Antismoking senator wants your help for crusade
CMA News 2000;10(5): 3
See also:
Liberal Senator Colin Kenny is back with his plan to charge a levy on every carton of cigarettes sold in Canada. He says he is counting on support from physicians to ensure his new private member's bill will not be tossed out on a technicality as it was before.
"I believe the CMA has a tremendous opportunity to show leadership on this issue and help get this bill passed," Kenny said. "But I'm not talking about holding high-level meetings, I'm talking about all of the doctors in Canada talking, writing or meeting with their MP to relate the importance of this measure." The CMA Board of Directors voted to support the bill in principle at its March meeting.
The bill proposes to charge a levy of $1.50 on every carton of cigarettes produced. The estimated $360 million raised by the charge would then go to fund educational and promotional campaigns on tobacco use aimed at youth.
Kenny first unveiled his plan to use money raised through cigarette sales to fund tobacco education and cessation programs for youth two years ago. However, his bill, which was passed by the Senate, was ruled out of order in the House of Commons. In making the ruling, Commons Speaker Gilbert Parent said the levy would not "direct any benefit toward the tobacco industry, but to a matter of public policy." A levy is distinguished from a tax because it collects funds for the benefit of the industry involved.
Kenny said the Parent's decision to throw out the previous bill hinged on the Speaker's misunderstanding of how reducing the number of young smokers would help the industry. Kenny said the new and improved bill S-20, The Tobacco Youth Protection Act, explains that tobacco industry representatives appeared before a House of Commons committee asking for help to do that very thing.
Bill S-20 hopes to create an arm's-length foundation that will collect and distribute funds collected from the sale of cigarettes to fund programs aimed at encouraging youth to either quit smoking or not start. Kenny said critical factors of the legislation are that the foundation's board of directors will be independent of government, its operations would be reviewed each year by the auditor general and every program funded would have 10% of its funding set aside for evaluation.
"This bill aims to divorce health care from political haymaking," said Kenny. "What I am saying is let's be a little more mature here and not leave tobacco control to be a political football to be squabbled over by politicians."
Kenny believes that with the support of health care providers who deal with the realities of the impact and effects of tobacco consumption, enough pressure can be exerted on politicians that his new bill will pass muster in the House of Commons.
"I urge every Canadian physician to make the phone call, get the meeting [with an MP]," said Kenny. "Isn't doing that a lot better than seeing a patient ravaged by tobacco in your office or having to operate on a patient with cancer after years of smoking?"
 |
Send a letter to the editor Envoyez une lettre à la rédaction |
© 2000 Canadian Medical Association
