Spoken presentation - Draft. Meeting with parliamentary representative on Thursday June 3rd.

 

Stats:

Alberta had an 18.9% smoking prevalence rate (Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol, and Drugs Survey – CTADS, 2017).

Sturgeon River-Parkland has a population (2016) of 120,784 people.

Statistically, roughly 22,828 Sturgeon River-Parkland residents smoked tobacco in 2017.

Morinville had a population (2016) of 9848 people.

Statistically,  1,861 Morinville residents smoked tobacco in 2017

 

I have two retail locations in your riding (Morinville est. 2016, St. Albert est. 2018); however, I will speak primarily to the Morinville location as the statistical analysis is easier to discern due to fewer confounding factors.

----

My business, Alternatives & Options Vapourizers and E-liquids Ltd. opened its doors in Morinville in February of 2016. Currently, that location serves 250 customers a week, the vast majority of whom are former smokers. This consumer count is the equivalent of 13.4% of Morinville's statistical smoking population from 2017.

The 2019 Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey (CTNS), which replaced CTADS, tallied Alberta "Current Smokers" at 9.7%.

Morinville's current population is 10,578 (2020), with approximately 1,026 smokers. That is a drop of 835 smokers over two years.

My little business can reasonably claim that we are responsible for at least 250 (29.9%) of those former smokers, not accounting for customers we helped transition and who then stopped vaping or those that moved away.

 

Youth uptake

My business does not cater to minors. That does not mean they don't try.

In December of 2019, we had a complaint from a parent that a youth's debit card had been used at our location several times. By the time we received the complaint, the security video footage for the site had been automatically overwritten. It was our suspicion at the time that the debit card had been provided to someone who had a valid ID that passed inspection, but with no footage, we could not validate that suspicion.

We spent $5,000 on two ID scanners and a recurring $400 monthly service fee to ensure that ID checks were third-party verified as valid, government-issued ID. We can also generate reports demonstrating our community responsibilities are being met. If we catch a straw purchase, we can (and have) ban(ned) individuals from returning to our place of business.

Just because I understand youth will try doesn't mean I'm interested in letting them succeed.

 Nor will I tell you that every business is as financially or ethically committed to preventing youth access as mine.

There are many upstanding shops in Alberta; however, you only need one or two "Bad Actors" in a region to have a youth access problem.

One such actor is an Edmonton head shop I  reported after seeing a slew of St. Albert 18-yr-olds in my shop immediately after their birthdays in 2019: all holding vaping products they had purchased elsewhere. I asked them where they were shopping before they were allowed past my doorway, and to a person, all of them gave me the name of a single head shop in Edmonton, which I reported to Health Canada's Alberta enforcement officer by e-mail.

What became of that?

Nothing. The shop still operates today in the same manner. Folks related to that business have, last year, opened a new head shop in St. Albert, which also serves in the same way.

 

Federal efforts to curb youth uptake

Then we have Health Canada, under the direction of Minister Patty Hajdu, which has a nicotine cap currently in review post CG1 (Canada Gazette) and a projected CG2 publication target of this summer, along with a potential flavour ban scheduled for CG1 publication either this month or next. "To prevent youth and non-smokers from inducements to expose themselves to nicotine."

If the Federal government wants to protect youth from exposure to nicotine, they should perhaps sanction the entities deliberately selling nicotine products to youth.

I still have about 1000 adult smokers I'm trying to reach in Morinville. They also have tastebuds.

In a federal regime where I am not allowed to tell Canadian smokers that vaping products:

·       are vastly less harmful than combusted tobacco (Unlikely to exceed 5% of the harm and may well be less than that figure – Royal College of Physicians, London 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019),

·       that vaping products are effective for cessation (Hajek et al., 2019) and that the evidence continues to shift in their favour (Cochrane Reviews. 2019, 2020)

In that regime, I'm limited in my tools to encourage them to try this harm reduction tool and lower their risk of cancer, heart disease, emphysema, and premature mortality.

Taste buds, surprisingly, are essential. In this aspect, so are flavoured vaping products. They entice adult smokers to chose a reduced-harm means of nicotine consumption; they reward combustible tobacco abstinence. In the event of a relapse, they remind a former smoker that cigarettes don't taste very good at all.

 

My request to you as a constituent of Sturgeon River-Parkland.

On June 29^th, petition e-3362, speaking directly in opposition to the upcoming CG 1 publication proposing a flavour ban for vaping products closes for signatures.

This petition has already met the minimum threshold (500 signatures) to be read into the record of the house. The assigned MP for the petition is Tom Kmiec (C) of Calgary Shepard.

When this petition is read, I would be appreciative if you would support MP Kmiec and remind this Liberal Government that there are three public sides that are impacted by this regulation.

·       The youth should be guided and encouraged to make sound health decisions around nicotine use in all reasonable manners. Past 30-day vaping product use population estimate: 291,300

·       There are also 1,063,700 Canadians above the age of majority who currently use vaping products instead of, or as an exit strategy from combustible tobacco products.

·       There are roughly 3.7 million Canadian smokers (CTNS 2019) who are prone to suffer undue morbidity and premature mortality that can be wholely attributed to the delivery system, not the nicotine. While it is currently societally acceptable to look down upon them in derision, the passage of time tends to look on such acts unfavourably.

 If this government is found in the future to have deliberately or inadvertently denied Canadian smokers access to harm-reduction by attacking the dissemination of accurate information (existing prohibitions on promotion in the TVPA), the efficacy of the harm-reduction (Nicotine caps currently in the gazetting process), and the appeal of the harm-reduction (Flavour bans to be put forward in the Canada Gazette Vol 1 this summer); all in the name of an unjustified moral panic over a gateway theory that in 15 years of chatter has not been proved out beyond a "theory."…

Well, it wouldn't be the first time a Canadian government was apologizing after the fact for needless mortality that could have been avoided.

I might only be able to claim responsibility for 250 ex-smokers in Morinville reasonably, but that's 30 percent of the smoking reduction in MY community since I opened my doors. I'm damned proud of that accomplishment. I'm a little irritated that the Minister of Health would see it undone and have my adult customers back in the morbidity/mortality lottery with odds of 50/50 for premature death by smoking-related causes.

I am frustrated by the Ministry's continued efforts to prevent me from reaching the 1000 remaining smokers in my community: to support the Canadian Tobacco Strategy target of less than 5% smoking prevalence by 2035.

I would ask for your assistance in helping this government understand my irritation and acknowledge my frustration.

On the record, if possible.

 

Thomas Kirsop