DENNIS BUECKERT, Vancouver Sun, 03 December 1998

OTTAWA (CP) - Commons Speaker Gilbert Parent has killed a bill that would have imposed a 50-cent levy on every carton of cigarettes with the money going to fight youth smoking.

Parent ruled Wednesday that the bill, originally championed by Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, is unconstitutional because it imposes a tax, and tax bills cannot originate in the Senate.

Health groups did not dispute Parent’s logic, but said the government could easily have solved the constitutional problem simply by adopting the bill as its own or introducing a similar one.

"(We) are extremely disappointed the government moved to kill this bill without announcing a replacement bill," Ken Kyle of the Canadian Cancer Society said in an interview.

"An important public health measure should not be killed by the government on a technicality."

The bill, passed by the Senate in June, would have created a Canadian Anti-Youth Smoking Foundation to co-ordinate anti-smoking campaigns. A similar body in California has achieved dramatic cuts in youth smoking.

The bill had won strong public support at a time when smoking rates among Canadian youth are rising. Hundreds of groups have mounted letter-writing campaigns for its passage and many newspapers have supported it editorially.

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett, who introduced the bill in the Commons, accepted Parent’s ruling without criticism.

Bennett, a doctor, and Kenny had argued the proposed fee on cigarettes was not a tax but a levy.

Levies can originate in the Senate, but they are defined strictly under parliamentary rules: they don’t go into general revenue and they must serve an industry purpose.

Supporters of the Kenny-Bennett bill noted statements by the tobacco industry that it wants to cut youth smoking. A levy which goes to fighting youth smoking would therefore serve an industry purpose, they said.

Parent rejected that argument, saying the primary purpose of the tobacco industry is to expand its market and increase profits, not to cut youth smoking.

"Young people would constitute the future growth potential of the industry’s market. How could it be to the benefit of the industry to reduce smoking among the very people who constitute its growth market?"

He concluded the bill was a tax bill and had not been properly brought before the Commons.

Liberal House leader Don Boudria said he was happy with the ruling because it is vital to protect the privileges of the Commons.