Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs,
Science and Technology
Issue 22 - Evidence for Tuesday, March 18, 1997
OTTAWA, Tuesday, March 18, 1997.
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology, to which was referred Bill S-5, to restrict the manufacture, sale, importation and labelling of tobacco products, met this day at 9:30 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Mabel M. DeWare (Chair) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chair: We are here this morning in consideration of Bill S-5, An Act to restrict the manufacture, sale, importation and labelling of tobacco products.
With us today is Dennis Nolan, Director of Education. We welcome you to the committee. Please introduce the students that you have with you today and then proceed with your presentation.
We look forward to what you have to say to us on this bill this morning.
Mr. Dennis Nolan, Director of Education, Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board: It is a real pleasure to be here this morning and to have an opportunity to participate with you in the deliberations you are undertaking on this bill.
I wish to make a comment about the three people who will actually be making the presentation. With me today are the student senior leaders from our school system. We have three high schools in our system. Among those 2,500 or 2,600 students, there is an elected student government at each school. From among those leaders a joint leadership group is formed, which is unique in the Catholic school system in Ontario and, perhaps, in Canada.
With me today from the Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board are Elder Marques, Student Representative to the Board of Trustees; Jennifer Hopkins, Vice-chairman, Joint Student Council; and Julian Ovens, the first student trustee in any Catholic school system in Ontario. Mr. Ovens is now the chairman of the Joint Student Council. We have the three pre-eminent leaders of our school system here.
It is rather timely that you have invited us to make comments on this subject because at our most recent Joint Student Council meeting, the students discussed some of the troubles with respect to the control of tobacco products on school property, and so on. This is a welcome opportunity for us.
Our three students have prepared the brief that is before you and they will present it to you now.
I will have done my "thing" by now being silent, which is something that Mr. Ovens and Mr. Marques enjoy me doing at board meetings when they get to vote and I do not.
Mr. Julian Ovens, Chairman, Joint Student Council: It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to speak to you today.
As young people, we are here to address the specific impact of Bill S-5 on young Canadians. As smoking continues to be a serious problem among young people in Canada, Health Canada statistics indicate a serious problem. They indicate a 25-per-cent increase in teenage smoking since 1991. We applaud Bill S-5 for its activist approach to the problem. The effects of the reduction of cigarette taxes in 1994 have been alarming as consumption among young people has increased and as yet shows no signs of reduction.
By regulating the content of tobacco products, the government would send a strong message to the public about the dangers that tobacco poses. By ensuring that only cigarettes with a lower nicotine content are available, the government also ensures that fewer young Canadians will become physically addicted to smoking. For those who do smoke, the effects of their habit would be less harmful because of the presence of fewer cancer-causing tars. Considering that, according to Health Canada, about 85 per cent of smokers begin before the age of 16, the government would be wise to target young people in the campaign to reduce smoking in the general population.
Few factors affect youth smoking more than the image of the cigarette, its price and its availability. Smoking is seen by many young people as a socially acceptable and often desirable activity. The influence of friends has been cited as the most common reason for starting to smoke, and the influence of peers is perhaps the strongest in the teenage years. Despite these strong social factors, we have seen that teenagers will only go so far to have access to affordable cigarettes.
During the smuggling crisis of 1993-94, our experience was that young people in our community were generally not involved in the purchase of less expensive smuggled cigarettes. This is not to say that Canadian youth are unwilling to take advantage of illegally obtained cigarettes -- the widespread popularity of marijuana is evidence that they are -- but it is important to note that the nature of tobacco products make them generally unappealing to the average teenager who would consider buying them on the black market. Smuggled cigarettes would probably be sold by the carton and this bulky format would pose the first problem to the teenager involved in smuggling or selling illegal cigarettes.
Also, the availability of lower nicotine and lower tar cigarettes on the market means that young people would, for the most part, not feel the need to buy smuggled cigarettes since they could satisfy their desire to be associated with smoking without taking the unnecessary physical and legal risks involved with smuggling.
We feel that the average teenager who smokes in order to be "cool" would be just as satisfied with a Canadian nicotine- and tar-reduced cigarette as with an illegal American one. Already, many young people smoke the lighter cigarettes which are currently available on the market.
In the end, the problems of an increase in smuggling pale in comparison to the 40,000 annual deaths in Canada that are caused by tobacco use. Through the passage of the bill, the number of those deaths could be significantly reduced.
Ms Jennifer Hopkins, Vice-Chairperson, Joint Student Council, Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board: The effects of price on tobacco use, especially among young people, are well known. From 1981 to 1990, tobacco use among Canadian youth dropped from a rate of 40 per cent to about 20 per cent. Government statistics show that in the years from 1985 to 1991, the total price of a carton of cigarettes jumped from $19.50 to $47.06. A Canadian study notes that a 10-per-cent increase in the relative price of cigarettes resulted in a 40-per-cent decrease in smoking among 15 to 19 year olds.
Since price is such an important variable in teenage smoking, we feel that the legislation should go one step further. Tobacco products that have nicotine and tar levels that are just low enough to be legal in Canada under the proposed regulations should be taxed at a higher rate than those which are significantly lower than the government's imposed threshold. This would encourage teenagers to switch to even lower nicotine and lower tar cigarettes and help those smokers who are trying, or who have tried in the past, to quit.
Health Canada statistics indicate that 80 per cent of young smokers have seriously thought of quitting, and 80 per cent of those have at least at one time seriously attempted to do so. For these people, lower taxes for less addictive and less harmful cigarettes would be one more incentive to change their smoking habits. For money-conscious teens, more expensive, higher nicotine and higher tar cigarettes also become much less attractive.
Consequently, we recommend that, along with the regulation of tobacco products, the government adopt a tax strategy that imposes higher cigarette taxes on products which do not have nicotine and tar levels that are significantly lower than those levels mandated by law.
In the event that Bill S-5 does not become law, we recommend that the government adopt a staggered tax system under the existing nicotine regulations by taxing light and mild cigarettes at a lower level than regular ones.
Mr. Elder Marques, Student Representative to the Board of Trustees, Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board: The introduction of regulated cigarettes into the Canadian market would be a positive development because tobacco products would be less addictive and less harmful and therefore safer to the consumer. However, we fear that tobacco companies would take advantage of the new "safer" status of their product to market them in a different way. We fear that unless strict controls are imposed on tobacco advertisement for the newly regulated cigarettes, rates of smoking experimentation among youth, especially preteens, could increase.
For that reason, we recommend that strict guidelines be created with regard to the labelling of tobacco products, especially the use of the words "light", "mild" and any variation of the word "safe".
Further, we recommend that the government continue its vigorous opposition to lifestyle advertising of cigarettes.
We also feel that with effective campaigns against smoking throughout Canada, the message that newly regulated cigarettes are not safe, only less harmful, can be spread effectively. According to Health Canada, 91 per cent of youth believe that tobacco is addictive. This indicates that certain current smoking awareness campaigns have proven to be effective. In the future, continued campaigns can and should be undertaken to ensure that the dangers of regulated tobacco are understood by young people.
In conclusion, we urge you to support the innovative approach of Bill S-5 toward tobacco use in Canada. We recognize that one of the purposes of the bill is to protect young Canadians and we applaud this strategy to combat youth smoking. We are all well aware that in most cases smoking starts at a young age. Clearly, any steps taken to lower the chance of nicotine addiction and reduce the harmful effects of tobacco are welcomed.
Smoking has far-reaching implications for Canadian society in both health care dollars and personal tragedies. We hope our views have been helpful and we hope you will give serious consideration to our recommendations.
Thank you for giving young people such as ourselves the opportunity to contribute to the decision-making process surrounding issues that affect us.
We welcome any questions you may have.
The Chair: You have talked about why you think young people begin to smoke. At what level of the education system do you recommend we start a campaign to make young people aware of the dangers of smoking? If we do that at the age of 9 or 10, when we know that they do start to smoke, will we only be bringing it to their attention?
Mr. Ovens: Young people are growing up very quickly today. Increased campaigns about the dangers of cigarette smoking would not be their first introduction to the world of cigarettes. They watch television at a very young age and see commercials and dramas with people smoking. It would not be their first exposure by any means.
I find it surprising as well that statistics show that children are starting at extremely young ages, namely, at 11, 12, 13, and even younger. My younger brother has told me of a student in grade 6 who is smoking. In grade 6 you are 10 or 11 years old.
I encourage you to seriously consider starting any campaigns at a young age. It would not be traumatic by any means and could only help.
The Chair: Is there a decrease in smoking among the group with which you associate?
Mr Ovens: No, I have seen an increase since the price of cigarettes has decreased.
Ms Hopkins: I have a friend who moved to Winnipeg about one year ago. She started smoking here when prices were lower. In Winnipeg, the prices are much higher -- roughly around $8. Within the first month she was there, she was forced to quit simply because she could not afford to maintain the habit.
I took a small poll in my grade. The majority of people quit smoking when the price of cigarettes went up and started again when the prices decreased.
Mr. Ovens: Youth are money conscious about certain things. As we said, 80 per cent of teens have considered quitting and 80 per cent of those have tried to quit. If we are considering raising taxes, that is one more incentive to quit. It something that is considered by youth.
Senator Haidasz: I should like to congratulate the witnesses of this morning from the Ottawa Roman Catholic Separate School Board. You probably know that I sponsored this bill. It is my fifth in the Senate over the past 20 years.
I was struck to hear that some young people begin smoking in grade 7 when they are only about 11 years old. Where do they get those cigarettes? As you know, you cannot buy cigarettes unless you are 18 or older.
Ms Hopkins: You hear stories of people who steal them from their parents, if their parents smoke. I do not think it is that hard. I have seen grade 7 and grade 8 students at my school, which is Immaculata High School, smoking. I do not think it is that hard for them to obtain cigarettes, whether it be from a store or elsewhere. They always seem to find a means. We see them and they have cigarettes. They do not steal a whole packet of cigarettes from their parents. They buy them at stores. When they are as young as those in grade 6 and younger, I assume they get them from their parents.
Mr. Marques: Despite the regulations and all the barriers that have been placed in their way, access to cigarettes is probably the smallest problem. Certainly, price has a big effect. However, if you are a smoker throughout junior high and high school, getting the cigarettes is not usually the big problem. There are older friends, older smokers or parents, as was mentioned. Access is hardly ever a problem.
Mr. Ovens: Tall grade 8s have been known to be able to purchase cigarettes at corner stores.
Looking through the literature, I see that kiddy packs of smokes have been banned for several years. When I was in grade 7 and grade 8, I remember corner stores selling single cigarettes to students, which is not legal. How many illegal activities have we just mentioned?
The Chair: Do you think that Bill C-71, which stipulates that you must be 18 to buy cigarettes and that you must show your ID, will have an effect?
Ms Hopkins: There are corner stores which will not sell cigarettes. They will ask for ID at the counter. It is not hard, for example, to ask an OAC student who is a smoker to buy cigarettes. These OAC students have sympathy for a younger student because they remember the times when an older student bought cigarettes for them. They will, in turn, buy the cigarettes, pocketing a small amount of money for themselves, too.
Mr. Marques: It can not hurt, either. Even if it is only a little effective, that little bit could make a difference.
Mr. Nolan: Unknown to people of my age, it is very easy to get false age identification and to use it. My son was explaining to me yesterday how it could be done for another purpose. He is 19. He does not need to do it any more. They can do it, but most do not. If we could enforce the regulations that are coming forward, it is well worth the effort.
Senator Haidasz: This brings me to another question. With regard to a storekeeper who wants to see identification, is there only one piece of identification that must be shown, for example, a birth certificate? For what kind of identification do they ask?
Mr. Ovens: I am sure they are supposed to show picture ID. With regard to the whole issue of asking for identification from young people, if Bill C-71 goes through -- I do not know the details of the bill -- and if it contains strict guidelines about asking for identification from young people, then that is great. You would have to see some strict enforcement and some major changes in the way that things are carried out now.
When you walk into a corner store, you see a big sign that says "19" with an "X" through it. Sometimes, they do not ask anyone for identification. Presently, I do not think youth have any respect for that because it is not often enforced. However, sometimes it is enforced.
I have a young-looking 27-year-old boss who has been asked for identification at a store. That shows someone who is being extra careful. Usually people can pass by it.
Senator Haidasz: Let us conclude, then, that the enforcement procedures are lax. People just do not carry them out.
In view of the fact that students begin to smoke in grade 7, and in view of the harmful effect of cigarettes causing many chronic diseases and, finally, if one smokes a lot of cigarettes for 20 years or more, one can eventually die of some tobacco-related disease, are there in the Ottawa school boards any special classes or lectures which deal specifically with the necessity to stop smoking? Are there classes which teach about the effects of tobacco and deal with the laws that exist at the present time and the statistics from the health department on how bad the effects of tobacco smoking are? Are there any special courses in your board of education?
Mr. Ovens: There are two points that I can make. First, every high school student must take one physical and health education class before they graduate. Often involved in that class, or in grade 7 and 8 which is not part of high school, there are health units which deal with issues such as sexual health, illicit drug use, smoking, alcohol, and so on. Those issues were dealt with between grades 7 and 9, which involves students who are approximately 11 to 15 years of age.
Second, public health nurses -- at least in Ottawa -- are assigned to schools. You are all aware of the budgetary restraints of municipalities. As a result, one public health nurse is assigned to approximately 12 schools. That spreads him or her out quite a bit.
We did have the Quit for Life program, which is sponsored by the federal government, which the nurse tried to start up in our school. I am not sure of its success rate. I remember one activity was, along with other things, trading your cigarettes in for a chance at winning CDs and various things like that. There was a contest. There are some activities out there.
Mr. Marques: Education has been pretty successful. Most young people understand the risks that they are taking. For whatever reason, I guess mainly social factors, they choose to ignore them. You can tell coming out of elementary school. For example, I have a little brother in elementary school and he thinks smoking is pretty horrible. They are indoctrinated at a fairly young age, which I think is pretty successful. That is probably the biggest difference from the current situation to, perhaps, 10 years ago or longer. Education has worked. It is important that we take a look at why, despite successful awareness campaigns, teens still light up.
Mr. Ovens: Young people at 10 or 11 go up to a mother, a father, or a friend's mother, and say, "Why are you smoking?" Sometimes the person will become defensive. Sometimes it will be a bit of a reminder that, "Oh, there is a young person in the house." They are well aware. Approximately 91 per cent of teens are aware that cigarette smoking is addictive. However, there are other factors present.
Senator Haidasz: Can we say that smoking is forbidden in the grounds and in the buildings of all of the schools in Ottawa?
Mr. Nolan: Yes. A statute in Ontario requires us to have smoking off premises, and that includes both the grounds and the buildings. We enforce that. We have 31 schools and we enforce it, I hope well, across the system.
That creates a problem. As I indicated in the introduction, when you force people off the grounds, you force them onto some other person's property. They are either on the street or standing on the roads with cars going by or crossing the street. The neighbours have a hard time with that. Certainly, from the perspective of the location of smoking, there is a prohibition. Some kids must then walk through that corridor of smoke on the way into school, and that is another problem. However, there is an enforcement. It is as vigorously applied as each of our principals is able to manage.
Senator Haidasz: Thank you for your answers and your brief. Thank you also for the novel idea of a staggered tax related to the level of content of nicotine.
Senator Losier-Cool: Thank you for being here. I congratulate you on your brief. My question is related to what Senator Haidasz said about effective programs.
Yesterday, I was talking to a group of 100 students from different schools across Canada who had come to the Terry Fox Centre. They talked about Bill C-71 and the question of tobacco. For the most part, they said that more programs in education were needed. I told them that we need youth, the younger generation, on our side if we are to become a smokeless society. Statistics show that that is when people start smoking.
In addition to what you said to Senator Haidasz -- and looking also at page 5 of your brief -- there is no such thing as a safe cigarette. You stress that. Students seem to know the difference between a light and a mild cigarette, as you say in your brief. They know about mild cigarettes and, if that is what they want, they go for a mild cigarette. If smoking is social, a mild cigarette will do.
Is the price the most effective tool to stop student smoking? I asked a young girl yesterday, "What will make you stop smoking?" She was aware of everything, but she just will not stop smoking. Is price the determinative factor?
Ms Hopkins: I believe the thing that will be most effective is the price. Most teenagers do not have excessive amounts of money. If they do, they have an allowance or a part-time job. It does not matter how long you try and how long you say, "Smoking is bad for you", and how young you start to teach them that smoking is bad. Even in kindergarten, they know that smoking is not good for you. I know of a family with an eight-year-old and his big wish at Christmas was for his mom to stop smoking. He brought her the pamphlets on how smoking is unhealthy.
Among teens, those who smoke know that it is bad for them. I believe that the price will stop them. It forces them to stop smoking if they cannot afford it.
Senator Losier-Cool: If we are to go with a program of awareness, as we are in certain cases, is there something else we can add in a education program? Statistics show that young girls smoke because they want to do what the boys are doing or they want to feel more important. Should we take a social value approach? Should we stress that?
Ms Hopkins: Another aspect is that many girls smoke because they think it will suppress their appetite and keep them nice and thin like the models. If you look at any fashion magazine, you will most likely see one of the most famous models with a cigarette in her hand, if not several of them. I would say the majority of girls do it to be social, and, as well, they believe it will keep them thin and suppress their appetite.
Senator Losier-Cool: Therefore, the question of societal values is very important.
Mr. Nolan: The young people here have mentioned Quit for Life and a variety of other programs. We speak from the Ontario perspective, but both the Canadian and the Ontario government have had programs of some kind over the years in order to target smoking. The students are right. Kids do come home at early ages and tell their parents they want them to stop smoking because, at early ages, the school, or the health department, or a combination of both, with or without some provincial or federal support, present to them the dangers of smoking. The kids see some horrible specimens and slides and that kind of thing.
The problem with those programs -- and I would characterize them as the healthy lifestyle kinds of programs -- is that they are temporal. No one seems to want to sustain them in education. Someone will come along with a great program for three years or so, and if the school board will pay some of the money we will pay some for a few years, and then you are supposed to keep it on and do 50 other things.
Senator Losier-Cool: They are the first ones to suffer the cuts.
Mr. Nolan: That is right. A program that is a program and not some kind of a passing-through type of thing would be better.
Mr. Ovens: We have shown today, and we all seem well aware, that smoking is caused by a combination of factors. As Ms Hopkins said, young women think of being healthy as being thin. We then need to talk about health as being a complete package. For example, it is important to have good body weight and not to smoke.
At the same time, we can go back to the cigarette vendors. If you have these regulations saying, "You are not allowed to sell to those under the age of 19". If you are the proprietor of a small store that is suffering economically because of various reasons, then you will say, "Survival of the fittest. Either my store goes under or young people smoke."
Senator Losier-Cool: To summarize, you say the bill we have in front of us, Bill S-5, would be one way to reduce tobacco consumption. It is not the way, but it could be one means to accomplish that in our effective smokeless program.
Mr. Marques: To add to that, the approach taken in this bill would also imply that awareness campaigns would be stepped up. There is a fear -- and we discussed this at length -- that if you produce a cigarette that is not safe but safer, you remove a bit of that fear that has been ingrained into the minds of young people. If we are to force cigarettes to have a certain low nicotine or tar level, then it is clear that these are not safe cigarettes and that these are not a healthy alternative to not being a smoker. That is the point that we made at the end of our brief. The way they are marketed must be strictly regulated so that suddenly not every cigarette is called "lite". Player's Light, the healthy choice.
The Chair: Or safe.
Mr. Marques: Yes.
Senator Losier-Cool: That is a dangerous area.
Senator Doyle: Thank you for coming. Extending this business of how you advertise, or how you communicate, or how you get your message across, is there not an element here of a negative kind of attraction, that those who smoke are more daring, more sophisticated, more worldly or more adult, or which ever one of those words apply?
Mr. Ovens: A big part of it is the social pressure. One of the factors for girls is that, yes, they think it makes them thin, but for guys and for girls, it is still something cool to do. It is acceptable. People do not think it is dirty. They are not nagging on them that it is unsafe. I do not know if "worldly" or "sophisticated" is the right word but, yes, it is a "cool" thing to do. That is often the way it is perceived.
Ms Hopkins: If you were to go to our school and take the OACs and grade 12 students, those who are smoking now started smoking in grade 7, 8 or 9 at the very latest. I cannot think of one person who started smoking past grade 10. Those who do not smoke now are very health conscious and do not appreciate smokers around them.
If they go to a restaurant, the younger people will usually ask, "Do you mind if I smoke," because they know that others do not want to inhale second-hand smoke. It is the older people who will just light up. The teenagers will think twice because they are aware of the health factors because, every day, they hear them over and over again. They start young because when you are 13 years old, you want to be 16 years old and you think you look older if you smoke.
Mr. Ovens: You will also hear comments about needing to get through a big exam and needing to smoke to settle down and calm the nerves. It is not said explicitly.
Mr. Marques: There is a certain attraction there. It may seem a bit silly, but there are many teens who feel adult if they can say, "Oh, I am so stressed. I need an extra-large coffee in the morning and a good smoke." There is a certain appeal. "Life is tough and I need to smoke to make it okay for me."
That is something that is hard to attack and hard to change. Price is something that takes all those factors and says, "Well, if you cannot afford them, you cannot afford them."
Concerning smuggled cigarettes, from our experience, the smuggling problem was overblown.
The Chair: For young people, it was overblown?
Mr. Marques: For sure. Price is the one thing that will change all those factors. You cannot do much about the idea of the rebellious smoker. Awareness is one thing, but it is difficult to really change that. Price is certainly effective.
Ms Hopkins: Another good thing about the bill is that you are forcing them to have no choice but to smoke the lighter cigarettes. If they want to smoke and if the only cigarettes in the store are lighter than those that are there now, they have no choice but to take those. Do you understand what I am trying to get across? Even if you make them more expensive and the standards are forced to be lighter, the smokers will smoke whether or not you want them to smoke.
Senator Doyle: In the last couple of years, I have become more conscious of the evils of smoking for reasons that you may have noticed. When I go to the movies, 90 per cent of the time the people up there on the screen are falling away. The younger they are, the more they are smoking. It may be banned in the theatre; no one can smoke there anymore. However, the role models -- that is, to the extent that movies are still exceedingly popular with young audiences -- seem to be constantly either with cigarette in hand or in mouth and it seems to be associated with everything from drama to pleasure.
I do not go to rock concerts, so I do not know what happens there and I do not dare speculate. You are missionaries in what you are doing. How do you find your own message is perceived among your peers?
Mr. Ovens: As Elder Marques mentioned, it is very hard to change the perception of what smoking is. You named the reason. It is prevalent in the media, in movies, and so on. It will take more than a few bills to change that perception. Who knows if that will ever change.
As for us, you are the first to hear our message. We are not an anti-smoking lobby group. We are a group of young people who are taking our first look at smoking legislation and smoking policy. We have a council of student leaders from our school board. At our last meeting, we spoke about one of the board and provincial regulations which disallows smoking on school property. We had a lot of trouble deciding whether we should ask for that to be changed. We did not want to show that smoking was a good thing, that it was acceptable and it was condoned by the board or by the school. At the same time, we were looking at issues of safety where students were smoking on the road and issues of public image where our school appears on the news every time they need a background for some smoking issue. Those were the things we were looking at. This our first go at the smoking issue.
Mr. Nolan: The activity in movies and on television programs is something that we cannot stop. As you well know, most of that comes across a border or two before it gets here. No legislation that our government could pass could deal with that very effectively. You could imagine the hue and cry if we tried to remove the cigarettes from all the people in all the movie studios.
In education these days, more than before, we are trying to ensure that the young people understand what they are actually seeing when they are looking at a movie; that a movie is not just a movie.A movie has drama, but it has other activities in it. When I watch a movie these days, I can see that every drink consumed in the movie is Coke and I wonder how much Coke paid to sponsor that movie. Every cigarette may be a certain brand. People know that those kinds of insidious things are there.
In our media classes these days, we teach students as consumers of that product -- that is, the movie -- to understand what they are seeing and what it is doing to them. That alone cannot possibly undo the challenge of the model. If it is some wonderful person that you want to look like or be like who is doing this, then it is "cool" and that is that. However, there are efforts made in education in that regard.
Senator Forest: If this is your first foray into the political field because of this, I congratulate you. It is an issue that students should be aware of and I think you handled it very well.
I think you are right that younger children having got the message. We all have our stories. Coming in from the airport yesterday, my regular driver was ecstatic because he had not had a cigarette for three weeks and it was because of his children. That is very important. I congratulate you for what you are doing.
Have you had the opportunity or the expertise to go through the bill itself? Was there anything in the specific clauses to which you had any response, or is your presentation more generally that it is good to have a lower content of the cancer-causing agents and also the lower price?
Mr. Marques: We did go through the bill. That is what we used as the basis for our brief. We went through it and we were encouraged by what we saw. We thought it was certainly a step in the right direction. The other issues that we raised came from our discussions around the bill. It started there.
After going over everything twice, we conclude that this is a good bill. Regulating the nicotine content in cigarettes and regulating the tar levels in cigarettes is a good idea. We urge you to support it.
We have gone over the issues more than once. There were times when we were not sure and we talked it out, thought about it and came back to it. In the end, with our recommendations, we support it completely.
Senator Forest: Having been involved in school boards, and so on, were these discussions held at a student council meeting? In what forum were these items discussed? Was it your executive, or at the school board level, or in class?
Mr. Ovens: We had approximately two weeks' notice for this presentation, one of which was our March spring break. Unfortunately, we could not gather together all of our student council and joint student leaders.
We did talk about smoking at our last meeting and there was definite consensus about broad issues such as not wanting to condone smoking when we were talking about smoking on school property. However, we did not bring the bill before the committee. We are the executive. Thus, we spoke about it together.
Regarding your first question, we went through the bill clause by clause. We are not experts on the sections dealing with punishment, but we certainly looked at clauses relating to advertisements and labelling and at the regulations in relation to nicotine and cancer-causing agents.
There should be a few more additions to the bill in regard to being specific about the labelling, to ensure that we do not have people saying they are light, mild or safe. We also have one suggestion about the staggered tax strategy.
Senator Bosa: I wish to echo the remarks of my colleagues and congratulate the students. I also extend my congratulations to Mr. Nolan. I am sure he has had something to do with the students appearing before us today.
Have any of you smoked in the past? Do not be afraid to say so. I used to smoke like a chimney. There is no shame. I must be going to different movies than Senator Doyle, because I do not see young people being glamorized on the screen because they smoke.
When I was a teenager, I would go to the movies and the things that I saw induced me to smoke. For example, Errol Flynn and all these heroes, all the good guys, were smoking, and the beautiful countesses had cigarette holders. They were very appealing. The bad guys were chewing tobacco, by the way. That was an inducement to start smoking.
What induces young people to smoke today, with all the information at their finger tips proving the ill-effects of smoking? The advertising that is taking place from time to time on TV would have affected me terribly when I was younger. If I had seen an advertisement such as when you kiss a person who smokes it is like kissing an ashtray, it would have made me cringe.
Does this type of advertising not instil in teenagers the desire to not be associated with anyone like that?
Mr. Marques: I have never been a smoker myself. In our group of friends, there are certainly smokers.
I am not sure about the idea of glamorization. Smoking does not need to be glamorized at all.
With regard to the effect of advertising, teens are not that easy to convince any more. It is a symptom of our media-driven society that just as it is easy to give too much credit to having smoking on the big screen causing smoking or violence on television causing violence, young people are not given enough credit within society.
The influence of television has been slowed down because we have access to so much media and we see so much. Our generation is perhaps more media literate than past generations or even just a few years ago. "Generation" sounds a little dramatic, but even in the past few years. My younger brother, who will probably be exposed to more media images, more advertisements and Internet sites than I ever will, will probably be less affected by it all because he has seen so much.
Being more media literate means that when you see someone smoking on television you might not want to smoke, but when you see an advertisement against smoking you might not be swayed either. We are smarter than that.
Mr. Ovens: Also, if you look at cigarette smoking now, it has become so ingrained that it is not as obvious. It is kind of below the surface. It does not appear that the star is always there smoking, but it is kind of present in the movie and people accept it. It does not stand out.
Again, 91 per cent of youth know that cigarette smoking is addictive. They know it is bad for them.
The Chair: I was going to bring that up because we had not used that phrase "addictive". I live with a husband who smokes. He knows better. He is a dentist and he has had health problems, but he is still smoking. Why? Because he is addicted. When you say children start smoking in grade 8 and they are still smoking in grade 12, the reason they are doing that is because they are addicted.
Mr. Ovens: It is a physical addiction. Young people are realizing that it is addictive and dangerous. However, many things are dangerous. That is why young people have been given the label throughout history as being rebellious, and so on. For example, more young people speed and they are involved in more traffic accidents. They do things that are more dangerous.
Senator Bosa: I have a difference of opinion with you when you say that young people are influenced by what they see and that they do not believe what they see on television because it is repetitive, and so on. What about their feelings now? Smoking is banned in restaurants and in public buildings. Do they not feel like lepers or like they are being ostracised by society because they must smoke outside a building even though it is freezing? We see some of these poor people -- and I might have been in the same situation myself 20 years ago -- smoking outside and freezing. Is that not a very tough and productive message?
Mr. Ovens: We walked into one of our favourite restaurants with a bunch of our friends the other day. Plastered on the door was the following: "This establishment will adopt a non-smoking policy as of April 1." The smoker in the group was dejected, to say the least, but I do not know what was going through his head. I do not know whether it was, "Boy, this means that I am kind of an outsider. I am no longer the norm." Somehow, I do not think he felt that way. I think that is what they are trying to do with all these by-laws. However, I do not know if it is working.
Ms Hopkins: For the majority of teens that are smoking, they have not been smoking long enough. They cannot smoke in the Rideau Centre, or wherever, but that has only been the case for the last year or so. They have only been smoking for three or four years, so it is not a big thing for them. They were never allowed to smoke in school, where they spend 80 per cent of their time; or in their homes. Half the time they smoke outside anyway.
Mr. Ovens: They grew up with it and they do not know anything else.
Ms Hopkins: Yes, they grew up smoking outside. They have not known a time when they could light up in the school or elsewhere.
The Chair: I also want to commend you for your brief. You should look at Bill C-71 as well. That committee would probably like to hear from you also.
I should also like to look at students who are actively involved in sports. Do you find that students who are keen on sports such as football, baseball, basketball, and so on, are not smokers?
Ms Hopkins: I would say that half of them quit during the season last year. Our basketball captain quit for our season. A lot of them quit during the season so that they can run faster because they know that it makes a difference. When we do our runs around the school, the smokers are usually at the back and they say, "It is because I am a smoker." They laugh about it. In fact, they think it is funny. I would not say that the athletes are less prone to smoking unless they are serious about their chosen sport or activity.
Senator Losier-Cool: Would 50 per cent of the athletes be smokers?
Ms Hopkins: No.
Mr. Ovens: It depends on their level of participation.
Ms Hopkins: Yes, and how dedicated they are to their chosen sport.
Mr. Ovens: We have one friend who is a serious and talented participant at an international level. This person is health conscious about everything and does not smoke. However, I played on a recreational hockey team. It was a house league. These people know that they will not make the NHL. Hockey is not their life. They can play in that type of setting anyway and they do not care.
The Chair: Is it possible that some of our Olympic champions or some of our students who have done well in their chosen sports fields could be used as role models within the education system in the schools? In other words, they could do a school blitz -- not just once, but as role models. Do you think that could happen?
Ms Hopkins: I think so, especially for the athletes. For example, if Donovan Bailey told them how his running time would be altered by smoking, and so on, it would definitely have a greater impact. It would hold more weight to hear from one of their role models about how bad smoking is for them. I think it would have a stronger effect than having their teachers stand in front of them at the class telling them that smoking is bad for them.
Mr. Ovens: Yes, especially when that person has a cigarette package in his or her pocket.
Senator Forest: Surely not!
Mr. Ovens: Yes, that has happened.
The Chair: I want to thank you all for your presentations this morning. We appreciate you taking the time away from your busy studies to make this presentation to us.
The committee adjourned.