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March 2005
TOBACCO NEWS FROM CANADA Comments by Warren Klass President, FORCES - Canada Dateline - Fredericton, New Brunswick
Hunter told C.P.: ”People are hanging on by their toenails. The bar business in this province is in crisis.” Dateline - Halifax, Nova Scotia
Professor Brennan stated: ”If people can’t smoke anywhere else, they will smoke in their cars and they will smoke in their homes and that’s where their children are.” While I appreciate the good professor’s intentions, there is not one iota of evidence that being around smokers has ever hurt the health of a child. Dateline - Montreal, Quebec
This process is now going on in Quebec. The Montreal Gazette has reported that the restaurant association has dropped opposition to a smoking ban as long as bars are included. Needless to say the bars are opposed. Dateline - Ottawa, Ontario
The precedent for this Canadian style jurisprudence can be found in Nazi “People’s Courts” and Stalin’s show trials, where niceties like evidence were no longer necessary for a new progressive social order. Dateline - Simcoe, Ontario
The Reformer predicts it will be the banks that pull the plug on Ontario’s tobacco farmers. Dateline - Chatham, Ontario “Propaganda all is phony.” Bob Dylan
According to the propaganda of the PARASITES, the tobacco companies don’t care about kids health, but the benevolent $500 million a year PARASITE Industry is their great protector, caring only about the health of The Children TM and not desperately trying to justify their six figure salaries and perks. What are the PARASITES brainwashing the kids about? Product placements in movies. This is where tobacco companies paid a fee to have actors smoking a certain brand. Never mind this is ancient history. This practice ended about 25 years ago. What else? Brad Pitt smoking in movies. I don’t claim to be an expert in Brad Pitt movies, but Brad Pitt didn’t smoke in Ocean’s 11 or the sequel Oceans 12.Brad Pitt didn’t smoke in Troy because it was set about 3,000 years before tobacco was introduced to the world. The last Brad Pitt movie I could remember him smoking in was Seven, which was restricted adult. The only movie these kids could site where characters smoked was Forrest Gump. This was made 11 years ago. Most of Forrest Gump was set in the 60s where everybody smoked. Its called realism. When dealing with the claims of the PARASITES, as Forrest Gump would say:” life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Dateline - Trenton, Ontario
Dateline - Newmarket, Ontario
Swift, the husband and wife owners of Tom and Jerry’s restaurant in Newmarket. The Swift’s spent six figures installing a Designated Smoking Room (DSRs) in their restaurant. The DSRs attract twice the number of customers as the non-smoking section. Mr. Swift told Yorkeregion.com: ”If the DSR goes, this restaurant closes. A lot of days, that room is the only reason we stay open.” Last year Tom and Jerry’s restaurant gave $100,000 supporting local charities and to team sponsorships. That will end if DSRs are outlawed. Dateline - Toronto, Ontario
One lawyer told the Grope and Flail:” Its precedent setting in the sense that in the context of class-action, it’s the first time that I’ve seen this done.” The shakedown ambulance chasers are jumping for joy on Bay Street knowing its open season on companies in Canada. Dateline - Winnipeg, Manitoba
The Sandy Bar Hotel in Riverton, open since 1947 has closed. Other bars in rural Manitoba have laid off up to a dozen staff. These jobs are impossible to replace in small towns. The Free Press reports that in many small towns people are converting their garages on a rotating basis to hospitality centers, drinking beer and playing poker while smoking. One participant told the Free Press:” It’s better than freezing your ass off at minus 40.” Its not just smokers skipping the bars to go to garage parties-non-smokers are as well. Non-smokers want to be with their buddies. One local bar profiled has 50 customers.35 are smokers. In small town bars, smoking customers are impossible to replace. The Free Press article makes clear that in small towns the local hotel is more than just a bar. It also has the restaurant and serves as a community meeting place. The other story from the Free Press involves the number of restaurants in downtown Loserpeg spending hundreds of thousands to build outdoor patios complete with heated fireplaces and TVs to appeal to smokers. Dateline - Calgary, Alberta
Bars, bingos, casinos, etc will still be allowed to have smoking. The only change will be minors will be forbidden. Restaurants can allow smoking if minors are banned. Dateline - Edmonton, Alberta
Apparently the Alberta government has heard their pleas. Before I get to the Tobacco News from across Canada, there is something I have to share with Forces Canada readers. Last week in Forces Canada I commented on the CBC’s blatant propaganda coverage of the www.mychoice.ca smoke in rally in Toronto. One of Canada’s greatest heroes, Thomas Laprade of Thunder Bay, Ontario took the time to write the CBC protesting the blatant hatchet job. Amazingly, Thomas actually got a reply from CBC. The reply was beyond belief. Is CBC trying to be funny, or are they being serious? Either way remind yourself, the Liberal Party pisses away $1.5 Billion annually on the CBC. Here is what Thomas received from the CBC:
Dateline - Montreal, Quebec
CBC Montreal is reporting that some Quebec based PARASITES in this case something called The Quebec Tobacco and Health Council has criticized the tobacco companies for having the audacity to actually appeal the certification of a class-action lawsuit green lighted by a Liberal Party appointed Judge who uses the bench to legislate his personal agenda. Dateline - Ottawa, Ontario
The Grope and Flail quoted Supreme Court Justice Jack Major as calling the problem of smoking:” substantial and pressing.” Dateline - Toronto, Ontario
They never asked me but I would have suggested “Tobacco Road” by the Nashville Teens:” Bring dynamite and a crane. Blow it up and start over again” would have been more appropriate. Also from Toronto, Terence Corcoran the columnist for the Financial Post, the business page of the National Post wrote a column about the Dolton Gang. An excerpt:
Dateline - Orillia, Ontario
In her recent column Dr. Surry links second-hand smoke to: SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), ear infections, colds, pneumonia and asthma. The problem there is not one iota of evidence to substantiate the Quackette’s claims. The cause of SIDS is unknown. More babies who die of SIDS have non-smoking parents than smoking ones. A noted SIDS researcher pointed out that not a single coroner has ever tested a SIDS baby for elevated contine. This would only establish that the baby had been exposed to a measurable level of second-hand smoke, never mind if or how it supposedly caused the death. For a doctor to make that kind of claim is nothing more than a Blood-Libel. The claims of inner-ear infections, pneumonia and asthma were “VACATED” (null and void) in the landmark 92 page decision by a U.S. Federal Court Judge. The Forces evidence archives have a ton of evidence on these questions. Second-hand smoke causes a cold? I’m not even going to dignify that. It’s too ridiculous Dateline - Thunder Bay, Ontario
The cost of launching an appeal was over $100,000.Sarsfield appealed to his fellow quacks for contributions. His fellow quacks had better things to do with their money. The Ontario Liberal government, running a 6 Billion dollar deficit found $150,000 to piss away letting Sarsfield have his judicial appeal. The Ontario Liberal government previously rejected spending $100,000 on Sarsfield’s legal fees. The Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal reported that Sarsfield will have his day in court on September 26 in Toronto. Dateline - Winnipeg, Manitoba
Dateline - Akwasame Indian Reservation, Quebec/U.S.Border
Most of these cigarettes are being manufactured legally on the U.S.side of Akwasame in New York State. Dateline - Toronto, Ontario “The press should be regarded as public enemy #1.They are the people that have made the antis campaign successful and will not be honest or fair in the way they present anything that reflects our side of the issue.” A participant at a www.mychoice.ca smoke-in in Toronto that was featured in a CBC news story broadcast across Canada last Sunday night.
I happened to see the CBC coverage Sunday night. It was pure propaganda. Only the most naïve believe that the CBC is anything more than an expensive propaganda mouthpiece of the Liberal Party. The CBC receives an annual $1.5 Billion grant from the Liberal Party. The $1.5 Billion buys a message. The CBC’s coverage of the Liberal Party convention was a love-in. Be assured the CBC’s coverage of the forthcoming Conservative Party convention will be a hatchet job. Before the CBC coverage of the Rock n’ Rally was even finished, I started receiving e-mails. Most of the bitching involved www.mychoice.ca ‘s Nancy Daigneault. Everytime I try to defend my choice or Mrs. Daigneault I receive nothing but bitching from outraged Forces Canada readers. One recent correspondent called my choice “worse than nothing.” Once again I’ll defend Nancy-and its not just because she’s a cute chick. A correspondent who attended the Rock n’ Rally informed me that the CBC spent hours interviewing Nancy and used the most unflattering clip possible, playing up the fact she doesn’t personally smoke and received tobacco company money to set up www.mychoice.ca. CBC claimed there were only a couple of dozen who attended the Rock n’ Rally. Both the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington and a correspondent who attended put attendance at 200.Many more would have attended if there had been more space. It was packed. According to the attendee, most participants were well dressed and very articulate. The only smokers featured in the CBC story were semi-literate hillbilly types. Suffice to say that CBC did not portray smokers as the winners of the Uma Thurman/Sharon Stone (both smokers by the way) look a like contest. CBC spent an inordinate amount of time focusing in on the pails of cigarette butts and Heather Crowe. How a couple of dozen smokers could have produced that many cigarette butts was never explained. The rejoinder to the Heather Crowe Hoax/Blood Libel came from a smoker who said she should have got another job. According to the participant the multitude of responses that the Heather Crowe story was a hoax was never aired. Why anyone expected more from the Liberal Party propaganda mouthpiece CBC is beyond me. Take a Torts R Us quiz to see if you have what it takes to be a Federal Judge in Canada. Some moron falls asleep on a couch with a cigarette and starts a fire. Who should be held legally responsible-Torts R Us?
(a) If you answered C you can have a great future as a Federal Judge in Canada. The Grope and Flail reported that a Federal Judge in Toronto recently certified this as a class-action lawsuit against Imperial Tobacco. If you answered c apply to the nearest branch of the Liberal Party of Canada for your appointment to the Federal Bench. No legal training, knowledge of precedent or even common sense is required. The only requirement needed is the capacity to self-indulgently legislate your personal agenda from the bench. Finally from Toronto comes a story from the forgotten but not dead file. The Toronto Red Star is reporting that washed up has been/never was Marianne Faithfull is on the patch trying to quit smoking. Younger Forces Canada readers may wonder who exactly is Marianne Faithfull and why they should care. Marianne Faithfull’s 15 minutes of fame came in 1964 when she co-authored the very pretentious Rolling Stones song As Tears Go By (I sit and watch as tears go by) and leaving her husband to become Mick Jagger’s girlfriend. In 1964 this was considered scandalous. What has Marianne Faithful done since 1964? According to the Red Star, her comeback 1979 album Broken English was a “punk classic.” Not being too familiar with this genre, I fail to see how endlessly screaming the word c--- makes this some kind of classic. But what do I know? So long Maryanne. I wish this real class broad all the best on quitting smoking and re-inventing herself. Dateline - St. Thomas, Ontario
One bar claims to have found a loophole in the law. The St.Thomas bylaw exempts actors on the stage from the smoking ban. Voila, every patron signs a statement attesting they are actors, then go on stage and recite a few lines. At the Manx Arms, manager Craig Wilson told the Times-Journal that he has lost $1,500 a week since the smoking ban was imposed and his overall business is down by 25-30%. The St.Thomas Ale House is refusing to admit bylaw officers unless accompanied by the police. Dateline - Winnipeg, Manitoba
Even if-a very big if-2% quit smoking because of smoking bans; I have three words for this. Two of them are Big Deal. If the PARASITES were so interested in getting 2% of smokers to quit they could have handed out the patch and gotten the same 2% quit rate. But handing out patches would have negated the necessity of a multi-million dollar PARASITE class employed, with 6 figure salaries. Dateline - Edmonton, Alberta
Dateline - Vancouver, B.C.
Canada’s self-advertised national newspaper, The Grope and Flail finally got around to the story. The Grope and Flail reports that those directly impacted by the fire blame the inept B.C. government belated response rather than Michael Barre for the tragedy. Rick Appel and his wife who lost both their house and their business in the forest fire have launched a petition in support of Michael Barre who faces innumerable charges, 600 people in this small B.C. town have so far signed the petition. Appel told the Grope and Flail: “Pat and I think this is something we can do for Mike. We don’t put the blame on him at all. And if there is blame, it doesn’t lie with Mike.” Dateline - Moncton, New Brunswick
Dateline - Montreal, Quebec
84% of Quebec residents find it acceptable to allow smoking in bars and discos.
Vive le Quebec. Vive le Quebec libre. Dateline - Ajax, Ontario “It wasn’t the Ride programs. It wasn’t hockey. It wasn’t the economy. It was the smoking bylaw.” Rob MacArthur, owner of the Puck &Beaver bar announcing the reason for it’s closing to Durhamregion.com.
Mr. MacArthur told Durham region.com that the bar lost between $300 to $1,000 most days since the smoking ban was imposed. Prior to the bylaw, the Puck & Beaver would be making between $1,500 to $3,000 on Friday and Saturday nights. After the smoking ban this dropped to less than $800. Also from Durham, in an uncharacteristic burst of common sense, city council by a vote of 21-6 voted down a resolution that would have criminalized youth smoking. Dateline - Welland, Ontario
She’s Baaacckk! The first order of business for these Hitler Youth wannabees was to have none other than Heather Crowe give one of her sermons at Brock University. There is certain symmetry to this. Radio station AM 900 CHML in Hamilton also reported on Mrs. Crowe’s appearance at nearby McMaster University in Hamilton. For someone supposedly dying from lung cancer from second-hand smoke, Heather Crowe has shown the energy and longevity of the Energizer Bunny. Lung cancer generally kills within 6 months of a diagnosis. The Heather Crowe Traveling Salvation show has been going on for about five years-or it seems like about five years. Lung cancer is a very debilitating disease. Heather Crowe has been around Canada and the world preaching her message of hate. It remains a valid question if Heather Crow now has or ever had lung cancer. Lung cancer in non-smokers has 40 documented causes. Second-hand smoke ain’t one of them. Dateline - Toronto, Ontario
Earlier in the week, Forces Canada reported that the tobacco companies were suing a bunch of shakedown ambulance chasers for a million dollars they spent in legal fees defending themselves from a bogus class-action suit that was thrown out of court. Canadian law is very specific in this-the loser pays the winner’s legal fees to discourage bogus suits. The Grope and Flail, Toronto Red Star, CBC, Canadian Press etc. all reported that incredibly a judge in Ontario sided with the PARASITE ambulance chasers. The Judge ruled there was a “special significance of the legal action to the public interest.” What this “special significance” was never exactly specified, beyond giving a license to a bunch of shakedown PARASITES. The Judge stated that awarding costs to the tobacco companies “could have wrongly had a chilling effect.” Wasn’t that what the law was designed to do? Once again the Liberal Party appointed social engineers legislate their private morality from the bench. Dateline - Thunder Bay, Ontario
Dateline - Edmonton, Alberta
Without Klein’s support it is unlikely the bill will pass. Dateline - Happy Valley/Goose Bay, Labrador
Bingo caller, Joe Tremblett told CBC: ”Friday night, I came down for bingo and ended up canceling it. We had 45 people here.” Dateline - Montreal, Quebec
Although profits are up at Imperial, sales actually declined. Imperial blames the sales drop on smuggling and competition from cheaper brand rollies, such as Number 7 made by Rothman’s. Reuters reported that B.A.T’s earnings increased 71% last year. Last week Forces Canada reported record earnings at Rothmans, and a 2-1 stock split and a 20% increase in the dividend. Dateline - Toronto, Ontario
Several months ago, Forces Canada gleefully reported that a class-action lawsuit against the tobacco companies was thrown out of Ontario court. Now, the tobacco companies are suing the ambulance chasers that launched the suit, Sommers &Roth for one million for their legal fees. According to the Grope and Flail, ”Big Tobacco” is sending “a big chill” to Canadian law firms interested in shaking down the tobacco companies. Awwww. Those of us from The Big Chill generation learned long ago that you can’t always get what you want. Kirk Baert, the lawyer representing Sommers &Roth told the Grope and Flail: ”The amount of costs would ensure that no one would pursue tobacco companies again in the province. The message is if you bring proceedings against these defendants, as lawyers, they will seek costs against you personally.” These ambulance chasers are portraying themselves to the Grope and Flail as some kind of champions of the poor against Big Tobacco. Spare us. These are just some Torts R Us PARASITES attempting a shakedown who are getting exactly what they deserve. Case closed. “The rich are
different.” F.Scott Fitzgerald. Also from the Grope and Flail comes the new in thing among the haute bourgeois, and literary chattering classes; allowing, even encouraging smoking at their parties. Novelist Barry Callaghan is a non-smoker. But he walked out of a party when he saw no-smoking signs. Here’s what Callaghan told the Grope and Flail:
Publisher Kim McArthur told the Grope and Flail: ”Smokers are so ostracized that I think they enjoy that added raciness of smoking indoors. Not only is the dinner party fun because you’re drinking expensive bottles of wine without paying for it, there is the bonus of doing something you’re not supposed to do.” Jennifer Carter president and C.E.O of Hermes Canada told the Grope and Flail: ”It just wouldn’t occur to me not to let people smoke. It isn’t a matter of smoking or non-smoking. I just want people to be comfortable.” The Grope and Flail is the must read mouthpiece and panderer of the whims of the upper and literary classes in Canada. Finally from Toronto, the Red Star is reporting on a new type of tobacco smuggling inundating Canada, water pipe hookah tobacco. This stuff originates in Egypt and used to cost $13-$15 for a 250 gram packet. Then Revenue Canada jacked up the taxes, and now the same 250 gram packet now retails for between $49-$59. Naturally this has started a huge smuggling epidemic on this stuff. According to the Red Star smugglers purchase this stuff in Detroit and smuggle it back into Canada through the Akwesne-Cornwall Indian Reserve that straddles the U.S-.Canada border. Dateline - Riverton, Manitoba
Dateline - Brunkild, Manitoba “You can prove anything with statistics. 14% of people know that.” Homer Simpson.
The latest idiocy comes from the Brunkild Hotel owner, Gary Derossier who is challenging the constitutionality of Manitoba’s smoking ban. His web site www.smokeouthypocrisy.com contains ridiculous correlations involving smoking bans and the increased rates of murder and rape. Naturally, some of the anti-smoking PARASITES who monitor the Internet leaked the story to the Winnipeg Sun. What happens is that people dedicated to fighting smoking bans end up looking ridiculous. I realize that these so-called correlations are no more ridiculous that much of the garbage the anti-smoking nuts come up with. But the ant-smoking nuts, and their amen cheering sections in the Canadian media would love nothing better than for us to make complete asses of ourselves with spurious claims. If you post something on an Internet site, be aware our enemies are watching. What you say can and will be used against us all. So please be careful what you say. It reflects on all of us. The last thing we need right now is to give the PARASITES ammunition to make us look foolish. Dateline - Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
At the Nutana Legion there are some nights where there is not a single customer, according to branch president, Garry Tait.According to Mr.Tait even non-smokers stopped coming because they can’t hang out with their smoking buddies, The Nutana Legion is now running a $17,000 deficit and has stopped donations to local charities including $4,000 promised to a local Air Cadets unit. Dateline - Montreal, Quebec Desperate PARASITES-Part I.
What is the latest outrage du jour of Les PARASITES? An Internet site sponsored by Imperial Tobacco showing patrons at a trendy nightclub smoking Kool cigarettes. Dateline - Toronto, Ontario
The Grope and Flail reports that the best deals can be found in Placentia, Newfoundland where cartons of Marlboros and Rothmans can be had for $10 on the black-market. Dateline - London, Ontario
“Anyone involved in the bingo industry will agree that roughly 70 per cent of regular bingo players are smokers. Let us look at what the non-smoking bylaw in London has done to the local bingo market. Three out of seven bingo halls in London have closed over the past two years, sending roughly 50 people out of work. More importantly, this cuts the revenue stream for 70 local charities.
Dateline - Thunder Bay, Ontario Desperate PARASITES Part II.
This claim doesn’t pass the smell test. A bunch of retailers are going to place cigarettes next to candy where they could be easily stolen? Yeah, sure. Dateline - Winnipeg, Manitoba
In Manitoba, the cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses is estimated at about $130 million annually. The province collects more than $200 million in tobacco taxes every year, for a tidy profit of about $70 million. If the tobacco manufacturers are merchants of death as the anti-smoking lobby claims, governments are their willing and well-paid accomplices. Aside from the hypocrisy inherent in jumping on the legal gravy train, there is a serious flaw in the B.C. law. beyond allowing the province to sue, it cripples the industry’s ability to defend itself by stipulating that government’s claim and allegations-such as the true relation of smoking to health care costs-cannot be disputed in court. This goes beyond hypocrisy. It goes to bad law.” Dateline - Regina, Saskatchewan
George Yanmitos, the owner of the 4 Seasons restaurant & sports bar claimed liquor sales are down by 25-35 %. Mr. Yanmitos told the Leader-Post:
It’s the same story at Tumblers Sports Restaurant where owner Jim Baiton claims:” bar business dried up substantially. If you’re straight bar and gambling you’ve lost 30 per cent of your business. Anyone tells you different, they’re lying.” Dateline - Calgary, Alberta Desperate PARASITES- Part III
I suppose it all boils down to the strength of one’s lobby group and the zeitgeist currently ascendant. The anti-smoking groups are but one manifestation of the fallacious belief in the fixability of everything. And they have the considerable resources of the health care establishment on their side. In the absence of an afterlife, longetivity has become the temple at which we worship, and the healthcare establishment is its priesthood. Thanks to the righteous lobby groups, backed by the governments’ considerable propaganda resources, we have come to know the liturgy by heart…Big Tobacco is, of course, the Antichrist. And-ace in the hole-secondhand smoke (or side stream smoke, or environmental tobacco smoke depending on the era), is “lethal” stuff, killing countless innocents, including, of course, the Children and that poor dying waitress that Health Canada trots out in its TV ads as a martyr to the cause… To his credit, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein is standing up to the beast and has rejected provincial Health Minister Iris Evans’ ill-considered call for a province-wide smoking ban…The donkeys-the so-called liberal press, the Red Tories, the NDP, the unions, the anti-smokists-are making the usual noises about worker safety,”lethal”second-hand smoke, and the rest. The Liberals, in a stunt of questionable taste, even trotted out the latest lung cancer victim to speak for the cause. But what is the cause? Making life even more unpleasant for the 25 per cent of the population that ekes out a modicum of pleasure from tobacco? Or is it just a case of imposing the will of the change donkeys on that last intransigent pocket of resistance? It’s enough to make one take up smoking again, on principle.” < Back To "I read the news..." > |
TOBACCO
NEWS FROM CANADA
March 28 -
Canadian Press quoted Kim Hunter, president of New Brunswick Licensees
Association as saying that sales at New Brunswick bars are down by 24%
since the province-wide smoking ban was imposed. Many small bars will
soon be out of business.