In Quebec, the Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) has continuously pursued its fight against cancer, especially with regard to smoking. Society volunteers, in partnership with organizations and healthcare professionals, have pressured policymakers and governments to adopt various public measures that will promote the eradication of cancer.
Act to prevent skin cancer caused by artificial tanning – February 2013
Read more about this here.
Smoking and contraband: good news!
Illegal tobacco products: greater means for less contraband.
On March 17 2011 Raymond Bachand, the Minister of Finance, presented the 2011 budget. The Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) has for two years called on the Quebec government to deploy the VITAL project, which fights against small neighbourhood distribution networks, throughout the province. The CCS has anxiously been awaiting an announcement of funds to enrich this project, which has already established its value in several Quebec cities.
An Enriched Budget
To start, Minister Bachand assigned an additional $3 M for the fight against contraband tobacco products. In fact, the budget stipulated:
The government is taking another step in the fight against contraband tobacco by assigning an additional $3 M to police forces to enhance their initiatives against neighbourhood contraband cigarette networks. As a result, seven (7) teams will be added to the three (3) already in operation.
A Step Back for Contraband
Furthermore, thanks to pressure from health groups, including the CCS, and other factors, contraband products now represent 20% of the cigarette market according to a government estimate. This represents an important drop because for a long time the percentage varied around 30%. Furthermore, the taxes generated by legal tobacco in 2010-11 stood at $848 M, an increase of $94 M over the previous year which was already an increase of $100 M over the 2008-09 total.
However
Contraband cigarettes are diminishing and this is good news for public health. With close to 11,000 deaths related to smoking each year, however, the CCS believes the fight against smoking should be assigned an even higher priority. Smoking kills more people than highway accidents, AIDS, drugs, alcohol, fires, murders and suicides combined! How can we say it is not a top-priority health problem?
Relay For Life letter-signing campaign
Thousands of citizens and numerous celebrities get involved!
At 57 Canadian Cancer Society (CCS) Relay For Life - links to old site events held throughout Quebec in the summer of 2010, a letter-signing campaign was organized to urge the Minister of Health to do more in the tobacco file. Tobacco use is the leading cause of cancer in Quebec, yet these cancers could be prevented!
Outstanding results
More than 22,000 Quebecers signed letters expressing their support of any measure that could give the Tobacco Act more clout and thus prevent hundreds of young people from becoming addicted to tobacco each week.
Famous names join the fight!
Ricardo, Bruno Pelletier, Marjo, Arthur l’aventurier, Éric Lapointe and many others signed letters demanding better protection of young people where tobacco is concerned.
Meeting with elected officials
Volunteers, accompanied by CCS representatives, then delivered to MNAs the letters signed in their ridings. In fact, a total of 52 MNAs from all parties were contacted and to date we have met with most of them. We are asking that they forward the letters from Quebec citizens to the office of the Minister of Health, Dr. Yves Bolduc.
The outcome
So far our demands have been favourably received by provincial officials. But the CCS won’t stop there. We will update you very shortly on how this ambitious campaign is proceeding and we hope you will join us in calling for greater government action on the health front.
Bill 59
Pressure from healthcare groups: Quebec equips itself with better legislation for the fight against contraband tobacco.
On October 28th 2009, the Minister of Revenue announced the tabling in the Quebec National Assembly of a Bill designed to modify The Law Covering Income Tax on Tobacco (available in French only), to allow Revenue Quebec to intensify the means with which it fights contraband cigarettes and tobacco.
Quickly adopted - on November 18 - the law allows for the imposition of a moratorium on the delivery of cigarette manufacturing permits, to increase certain fines and to ensure better control of material used to manufacture cigarettes. Furthermore, Bill 59 gives more concrete powers to police forces, allowing them to impound suspect vehicles, to search them without warrants, to seize illegal tobacco and to issue fines with the proceeds going to municipalities.
While a federal commitment is absolutely necessary to move the file for the fight against contraband tobacco ahead, the Quebec Division of the CCS thinks that this law is a step in the right direction and continues its pressure in this file.
Bill C-32
An end to flavoured cigarettes and cigarillos, as well as tobacco publicity in newspapers and magazines!
On October 6th 2009, the Senate adopted Bill C-32 (An Act to Amend the Tobacco Act). This bill which signals a turn in the fight against tobacco will ban advertising of tobacco products in magazines and newspapers, as well as flavoured cigarettes and cigarillos.
The CCS played a major role in the adoption of this legislation. It sent letters calling on Conservative Quebec Senators to ratify the bill, in addition to calling on Conservative MPs to persuade them to adopt the bill without any amendments.
Fight Back Section of the Relay For Life
More than 26,000 letters sent to federal MPs.
The Quebec Division experienced a very busy spring in 2009. The Division initiated, during five Relay For Life events, letter campaigns asking federal politicians from all parties to vigorously intervene in the contraband tobacco file.
At each of the participating Relays, volunteers made every effort to get letters signed asking local MPs, where the Relays were held, to fight back against contraband tobacco in all of its forms. Each letter was then sent to Prime Minister Harper as well as the different affected ministers (Revenue, Health, Finance, Public Safety). In total, more than 26,000 letters were sent to federal politicians, at the rate of about 1,200 letters per day, to maintain steady pressure on the elected officials.
Following this avalanche of mail, the main four parties contacted the CCS to assure the organization of their support in this fight and to answer the signatories of the letters. The CCS will send the answers from the four main parties to the signatories of the letters and makes a commitment to follow-up on the file with the affected ministers.
In five other Relays, the national office of the CCS, in collaboration with the Quebec Division, carried out a similar activity on the problems of financial support for people living with cancer and their caregivers. Marie-Hélène Dubé, well-known for her petition calling for extended medical insurance coverage for people living with cancer, joined the CCS to gather thousands of additional signatures for her petition.
The Quebec Division is thus the first division to introduce an element as important as advocacy in the Fight Back section of the Relay For Life.
Bill 43 - A beautiful victory over tobacco manufacturers.
At the beginning of June 2009, the CCS appeared before the parliamentary committee studying Bill 43, on the recovery of healthcare costs as well as damages and interest related to smoking.
Following the committee hearings, the bill was adopted on June 18. It will allow the government to recover healthcare costs, adopt stricter regulations covering the marketing of tobacco products and invest larger amounts for the prevention of smoking. The provincial government has already expressed its willingness to institute legal proceedings for billions of dollars against the tobacco industry at the beginning of the year.