April 4, 1997

Smoking by the numbers

The Grits' anti-smoking ad bill is about banning speech, not tobacco

By WILLIAM JOHNSON
Ottawa Sun GATINEAU, Que. -- Okay, okay. So the tobacco companies are social lepers. Right now, let's face it, tobacco companies rank on the social scale just a cut above the pedophiles. What's worse, abusing vulnerable children sexually, or luring them to take the first puffs that will put them on the path to addiction, to cancer and an early grave?
Health Minister David Dingwall wants to push through his bill, now before the Senate, that will restrict advertising and sponsorship of sports or cultural events by tobacco companies. He wants it passed into law before the Liberals call an election. Remember, he advised Canadians not to vote for the Liberals unless they had acted against tobacco. So, when he appeared before the Senate on March 19, he waxed apocalyptic. "Tobacco, as we know, is a lethal product. It kills people. It always has and it always will. Each and every year it kills more than 40,000 Canadians."
Scary. Dingwall evoked the wicked power of the tobacco companies who had convinced kids that they would not be harmed by the noxious weed. "I am 14, I am 15 years of age, I can smoke 10 cigarettes, I'm not going to get addicted. Every statistical fact that has been shown in this case will tell you that those that start smoking at the age between 14 and 17 years of age, there is a higher probability that they will continue on and eventually die from tobacco consumption."
Tobacco kills. But the bill before Parliament does not outlaw cigarettes. It outlaws speech. It's about censorship, about limiting freedom of expression.
The Supreme Court of Canada struck down in 1995 an earlier 1988 law restricting tobacco advertising. The court had no doubt that tobacco harmed. What it found wanting was that the government had passed restrictions on expression but failed to show that those restrictions would safeguard the health of Canadians.
"The critical question is not the evil tobacco works generally in our society, but the evil which the legislation addresses," the Supreme Court declared. And it set a test. If the government was going to violate the freedom of expression of Canadians, it had to show that the specific restrictions would work.
"The state must show that the violative law is demonstrably justified. The choice of the word demonstrably is critical. The process is not one of mere intuition, nor is it one of deference to Parliament's choice. It is a process of demonstration."
Demonstration is precisely what Dingwall didn't do. He was asked by several senators to produce statistics showing that the draconian prohibitions enacted in 1988 had led to reduced smoking. He could not produce any proof. He was asked to produce statistics showing that France's own draconian prohibition on tobacco advertising had led to decreased consumption. Again, he had nothing.
The available evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. In France, where the banning on cigarette advertising is all but absolute, a recent survey concluded: "How can one explain that, despite this law, the number of smokers continues to increase among adolescents and young women?" In Canada, the evidence is even more compelling. Surveys by Health Canada show that, in 1965, 49.5% of Canadians over the age of 15 smoked. Ten years later, the percentage had dropped to 44.5%; 20 years later, in 1985, it was 35%. In 1986, the year before the Tories introduced their anti-tobacco bill, the smokers had dropped to 32%.
So the bill that was supposed to save our children was passed. With what result? Here is what Health Canada reports.
"The over-all prevalence of smoking has declined from 38% in 1981 to 31% in 1994, but there has been no real change since 1986 (32%)." If that law restricting freedom accomplished anything, it arrested the long-term decline in smoking. When the state stepped in, people became less responsible.
The current bill is driven by hypocrisy, authoritarianism and opportunism. And, like the earlier Tories' bill, it will do harm, but no good. And, like that bill, it will be struck down by the Supreme Court because the court defends the freedom of Canadians.

William Johnson can be reached by e-mail: wjohnson@magmacom.com