medium, because people will get used to the messages and they will no longer have any impact. How do you respond to that?

I have two other questions for the other witnesses.

• 1040

[English]

Prof. Rob Donovan: On the first point, I made the point that 60% generally is better than 50% is better than 40%. Clearly there are threshold effects that would be determined by the research. I'm not specifically familiar with that research, but certainly there would be threshold effects depending on the context. So in some cases you may max out at 50% or it may be 55% or whatever.

On the second point, that people habituating are no longer taking notice, certainly that will occur with some people, but I think the rotation of the warnings will help to mitigate that. But I would also see that they continually be refreshed, so that pictures based on the same diseases be in fact new pictures dealing with the same diseases, so you would avoid habituation as much as possible.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: You have not answered my second question and I will therefore restate it. There are those who, like the members of my party, believe that cigarette packages must be an information medium. One of you talked about two billion dollars per year. I believe it was Mr. Gauvin. We can therefore imagine the importance this might have.

Furthermore, if these cigarette packages, showing 16 different messages in rotation, are in circulation for, let us say, three years, will habituation be such that these messages will no longer have any impact? That is what the people from the FTQ are saying, and they are not alone. As a psychology of perception specialist, how do you respond to this habituation argument?

[English]

Prof. Rob Donovan: I'm sorry; let me see if I do have the question right. I understand the point to be that 16-year-olds will get used to these sorts of pictures, and then no longer will the message impact on them. Is that it?

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: I did not talk about any specific client group. Some people argue generally that the presence of recurrent messages on cigarette packages will desensitize people. These messages will be part of daily life and people will be surrounded by them, to such an extent that the dissuasion effect that we are counting on may crumble away. How do you respond to that, as a perception psychology practitioner?

[English]

Prof. Rob Donovan: I think I'll go back to the previous one. Provided the pictures periodically change so that they do re-attract attention, you can get over the habituation effect. It's the same with the series of advertisements. If you show the one ad time and time again, people will tune out to the extent that as soon as it comes on, they know what it is and they can turn away. But by having a series of different perspectives on the same theme, people's attention can be maintained.

So the fact that there are sixteen of these warnings at the moment will mean that for a time they will be paying attention to them. Then after a period of time, it will be appropriate to generate new pictures—on the same themes, but new pictures—to maintain the interest and attention.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: My two final questions are for the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada. I would like you to give me more information on your recommendations 3 and 4. When someone picks up a package of cigarettes, what would the practical consequence of what you are hoping for be?

As for recommendation 4, I would like you to explain to us why you believe that there must not be exemptions here. We will ask the question to Health Canada when its representatives come back before us.

[English]

Dr. Peter Glynn: I take it the question is on the issue of soft packs. We're saying there should be no exemption for soft packs, and one of the ways to deal with that issue is that the insert is either inside the soft pack or between the cellophane and the package. But this attempt to say these are different and should be treated differently in our view is not a sustainable argument.

[Translation]

Mr. Réal Ménard: And recommendation 3 explains what you would like to see for cigarette packages.

Dr. Peter Glynn: Yes, that is it.

[English]

We're saying it should be something that reappears every time you open the package, and also you retain the information, as my colleague was saying, information on how to quit and the effects of quitting, the important comment that nicotine is highly addictive—I mean, we are talking about an addiction here—and also how to get help. Talk to your doctor, nurse, pharmacist, or the Health Canada website. By having it on an insert, the insert just goes. This way we need to retain that information continuously.

• 1045

[Translation]

Mr. Rob Cunningham: Mr. Ménard, in answer to your first question relating to the importance of the size of the warning, I would say that one of our studies deals with that. We showed adults and young people an illustration of a cancerous mouth, in various formats, in other words actual life-size, or occupying 45%, 60% and 80% of the surface of the package. We wanted to know what was the most effective. Sixty-four per cent of the participants chose the illustration covering 80%.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Of the surface?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: Of the surface. Nine per cent chose the one using 60% of the surface, 5% chose the one occupying 45% of the surface and 6% chose the life-size illustration. Therefore, first of all, we see that the life-size illustration was strongly rejected.

The largest surface studied by Health Canada was 60%. Perhaps if they had looked at 70% or 80% coverage, they would have seen a difference. Perhaps the difference between 50% and 60% is not as tangible as that between 50% and 70%. This is why I believe there truly is a different impact: the larger the surface occupied by the warning, the more efficient the message.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Very well.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much.

We're now going to Mr. Jackson and Ms. Redman, and unless there are any other questions, we'll wrap up this panel.

Mr. Jackson.

Mr. Ovid L. Jackson (Bruce—Grey, Lib.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

We're going through a very interesting exercise. They say that as early as 11 years old we get pretty set in our ways. We have whole industries built on smoking, and everybody is trying to play a shell game because nobody wants to lose their job. This whole thing is built around it.

This thing, obviously, is addictive, and once you get into the addiction it's pretty hard to get out of it. We're told now that because of immigration we have people who are already addicted, and they have other images. I know when you go to a lot of countries you see the Marlborough man, and a lot of people who emigrate to one of these great big lands want to ride a horse, I guess, and look like the Marlborough man. It's part of what they think are the great things in North America.

I'd like to ask the panel if there are members of the population who are at risk because of their make-up, and how do we reach them? Also, how are we reaching out in terms of the cessation of smoking? We know we're going to labelling and so on and that the images, the pictures, will tell them, but are we working at other ways of targeting these particular groups to stop them from smoking?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: With respect to cessation, the Cancer Society does have some programs to assist people in smoking cessation. We do need a comprehensive approach. We have made very strong recommendations to the Government of Canada to increase the amount of financial resources that are put into tobacco control, from the $20 million now to a much higher amount. I think we do need a comprehensive approach. These packages are only part of it.

In terms of the different categories of the population, we see that those with lower incomes and lower educational attainment have higher rates of smoking. We also know that approximately 16% of the population, as defined by Statistics Canada, is illiterate in terms of their daily activities, and we know that literacy is associated with lower smoking. We also know that among smokers, illiteracy is much higher than in the general population. The pictures assist a little bit in terms of responding to that.

We know that among the aboriginal population in Canada there are startlingly high rates of smoking and tobacco use, including in northern Canada. These are very remote communities and small communities sometimes, where it's much more difficult and very costly to have programs, yet the messages will reach into those communities.

I think that's a partial response to your question.

Mr. Ovid Jackson: What about children who are born to a parent who not only smokes during pregnancy but are also raised in that environment? How much at risk are they? We know that a number of them die as a result of secondhand smoke, but how susceptible are they to the addiction? Are we working in that particular realm as well?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: There is some research that's being done on the question in terms of the fetus that's exposed to nicotine from the parent and what potential consequences that may have after birth.

• 1050

Certainly models, people around you, whether it's your parent or your sibling or your friends or the person you see in terms of car racing or athletes or what we portray in sponsorships and advertising, can all have an influence.

In terms of the specific question, with respect to the impact physiologically because of smoking by the mother during pregnancy, I would have to get back to you on that.

Mr. Ovid Jackson: Thank you.

The Chair: Ms. Redman, please.

Mrs. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Quite clearly, the whole impetus behind looking at the tobacco regulations and a lot of the things you brought up is to change behaviour. When I stop and think about the things society has done that have effectively changed behaviour, which is very difficult, I go to drinking and driving because I think it's something we've seen impacted very positively within our generation.

Despite the fact that we've had many different groups of witnesses come before us and we've had people talk about job loss and the economics of the industry itself, I haven't heard anybody object or be anything but supportive of the education of young people in stopping it in people as young as 11, as Mr. Jackson just said.

I thank you for all this research. I can't promise I'm going to read it all, but I'll try to get through the high points.

In all these studies, have you ever looked at...? It seems to me that the industry and the people who work in tobacco-related industries are saying they don't want job loss, but on the other hand they're saying they think educational promotion of the dangers is very valid. The real intent is to stop people from ever becoming smokers, is it not? It would seem to me that the end result, by extrapolation, would have to impact the tobacco industry and people who work in that industry because we will have fewer people smoking.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: In the long term we're going to have a reduction in tobacco use and a reduction of jobs in the tobacco industry, but that's been offset by the growing population. The number of cigarettes sold today in Canada is about 50 billion, about the same as it was in the early 1960s. Yet the number of factories and the number of jobs have been cut more than in half because of higher automation. So that's the real reason historically that we've had a reduction in job loss in the tobacco industry.

I'm not concerned that we're going to see a job loss at all because of these warnings. If a plant were to move to another country and export to Canada, they still have to put the warnings on the cigarettes. So you're not going to be able to get around that way.

This is the same argument we hear from tobacco companies every time this committee hears a tobacco issue. It was three years ago that we heard that sponsored events were going to close. One after another, we're seeing replacement sponsors: the Grand Prix, the FrancoFolies, Just for Laughs, the New Music Festival in Winnipeg.

If we're going to ban the sale of tobacco in pharmacies, if we're going to end smoking on airlines, if we're going to eliminate advertising from radio, these are all going to cost jobs, we hear. Yet when the measures are implemented, the sky doesn't fall and the world continues.

The Chair: Dr. Glynn.

Dr. Peter Glynn: I just refer to a study undertaken on behalf of Health Canada by Consulting and Audit Canada on the economic impact. The conclusion is a net gain of $85 million in income and 2,000 jobs. This money is going to go into other goods and services, and quite likely those other goods and services will actually employ more people than the tobacco industry does.

[Translation]

The Chair: Mr. Gauvin.

Mr. Louis Gauvin: I would like to provide some additional information for the member. We are very concerned by the fact that approximately three jobs out of four in the tobacco industry—and I am speaking here of the manufacturing industry—are in Quebec, in Montreal and in Quebec City.

However, you will perhaps be surprised to learn that last year, Imperial Tobacco announced with great fanfare an investment of 60 million dollars in Saint-Henri, in the Imperial Tobacco plant, for modernization, while at the same time the president was announcing the elimination of some 300 to 350 jobs, mentioning that it was due to modernization and that these jobs were going to be eliminated through attrition. Therefore, as these employees reach retirement age, they will not be replaced.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

Ms. Redman.

Mrs. Karen Redman: Mr. Bates wanted to respond, and I have one other short question, if I may.

Mr. Clive Bates: You mentioned the consensus, at least on the tobacco industry side, of progressing youth prevention programs. I would urge a little caution with these types of initiatives. They sound very obvious and appealing, but the effect is to strengthen the values of the product as an adult product. If there's one thing that appeals to children about cigarettes, it's that they're an entry ticket into adulthood, and the adult values can work paradoxically in favour of children smoking.

• 1055

I think it's no coincidence that the only tobacco control policy the tobacco industry wholeheartedly supports is the one that is least likely to work and may be counterproductive. I think those youth access programs should be scrutinized very carefully. Some certainly work. There's been some good evidence from the United States of very hardball, hands-on type campaigns that have been successful. But on the whole, the evidence base in favour of youth cessation or smoking prevention campaigns is not at all good.

Mrs. Karen Redman: I confess that my mother is a die-hard smoker, and in an extensive survey of three daughters, none of us smoke. It's interesting what you're exposed to growing up. We've all chosen not to smoke.

When the warnings came out, I know she bought the little labels that said “Have a nice day” and she pasted those over it. I know from people in my community that they're already developing sleeves that will go over the package warnings, which we've spent a lot of time talking about. We've talked about colours and the size of the graphics.

Doctor Glynn, it was something you said that sort of twigged me into this. I'm wondering if anyone has done any studies to find out if people keep putting these sleeves over. Obviously it's an added expense to cover up the warnings, cover up the graphic pictures. Has anyone ever looked at whether that counterbalances? Do people get tired of doing that extra step and eventually get worn down and just carry the package with the labelling and the picture? Has anybody looked at that issue?

Dr. Peter Glynn: I may make a general comment, then Mr. Cunningham might want to make a comment.

I suspect there is a very small proportion of the people who smoke who would go to that effort to get past the psychological problem of their addiction. Mr. Cunningham made the point earlier that this is the most effective means of reaching everybody, and it will reach everybody, especially the larger it is. So I wouldn't particularly worry about this. If they're putting energy into covering it up, they know they have a problem, and eventually they might read what we're suggesting should be on the slide, which is how to quit.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard, you may ask a short question.

Mr. Réal Ménard: It will be short, Mr. Chairman.

In my caucus, there are several members who are wondering why Health Canada is not forcing tobacco manufacturers to reduce dependency by removing from their products certain cancer-causing agents, therefore by reducing the nicotine content. I asked Health Canada this question as well. I do not know if you were here with us, but we were told that this was controversial. Some people say that if there is less nicotine, people will smoke more, that they will need more cigarettes to satisfy their craving. What is you opinion? My question is addressed to you, but anyone of you may answer.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: First of all, we are in support of the provisions in the legislation that will grant the government the authority to adopt regulations in this area.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Regarding nicotine?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: We agree to having regulations as to the presentation of the product. We have recommended measures to eliminate slim cigarettes, that target women and girls, and we have recommended the elimination of mint-flavoured cigarettes because we should not be adding taste to cigarettes to make them more appealing.

Mr. Réal Ménard: What do you mean by mint-flavoured cigarettes?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: Menthol.

Mr. Réal Ménard: I see.

Mr. Rob Cunningham: A harmful product should not taste like candy. It is not a good thing. Health Canada experts are presently looking at the issue of nicotine and of the control of substances. With the other regulations that are being studied by the committee and the question of reports, we will be getting a lot of new information from tobacco manufacturers on their research work, their knowledge and the content of their products. This will facilitate regulation of these products in the future.

[English]

The Chair: Merci beaucoup.

Mr. Szabo.

Prof. Rob Donovan: Excuse me, Mr. Chair. Could I be excused now? I do have a plane to catch.

The Chair: Yes. Thank you, Professor. We appreciate your comments and your attendance.

Prof. Rob Donovan: Thank you.

• 1100

Mr. Paul Szabo: In the last Parliament, the whole project related to plain packaging for tobacco products was embraced. There was a report done. I think the same players came and gave the same testimony, that this is it, this is going to work. That died a very slow death.

Now we're here, and we have probably the same powerful warning messages. The difference is, we have instead of the plain part still the colours, etc. I'm curious as to whether or not there's any...and we have the same testimony. I mean, it virtually is the same testimony.

If possible, have you been able to determine whether or not plain packaging would still have been a better approach than what's being proposed now, and if so, can you tell me why we have abandoned it?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: I think the evidence in support of plain packaging is even greater than when the committee considered the issue in 1994. Some of that evidence is contained in the material we've tabled today.

I think the best approach would be to have a combination of these warnings, with the remainder of the package plain-package. So it's not necessarily one or the other. You could have both. Indeed, that was our recommendation to government. This is the legislation that followed the committee's report. The committee recommended that first let's have a framework that would enable regulations.

So we certainly haven't given up in terms of the public health community outside government. It's certainly a step in the right direction, but it's not as far as we had recommended.

Mr. Paul Szabo: In the prior panel, Mr. Wilson suggested that the government is currently negotiating deals or compromises that would tend to maybe placate some of the differences of opinion on impacts. Are you aware of anything the government is allegedly doing with regard to trying to appease the tobacco industry? If not, can you speculate on what the government could possibly do to take the edge off what's being proposed right now?

Mr. Rob Cunningham: I certainly am not aware that the federal government is negotiating such a deal. Certainly the health minister's comments at a public forum yesterday were very much in favour of what this committee is now considering. It certainly wouldn't placate us, at this table, if there was to be a weakening of the regulations that are now before the committee.

Mr. Paul Szabo: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you to all of you. We very much appreciate your attendance today.

We're going to ask that you move quickly. We have a number of people still to testify, so we'll do that now. Thanks again.

• 1105

Ladies and gentlemen, our next witnesses are Dr. Donna Dasko, the senior vice-president from Environics Research Group Ltd., and Mr. Grégoire Gollin, president of Créatec.

Dr. Dasko, would you lead off, please.

Dr. Donna Dasko (Senior Vice-President, Environics Research Group Ltd.): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me to speak to the committee today about the issue of public attitudes and public response toward the changes in packaging on tobacco.

I just want to start by saying that Environics has conducted a great deal of research on the packaging issue over the past several years. Beginning in 1996, when we started to do various research studies for Health Canada, we started by studying issues related to the portrayal and showing of toxic constituents on tobacco packages and the formats of that, the ways that were effective and not effective for Canadians and for smokers.

We've done a lot of research as well for the Canadian Cancer Society. Rob Cunningham was here earlier, and he mentioned some of the pieces of research and some of the findings we've had.

The research has come from focus group studies, which is a classic way to do market-type research, and also public opinion research. We've done a great deal of focus group research over the past many years. I would say we've done somewhere between 200 and 300 focus group sessions over that period with smokers, with potential smokers, and especially with young people, young smokers.

• 1110

As well, we've done a great deal of quantitative research in terms of surveys of Canadians, surveys of smokers, the purpose of which is to examine the awareness, attitudes, and responses to new and existing health information messages on tobacco products.

I'm not going to deal voluminously with the voluminous amount of research that has been done. What I want to do today is to just mention a couple of pieces of research that we found to be particularly important for us in terms of understanding the response among the public, among Canadians, and among smokers to the issues at hand.

One of the pieces of research that was very useful and helpful for us was a focus group study we did for Health Canada in March of 1999. This was a study in which we conducted 18 focus groups in six communities across the country, with three categories of smokers—recent beginners, potential quitters, and staunch smokers. The communities included Toronto, Montreal, Sault Ste. Marie, Trois-Rivières, Halifax, and Vancouver.

What was particularly important about this study was that it revealed the importance and effectiveness of graphic images, pictures, and colour for conveying health warnings and information about tobacco. I will tell you a little bit about that study in the next few slides.

The second study that I think is particularly important for us today is a national survey we did in the summer of 1999. This was a survey of the adult population of Canada, including smokers. In addition, we did a survey of Canadian youth, with a sample size of over 2,000 adult Canadians. This is considered—and you're politicians, so I know you'll understand this—to be a very large sample size in terms of conducting a national survey. It's atypical to do surveys that large, but it gives us a very small margin of error.

That survey and the youth survey included 222 smokers. These were in-home surveys, which is another unique factor, allowing us to use graphics, use pictures, and test those with the survey group.

This survey was important because it demonstrated: public support for health warning messages on tobacco products; the importance of the package as a vehicle for health information; and the effectiveness of a new and larger visual image as compared with the status quo package.

Finally, we did a series of studies.... Well, not “finally”; of course there are many others. This is just in terms of what I think are very important studies for our purposes today. We did a focus group study in October through December of last year, in five communities across the country. There were 35 focus groups with potential quitters, staunch smokers, young smokers, and potential smokers, both of the latter groups being young people, young Canadians.

This study revealed support for the new and larger visual health warning messages and the impact and effectiveness of 67 messages and graphics, from which the government has chosen and put together the 16 that the minister presented a few months ago.

So those are some of the key studies. I just want to show you some of the findings, very briefly, from some of this research, the basic overall percentage distributions of responses on these surveys.

In the survey from August 1999, to the question “Have you ever seen health warning messages on cigarette packages?”, we can see the very high percentage of all people who have seen health warning messages on cigarette packages. We're talking about just about everyone, just about the entire population, 88% of all adults. Of course, 98% of smokers—and I don't know what the other 2% were doing—have seen them. Among all Canadian youth, 94% of all young people say they have seen messages on cigarette packages.

Not only that; we went further in the survey and asked “How often do you look at or read health warning messages on tobacco products?” If you look at all adults and at the percentage who see these things once a day or more, 23% see it once a day or more and another 15% see it once a week or more. So we're talking about substantial numbers of ordinary people, including smokers and non-smokers, who say they see these messages on a fairly regular basis.

• 1115

Of course smokers see them a lot more than the population as a whole, but look at how many young people of all ages see, look at, or read health warning messages on tobacco products. Thirty-six percent of all young people say they look at these things once a day or more and 25% say they look at these once a week or more, for a total of 61% of young people who are looking at or reading health warning messages at least once a week or more. That is a very large number of young people.

So you can see how important this package is as a vehicle of information, for all people, not just for smokers.

We also asked in the survey, “Do you support or oppose the placing of health warning messages on tobacco products?” There is a great deal of support for that overall, with 65% of all Canadian adults supporting this and 22% somewhat supporting it, for a total of 87% of all Canadian adults who support this—the majority of smokers as well. Among all young people, 92% say they support this, similarly for young smokers. We also identified a group of young smokers in the survey.

As Rob Cunningham was referring to earlier, there are a number of pieces of research in which we and others were testing the relative effectiveness of the larger messages as opposed to the status quo messages.

This survey, I think, summarizes that very well in an exercise we did in which we showed respondents the status quo package and a new message with the picture of the diseased lung, the status quo being the status quo message and the status quo coverage on the package, and the new message being the 60% coverage.

What we found was that majorities of all groups said they felt that the new message was more effective in informing Canadians about the health effects of tobacco as well as more effective in encouraging Canadians to reduce their tobacco use—majorities of all Canadian adults, majorities of smokers. Also, I draw your attention to the high percentages we found among Canadian young people who said this was their point of view. Again, you can see from that survey what I think is a very important finding.

Just to review, here are some of the things we found from the focus group research, which is qualitative research, talking to people, discussing these topics and issues with focus group participants and showing them things. Generally speaking, in all the focus group research we've done we've started out with asking them about the health warning messages on tobacco. We find, first of all, high awareness and recall of existing health warning labels among all groups of smokers. I think that's certainly supported by the survey data.

Virtually everybody—except perhaps a very small group of what we call “staunch smokers”—the vast majority of smokers and non-smokers, support the concept of health warnings on cigarette packages. However, the existing messages have lost their impact. We found this universally in the focus group research with people telling us this. There's a high level of boredom with the existing messages. They are drab and repetitive, according to people who participated in these groups. We found this time and time again. It's a recurring theme in just about every piece of this research we've done.

Just to draw your attention to some of the findings from the March 1999 focus group research we did, I personally found this to be one of the most rewarding and exciting pieces of research I've ever done as a researcher, and I've had a long career in working in public opinion and marketing research. This was a very exciting finding for us, because we were testing various wordings of health warning messages and we were also testing graphics, pictures, icons, skull and crossbones, and a lot of different images.

This study really told us how important the graphics, the pictures, and the colours were. It caught people's attention. They related to it tremendously, especially young people. That's what they really responded to: the pictures, the graphics, and the colours. Also good were vivid images, like a description, “slow and painful death”, or “colourless, odourless gas”, referring to carbon monoxide. Those kinds of words were good—the vivid kinds of words and the more graphic descriptions in terms of text.

• 1120

In this study what was also important was the importance of fresh ideas and new information, not just “smoking causes cancer” but “smoking causes cancer in x number of people”, with statistics and filling in of data, not just the status quo message, which is an old and tired message. It's fresh ideas, new information added on to the kinds of information that people were already getting from the status quo messages, the idea being to find another way, a different way, to say those things. People responded in a much more positive way.

In the study we also found greater support for the greater coverage of the package that was devoted to health warning messages. Every time we would show people different coverage of the package, in virtually every one of these studies the majority would always say they felt the one that had the most coverage was the most effective. That's something that was universal across the research.

Just to conclude, I have a couple of highlights from—I think I've taken probably most of my time—the findings of the October-December research we did last year, in which, after the department, in consultation with many other inputs, had developed the graphics and messages, we tested 67 of these. We went through a series of focus groups, a large number of focus groups, and this is what we found as a result of that focus group research.

First of all, we found an overall positive response to the new and larger health warnings with colours and pictures. Young people, again, were especially impressed with the use of pictures. They responded to that a great deal.

Of the groups of smokers.... We like to survey and do research with different types of smokers. “Staunch smokers” is a label we give to people who have been smoking who have either never tried to quit or have no plans to quit. Probably between 25% and 35% of smokers are more or less in that category. That's one group.

But the largest group of smokers is a group that we call “potential quitters”. These are people who have thought seriously about quitting or have tried to quit in the recent period or have plans to quit over the next period.

Potential quitters are very receptive to this response. They like it a great deal. These smokers are looking for something. They're looking for more information. They need help to move them from a position of smoking to a position of non-smoking, and they relate to these kinds of messages very well indeed.

The overall response was very positive. Then, in terms of particular kinds of messages, we tested messages that deal with cessation—disease, death, environmental effects of tobacco—a lot of different schematic messages. Overall the ones that have the most resonance are the messages about disease and death. These kinds of messages tend to be effective with a very broad-based target audience of smokers; they can cross the board in terms of their effectiveness.

I think you've all seen the picture of diseased gums. We tested this picture first in the earlier research, and that was one of the most exciting things, because they looked at this picture of the diseased gums, and young people especially.... Young people are very interested in visual things, in how they look. You get these diseased gums and they just look at this and are totally struck by this picture. What they say is that you can't see a lung or a heart, but, boy, when you see this picture of the diseased mouth and gums, it's just.... I call it a sensational picture. It's a sensational picture in many ways. It has a lot of impacts. It's a very good one.

So that was particularly effective, and the pictures of other diseases—lung tumours and strokes—are very effective pictures and were especially effective with adult smokers. In fact, one person in one of our focus groups said, “I'm going to quit right now after seeing this picture.” It was that picture of the lungs. It was so powerful for her. “This picture is agonizing”, was another thing that people in the focus group were saying, and “I can't believe this picture. It really makes you think.” Those are the kinds of comments that came from that series of graphics and pictures.

• 1125

We also tested cessation messages. It's interesting, because in the research we find that Quebeckers tend to be very receptive to cessation messages like “Quit and live”; “Quit now and you're going to start seeing improvement in a short period of time or over a couple of years”, or whatever. They're very receptive to that. In fact, anglophones tend to be more receptive to the death and dying pictures. Francophones tend to be more receptive to the life and living pictures, which is interesting. Quebeckers are interested in life and non-Quebeckers are interested in death. That's a conclusion that some people might reach from seeing this. That's something we did pick up doing this research over the last year and a half.

Messages about the effects of tobacco on children, babies and during pregnancy, are especially effective with women, especially with adult women who either have had children or might have children. They're very responsive to those kinds of messages. They're very powerful with a particular group of smokers.

Finally, environmental effects messages are very effective, or at least more effective, with young smokers, who tend to be very receptive to this sort of social context of smoking and very concerned about the effects of environmental smoke.

On that note, I wanted to present some of those pieces of research to you. I think you have a lot of compilation of research from the Cancer Society and from Health Canada. You can look through the results of this research at another time, but I felt it was important for you to see some of the pieces, some of the findings, that have served as the input behind support for what the government is doing.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Dasko.

Monsieur Gollin, if you would, please.

[Translation]

Mr. Grégoire Gollin (President, Créatec): My name is Grégoire Gollin and I am from the Créatec firm in Montreal. I am going to speak to you today about the results of a study on perceptions.

This study has allowed us to measure the effects of an increase in the visibility of warnings on cigarette packages on opinions and perceptions. This study was carried out in September 1999 and we undertook another study in March of this year. It was a small-scale replica of the first study and it allowed us to measure the soundness of our conclusions and results.

Contrary to custom, I will give you the conclusion immediately. Yes, the simple fact of increasing the surface occupied by warnings on packages has a significant effect on perceptions and beliefs. We will very quickly see how we arrived at this conclusion and on the basis of what. Not only are there significant effects, but for very critical variables, the effects are important.

Before going into detail, I must tell you that all the results that we have relate only to increases in surface used. All of the considerations linked to the graphics, the visibility of the brand, etc., have been totally controlled. We are therefore dealing here solely with the effects of an increase in the surface used, and nothing else whatsoever.

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Here, you have an example of the surface that was tested. We had four different increased surface scenarios: the present surface, which is 30% of the package, followed by 40%, 50% and 60%. You therefore have the present scenario. Each surface increase scenario was illustrated by two warnings used as examples, and these were constant. It is the present scenario that served as the basis for comparison.

You have here an illustration of a 50% coverage scenario. All of these scenarios used a pack of king-size cigarettes.

What were the basic questions asked during the course of our research work? There was one that was very important: are these warnings perceived as more efficient when the surface they occupy is increased? In other words, are people's opinions, perceptions and beliefs influenced by an increase in the visibility of warnings on packages? We are not talking here about the visual; we are talking about increasing visibility.

The two other questions tie in with the first. First of all, are the variations observed in the perceptions significant? When we say significant, we are not making a judgment call. This is what we call a statistical test and it tells us whether it is significant or not. The criteria that we used are the minimum criteria corresponding at least with industry standards. We have at least a 95% probability of being able to affirm that these effects are significant. We have a 95% probability of being right when we say that these changes are caused only by an increase in the surface used.

We also wanted to verify the reliability of this in-depth study, and the second validation study was verified for all results and all criteria.

There were four target groups: two groups of young people aged 14 to 17 years of age made up, on the one hand, of active smokers and, on the other hand of vulnerable individuals, in other words young people who do not now smoke but who are tempted by cigarettes. We came to the realization that these young people were particularly sensitive to increases in the visibility of warnings. The addicted adults are active smokers who do not want to stop smoking, at least not for the next 12 months. The quitters are those who now smoke but who would like to or who plan to stop smoking over the course of the next 12 months.

Certain efficiency criteria were taken into account. When we say that the increase in visibility is more efficient, we must base this on criteria. We had 39 scales or criteria that allowed us to measure the effects of each one of the scenarios. Since there were four scenarios, the set of scales allowed us to verify the effects against 156 measures. These 39 scales per scenario are divided up here into four categories of indicators. The first category corresponds to the ultimate target of increased visibility, the purpose being to discourage people from smoking. We had a series of scales for that.

The second one deals with the information value of the warnings, what we called the credibility of these warnings. You have here the detail of the five scales that allowed us to measure this information value. The first, for example, better informs the public on the dangers of smoking. The second one was: “convinces me, personally, that what is written is true”. The other “smoker” images were a series of 17 scales on personality traits associated with a person who smokes. The “tobacco products” image was a series of 9 scales, for example popularity, taste, toxicity, etc.

I will rapidly go over the research plan because we do not have very much time. One must remember that all of these interviews were carried out individually, face-to-face, which allowed for complete control of the respondent, his or her frame of mind and the way in which the packaging scenario was shown.

The first in-depth study was the validation study on the same model. Yes, we did use the opinion poll approach, but a very specific one. The model that was followed is what we call an experimental scheme. This is very well-known in psychology and medicine. It is a scheme that is most appropriate to evaluate the effects of stimuli variations on response variations, the stimuli being, among others, variations in surface used.

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The completed interviews were quite substantial for face-to-face interviews: 14 shopping centres throughout the country, five regions, 1,632 interviews for the first in-depth study, and about half that number for the validation study, spread out equally amongst the four target groups and spread out non proportionally between the regions so as to reflect the population.

I am now coming to the results, but I would first of all like to demonstrate to you that increases in visibility have an impact. I believe this is important because what we are looking for here is proof. When we say that the effect is significant, as was said earlier, it is in the context of a statistical analysis called ANOVA, that is very highly used for the analysis of experimental schemes and that is very flexible and extremely powerful; in other words, we can simultaneously analyse several scenarios and see their effect on a large number of variables.

Look at this example of an outcome of the analysis. Here, we had package A as opposed to package B, in other words the presently used surface of 30% compared with a surface of 40% of the package. The criterion was: “discourage people from smoking”. The target groups were made up solely of adults. We see here the effect of the increase in visibility: it is significant to within 0,00, in other words there is less than 1 chance in 1,000 that the effect is not significant. We have 99.99 chances of being right in saying: yes, this effect is solely caused by the increase in visibility.

The conclusion is the following. As I was saying, the answer is that, yes, increased visibility leads to differences in perception, for example deteriorations of the “smokers”' image and the “products” image. Let us take a closer look. First of all, are there significant effects when the surface is increased from its present size of 30% to a size of 40%? The answer is yes for all criteria except one, packaging appeal or likeability. But for all of the other criteria, the effect is significant, in particular for two very important groups of criteria: the “discourages people from smoking” criterion and the warning credibility criterion. For credibility, the effect is important with young people. It is less so for adults, but it is important for young people. When we look at the results observed when moving from a surface of 30% to a surface of 50%, we see that all of the effects are amplified further. Overall, the effect of surface is much stronger for young people than for adults.

I have used up the 10 minutes granted me. I will set aside the rest of the transparencies and I will refer to them if need be in the question period.

The Chair: Thank you very much, sir.

[English]

Mr. Mills, please.

Mr. Bob Mills: That more or less reiterates where we're coming from. My main question would be, we've heard that these images will lose impact over time and I wonder if that is true. Obviously, the printers aren't going to want to change the pictures all that often. That doesn't seem too practical. Would that be true?

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Dr. Donna Dasko: I think it is true. We've certainly seen that from the status quo packages. Those messages have been there for many years; there's a very small number of messages and they really have lost their impact.

Looking to the future, if Canadians and smokers were to see a limited set of messages for a long period of time, I would expect the same thing would happen. I think what's important is having the rotation and having a larger number. Because then, of course, people are exposed to different ones and they still have that sense of seeing something that's a little different and a little new.

Certainly, over the long period I would expect it would have the same impact. Again, we're talking many years from now. And you see that the number of messages now being proposed is much larger than the current number, so in fact that impact may not be quite the same as we've seen with the status quo.

I think it certainly has a longer life than what we see now on the packages. That would be my opinion. I haven't researched that specifically, but that's what I would think we'd be seeing. I think the new set would have a longer life than the current, but after some period of time they would probably become part of the environment and people would just view them the way they do the current ones.

Mr. Bob Mills: Again, as I asked the previous people, it would seem that if you had gotten rid of that colour, it would also increase the impact pretty dramatically. You'd see the picture and it would hit you a lot harder than with all that distraction there.

Dr. Donna Dasko: Yes, that's right, and that was a comment from one of the other witnesses who was here.

I can speak from our experience with research. We haven't done the research on the plain package with, let's say, just a picture, but just speaking to what we have researched, I think it's tremendously effective. I think it's a breakthrough, really, in terms of what people are seeing now and the way they're responding to it. Some of these images are quite graphic and they really do get a response, especially from young people. They don't relate to every one of these messages, obviously, because these messages—as I was trying to show—have appeal to certain segments of smokers, but overall the ones about disease and death have an effect on a greater number of smokers.

They do something; they have an impact. I think they're going to be very good. I think they're going to work really well, especially with that group of smokers who we've tended to call potential quitters. A lot of smokers—the majority of smokers—do want to quit, and most of them have tried to quit. Many of them are actually hoping that they're going to be able to quit in some period of time in the not too distant future.

A fair number of those smokers are women. I don't have any specific numbers on that, but a lot of smokers in that particular group are women, and they do respond very well to this approach and to a lot of the messages there.

Mr. Bob Mills: Again, an unscientific observation would be that young girls seem to be smoking more than young boys. If you go to junior high schools, you see the young girls with the cigarettes.

You just relate these pictures of the gums to young people. Would girls be more affected than boys by those kinds of images?

Dr. Donna Dasko: I think both boys and girls are affected by those, because young people are very oriented toward how they look and toward the social environment, and visual cues are very important for them. I know, in doing this research, when we talk about yellow fingers, yellow teeth, or those sorts of visual impacts—bad breath, those sorts of aspects of smoking—they do respond to those a lot.

That's particularly true for young people who are very oriented toward how they look and how they fit into a social environment. That's where you get the environmental tobacco concern about second-hand smoking in a social setting, but especially how they look. That's why the gums are so powerful, because it combines the message of a disease—diseased gums—with the visual impact.

There were some other pictures we tested with lip cancer—cancer of someone's lip—and that was also very powerful for young people. They'd look at it and say, “Oh, who would ever want to kiss a guy like that?” and that sort of thing. They respond to those kinds of things a great deal.

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The Chair: Thank you very much.

[Translation]

Mr. Ménard.

Mr. Réal Ménard: You who had quite a spirited youth, from what I have been told, would you agree to do a comparison between cigarettes and condoms? The reason I would like to make this comparison is that your survey tells us that warnings on cigarette packages provide significant information. However, it does not tell us if this will truly, in concrete terms, discourage young people from smoking. When this committee dealt with the AIDS issue, it attempted to understand the same thing: once you have been given the information, what leads you to integrating it and to translating it into behaviour?

Earlier, a perception psychology practitioner explained some of this to us. The data provided by your survey says that young people are impressed by this and that this could become a significant element, but it does not say to what extent nor which specific target group is more likely to integrate this information into behaviour.

Is this a good analysis, overall, of the situation?

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: With regard to my study of the effects of the surface occupied, if everything is straightforward, the answer is yes. All we did was verify the impact at the perception level. Now, if you ask me how this impact will translate itself into behaviour, I would have to say that these are not longitudinal studies. Let me say that that would be quite a task, because it would require very large samples over very long periods of time.

Generally speaking, in the areas of advertising and communication, it is always the same problem that arises. I would say that 99% of the communication we see is based upon the following hypothesis: by influencing the way in which people think, by changing and stretching certain values, you will bring about thousands of new types of behaviour. You must have a global scheme in all of this.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Let us take a concrete example. Quebeckers smoke more than Canadians overall, and this is particularly the case of young people. According to Health Canada, 37% of young people smoke. British Columbia is the province where people smoke the least. Could you provide us with information on the determining factors that for example explain why Quebeckers smoke more than other Canadians, and is it true that there are more smokers among the disadvantaged in society?

I represent the riding of Hochelaga—Maisonneuve, situated near the Olympic Stadium. One part of my riding is made up of people who certainly have incomes that are lower than the national average. Do you have indications that this group smokes more and that it might therefore be more receptive? Are there groups that are more receptive to your messages and your surveys?

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: In my study, this was not a consideration. The only things to be evaluated were the effects of increased visibility. Tracing the differences in these effects by income level, by type of habit, etc., was not a consideration. In any event, it is all fine and dandy to identify differences and find symptoms, but I doubt that statistical studies would suffice to make a diagnosis as to the reasons why young people from such and such a group or such and such an area are more likely to smoke than others.

Mr. Réal Ménard: Do you understand the importance, for the legislator, of having this type of information? If, for example, we know that Quebeckers smoke more, there must be, from a behaviourist point of view, some rationale, some factors to explain this. The same logic applies for the government. If it is true that young people are more influenced by images than by the written word, then that means, for the government, that it must reach out to young people using images, and that is what the government's marketing strategy is aimed at doing.

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You say that it is true that these images are significant in relaying information, but you are unable to tell us to what extent they will lead to new types of behaviour.

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: Precisely, but allow me to clarify something. There are two considerations that must be taken into account. There are the images and there is the surface occupied. These are two different and independent things. We can say that the images per se, independent from the surface used, have an effect. In other words, if we take a package in its present format, where the image accounts for 30% of the surface, the simple fact of showing images produces effects, independently from the surface, and these effects are important and significant.

I looked only at the effects of the surface used.

Mr. Réal Ménard: I do not doubt that you put an awful lot of heart and conviction in your work, but I am wondering if, given what we are aiming for, some very important variable is not missing here. How do we go about integrating this information into new modes of behaviour? Health Canada's aim is to fight against smoking. That these images are more significant than words is to my mind perfectly logical. But this is what you were asked to do, and this is what you did.

I believe your colleague feels a little bit left out. We will allow her to speak a little bit too. Is there something you would like to say?

[English]

Dr. Donna Dasko: I think your question is a very good one. A lot of people are asking about the impact or effect of information on behaviour. I don't think anybody is claiming that by putting this on a package tomorrow, all the smokers are going to quit and no young people are going to start smoking. Nobody is making that claim. The process doesn't work that way.

We're talking about a process we sometimes call social marketing. We're talking about changing behaviour, providing information toward a change in attitudes and a change in behaviour that we know from our history and moving ahead will work, but it doesn't work on a one-to-one basis, although, as I say, some people will stop as a result of this. For other people, including young people, it'll become part of their environment. They will see these things and have information they didn't have before, and they will be seeing this information constantly.

We know, from what I was showing, how many people actually see this information on the packages, so we're talking about providing information that is going to change some people's behaviour probably quite soon. For others, it will be part of an environment in which they will be taking into account this information, and perhaps they will stop at some point in the future. So the process is not one to one; it's a two-step or three-step process that will take place over time.

One of the members earlier asked a question about how behaviours have changed over time. We know with drinking and driving that behaviours have changed over time. We know that overall the rates of smoking have changed over time. Because of these efforts, of which this is a part, we have changed our behaviours in the past. I believe this is part of a process of moving forward in that direction.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Dasko.

Mr. Jordan, please.

Mr. Joe Jordan (Leeds—Grenville, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize for being late, so if this is something that's been covered, please correct me.

I'm just quickly looking at your findings. Yesterday we dealt with the packagers, the printers. Some would say we got into too much technical information about the capabilities.

No one is disputing the fact that this is a good bill and it will reduce smoking. No one is disputing the fact that it can be printed. We're trying to balance that with our capabilities, in terms of the Canadian printing industry, and that's where it got very technical.

Essentially, it boiled down to whether the tobacco companies were willing to accept compromises on their trademarks. You could argue, whether they are being stubborn or not, that they have a legal right to do it. I'm sure if you went to Coca Cola and asked if they would accept a scanned image of their trademark, they would say no. So with that constraint, and with the notion that we want to protect jobs, the only thing that gives here is adjusting the graphic a little bit.

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You tested for the effectiveness of the graphic. Was it specific to the size of the graphic, or was it more the fact that it was a coloured picture, as opposed to a black and white warning label?

Dr. Donna Dasko: In the research I showed you here today, I think you have a copy of the graphic. That's what we gave to people. We gave them a piece of paper that had that on it. They were all colour graphics.

Mr. Joe Jordan: That's more than 50%.

Dr. Donna Dasko: Yes. In the survey last summer we tested that one, which is 60%. We validated that survey in March of this year.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Did you find a direct relation between the size and the impact?

Dr. Donna Dasko: When we did the validation using the lung picture that is being proposed by the minister, as well as the 50% coverage, we found virtually the same relative impact of the new message versus the status quo message.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Between 60% and 50%?

Dr. Donna Dasko: Yes, that was relative to the status quo package. We weren't testing differences between 40%, 50%, and 60% coverage. We were testing the 50% and the new lung picture.

Mr. Joe Jordan: There may be some merit in the short term in going to 35% while the lawyers of the world try to sort out the trademark issue. You don't know what that impact might be. You can only speculate whether 35% would be a certain percentage as effective as 50% or 60%.

Dr. Donna Dasko: I wouldn't want to speculate. On the other hand, with a 33% or 25% coverage, you're certainly not going to get the impact of the picture.

Mr. Joe Jordan: We certainly have the mock-ups with the 35%. But when you talked here about your overall positive response to larger health warnings, with colours and pictures, you didn't actually correlate it to size. You're just assuming, based on your research, that bigger is better.

Dr. Donna Dasko: Yes, that's right.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I agree, but we're trying to sort out here what's the best we can get and be the least disruptive to the legitimate concerns of the industry.

Dr. Donna Dasko: We have done some research that has tested the impacts of various sizes. I'm not sure if Grégoire did any other research that would speak to that. From the quantitative research and the focus group research we did, which mainly compared the status quo and the new one, virtually all the time we found a much better response with the new format, but it was usually testing 60% or 50% coverage.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But you changed the variables at the same time. You changed a black and white message to a colour graphic and you changed the size. So we don't know which of those contributed to the response.

Dr. Donna Dasko: In the tests we did both last year and on the validation of it this year, they tested with colour graphics for the status quo package as well as for the new package.

Mr. Joe Jordan: But the status quo was just words, wasn't it?

Dr. Donna Dasko: Yes, but it was red. It was a red du Maurier package.

Mr. Joe Jordan: So we really don't know the contribution of the graphic versus the size. It's a combination of the two, but we don't know—

Dr. Donna Dasko: Actually, there was a little bit of discussion on that earlier, with some of the witnesses. Some other research was presented that spoke to that.

Mr. Joe Jordan: What did it include?

Dr. Donna Dasko: Rob, would you summarize that?

The Chair: It was the British and Australian research. We'll make sure you get the transcript of what exactly was said.

Thanks very much, Mr. Jordan. Thanks to both of you.

We're going to call now the SmithKline Beecham people, as well as those from Addiction Management Systems.

[Translation]

Sir.

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: A partial answer to the question is that we could consider that the effect is linear from 30% to 60%. Therefore, we can consider that it is linear, but as in any type of communication, there is what we call the spring effect. If you do not stretch the perceptions enough, the spring bounces back very quickly. What we know with regard to the surface is that we must stretch the spring to at least 40% to see any significant impact on the incentive to not smoke and on the information value of the warnings. We did not evaluate the risk of using a smaller surface, for example 30 to 35%, but my hypothesis is that the spring effect would not be sufficient for there to be durable changes. That takes us back to the other question.

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[English]

Mr. Joe Jordan: That may be fine, but you've also introduced the notion of a colour graphic.

What would be more important, making the word bigger or going with a 35% graphic? Do you know? If you had to choose, what would you do? Would you take the “Cigarettes cause cancer” and go to 60% on that, or would you keep it at 35% but stick in the graphic? What's the most important of those two variables? We've manipulated them both.

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: Intuitively, and if I had to conduct research, my key hypothesis would be size, because size sends a message. If you use the current size for Health Canada, which is 30%, and 70% for the tobacco industry, you don't send a message just adding a picture. Change the size, and I would say there is an added value to the message.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay. Indulge me for one second, Mr. Chair, because this is important.

So you're saying if we had to choose, we would go with “Cigarettes cause fatal lung disease” being half the size and dump the graphic? Would that be better than putting the graphic in the 35%?

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: That is my personal opinion, not research.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: But from what I know—

Mr. Joe Jordan: It's not my personal opinion. So we're not going to get anywhere with this.

Mr. Grégoire Gollin: —and from a marketing point of view, size sends a message that an image would not.

Mr. Joe Jordan: We may have to be making those decisions. That's important information. But I guess it's an opinion.

The Chair: Thanks to both of you. I appreciate your time.

Mr. Jordan, speaking of those mock-ups that the industry people had yesterday, do you know where those got to?

Mr. Joe Jordan: Mr. Chair, the issue—and I'm going to bring this up with them—is they're prepared to put those on packages that meet the current tobacco company requirement for trademark; they just need permission from the tobacco company to do that because they're actually using the trademark. So that's what we're looking at. I think it's important to take a look at those, because then we know what we're talking about.

The Chair: Yes, I didn't get a very good chance yesterday to see them, other than from a distance. If you can arrange that, I think that would appropriate. Thanks very much.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Okay.

The Chair: We're now calling the SmithKline Beecham people, as well as Addiction Management Systems Inc.

Dr. Saul Shiffman, consultant with Pinney Associates, is here, I gather to represent the SmithKline Beecham people.

Dr. Saul Shiffman (Consultant, Pinney Associates; SmithKline Beecham Consumer Healthcare): Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and members of the committee. First of all, thank you for taking the time to consider this important issue and to hear from someone from your neighbour to the south. I know we're what stands between you and the rest of the day, so I will try to be short.

Let me introduce myself very briefly. I'm a psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. I've been studying cigarette smoking and treatment of smoking for 27 years. I currently have a consulting relationship with SmithKline Beecham.

SmithKline Beecham, by way of background, markets smoking cessation products everywhere in the world except Canada, so they have no commercial presence in this category in Canada.

In my academic role, I'm also a member of Health Canada's panel on cigarette toxicity reduction, so I'm familiar with your very positive policy initiatives.

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I believe the steps you are considering taking are extremely positive. Both as a scientist and someone who advises SmithKline Beecham, I'm very supportive of the changes that are being proposed, not only as you clearly have been focusing on, because the warnings send a message, but also because I think these are the first warnings that give smokers something to do about the message by suggesting a call to action and specifically a movement toward quitting smoking. There's little point in warning people if you don't suggest what they should do instead.

I think it's important not only to motivate people to quit but to give them specific guidance as to how they should go about it, because in fact most smokers already want to quit and are really looking for a way to quit.

That brings us to the issue of giving people help and treatment. Help and treatment comes in two varieties. Behavioural treatment is, of course, what we often think of first, and it's very important. I should say it does not have substantial acceptance among smokers. Most smokers are not prepared to go to formal programs. There is a second issue affecting behavioural treatment, which is that there is a lot of, for lack of a better word, “snake oil” in the marketplace. There are a lot of people claiming to have good treatments and they don't have the scientific and clinical evidence to show that they really work.

I'm going to focus my conversation on pharmacological treatment. This is an area where, in a sense, because of regulatory scrutiny, there really is much better science. There are two approved kinds of medications: nicotine replacement, which most popularly is in the form of patch and gum and is OTC in Canada, and some other forms that are by prescription; and a non-nicotine prescription product.

The Chair: Could I interject for a minute?

Dr. Saul Shiffman: Absolutely.

The Chair: We're dealing with labelling of tobacco—

Dr. Saul Shiffman: I'm going to get to that.

The Chair: You're going to get to that. You're not here just to flaunt your product.

Dr. Saul Shiffman: No.

The Chair: Okay, thanks.

Dr. Saul Shiffman: In fact, let me proceed to that very quickly.

The point is, these treatments are effective, and we must do everything we can to encourage smokers to avail themselves of those treatments and certainly not do anything that would discourage people from seeking treatment.

In that regard, it's important to consider that the public health impact of any treatment, whatever it is, is a joint function of how effective it is and how many people use it. If you have effective treatments, be they behavioural, pharmacological, or any other, but they're not being used, we're not having the kind of public health impact that we would like to see.

Indeed, in the U.S., we have seen an increase in the use of effective treatments as a result, really, of a regulatory change—in this instance, making nicotine replacement products available without a prescription. This is from a paper we've published showing the increase in total number of Americans who quit smoking successfully in the first year after smoking cessation products became non-prescription.

So over and above the people who would have quit anyway, we estimate that approximately a quarter of a million people quit as a result of making the products more available.

The point is that there is a variety of barriers that can impede access to treatment. Getting to the labelling, I think one of the major barriers is people's misconceptions about the safety of nicotine treatment in particular. This is where I think the labelling, while encouraging people to quit smoking, could be improved by not perpetuating what have been significant barriers to treatment.

In particular, there are a lot of misconceptions about the risks of nicotine as a substance or as a medication. So, for example, we know the harm that occurs as a result of smoking is not a result of nicotine directly; rather it's tar, carbon monoxide, benzo[a]pyrene, and so on. Yet this is in a U.S. survey; Canadians are probably more discerning. In fact, most smokers and even many physicians believe that nicotine is the culprit. So that is a significant barrier to people accessing effective treatment.

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A second related barrier has to do with the risk of addiction to nicotine medications. It is clear that when accessed through tobacco smoking, nicotine can be addictive. It is equally clear that when people take in nicotine through these medications, it is not addictive. So the concern is that to the extent we put a negative focus on nicotine, and I see this clinically all the time, we deter people from accessing and availing themselves of appropriate smoking cessation treatments.

Let me now reduce that to particular suggestions for your consideration. On the issue of safety, the proposed label talks about nicotine as being a very addictive drug. The reality is that it's tobacco use that is addictive. We ought to do everything we can to encourage people to think about tobacco as addictive but not to deter them from the use of nicotine medications, which are not addictive.

Similarly, I'm struck by the fact that on the list of toxic chemicals, which appears in two different places on the proposed label, once when talking about toxic substances, in general, and once when talking about secondhand smoke, nicotine appears first. I don't have quantitative research, but it is clear that a smoker reading this label would think that nicotine was absolutely the worst thing that was in cigarette smoke because it appears and because it appears first. So I think it is very important to change the label so as not to perpetuate those concerns.

My second point, which really goes, again, to encouraging people to access and use effective treatments, is on how the treatment is dealt with. Again, I think you are to be commended for the fact that there are messages promoting treatment. However, the specific steps that are recommended to Canadian smokers could be improved. For example, one of the pieces of advice on the proposed labelling is to keep active and busy. That is perfectly good advice, but it is fairly low key. Elsewhere on the label it talks about smoking as being as addictive as heroin or cocaine, and yet the advice we give people is to just keep busy and try to distract yourself. I think it would be appropriate to encourage people to consider treatment with medication or effective counselling.

Similarly, in dealing with nicotine withdrawal symptoms, the current text basically encourages people not to worry about the symptoms and to hope they will pass. To my way of thinking, given that we have effective proven medications for such symptoms, it would be appropriate to inform smokers of that.

Finally, I think it is appropriate to encourage people to talk to health care professionals. We have learned in the U.S. that this is a significant barrier. Particularly with approved products being available OTC, it would be appropriate to encourage people to directly seek treatment and not feel as though they need the counsel of a health professional.

I leave you then with a summary. I believe you are considering some potentially very effective labelling. One of the very positive aspects of this is the fact that it encourages people to think about quitting, but we need to provide them with specific, appropriate and scientifically valid guidance. Certainly, we do not want to do any harm, that is, we do not want to perpetuate what are really significant barriers to treatment, and conversely, to recommend treatments that have been scientifically proven and approved by appropriate regulatory bodies.

Thank you for your time and attention.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

From Addiction Management Systems we have Frederick Weston, president.

Mr. Weston.

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Mr. Frederick Weston (President, Addiction Management Systems Inc.): Thank you, Mr. Chairperson, for giving me this opportunity.

In deference to your time constraints, I've prepared a statement and I'm going to read it. What I've heard this morning causes me to be a little extemporaneous at the beginning, and I'd certainly love to talk about the research afterwards, if time permits.

I'm going to take a different turn from what I've seen here all morning. Before I begin, I would just like to remind you that smokers are people and they're not stupid. They are afraid and they need help. Dr. Dasko was the first to say it, and you're going to hear that a lot in my statement.

My credentials are simply that I've had first-hand experience with over 15,000 smokers. I have been in the room with them. I have been with them when their arms are crossed and their legs are crossed and they are full of fear because they've been scheduled to attend a meeting to learn about quitting smoking.

I'd like to tell you that with what I've learned, Canada can be first in the world in tobacco use prevention, it can be first in the reduction in the number of smokers, and it can be first in the reduction of cigarette consumption. And these goals can be achieved if cigarette packages include positive messages.

I'm not here to dispute anything that any body of information, data, or research has presented here this morning. I'm here to suggest additions to.

I haven't heard it here this morning, but 3 million Canadians, according to Statistics Canada, have declared their interest in quitting. If cigarette packages are used as an information conduit for smokers who want and need help to quit, cigarette packages need to become the window of access to information that motivates smokers to seek the help they require to quit.

Positive messages contributed toward the achievement of these goals at over 4,000 work sites. They motivated more than 70,000 smokers to accept personal responsibility for smoking's impact on their health. They re-started the quitting process. They requested and used behaviour modification training that empowered them to control when they smoke and to quit when they were ready to make the necessary effort.

Here is just a little background information. In 1989 about 20% of smokers at any given time declared they wanted to quit; they would make the attempt. In February 1999 Statistics Canada announced the percentage who had declared they wanted to quit had increased to more than 50%. In 1989 between 35% to 40% of smokers participated in workplace smoking cessation programs, even though they had to pay for a part of the program. By 1999 participation in these programs had declined to less than 3%, even though their employer would fund the entire cost.

In a single decade the number of people committed to quitting increased by 150% and cessation participation declined by more than 30%. If more than 50% of Canadians wanted to quit, why did less than 3% participate in cessation programs?

In the mid- and late 1980s the Lung Association and other cessation program providers used pictures similar to the ones about to appear on cigarette packages. They graphically illustrated what smoking did to the lungs and other body parts. The wisdom of the day was that illustrations would scare smokers and encourage them to participate in their respective cessation programs. They were wrong. Smokers ignored those pictures.

In the early nineties, as cessation program participation began its downward spiral, the pictures and scare tactics were discontinued because they did not work. If they did not work in the past, why assume their impact will be different in the future?

This talk is going to cover four points. We're going to talk about negative messages, positive messages, discouraging kids from smoking, and packaging proposals.

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Negative messages and repeated failures have turned the majority of smokers off cessation programs. They consider them punitive. “Smoking can kill you” is negative. It has no doubt contributed to the increase in the number of smokers who want to quit. Unfortunately it has not encouraged them to attempt to quit and it has not discouraged or reduced smoking among pre- and early teens.

The majority of smokers deny they want to quit even though they would quit if it were easy. Denial is their way of saying they want nothing to do with another failure. Smokers need information and answers that inspire and motivate them to make another quit attempt.

For example, is nicotine dependence the main problem? If so, why have so many failed to quit while receiving nicotine from patches and gum? In the mistaken belief that chemical dependence is their main problem, smokers in North America spend $1 billion every year on gum, patches, and prescription cessation products. Those who have failed with these products have extremely low self-esteem. They need to know why these products did not work for them. If they use them again, they need to know how to maximize their effectiveness.

Smokers need to understand that the main problem is their psychological and habitual dependence on cigarettes. They need to know the truth about quitting. First, there is not nor will there ever be an easy way to quit. Second, there is no best quit method. The best method is whatever a smoker uses on the fourth, fifth, or sixth attempt when the quitting process has been completed. For employers who pay the tab, the best program is one that engages and motivates all smokers and one that can be used as often as is necessary, regardless of where the smoker is in the process of quitting.

It is a rare smoker any more who denies smoking is a risk to their health. However, very few are aware the risk is dose-related. Smokers not psychologically ready to go all the way need to know they can reduce the risks to their health while still smoking. This occurs when they learn how to stop power-smoking and how to control when they smoke.

Typically people power-smoke when they have to cope with restrictions at work, on airplanes, in theatres, etc. Whenever the opportunity to smoke is limited, smokers try to top up and store nicotine. They quickly smoke two or three cigarettes during a fifteen-minute break or before entering a non-smoking environment.

Smokers need to know that power-smoking is a subconscious reaction to restrictions. It does not help, and it is more harmful than regular smoking. They need to know that nicotine, one of the least harmful chemicals in a cigarette, cannot be topped up or stored. They need to know that power-smoking delivers an overdose of carbon monoxide, which is one of the most harmful carcinogens. Blood pressure goes up and the heart beats faster. The body goes into overdrive in an attempt to eliminate the overdose of chemicals and carcinogens.

Smokers restart the quitting process when they stop power-smoking. They reduce the health risks, they reduce consumption, and they spend a third less on cigarettes.

Positive messages that inform and educate have the effect of motivating smokers to restart the process. Experience at more than 4,000 work sites has clearly proven that positive messages inspire and motivate smokers to request and use behaviour modification training. Behaviour modification training empowers them to control when they smoke and enables them to quit when they are psychologically ready to make the necessary effort.

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Smokers stop their denial when they learn that quitting and staying quit has been confirmed as a process. They experience an epiphany when they learn that their past good attempts that failed are positive and essential steps in the process. It is a revelation for them to learn that the more often they have failed, the closer they are to becoming non-smokers.

Positive information on cigarette packages that inspires and motivates smokers to engage in cessation will reduce their number and make a significant contribution toward preventing young Canadians from becoming smokers. You might ask, how does an adult engaged in smoking cessation help prevent kids from starting smoking? Well, most parents try to prevent their kids from smoking. Many who do not smoke have little success. Those who smoke have even less.

Pre- and early teens start smoking for well-documented reasons. They have no idea how dependent they will become or how addictive it is. They believe they will just quit whenever they choose. Children approaching the age of experimentation are less likely to start smoking if they observe firsthand their parent or parents trying to quit. Watching them struggle through multiple attempts to unlearn their psychological and habitual dependence will shatter their mistaken belief that if they start, they can just quit.

The proposed packaging changes are going to be another first for Canada, but they're negative. They will not benefit the 3 million smokers who have made the commitment to quit.

I have some samples here of cigarette packages. I saw Minister Rock last night on television with some samples. I suggest that these packages should include positive messages that are proven to inform, inspire, and motivate smokers to make another quit attempt. I have a board here, if any of you would like to look at it later.

Simply, these are people, and they're afraid, and they want to quit. They should get messages that indicate and give them what they want and what they need—positive information that will eliminate their fear of another failure and restart them toward their goal to become former smokers.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Weston.

Are there any questions?

Mr. Jordan.

Mr. Joe Jordan: I have a quick question.

It's an interesting argument in terms of people who are currently smokers, but it seems to me—and this is purely unscientific—that if we're trying to prevent people from starting in their youth.... Are you saying these graphics would have no effect, or are you saying you don't know whether they will? Is that something you looked at?

Mr. Frederick Weston: Look, I don't have any science. All I have is hands-on, practical experience. I know what smokers respond to, and I've had dozens of—

Mr. Joe Jordan: Yes, but what about people contemplating starting smoking? It seems to me it makes the connection that maybe all of us didn't make when we were that old, on a variety of subjects: that we don't make the long-term-implication kinds of decisions. Is the shock of that graphic maybe—

Mr. Frederick Weston: I'm not a judge of that. What I'm a judge of is that you can't tell a 14-year-old very much. If you tell them it's not going to be easy for them to quit, that's one thing, but if you're smoking and they are witnessing you trying to quit and seeing how very difficult it is, I'm saying it will give them pause.

There's no magic bullet.

Mr. Joe Jordan: Maybe it's not an either/or.

Mr. Frederick Weston: It's not an either/or. A combination of all of these things is important.

The Chair: Mr. Weston, do those samples and does that board have positive messages on them?

Mr. Frederick Weston: Yes.

The Chair: Excellent. We'll see them in a minute then.

Mr. Charbonneau.

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[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I would like Mr. Shiffman to explain to us once again the point he made about nicotine. You seem to give less importance to nicotine dependence than what we have seen up until now and, if I understood correctly, you are suggesting that we change certain messages so as to reduce the importance of the nicotine aspect. I would like to understand this better because if we agree on this, this could lead to our suggesting changes to the regulations.

[English]

Dr. Saul Shiffman: Let me try to explain it. I'm going to give a relatively technical explanation, not with the idea that this is what would go on a label, but to explain, as you've requested, what the science says about nicotine.

There is no question that nicotine addiction is the driving force behind cigarette smoking. But what makes smoking and smokeless tobacco use so addictive is in part the way in which nicotine is administered. For example, let's talk about the speed of it. When you inhale a cigarette, nicotine reaches your brain in less than ten seconds, whereas, say, when you put on a patch, it takes hours for nicotine to slowly get into your system. That makes all the difference. It makes cigarettes very addictive and it makes, for example, nicotine patches not addictive at all. You can show that in a variety of validated addiction tests.

So the story is a bit complicated, and therefore it seems to me it would be wise not to oversimplify it on the label and perpetuate the fears people have of nicotine, when nicotine in a medicinal form can be helpful to them. The addiction story is very important, but it is best and most appropriately focused on smoking and tobacco and not necessarily attached to nicotine, for this reason.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

Dr. Saul Shiffman: Thank you.

The Chair: This meeting is adjourned until 3:30 this afternoon. Thank you.