New Tobacco Labelling and Reporting Regulations

Today, the Health Minister proposed ground-breaking, tough new regulations on tobacco labelling and reporting that confirm Canada's position as a world leader in tobacco control.

The labelling proposals would require tobacco manufacturers to display, on all packages, hard-hitting graphics and health messages, as well as information about diseases, toxins in the cigarettes, and how to quit smoking.

The messages and graphics will occupy 50 per cent of the front panel of cigarette packages (up from the 35 per cent they currently occupy).

The reporting proposals would be comprehensive and require tobacco manufacturers and importers to provide the Government with detailed, up-to-date information on manufacturing and processing methodologies, marketing, sales, promotional and sponsorship activities.

These two sets of regulations should be in place by the end of the year. They will help ensure that Canadians are much better informed about the many serious health hazards associated with tobacco.

They are an important new phase in our Tobacco Control Strategy - a strategy that over the last year has seen us:

• Launch a tough new advertising campaign that exposed the tactics of the tobacco industry;
• Raise excise taxes on cigarettes and make permanent the 40-per-cent surtax on the profits of tobacco manufacturers originally introduced in 1994;
• Release over 10,000 pages of internal industry documents which reinforce the need for aggressive, sustained public education campaigns;
• Appoint Dr. Jeffrey Wigand, a former tobacco industry official, as Special Advisor; and,
• File a billion-dollar lawsuit against RJR-Macdonald Inc. and the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council alleging that they were involved in the illegal smuggling of cigarettes into Canada.

Our Tobacco Control Strategy reaffirms the steadfast commitment of the Government to reduce the devastating health effects of smoking. It is the number one preventable cause of premature death in Canada, costing 45,000 lives each year - the equivalent of a small city.

And smoking costs the health care system over $3 billion a year.