Feds mull smoking ban
Plan, which also includes apartments, calls for no tobacco sales to under-21s
The federal government is proposing to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes to 21 and ban smoking on college campuses or inside condo and apartment buildings as part of a new drive to dramatically curb smoking rates.
The ideas are floated for discussion in a Health Canada paper that says the government wants to see smoking reduced to less than five per cent of the population by 2035 — a reduction of about two million people.
The current rate, based on a 2015 survey, is pegged at 13 per cent.
The consultation document also gives a cautious nod to the potential of vaping and new “heat-notburn” cigarettes to reduce the harm of smoking, despite many publichealth groups opposing the technologies.
The paper is being quietly distributed by the department as it develops a new national tobacco-control strategy.
“The government is committed to charting a new course in tobacco control that seeks to radically reduce the unacceptable burden inflicted on our society by tobacco use,” says the document.
One leading anti-smoking advocate says he is “delighted” to see Health Canada setting an aggressive target for reducing smoking, but disappointed it seems to have few concrete policy options in mind.
“I would have liked to see that (five-per-cent goal) backed up with some indication that the government actually had a plan to achieve it, and was willing to be held accountable for achieving milestones along the way,” said Neil Collishaw, research director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada. “We’ve had consultation on consultation on consultation and we still don’t have a renewed strategy.”
He advocates more substantive policies, like regulations that prod the industry to move away from conventional cigarettes and policies to combat discount pricing of some cigarette brands, a trend he says is blunting the anti-smoking effects of high tobacco taxes.
Collishaw questioned the practicality of banning smoking in multiunit buildings.
“To what extent can you control what people do in their own homes?” Collishaw asked.
But Sheila MacDonald, a Cornwall, Ont., resident, applauded the suggestion, saying that she was made miserable by cigarette smoke that seeped into her unit from a neighbouring one, exacerbating her allergies.
“We could not use one of our bathrooms, and our clothes dryer held the smoke from the ventilation,” she said.
The current national tobaccocontrol strategy, a set of policies and related funding, is set to expire in March 2018.
Health Canada is inviting input on the shape of a new one.
One of the most striking ideas it suggests is working with provinces to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes — now at 18 or 19 — to 21, meaning Canadians could legally drink before they could purchase tobacco.
Such a change would have to be implemented in careful consideration of the age of access to marijuana, says the paper. The government plans to legalize recreational use of cannabis.
It also suggests bringing in regulations requiring tobacco products be less addictive. The department issued a tender last year calling for research on such a change, seemingly based on evidence that tobacco can be bred to produced reduced nicotine levels. It’s a controversial idea that has not been tried elsewhere.
The paper goes on to propose a broad expansion in the type of spaces where smoking — and vaping — would be prohibited. Bans could be extended to public parks, post-secondary campuses and multi-unit housing, says Health Canada. The document says the government is also considering “whether and how” it should encourage smokers to switch to ecigarettes, adding that health authorities in the United Kingdom are already pushing that idea.
And it notes the tobacco industry has developed products that heat but do not produce smoke from tobacco, which the companies say curbs the habit’s toxic effects. Those claims have yet to be independently verified, the document said.
It’s positive that Health Canada is at least open to the possibility of such devices, in contrast to the blanket opposition of U.S. authorities, said David Sweanor, an Ottawa lawyer, anti-smoking crusader and staunch advocate of vaping as a harm-reduction tool.
But he decried the document’s tepid statements that such technology might help reduce tobaccorelated illness.
“That is right up there with ‘It is likely less harmful if I take the stairs rather than jump off my third-floor terrace,’ ” said Sweanor. “It’s almost certain to be massively less harmful. We’re sitting on the possibility of something really, really significant here — if we grasp it.”
The group of companies that lost the competition for Canada’s new search-and-rescue aircraft is going to court to try to overturn the contract.
Procurement Minister Judy Foote and Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced on Dec. 8 that the government had selected the Airbus C295W aircraft as its new fixed-wing search-and-rescue (FWSAR) aircraft. The RCAF will receive 16 C295Ws.
But the losing bidder in the competition, a group called Team Spartan, wants the contract with Airbus, already signed, to be overturned.
An application for judicial review has been filed in the Federal Court, Team Spartan said in a release on Thursday.
“Team Spartan’s main allegation is that the selected airplane is unfit to safely perform certain key Search and Rescue tasks and missions required by Canada and should have been, therefore, disqualified,” it said in the release.
Team Spartan, led by the Italian aerospace firm Leonardo, was offering Canada its C-27J aircraft. The group wants the court to issue “an order requesting that Canada cancel the contract with Airbus and award same to Leonardo.”
There are at least 165 C-295s flying with 20 countries or operators around the world.
Airbus Defence and Space is teamed with St. John’s-based Provincial Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney Canada, based in Longueuil, Que., CAE of Montreal, and Burlington, Ont.’s L-3 WESCAM to provide the search and rescue aircraft to Canada.
The new planes will replace the RCAF’s 40-year-old Buffalo aircraft and older-model C-130s currently assigned to search-and-rescue duties.
The federal government has not yet responded to Team Spartan’s claims.
The contract to Airbus was valued at $2.4 billion, which includes delivery of the aircraft, set-up of support systems including a training centre, initial spare parts, tools, support and test equipment.
It also includes the first five years of maintenance and support of the aircraft.
The contract could eventually be worth $4.7 billion to Airbus by 2043 if the Canadian government picks up all options for maintenance and support.