Province 'failing in its anti-smoking policies:' Gélinas

Following a report on smoking in Ontario released by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) April 20, Nickel Belt MPP France Gélinas asked Minister of Health Promotion Margarett Best if she would commit to implementing the association's recommendations.

“In Ontario, there are more smokers today than there were 40 years ago. The cost to the health care system is $1.6 billion, the economic cost is $6.1 billion and there are 13,000 deaths annually,” Gélinas asked Best in the legislature.

“The Ministry of Health Promotion has been failing in its anti-smoking policies. It cut $17 million from it’s smoke free Ontario budget directed towards youth, and despite the Legislature passing a bill that was signed into law over 16 months ago banning individually sold Candy Flavoured Cigarillos, those cigarillos are still for sale because the Minister of Health Promotion has failed to enact the legislation.”

“One of the key recommendations from the OMA is related to the issue of contraband tobacco,” she said.  “There are serious solutions that have been put forward, but the government keeps avoiding the issue of contraband tobacco.”

“How much longer is this government prepared to stand by as lives are taken away and health care dollars are scarified to an insufficient tobacco control strategy and a lack of action on contraband?” asked Gélinas.

Gélinas said in a press release that Best refused to answer the question, and instead asked the Minister of Revenue John Wilkinson to respond.