National Post

Editorial

Wednesday, November 24, 1999

Inside dope

Allan Rock, Canada's Minister of Health, announced this week that he has hired Jeffrey Wigand as a "special advisor." This is very exciting: Mr. Wigand is the real-life model for a spicy Hollywood thriller called The Insider, about a tobacco executive who exposed his company's secret plans to, er, sell tobacco.

Perhaps Mr. Rock thinks that consorting with a celebrity -- and Mr. Wigand is a sort of celebrity -- will boost his sagging bid in the Liberal leadership race. He may be right; his political rival, Paul Martin, was once a director at Imasco, which operates Imperial Tobacco. A Canadian re-run of The Insider -- complete with grainy footage of Mr. Martin reading company accounts to sinister background music -- might well hurt the finance minister's reputation in the current climate of nicotino-phobia.

Discouraging smoking is a perfectly legitimate aim of health policy. But even legitimate policies should be honestly argued. There is already enough hysteria and hypocrisy in the government's war on tobacco.

We know that Mr. Rock's sagging campaign needs a boost, and attacking tobacco companies is one way to do that. But as he chats with his new advisor, perhaps he should reflect on the fact that more Canadians smoke than voted Liberal in the last election. Hiring a U.S. huckster won't change that.