News
release
Non-Smokers’ Rights Association
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
January 22, 2003
Health Minister
Challenged to Follow Through on Big Ticket Tobacco
Control Measures
OTTAWA - On the occasion of National
Non-Smoking Week, Canadian health groups are calling on
the federal government to make the necessary law reform
and policy changes needed to reduce the disease caused
by tobacco industry products. The health agencies,
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada and the Non-Smokers’
Rights Association, are making a particular plea to
health minister Anne McLellan to follow through with
critical initiatives started by her predecessor.
“Tobacco remains the number one
preventable killer of Canadians,” explained Garfield
Mahood, NSRA executive director. “While smoking
cessation initiatives are important, the most effective
way to cut tobacco-caused illness and death is through
law reform and public policy change. We cannot
afford to have effective policy and legislative measures
abandoned just because cabinets are shuffled.”
The agencies are concerned that the
minister is not following through with earlier
commitments to ban deceptive tobacco packaging and to
pass the promised regulations that could curb the hidden
promotion of cigarettes in thousands of retail outlets
across Canada. The recent decisions by the
minister to cut $13 million from the budget of her
department’s tobacco program combined with the apparent
abandonment of regulations to ban deceptive terms like
‘light’ and ‘mild’, say the agencies, are particularly
disturbing. They fear that the tobacco file no
longer has a champion in the federal cabinet.
“Over a year has passed, and the
Minister has yet to demonstrate leadership on this
issue,” said Cynthia Callard, executive director of
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. “She has
ignored most of the recommendations of her own
Ministerial Advisory Council and has cancelled its
meetings. She has also put on ice regulatory
proposals which were set for implementation when she
took office.
Canada has made significant progress
against the use of tobacco industry products with
smoking rates falling from 29% to only 22% in the past
five years. “Today’s progress is due to
yesterday’s policy decisions,” said Callard. “The
drop in smoking only happened after the government
recovered from the fiasco of reducing taxes in 1994, and
adopted effective tobacco policies, in particular
raising taxes and implementing new health warnings.”
The groups also fear that the current
gains will stall or reverse if the government falters on
the regulatory path set out in the Tobacco Act.
“Until regulations are developed, the Tobacco Act
remains largely a hollow framework,” said Mahood.
“Other than the package warnings introduced by Allan
Rock, few effective regulatory steps have been taken.
Canada remains one of the very few developed countries
not to require health warnings on tobacco promotions.
Internet cigarette advertising is growing. Yet the
minister has been silent on the promised regulation of
tobacco promotion, especially in retail stores.”
The current focus of the minister of
health on encouraging Canadians to stop smoking is “not
so much misguided as insufficient,” in the view of the
groups. “Health Canada should encourage smokers to
quit,” said Callard. “But work with individuals
cannot substitute for the government’s responsibility to
implement the law reform which will have the greatest
potential to cut illness and death.”
The groups are calling the minister of
health to follow through on the promise to ban the use
of deceptive package descriptors, such as ‘light’ and
‘mild’, and to ban the promotion of tobacco, that is so
evident in retail outlets. They are also calling
on her to restore the cuts she imposed on the tobacco
program and to focus the mass media campaign on the
tobacco industry’s role in the tobacco epidemic (also
known as ‘tobacco industry denormalization’.)
For more information, contact:
Cynthia Callard, executive director,
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada
(613) 233-4878
Garfield Mahood, executive director,
Non-Smokers’ Rights Association
(416) 928-2900, Cell: (416) 451-4285
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