The Tobacco Industry Responsibility Act
Revised September 17, 1998
A Private Member’s Bill sponsored
by Dr. Carolyn Bennett, M.P. (St.Paul's, ON)
The Problem
Smoking among youth in Canada aged 15 to 19 is reaching an alarming 30%
Eventually, these youth may be among the 40,000 Canadians who die from smoking related disease and illness every year.
Smoking costs taxpayers $3 billion dollars in direct health care costs and $7 billion in indirect costs. (Health Canada: 1997)
Government response is disproportionate to the problem.
The federal government has committed $20 million a year for 5 years for public health education and youth programmes. In contrast, Federal tobacco taxes however, are approximately $2 billion (two thousand million) per year.
An act to amend the Tobacco Act, C-42, introduced by the Minister of Health on June 3 allows tobacco sponsorships to continue for the next five years.
To date, there has been no additional commitment of funds to youth education programs or initiatives.
Solution
A variety of community based programs and activities are needed to help youth to not start smoking. Most smokers start as adolescents, a complex group to motivate.
A significantly greater allocation of financial resources is necessary to deal with a crisis of this magnitude.
A national plan to develop a broad range of solutions, run at arms length from government, that is developed and run locally -- to meet local needs together with a central clearing house of ideas that work.
Other jurisdictions have been successful with this concept. California’s Proposition 99, based on a 25¢/pack excise tax, saw smoking drop by 36% overall. Californians smoked nearly two billion fewer packs of cigarettes, preventing an estimated 400,000 premature deaths. (American Cancer Society)
California spends $4.00 per capita on youth education programs and initiatives and has a youth smoking rate of 11% as compared to Canada which spends .33¢ per capita and has a youth smoking rating of almost 30%.
The Tobacco Industry Responsibility Act would do the following:
Initiate a levy of 50¢/carton of cigarettes creating a $120 million annual fund.
Funding would be exclusively directed to programs at the national, regional and local level with emphasis on education and smoking prevention for youth.
The youth education fund would be operated by the Canadian Anti-Smoking Youth Foundation at arm’s length from government.
Additional Considerations
This bill is a levy for an industry purpose -- levies have elements which differ from taxation based legislation. It is a levy to achieve an industry objective as described by the tobacco industry in testimony before parliamentary hearings on The Tobacco Act. (Senate Legal Committee Hearings, 4/1/97; Page 52:25)
A recent Canadian precedent illustrates that levies for industry purposes are not taxes and, therefore, do not require a Royal Recommendation: An Act to amend the Copyright Act (sections 82, 83, 84 and 85) C -32 passed in April 1997.
Historically, Departments of Finance have had difficulties with dedicated funding. But tobacco-related deaths are Canada’s number one cause of preventable deaths -- tobacco related deaths have reached crisis proportions and merit a dedicated funding approach.
Police sources have indicated there is room for a $1.00 to $2.00 increase in the price of a carton of cigarettes before there would be an increase in smuggling.