August 26, 2002
One option being considered by the government of Ontario to regulate the sale of tobacco is to require cigarettes to be sold in the same manner as alcohol. It seems like only yesterday when the provincial Liberals were in power and musing about allowing liquor to be sold in corner stores. But this is today and we are now being governed by the Regressive Conservative Party. Health Minister Tony Clement lamented that he has received letters advising him that three-year-olds can legally smoke in Ontario. Gee Tony, it's not illegal for three-year-olds to do anything. Even the Canadian Alliance (well, most members anyway) isn’t advocating lowering the age of criminal responsibility to cover infants and toddlers. Ontario does have tobacco legislation, but The Tobacco Control Act, 1994, much like the federal government’s tobacco law, is so concerned with regulating the labelling, displaying and packaging of tobacco products that it never gets around to providing a minimum age for its consumption. If only Clement were a powerful minister in a majority government, he could introduce legislation to stop those precocious three-year-olds from having a smoke with their martinis. Oops, he is. Guess moving to the left as his party is, Clement has to put in time whining.
What prompted the Health Minister to consider smoking options was a report from the government’s Youth Tobacco Team. We don’t know much about them other than the fact that they can smoke no matter how old they are and they are probably the ones who are now advising the premier on policy.
One of the report’s ideas is to ban all those under the age of 18 from working in stores that sell cigarettes. One of the idealistic members of the Youth Committee said that they would rather see a couple of stores go out of business than see more people dying. It will be more than just two stores, kids.
Most convenience stores are owned and run by families. And the under 18 employees are their children. Families that spend time together and work together is not the politically correct vision that we want to see in 21st century Canada. And if children are allowed to work in convenience stores they might learn something about capitalism. And we can’t have that.
Those kids would be better off in some state run institution learning about the evils of business and the joys of same sex marriage.
Convenience stores are not taverns where an underage employee could sneak a drink or two. A lot of those employees are supervised by their parents. Many convenience store owners live upstairs from their stores and their kids would have access for those brief hours when the store is closed. To be really effective, everyone under the age of 18 would have to be banned from stores selling tobacco products. No more going to the store for popsicles or chocolate bars. The only bright light is that when federal health minister Anne McLellan revs up her "War on Obesity" again, those items will probably be made illegal. Kids will just have to buy their snacks and smokes in schoolyards where they buy their drugs. At least they won’t be in convenience stores and being forced to look at cigarette packages.
Many of the storeowners are immigrants to Canada and statistically, immigrants earn less than Canadian citizens do, a fact that had Canadian officials grovelling before a United Nations Committee.
The most frightening thing about the smoking recommendation is that Ernie Eves is premier. An Eves' government is likely to pass it and other measures that NDP leader Howard Hampton can only dream about.
Arthur Weinreb can be reached at: aweinreb@interlog.com
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