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Kevin Libin: How Ottawa bungled the easiest health law ever  

the Conservatives’ attempt to ban the candied smokes, via Bill C-32—the Cracking Down on Tobacco Marketing Aimed at Youth Act — appears to have been sabotaged. And the culprit is the last place you’d think to look: it’s none other than the people at Health Canada. . . .

Thanks to some subtle language tucked into the bill, C-32 goes far, far beyond what Harper had in mind. Though the prime minister made it clear he wasn’t gunning for the kind of tobacco targeted at adults (just look at the name of the bill), C-32 does exactly that: by including tobacco that has any flavouring whatsoever, it outlaws such brands as Marlboro, Camel, Winston, and Gaulois, all of which use a blend of tobacco so coarse-tasting that sweetener is added to make each lungful just tolerable. Anyone who’s ever smoked one of those brands knows just how un-candy-like the taste is. Clearly banning grown-up foreign smokes — which has the potential to trigger a trade dispute and the loss of hundreds of Canadian tobacco-related jobs — isn’t what the government had planned. And so the question on the minds of many in Ottawa right now is, how did Health Canada let this happen? Those of a more conspiratorial mind are asking whether the bureaucrats at Health Canada — believed by many to be a bastion of anti-tobacco zealotry — tried to pull a fast one, while their political bosses weren’t looking. . . .

While the implications of the C-32 seemed to elude most Canadian politicians as the bill was rushed through the House this summer, U.S. politicians and trade groups pointed out that banning American tobacco, but not Canadian strains, violates NAFTA. Southern Congressmen and Senators — including House Majority Whip, James Clyburn — complained to the Ottawa, and to the State Department, demanding Washington take action to respond to the “unfair assault” on the American industry, threatening the Tories’ record as free-traders.

Certain Canadian groups are just as alarmed. Associations representing Duty Free retailers told a Senate committee recently that they were never once consulted by Health Canada while staff there were crafting this legislation. If they had, the department would have learned, of course, that the U.S. makes sold at the border and airports mean little for Canadian consumption: they’re purchased almost entirely by foreigners on their way back home. Other retailer groups — which frequently include members of immigrant groups that had, till now, been part of the Conservative ethnic outreach effort — are just as livid about the possibility losing some of the world’s biggest cigarette brands, especially since market for them will almost certainly migrate to Canada’s billion-dollar cigarette black market anyway.

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