As expected, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals shot down MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) Toby Barrett's attempt to lower tobacco taxes in Ontario. His private members bill was defeated on second reading in the provincial legislature. Barrett's proposal would have cut the punitive tobacco tax by 33% and asked the federal government to do the same.
Barrett's proposed legislation was intended to help reduce the rapidly escalating problem of contraband in the province which he claims is now 50% of tobacco sales in Ontario.
Said Revenue Minister John Wilkinson: "We are with those who believe that we need to get our smoking rates down (and) that taxation is an effective deterrent..I think it's important that people understand when they buy illegal cigarettes, they are stealing from their neighbours."
Wilkinson is wrong on both counts. When people buy illegal smokes, they're not stealing from anyone; they're protecting themselves from the legalized extortion demanded by senior levels of government. And, taxation is no longer an effective deterrent to smoking. In fact, the usurious levels of taxation have become counterproductive and may be doing much more harm than good.
In 1994, federal and provincial governments saw that contraband tobacco was becoming a problem. They lowered taxes. But, around 2000, anti-smoker crusaders lobbied government to impose dramatic new tax increases, once again driving consumers into the welcoming arms of the black market.
In 1994, it was estimated that only 11% of tobacco was illegal; today it's 50% and, according to Barrett, some experts claim it could go as high as 80% by the end of next year.
And, tobacco taxes are no longer having the desired effect.
According to a 2007 study by PSC (Physicians for a Smokefree Canada): “The number of smokers in Canada has remained virtually unchanged over the past 5 years.”
PSC claims that, in 2005, there was an estimated 4,889,511 smokers in Canada; by 2007, that number had climbed to 5,165,376. Smoking prevalence went from 18.7% to 19.2% over the same period. Contraband sales went from an estimated 4% in 2002 to a whopping 40% in 2007. And now, they're estimated at 50% of the market.
In addition, tax revenue dropped from 1.453 billion dollars in 2004, to 1.217 billion in 2007. That's a 226 million dollar loss in provincial tax revenue. A loss that not only continues, but continues to grow. Latest estimates from the provincial Auditor General's report estimates Ontario is now losing $500-million in taxes due to contraband tobacco.
But, the provincial government, and their colleagues in Ottawa, are prepared to spend tens of millions more on policing contraband sales rather than admit that their tax-gouging policies have been an abject failure. The politicians prefer to kiss the collective ass of the anti-smoker brigade and punish 20% of the adult population in a futile attempt to impose a backdoor form of tobacco prohibition.
It's not working.
And, the reason it's not working is that a contraband smokes can be manufactured for less than $8.00 per carton of 200 cigarettes. In Ontario, provincial tobacco tax alone is roughly three times that amount per carton. Ottawa adds twice that amount. The potential for profit in the black market is huge; literally billions of dollars. It is this direct and indirect taxation on tobacco that makes the sales of contraband even more attractive to the flourishing black market.
The demand exists whether the anti-smoker fanatics like it or not. Government is unwilling to allow the legal market to fill that demand; at least not at a price the consumer is willing to pay. Dealers in contraband stand ready and willing to furnish the supply side of the equation. And, rake in sizable profits for their efforts.
Most politicians refuse to admit that tobacco taxes exceeded their effective limit years ago; that they are now faced with the law of diminishing returns. Heads buried firmly in the sand, they'd rather find fault with consumers for refusing to pay punitive, discriminatory taxes. No other legal product in the country is taxed to such extremes.
Yet, the provincial government seems poised to exacerbate the problem, rather than resolve it. They are prepared, once again, to allow the anti-smoker brigade to dictate public policy. OCAT (Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco), one of the more strident anti-smoker groups, continues to insist that penalizing smokers financially is the most effective way to force them to give up the habit.
Ottawa and Queen's Park will ignore the lessons learned in the early nineties when contraband threatened to get out of control. They'll ignore the lessons from the early part of the twentieth century when attempts to prohibit alcohol led to an upward spiral of illegal activity and violence.
And, they'll ignore the fact that it was following advice from rabid anti-smoker groups which is, in large measure, responsible for the current problem with contraband.
Politicians followed that advice, hoping to enhance government coffers with an opportunistic tax grab. But, every tax increase added greater financial incentive to the criminal element. And, the law of unintended (but not unforeseen) consequences has done the rest.
Young people have greater access than ever to cheap cigarettes; from the trunk of a car, without the hassle of providing ID. Tobacco wholesalers and retailers are unable to compete with the far less expensive contraband. Tax revenue is declining despite the highest levels of tobacco taxation in Canadian history.
Politicians believe more stringent enforcement will resolve the issue. History, and common sense, suggest otherwise.
Unfortunately, Toby Barrett's effort to bring some common sense to the debate was doomed from the start.
Propaganda is defined by Merriam-Webster as “the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person”. Sounds fairly innocuous. Until you realize that misleading statements and the omission of pertinent information (even outright lies) are often used by the propagandist to convey a message that is not, in fact, accurate.
A recent example of propaganda is the FDA assault on, and efforts to ban, the electronic cigarette. The FDA informed the public that electronic cigarettes contained carcinogens. But they neglected to mention that the same carcinogens were present, in similar concentrations, in nicotine replacement products such as nicotine gum, nicotine lozenges, etc. They lied by omission.
Another example: the results of scientific studies, ostensibly showing a decline in heart attacks following the implementation of smoking bans, are released first to the media, prior to peer review and publication in a legitimate medical journal. And when the conclusions turn out to be unwarranted, the media have already disseminated the baseless conclusions. But, corrections are, more often than not, ignored, leaving the public to believe the original lie.
It's a process known as “science by press release”. And, it's simply another form of propaganda.
Even the more subtle forms of propaganda can alter public perceptions to troubling degrees. For instance, the anti-smoker claim that: “Smoking causes more deaths every year than homicide, suicide, car accidents and HIV combined”; or the many variations on that theme.
Most Canadians accept such assertions without question, especially when they come from government sources such as Health Canada or the Ontario Ministry of Health Promotion. But, many such claims are deliberately intended to mislead the public. They fit the definition of propaganda.
The claim that smoking causes more deaths every year than homicide, suicide, car accidents and HIV combined is meant to suggest that there is only one cause for those deaths – smoking. But, no one actually dies of smoking; they die from so called “smoking related diseases”, which have been, to greater or lesser degrees, statistically linked to smoking.
There is no ICD (International Classification of Diseases) classifying smoking as a cause of death. Smoking may, or may not, contribute to deaths caused by ischemic heart disease (IHD), lung cancer, influenza, etc., but smoking is not the cause of those deaths. To claim otherwise is disingenuous and deceptive.
And, there are 20 individual classifications of death lumped together in the non-existent disease classification of smoking. These classifications include 11 different cancers (including lung cancer), influenza, stroke and pneumonia. It includes IHD which causes over 40,000 deaths annually, only 13% of which are attributed to smoking.
So those “smoking” deaths are the sum of 20 distinctly different causes of death, not smoking. Using a non-existent disease classification (smoking) obscures that fact. It is a propaganda ploy.
Even the term “smoking related diseases" is meant to mislead. It implies that these diseases are caused exclusively by smoking when the truth is that they are multi-factorial; they can be (and are) caused by any number of factors totally unrelated to smoking.
Health Canada and their anti-smoker allies don't mention the multi-factorial nature of smoking related diseases, however. They don't mention that slightly less than 1/3 of deaths from so-called smoking related diseases are attributed to smoking.
Along similar lines, Health Canada also claims that almost half of current smokers, unless they quit, will die of a smoking related disease – eventually. That may not be a lie. It is, however, misleading.
What Health Canada fails to mention is that “almost half” of all deaths recorded in Canada in any given year are likely to fall into one of the 20 ICD classifications designated as smoking related diseases: heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia, lung cancer, influenza, etc. StatCan's 2002 mortality tables, for example, show that, of the 223,000 deaths recorded in that year, roughly 110,000 (“almost half”) were caused by one or another of those “smoking related diseases”.
So, is it really surprising that “almost half” of smokers would also die from those same diseases?
This kind of propaganda has always been used as a tool to achieve political goals. It is not exclusive to any one form of government. Regimes of all kinds, communist, dictatorship, socialist and, yes, even democratic governments use propaganda to influence public opinion.
The inherent problem with propaganda, of course, is that it can be used by the unscrupulous to maliciously denigrate and demean targeted groups within a population. And, that's the case with the propaganda campaign being waged against smokers.
It is being used, not merely in an attempt to influence public opinion, but to create a public perception of smokers as abnormal, degenerate human beings. It is intended to promote fear and hatred of smokers through the deliberate distortion of facts. It endeavours to justify blatant discrimination against smokers in such areas as employment, housing, social interaction, parenting, etc.; all in the name of “public health”.
And, whether you call it propaganda or bullshit and bafflegab, it means that 5 million Canadian smokers are getting the shaft.
Here we go again! Blaring headlines from the press declaring smoking bans an unqualified success. “Smoking ban has led to dramatic fall in heart attack rates” reads one; “Heart attacks plummet after smoking ban” reads another. The headlines say it all. Or do they?
“Researchers,” claims a Mail OnLine article, “say the number of heart attacks in England plummeted by 10 per cent in the year after the ban was imposed in July 2007.”
And, they offer as evidence . . . the unsubstantiated claims of anti-smoker researchers. Uh-huh. The Mail OnLine article points out that the study itself will not be released until sometime next year. So the allegations of the researchers are unverified, have yet to be peer reviewed and remain unpublished by any reputable medical journal. Yet, journalists are ready to distribute the results of the study as fact.
The Daily Mail article notes: “Anna Gilmore, from Bath University, is leading the research into heart attack rates in England.” But, Anna Gilmore is not simply a researcher “from Bath University.”
Reviewing her profile on the University web site finds the following: “I am a member of various expert groups including the WHO Expert Committee on tobacco industry interference with policy, the Royal College of Physician’s Tobacco Advisory Group, the Council of ASH and the South West tobacco control alliance strategy group. I am also Theme director and Specialist Faculty Adviser for UICC’s Tobacco Academy and from January 2009 will move from the Editorial Advisory Board of Tobacco Control to become one of the journal’s senior editors.”
Among her funding sources, she lists: “The Health Foundation, Cancer Research-UK, Smokefree Partnership, Department of Health, US National Institutes of Health, European Commission, Canadian Institute of Health Research. Recent consultancies for the American Cancer Society, the Union (on behalf of the Bloomberg Global Initiative To Reduce Tobacco Use) and the Polish Health Promotion Foundation.”
Now, after reviewing her profile and funding sources, a laymen might be forgiven for suspecting that Ms. Gilmore has competing interests which could make her research somewhat slanted.
That doesn't mean that her research is deliberately biased. But, given her professional associations, it's obvious she has strong personal opinions on the subject matter. And, for a journalist to ignore the distinct possibility of bias and print her uncorroborated claims as fact is irresponsible.
And, in this case, the journalist, as is the case in most such studies, made no effort whatever to present his story in a balanced fashion. Only anti-smoker activists were quoted in his article
John Britton, identified as a Director of the UK Centre for Tobacco Control Studies at Nottingham University: “We always knew a public smoking ban would bring rapid health benefits, but we have been amazed by just how big and how rapid they are.”
Ellen Mason, identified as a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, is also quoted: “Exposure to cigarette smoke induces rapid changes in blood chemistry, making it much more prone to clotting. In someone who has narrowed or damaged coronary arteries, smoke exposure can tip the balance and cause a heart attack.”
Not a single dissenting voice. Not a single question raised as to the validity of Gilmore's conclusions. Of course, no one could possibly offer any informed criticism of the study itself, since it hasn't been published or otherwise made public yet.
And that, apparently, is the point. Without access to the study and the data it contains, no one can argue with the conclusions claimed by Ms. Gilmore. And, since the study won't be released until next year, Ms. Gilmore is free to make whatever claims she chooses in the interim with no possibility of censure.
It's a process Dr. Michael Siegel refers to as “science by press release”.
The conclusions of a study are released to the media and distributed to the public prior to peer review or publication At that point “it is impossible to judge whether the conclusions of the study are valid or not. And if the conclusions turn out to be unwarranted, then it will be too late to reverse them. The media have already disseminated the conclusion widely. Any correction given down the road would have little effect.”
Based on data obtained from other sources, Dr. Siegel and author Christopher Snowdon (Velvet Glove, Iron Fist) have already taken issue with the 10% decline claimed in the Gilmore study.
Says Dr. Siegel: “Unfortunately, because this is science by press release, we have no idea of how the researchers came up with their 10% figure, what methods they used, what data this figure is based on, and whether there is any validity to their conclusion that the observed decline in heart attacks is attributable to the smoking ban, rather than to the established secular trend of declining heart attacks over the past seven years in England.”
Science by press release is a dishonest way of presenting “scientific” information to the public. In fact, according to the Times OnLine, “Gilmore’s research is incomplete and she emphasizes the final results for England will not be published for several months.”
Incomplete? But, she's already drawn her conclusions. The press has already informed the public. Just when did Ms. Gilmore arrive at her conclusions? Before the study began perhaps?
It's sad to see the scientific process subverted to justify smoking bans and other discriminatory practices directed at smokers. It's even more disconcerting to see the media complicity implicit in the tactic of “science by press release. But, I wonder how long it will be before an indifferent public grows wise to the subterfuge?
Dr. Siegel concludes his latest post on this issue by saying: “The scientific integrity of the tobacco control movement is imploding before my very eyes.”
Uh-huh. My question for the Doc. What scientific integrity?
Toby Barrett has seen the light. Tobacco taxes are too high and have reached a level where they have become counter-productive. A politician exhibiting common sense? Or a modern day Don Quixote?
According to the Ontario MPP (Member of the Provincial Parliament) for Haldimand-Norfolk, contraband cigarette sales in Ontario “now account for more than 50% of cigarettes on the street.” He's pegged the cost to Ottawa and the provinces at 2.5 billion dollars in lost tax revenue in 2008 alone.
So, as noted in the Brantford Expositor, he's introduced a private members bill (The Tobacco Tax Reduction Act) to reduce tobacco taxes in Ontario by 33%. And, he wants Ottawa to follow suit.
And, Barrett's website points out that: “It was this type of cooperation that shut down illegal tobacco in 1994. During the 1980s and 1990s, high tobacco taxes and retail prices fostered smuggling and by 1991, it was believed that one in every nine cigarettes in Canada was contraband, yielding $709 million to smugglers.”
The government should have learned a lesson. They didn't. Instead, they allowed the self-appointed, unelected saviours of public health to set public policy; to lead them around by the nose and once again raise tobacco taxes to even more usurious levels. Did they really expect a different outcome?
Of course, Barrett's private members bill hasn't got a snowball's chance in hell of gathering support in the Liberal dominated provincial legislature. In fact, I'd be surprised if he receives anything beyond token support from his own Conservative colleagues. Political correctness trumps common sense every time in the Alice in Wonderland world of politics.
And, pointing to lessons learned from past mistakes will prove equally futile.
One drawback to Barrett's plan? In 1994, Canada and the provinces could make the decision to lower taxes in the national interest. But, since then, the country has signed on to the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Tobacco policy is no longer decided in Ottawa, or Queen's Park in Toronto. It is dictated by the WHO (World Health Organization) in New York.
And, just in case politicians at the federal or provincial level should forget that fact, you can expect the anti-smoker crowd to remind them of their “international treaty obligations.”
The anti-smoker pressure groups, funded in large measure through taxpayer dollars, will shoot down Barrett's bill just as surely as "Wop" May shot down the Red Baron. He'll be lucky if he has a chance to rev his engine, let alone get into the air.
Barrett complains that: “The McGuinty government has spent $13 million on Smoke-Free Ontario and $7 million on cessation ads in recent years and yet the number of smokers does not seem to be going down.”
Nor is smoking prevalence likely to go down anytime soon. Excessive tobacco taxation has created a multi-billion dollar black market willing to provide smokers with the product they want at a price they are willing to pay. And, as long as smokers remain the target of unjustified, punitive levels of sin taxes, they will ignore the law intended to make smoking cost prohibitive and buy the cheaper contraband product rather than quit. Government has declared war on tobacco . . . and smokers, by extension, are the enemy.
Says Barrett: “This is an opportunity for the Ontario Liberals to do something positive for the people of Caledonia, for tobacco farmers, and for corner store operators across the province.”
Fat chance. Barrett seems unaware that Ontario's tobacco farmers have already been royally screwed; there's no chance of recovery. And, convenience store owners will see little benefit in a 33% tax reduction.
Smokers have had several years to see and appreciate the full extent of the tax gouging at both the federal and provincial level. And, they know why they're being targeted. They'll be reluctant to return to legal, taxable tobacco product knowing full well that, a year or so down the road, the government extortion will begin anew.
The anti-smoker crowd will continue their efforts to turn smokers into second-class citizens. They'll continue their efforts to denormalize smokers; to turn them into something unclean. They'll continue to demand government funding to finance their moralistic, discriminatory campaign. And, the politicians will continue to kiss the collective ass of the anti-smoker activists because that's the prevailing public sentiment.
The debate on his bill is scheduled for September 24, 2009. But, there will be little actual debate. Members of the legislature will rise one by one to support the continued discrimination against smokers. They will repeat the fraudulent statistics, declare that secondhand smoke kills and that the debate is over and, eventually, the bill will die a slow death as is perhaps intended.
For surely, Barrett is aware that he is proposing a bill with absolutely no chance of success in the current climate of fear-induced hatred created by the anti-smoker cult.
As expected, Dalton McGuinty's Liberals shot down MPP (Member of Provincial Parliament) Toby Barrett's attempt to lower tobacco taxes in Ontario. His private members bill was defeated on second reading in the provincial legislature. Barrett's proposal would have cut the punitive tobacco tax by 33% and asked the federal government to do the same.
