Pro-smokers' group founded with help from tobacco firms: [FINAL Edition]

By JAY BRYAN of The Gazette. The Gazette [Montreal, Que] 04 Sep 1986: D1.

Helped along by $100,000 of tobacco-industry money, Michel Bedard, a former philosophy teacher and self-described crusader for personal freedoms, announced yesterday he will try to build a national pro-smoking pressure group.

The Smokers' Freedom Society, which aims to have about 15,000 members within a year, will lobby for lower taxes on tobacco and greater freedom from what it considers unreasonable restrictions on the right to smoke in public.

Bedard - who said he sometimes smokes half a pack of cigarettes a day but usually sticks to an occasional cigarillo - said his organization is independent of the tobacco industry, although the industry is its only significant source of funding.

He said he hopes to sell enough memberships, at prices ranging from $2 for individuals to $100 for corporations, to make the society self-supporting.

However, he had a public-relations firm distribute a professionally prepared media kit that included a five-page attack on health warnings about tobacco, entitled "Tobacco Smoke and Nonsmokers," nearly all of it copied from a booklet put out by the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council called "Tobacco Smoke and the Nonsmoker."

Included in both the society's version and the tobacco companies' booklet are a number of statements claiming to associate eminent health authorities with the view that second-hand tobacco smoke hasn't been shown to be harmful.

For example, the society quoted Lawrence Garfinkel, a vice-president of the American Cancer Society, who concluded, according to the society, that he "could find no relationship between the smoking patterns of husbands and their wives' lung cancer rates. The ACS is currently conducting another study on this subject."

Nancy LaVerda, a statistical anaylst with the American Cancer Society, said the society was quoting from an old study.

Garfinkel's other study referred to as being "currently" conducted was actually completed and published last year, she said. "The new study showed that non-smoking women married to smokers were at greatly increased risk for lung cancer."

Bedard also cited the World Health Organization as one sponsor of a 1984 seminar on passive smoking that purportedly concluded: "Legislative measures intended to protect the public from ambient tobacco smoke exposure could not be justified by the available health data."

But the organization's executive board stated early this year that "passive, enforced, or involuntary smoking violates the right to health of non-smokers."

New group will fight on behalf of smokers: [FIN Edition]

Donna Yawching Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 08 Sep 1986: D3.

In a time of increasing restrictions against smoking in public, smokers are starting to fight back.

The Smokers' Freedom Society, a new organization based in Montreal, is set for a Toronto launching today Sept. 8 at the Sheraton Centre.

Michel Bedard, president of the organization, says its aim is to promote understanding and tolerance between smokers and non- smokers, through "responsible" smoking.

A former philosophy professor at a Montreal CEGEP (a community college) Bedard feels the current "prejudices" against smoking are spreading at an "alarming" rate, and could end up bordering on fanaticism.

"Fanaticism on both sides is dangerous," he says, recounting the case of an anti-smoking CEGEP professor who allegedly gave better grades to students who quit smoking.

Mutual 'respect'

Bedard says that possible health hazards are not the only issue at stake: "Even if it was proven that cigarette smoke was absolutely harmless to others, the problem would remain. Some people just don't like to be around smoke. The question is how to deal with that."

The solution, he feels, lies in developing a mutual "respect" between the two warring factions, through greater sensitivity on both sides.

The Smokers' Freedom Society was launched in Montreal last week, and Bedard says he has received phone calls from as far away as Vancouver from people interested in joining. Basic membership costs $2 a year; corporate membership can be had for $100.

The society, which received start-up funds from a variety of tobacco growers, manufacturers and unions, intends to put out a periodic newsletter for its members, as well as act as a pro- smokers' lobby with the various levels of government.

Copyright 1986 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Tobacco firms back smokers' rights group: [FIN Edition]

Andrew Duffy Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 09 Sep 1986: A11.

A new smokers' rights organization financed by the tobacco industry hopes to re-establish the "social respectability of smoking."

Michel Bedard, founder of the Smokers Freedom Organization, said smokers have been unfairly pictured as "anti-social and irresponsible people.

"Many people find smoking one of the great pleasures in life and social pressure is now such that they (smokers) feel guilty and ashamed of smoking - for these people this is not very fair."

The organization, made possible by a $100,000 contribution from four of the large tobacco companies, has received about 100 phone calls since being launched in Montreal last week, he said.

Sweeping bans

Bedard, publisher of the quarterly magazine L'Analyste in Montreal, is now on a cross-Canada tour to "protect and promote the responsible freedom to smoke."

He said the freedom of smokers is especially threatened now because of sweeping bans on smoking in offices, restaurants and airplanes.

"We are here to give smokers their say," he said.

While admitting smoking in some cases impinges on the rights of non-smokers, Bedard said there is no reason to settle the problem using iron-clad laws.

"Non-smokers and smokers have to learn to be more courteous," he said.

Joe Csubak, a tobacco farmer from Haldimand-Norfolk County, who came to Toronto to attend yesterday's press conference, said a smoker's group is long overdue.

Children victims

"Society has been dictatated to by a bunch of do-gooders for too long," he said.

Csubak said the tobacco industry needs all the help they can get. Because of a "dying" market, his farm has fallen in value from $2 million two years ago to $350,000 today, Csubak said.

But Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-smokers' Rights Association, said he fears more children may be lured into smoking by the pro-smoking propaganda.

"It's crazy to have an organization set up which refers to freedom when that organization is defending a product that is addictive," he said.

"Addiction by its very definition is the negation of freedom."

Copyright 1986 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Parliament poised to escalate war against smoking: [FIN Edition]

Arch MacKenzie Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 17 Nov 1986: A18.

OTTAWA - Parliament is poised to unleash more blows at the beleaguered tobacco industry.

It will either tighten the rules for tobacco advertising or move to ban such ads outright. And smokers will be forced to butt out in an increased number of public places.

This is an industry on which Canadians spend more than $5 billion a year - $3 billion of which goes to governments in taxes. Tobacco supports nearly 3,000 farms, almost 7,000 manufacturing jobs and more than 30,000 transient workers.

But, its critics say, it also kills up to 35,000 Canadians a year, some of them non-smokers who inhale "second-hand" fumes. Critics say the cost of health care for tobacco-related diseases such as cancer or heart disease is at least $5 billion a year - as much as, or more than, the industry pumps into the economy.

The government formula for restricting tobacco advertising - worth $75 million a year to newspapers and billboard operators - will likely be unveiled before Christmas, says Marc Allard, press secretary to Health Minister Jake Epp.

But the real parliamentary threat may be the private member's bill of Lynn McDonald, the fervent Toronto New Democratic Party MP who intends to make Canada as smoke-free as the NDP caucus room on Parliament Hill.

Outright ban

It would declare smoke-free the houses of Parliament, federal agencies, the workplaces of federally supervised carriers from airlines to trains and buses, and space occupied by what she calls the "federal public, which uses services under federal jurisdiction." That could range from chartered banks to pipeline companies.

The McDonald bill would also ban outright all cigarette advertising.

Many regard it as too sweeping and, therefore, too costly to succeed.

But the bill, introduced last month and due for a first round of debate Thursday, is on the "fast track" of a new process that can sweep a private member's bill into law. It is assured of five hours of House of Commons debate, perusal by a committee and then a vote by the full Commons.

The tobacco industry is facing restrictive action on its advertisements because it failed to meet a deadline, set by Epp, for their own proposals. But the minister has not been enthused by McDonald's suggestions that he ban all advertising.

MPs are certainly aware of the rising public concern about smoking. The Non-smokers Association of Ottawa-Hull sponsored a poll last year which found that 86 per cent of the 282 MPs either supported or were sympathetic to the rights of non-smokers in the workplace. Further, a majority favored non-smoking areas in work areas.

Brand preference

The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council argues that, if advertising really does attract new customers, sales would not have peaked in 1982 at 66.3 billion cigarettes. They have been declining since.

In a recent publication, the industry says ads are "designed to help the consumer choose a particular brand or service, once the purchasing decision has been made."

Carrying the fight further, the big four of the industry - Benson and Hedges (Canada) Inc., Imperial Tobacco Ltd., R.J.R. Macdonald Inc. and Rothmans of Pall Mall Ltd. - helped set up the Smokers Freedom Society with a $100,000 war chest to fight high taxes, government intervention and attacks on the "respectability of smoking."

Society president Michel Bedard of Montreal says his group is challenging the anti-smoking forces on grounds that smokers have rights, too. Its funding comes from unions and growers as well as manufacturers, he says.

Bedard claims the society has recruited about 2,200 members since its formation in September. For $2 a year, supporters get a membership card. For $5 they'll get a newsletter, with the first edition due next month. And corporate members are charged $100 a year.

It remains to be seen how many friends in court the industry has, beyond those MPs from tobacco-growing areas, which got $90 million in federal price supports a year ago.

Rothmans does have a friend. He's Senator William Kelly, the prominent Ontario Progressive Conservative party worker who also is chairman of Rothmans. Presumably, he isn't supporting the bill reintroduced in the Senate by Liberal Stanley Haidasz, a Toronto doctor, who also wants to ban smoking and who is among the 65 per cent of Canadians who now don't or who never have smoked.

Smoker butts out but defends his rights: [SA2 Edition]

Vincent Ball Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 10 Jan 1987: A10.

The president of the Smokers Freedom Society doesn't know if he will be smoking during National Non-Smoking week which begins Thursday.

"I have not been smoking for the past two weeks," Michel Bedard told The Star from his Montreal office. "But that doesn't mean I won't be smoking this week. I smoke, then I don't smoke and then I smoke again."

For Bedard and the more than 5,500 members of the society, the smokers vs. non-smokers battle is a matter of freedom.

"I'm not sure about this week (national non-smoking week)," he said. "It seems to me that it's really an anti-smoking week."

He thinks people should have the right to smoke but says smokers should do it in moderation and have respect for non-smokers. He claims most smokers do respect the rights of non-smokers.

Disciplined people

"Smokers are very disciplined people," said Bedard. "How many times have you seen someone smoking in a movie theatre or in a subway?"

He believes that most smokers indulge in their habit moderately and without offence to other people.

Bedard also favors bylaws that restrict smoking to certain areas of a building. But he feels a ban on smoking is an infringement on smokers' rights.

The issue that concerns Bedard the most is the way government infringes on the rights of smokers by raising taxes on tobacco.

"A lot of our members are elderly people - people who were given cigarettes when they fought for Canada in World War II," said Bedard. "Now they are retired and can't afford cigarettes because the taxes are so high and that is just not right."

National Non-Smoking Week begins Thursday and continues through Weedless Wednesday on Jan. 21.

Copyright 1987 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Smokers group faces cloudy future: [FINAL Edition]

By JAY BRYAN of The Gazette. The Gazette [Montreal, Que] 12 Mar 1987: D1.

Michel Bedard, a former Montreal CEGEP teacher, made a media splash six months ago when he launched a nationwide organization to support smokers who want to fight restrictions on their habit. But so far, smokers aren't returning the favor.

The Smokers' Freedom Society, whose operations consist of Bedard and a secretary, is struggling financially even though it began life with a $100,000 grant from cigarette manufacturers.

"We need members. We need their support, or we'll have to close the shop," Bedard said in an interview in the society's spacious suite of offices on St. Laurent Blvd.

He said he can no longer make appearances to oppose smoking restrictions or to debate anti-tobacco activists in other cities because his budget has no money left for travel.

Bedard refuses to say just what his budget is or how much is spent on his salary.

Although he said the society has signed up 6,362 people, it isn't getting much financial support from them.

Only about half its "supporters" - they aren't members, Bedard said, because they don't elect the society's officers - have been willing to pay $5 a year or more. That is the amount it costs to receive the society newsletter and thus be informed of its activities.

$2 contribution

The other half opted for the mimimum $2 contribution that gets them a society card and a lapel sticker that says: "For the freedom to smoke."

To date, that leaves the society with just $60,000 from fees and donations. This means that, so far, it has depended on cigarette makers for more than 60 per cent of its income.

And this figure doesn't count the contributions of the country's roughly 6,400 cigarette manufacturing workers or the donations from tobacco growers, wholesalers and retailers.

Josette Massy-Forget, a Montreal public-relations consultant who helped launch the society, estimated that at least two thirds of its supporters are tobacco workers, many of them signed up during Bedard's visits to cigarette factories.

Bedard said he would be surprised if the proportion is that high, but added that he didn't know because he doesn't ask people where they work.

The society's financial bind is all the more galling to him because its most persistent opponent, the Toronto-based Non-Smokers Rights Association, also with about 6,000 members, is in vibrant financial health.

Garfield Mahood, executive director of the non-smokers association, said his group's budget will be about $400,000 this year, 80 per cent of it from membership fees and small donations, 15 per cent from federal grants, and 5 per cent from the sale of books and other merchandise. Mahood's members, who elect the group's directors, pay from $15 to $40 a year.

Mahood sarcastically says Bedard's financial bind is "a dreadful shame, because when he attended a couple of municipal council meetings that we also attended, he made our case so well that we almost didn't have to be there."

Bedard does have a problem when he attacks smoking bans by asserting that second-hand smoke is harmless. The evidence against passive smoking continues to grow more damning, forcing him to use discredited evidence and leaving him open to refutation by anti-tobacco activists.

Incomplete information

This is particularly embarrassing because Bedard likes to say - most recently in the society's current newsletter - that he wants to counter the ostensibly biased and incomplete information put out by anti-tobacco groups.

However, he has his own problems with incomplete information.

When his society was launched last Sept. 3, for example, it handed out a press release quoting Lawrence Garfinkel, a vice-president of the American Cancer Society, as having concluded he "could find no relationship between the smoking patterns of husbands and their wives' lung cancer rates." The release noted Garfinkel was "currently" doing another study on the subject.

The following day, an official of the American Cancer Society, Nancy LaVerda, was quoted in The Gazette denouncing the misleading citation. Garfinkel had actually completed the second study a year earlier, she said, and "the new study showed that non-smoking women married to smokers were at greatly increased risk for lung cancer."

But in his current newsletter, in which Bedard says the society "intends to make all the facts known," the misleading Garfinkel citation is reprinted, this time omitting any reference to the second study.

"That's unfortunate," Bedard said. "I wasn't aware of the new study."

Such slips may help explain why Bedard's erstwhile corporate sponsors now show little interest in the Smokers' Freedom Society.

"I've had a minimum of contact with that group. I have absolutely nothing to say about it," said Thomas Vares, an official of Montreal-based Imperial Tobacco Ltd, the industry's dominant producer.

"We have not been approached for money" by Bedard," said Cynthia Von Maerestetten, a vice-president of Toronto-based Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. "I'd have to say we really don't have a tremendous amount of contact with him or his organization."

Officials of RJR Macdonald Inc. in Toronto refused any comment.

Workplace smoke law unwanted group says: [FIN Edition]

Robert Sutton Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 01 Apr 1987: A31.

Neither the boss nor the worker wants Toronto City Council legislation on smoking in the workplace, says an independent survey commissioned by the Smokers Freedom Society.

Eighty-two per cent of 251 Toronto employers and 69 per cent of 401 employees polled in a nine-day period ending March 20 said those in each workplace, not the politicians, should decide.

Results of the Canadian Facts poll were released at a Royal York Hotel press conference yesterday.

Toronto passed a bylaw in December making it illegal to smoke in public places, including stores, movie theatres, banks, barber shops and beauty salons and establishing non-smoking sections in restaurants and bars.

'Quite clear'

But the city also has provincial approval and intends this spring to bring in a new bylaw that will put the onus on employers to consult employees and develop a smoking policy acceptable to all.

Failing agreement, the rights of non-smokers will prevail, according to the proposed bylaw.

"I don't know if it will change any minds on council," said Michel Bedard, president of Smokers Freedom Society, "but the survey shows it's quite clear that neither employers nor workers want any further intervention."

Bad weather prevented Bedard from attending the press conference. He was interviewed later by phone from his Montreal office.

Only 16 per cent of employers and 28 per cent of workers wanted council to pass a workplace smoking bylaw, according to the survey.

Even among non-smokers, 75 per cent of employers and 61 per cent of employees preferred leaving it to the individual workplace.

$100,000 grant

Asked about the current smoking situation in their workplace, 78 per cent of employers and 70 per cent of employees said they were satisfied with the status quo.

Bedard said he founded the Smokers Freedom Society six months ago on a $100,000 grant from cigarette manufacturers, but he insisted there was no pressure on the independent pollsters.

Though he has signed up 6,700 supporters, Bedard admitted it has been an uphill fight for finances and converts.

The 40-year-old former teacher, who smokes between six and eight Cigarellos a day - "nothing like the 22 kilometres of cigars Winston Churchill is supposed to have smoked in his lifetime" - says a smoker should be the master, not the slave, of his habit.

Copyright 1987 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 379

Pro-smoking group says members, cash needed 'or we'll close up shop': [SA2 Edition]

CP. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 04 Apr 1987: K15.

MONTREAL (CP) - Canada's pro-smokers' lobby is running out of breath - and cash.

Formed amid a flurry of publicity last September, the Smokers' Freedom Society has spent most of the $100,000 it received from Canada's tobacco industry and $60,000 in donations and memberships from the public.

Michel Bedard, a founder of the group, its self-appointed chief and one of its two full-time employees - the other is a secretary - can't say how much money is left.

"I really can't tell you precisely," said Bedard. "It's just that the budget is very tight right now."

So Bedard, a former junior college teacher, has put out an S O S for new supporters. Members - he says 6,362 have joined already - pay either $2 or $5, and receive a card and lapel sticker that says "For the freedom to smoke."

"We need members, we need their support or we'll have to close the shop," Bedard said.

He couldn't say exactly where the money went. "Well, we had to buy furniture. It's expensive starting up an office."

'Private matter'

How much does the society pay in rent for its spacious quarters? "That's a private matter," Bedard replied.

Would he divulge his salary? "That's a personal question."

There was a speaking tour that included stops in Vancouver, Toronto and Halifax. But some of that was paid for by local sponsors, said Bedard, who vowed back in September to "restore the respectability of smoking" through a publicity drive.

The society also puts out a quarterly newsletter for its supporters.

How many issues have come out to date? "One," Bedard said, adding that he is working on another issue.

Meanwhile, the Toronto-based Non-Smokers Rights Association is the picture of financial health. The group - which says it has 6,000 members who elect a board of directors that hires staff and sets salaries - has six employees.

It expects to have $400,000 in its coffers this year, mainly from donations and memberships. Fifteen per cent comes from a federal grant.

Any of the members, who pay upwards of $25 a year, can look at the association's books and the group makes no secret of its salaries, said staff lawyer David Sweanor.

Garfield Mahood, the group's longtime executive director, makes about $40,000 a year, depending on the state of finances, Sweanor said.

In some respects, the anti-smokers lament the current troubles of the pro-smokers.

"In many ways, he (Bedard) has been a real advantage to us," said Sweanor. "He distorts facts . . . and he uses nonsensical arguments."

The lawyer said Bedard has quoted Lawrence Garfinkel, a vice- president of the American Cancer Society, a number of times as saying there was no scientific proof that second-hand smoke was dangerous.

That statement is at least a year out of date, Sweanor said - a subsequent study has shown that non-smoking women who are married to smokers had a much higher risk of contracting lung cancer than non- smokers married to non-smokers.

Asked about the discrepancy, Bedard replied: "That's unfortunate. I wasn't aware of the new study."

Bedard rejects charges that his group is just a front for the tobacco industry.

"We are not here to protect the companies, but to protect the liberty of smokers," he has said.

No strings

Canada's four major tobacco companies, their unions and tobacco growers and wholesalers pumped $100,000 into the pro-smokers group as a start-up grant.

Cynthia Von Maerestetten, a vice-president of Toronto-based Rothmans, Benson and Hedges Inc., said the company gave money - she would not disclose how much - without any strings attached.

But the company would take a hard look at the group's books, programs and objectives if it were approached for more funds, she said. So far, that hasn't happened.

"I'd have to say we really don't have a tremendous amount of contact with him or his organization," she added.

What's the next step for Bedard and his group? He wasn't sure.

But if no new members are signed up, he said, there is little point in keeping the group alive.

Big Brother stalks Tobacco Road: [SU2 Edition]

Kathy English Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 31 May 1987: A1.

Note

Big Brother is lurking on the road to a smoke-free Canada.

Do you have a lighter in your jacket pocket that says DuMaurier on it? Throw it away, it's about to be banned.

Take a last look at the clock in your corner store that has Export A stamped on it. It will soon be illegal.

And toss out that umbrella with Rothman's printed on it that you got the day you went out to Woodbine to watch a few races. That's about to be banned too. So will the Rothman's-sponsored annual thoroughbred race, the richest horse race in Canada.

In what is considered to be one of the toughest pieces of anti- smoking legislation outside the Communist world, Ottawa is set to outlaw almost all evidence of smoking in our society - everything but cigarettes themselves - as it heads toward its goal of creating a smoke-free Canada by the year 2000.

Introduced by Health Minister Jake Epp last month, Bill C-51, the Tobacco Products Control Act, will ban all tobacco advertising and promotion. That includes:

* Billboards.

* Magazine and newspaper ads.

* Television, radio and video commercials.

* Store signs and posters.

* Sports and culture sponsorship.

* And anything else that calls attention to any of the more than a dozen brands of cigarettes manufactured by Canada's three major tobacco companies.

T-shirts, hats, umbrellas, jackets, clocks, even those cheap plastic lighters marketed with various brands of cigarettes will have to go. (Individuals will not be prosecuted for having these goods, but companies could not manufacture or distribute them.)

"Anything with a brand name, trademark or logo would be a problem," said Neil Collishaw, chief of the health department's tobacco products unit, who helped draft the legislation. "There will be a blanket prohibition of any form of tobacco advertising."

While the act's regulations have yet to be drafted, Collishaw expects the only form of "advertising" to be allowed will be cigarettes themselves and a simple sign behind a store counter stating that cigarettes are available and their price. Brand names will likely not be allowed on the sign.

The act will be monitored by a network of federal inspectors who will travel the country to make sure no tobacco advertising exists. It empowers them with search and seizure rights if they suspect the law has been contravened. Violators will be subject to fines of up to $100,000 and six months in jail.

The ban is intended to curb the social acceptability of smoking, discourage Canada's 7 million smokers from lighting up and prevent young people from starting to smoke. But, with the tobacco industry last year spending $70 million on media advertising and another $10 million sponsoring sport and culture events, the impact could be much more far-reaching.

Across Canada now, thousands are trying to determine the implications of Bill C-51, which has been approved by the cabinet, but not yet passed by the House of Commons.

Sports groups - everyone from the Royal Canadian Golf Association, which runs the DuMaurier-sponsored Canadian Open, to the National Darts Federation of Canada, which runs the Number Seven Darts Championship - and cultural organizations - from the prestigious Royal Winnipeg Ballet to the little known Sunshine Theatre Company in Kelowna, B.C., which both receive grants from the DuMaurier Council for the Arts - are questioning whether they can continue operating without the tobacco companies' generous support.

Newpapers and magazines, which received almost $13 million in cigarette advertising last year, are examining bottom lines to determine their position without tobacco revenues. And those in the advertising industry - especially the outdoor billboard area where up to 20 per cent of business comes from tobacco accounts - are bracing themselves for layoffs.

Almost everyone involved in the issue - many of them non-smokers - are questioning how far the government plans to go in limiting the freedom of tobacco companies to advertise their product.

At least three organizations - the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council, the Association of Canadian Advertisers and the Outdoor Advertising Association of Canada - are seeking legal advice on whether the ban could be tested in court under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"It's a freedom of speech issue; a ban on advertising a legal, lawful product," said John Foss, president of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, which represents 200 of the country's major corporate advertisers. "If they get a ban on this one category, what will be banned next - alcohol, sugar-coated cereal, chocolate?

"Once it becomes acceptable to ban advertising one product, it's easier to move on to the next," he said. "This bill will remove the freedom of the individual to be able to exercise their own choice."

Jeff Shearer, president of Telemedia Publishing Inc., which publishes 10 Canadian magazines, but derives only about 2 per cent of profits from tobacco advertising, agreed.

"The implications for us revenue-wise will be minimal; more insidious is the idea that the government has decided it has the right to get involved with a legal product's right to promote itself," he said. "It should be the right of any publisher, not the government, to decide what should or should not be published."

Michael Bedard, founder of the Montreal-based Smokers' Freedom Society, charges the law will deny smokers the same rights consumers of every other legal, commercial product have.

"Smokers have the right to buy tobacco products, but won't have the right to receive information about those products," he said. "If this ban goes through, smokers who want to look for a cigarette brand with a lower tar or nicotine content won't even be able to do that - it will be impossible for a company to make known such a product, so impossible for smokers to purchase such a product."

There are now no laws covering tobacco, its production, sales or promotion in Canada by the three major companies - Imperial Tobacco Ltd., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. and RJR-Macdonald Inc. - which control the $5 billion a year tobacco industry.

The companies voluntarily agreed to stop advertising on television and radio in 1972 when faced with legislation that would have banned all advertising. They then also agreed to put health warnings on all cigarette packages, to implement a code covering newspaper, billboard and poster advertising and to limit total advertising spending to 1971 levels.

Over the past year, industry representatives had been meeting with Epp and health officials to come up with new voluntary guidelines - including removing all people from tobacco advertising and increasing health warnings - to meet the minister's goal of making smoking less socially acceptable.

Epp's April 30 announcement of a total ban on advertising was a surprise to the industry.

"It came as a shock, a big shock," said Cynthia Von Maerestetten, vice-president of corporate affairs for Rothmans, Benson & Hedges. "Never did the minister ever once sugggest to us that a complete ban on everything was being considered."

Added Jean-Louis Mercier, chairman of Imperial Tobacco Co. and also of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Association: "It came down like a ton of bricks."

The industry officials both pointed to studies done by the International Advertising Association indicating that tobacco consumption does not drop when advertising is banned. They say tobacco advertising is not aimed at recruiting new smokers, but at developing brand loyalty and persuading smokers to switch brands in a declining market.

They plan to fight the bill as a freedom issue.

"We wish to retain the right to communicate with our customers," said Mercier. "This is really going too far - who's next on the list?"

Predictably, anti-smoking activists are pleased with the extent of the proposed legislation, and expect it will go a long way toward the goal of a smoke-free society and to curbing the 33,000 annual deaths of Canadians attributedto smoking.

They have long argued that advertising encourages smoking by making it acceptable in society and had lobbied Ottawa to reject voluntary regulation by the industry.

"Tobacco advertising in general tries to show smoking as an acceptable behavior," said Ken Kyle, director of public issues for the Canadian Cancer Society. "Small kids see billboards, posters and magazine ads and learn from an early age that smoking is okay.

"We want to eventually have a smoke-free society so we have to stop young people from starting to smoke."

The health department's Collishaw, who admitted the bill is one of the toughest in the free world, said that by banning advertising that underscores the social acceptibility of smoking, Ottawa will clear the way to escalate its own campaign to draw attention to the hazards of smoking.

"Our campaign wouldn't be credible as long as we allowed tobacco advertising to exist ," he said.

Von Maerestetten and others in the tobacco industry maintain Ottawa's strategy won't separate those who want to smoke from their habit.

"Unless you're Rip Van Winkle, you'd have to be totally ignorant not to be aware of all the negative information about tobacco, but still people choose to smoke," she said. "Whatever happened to personal responsibility and taking control of one's own life?"

See related story by Kathy English on Page A8

Illustration

Caption: 4 photos Tobacco backed tennis tournament, display of lighters, Tobacco promotion, cigarette sign - stamped "banned"

Copyright 1987 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

No proof advertising creates smokers: [FIN Edition]

Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 16 June 1987: A18.

The federal government is about to ban all advertising for tobacco products. In so doing, it would remove the right to information to which tobacco consumers are entitled in the same way as consumers of any other legally sold products.

If such a law had been in effect when plain cigarettes were smoked, smokers would have had no means by which to learn of filter- tipped cigarettes. Experience has shown this in other countries in a conclusive fashion.

In order to assume responsibility for thus encroaching on the rights of smokers, the government claims, among other things, that advertising encourages young people to smoke. However, there has never been any advertising for marijuana, hash, cocaine or for many other drugs widely used by young people . . . So the argument cited is not valid.

Smokers need the information tobacco manufacturers provide

Bedard, Michel . Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 16 Nov 1987: A.17.

In proposing a total ban on advertising for tobacco products, Bill C-51 is striking a blow at the rights and freedoms of tobacco consumers. For that reason, the Smokers' Freedom Society is energetically opposing the adoption of this bill.

* Freedom of access to information: Every consumer of a legally-sold product is entitled to information on that product, and tobacco is no exception to the rule. Furthermore, at any time, a new tobacco product could be developed, or an existing one could be improved and given new characteristics. In either case, smokers would find it beneficial to know about these innovations.

But should Bill C-51 be passed, these consumers would be deprived of such strategic information. In fact, it is advertising that conveys this type of information in our society.

As an obvious consequence of this, smokers could also be deprived of the benefits of research and development. It would indeed be quite plausible for the manufacturers of tobacco products to devote much fewer resources to developing, for instance, a new cigarette, if they were forbidden to publicize its existence to their customers. If this bill had been law when plain cigarettes only were available, how would the existence of filter cigarettes have become known? Or the mild and extra mild cigarettes? The removal of freedom of access to information also represents, in principle, an unjustifiable act in a democracy like ours, which claims to be liberal. Such action is even more indefensible in that it would create a dangerous precedent that could be applied to other products, depending on the fashion of the day or the whims of certain do-gooders. Even opponents of smoking, such as Toronto Councillor Richard Gilbert, have good cause to speak out against Bill C-51 - after all, the freedom of expression of some people goes hand in hand with the freedom of access to information of others. * Freedom of choice: From another point of view, Bill C-51 seems to be based on an intolerable contempt for Canadians. The freedom to choose one's lifestyle lies at the very heart of our social and political principles. We each have the right to live as we think fit, provided we remain within the law.

Yet this bill involves a value judgment on human behavior and an obvious desire to redirect it. It implies that citizens are too immature to make an enlightened choice, that they are being manipulated by advertising and that, therefore, there must be government intervention.

As we know, however, there has never been any advertising for marijuana, hash and other drugs whose use is, nevertheless, widespread. But there is still reticence in drawing the obvious conclusion: People often make choices regardless of any advertising.

Health minister Jake Epp, the proposer of this bill, himself bore out this conclusion by stating in the House of Commons May 26, 1986, that the elimination of advertising for tobacco products would have little impact on the number of smokers.

Contrary to all logic, he is nevertheless continuing to defend a bill whose purpose, by his own admission, will not be achieved.

In this context, we may wonder why the minister's determination remains so strong. Similarly, there is good reason to be deeply disturbed by the hypocrisy of a government which, on one hand, scorns the rights and freedoms of seven million citizens who smoke, and on the other, pockets hundreds of millions of dollars paid in taxes by those very people. In the final analysis, there are grounds for questioning the morality of this bill. * Tolerance and freedom: Banning advertising for a widely-used product whose consumption remains perfectly legal is not only paradoxical; it is the first step on the slippery slope of censure and intolerance. It is a dangerous step. It is a step too far. The Smokers' Freedom Society is concerned with responsible freedom and is prepared to fight to protect a freedom from which everyone benefits, including the

opponents of smoking. Are the latter also prepared to protect a freedom that they enjoy as much as others? * Michel Bedard is president of the Smokers' Freedom Society, a Montreal-based organization originally funded by the tobacco manufacturing industry.

Illustration

Smokers petition for right to puff: [HO2 Edition]

Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 27 Dec 1988: A22.

Full Text

Translate [unavailable for this document]

MONTREAL (CP) - A petition demanding smoking areas in federal buildings has been signed by 1,200 Statistics Canada employees in Ottawa, says a smokers' rights group.

The Smokers' Freedom Society says the petition coincides with a ban on smoking in federal government workplaces set to take effect Jan. 1.

The policy is unfair, the group says, because some of the workers in buildings not owned by the government are not federal employees and therefore are not covered by the smoking ban.

Copyright 1988 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 82

Smokers' rights defender battles on: [FIN Edition]

Adam Mayers Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 30 Jan 1989: B3.

Michel Bedard would have an easier time selling air conditioners in Inuvik in January than defending the rights of smokers, which is what he does for a living.

"It's not the most glamorous job," he admits. And as an afterthought, biting off each word: "In fact, I must say, frankly, that this is a very tough battle."

Bedard, 43, a former philosophy teacher in the Quebec CEGEP program, is president of the Smokers' Freedom Society. He earns his daily bread by defending the rights of Canadians who smoke and by trying to change the attitudes of non-smokers toward people who do.

But attitudes are among the most expensive and difficult things to change. They are deep-seated and in part defence mechanisms, helping the brain to sort automatically the enormous assault of information on the senses. Instead of thinking about everything all the time, attitudes allow us to pigeon-hole data and respond easily in a reflexive way.

So to change attitudes you have to get people to listen to you and then re-evaluate what they believe and then accept your view. That's why it's tough.

Especially when it comes to smoking. Without putting too fine a point on it, smoking kills.

Most smokers will admit that. Our lawmakers certainly believe it. Tough new laws on tobacco advertising went into effect Jan. 1 and in federal jurisdictions smoking in the workplace is banned. In Toronto, so is smoking in offices. One zealot at city hall recently suggested the Toronto ban should also include bus shelters.

Even in Bedard's Montreal they're talking about it.

His basic pitch is this: "Smokers are doing something legal. They pay heavy taxes to do so. And if you pay taxes you have some rights."

But attitudes toward the habit lead to emotional responses, so it's not an easy sell. On open-line radio shows in Montreal, Bedard has been called a killer and a liar. He's also been accused of pocketing millions from the tobacco companies to promote their wares.

"They treated me incredibly," he says.

The Smokers' Freedom Society was launched in 1986 and is funded by the tobacco manufacturers, wholesalers, growers and unions. Bedard says it has 8,200 supporters, mainly in Ontario and Quebec. He won't say how large its budget is, though in its first year the tobacco companies alone gave it $100,000.

Bedard, who calls himself a moderate smoker, admits that smoking can be hazardous to your health.

"We have never said that if you're sick you have to smoke to be healthy again," he says. "Smoking does present a health risk. But if you drink excessively it's a health risk. If you have a poor diet it's a health risk. If you don't exercise it's a health risk. But the product is legal and we don't want tobacco used as a scapegoat."

The group's only defence against the "tidal wave" of fashionable and punitive laws is that last point. So it intervenes whenever a new and threatening law arises and will also help individuals if it can.

"The basic thing is reasonable accommodation," Bedard says. "We want to protect the responsible freedom to smoke."

He says what's at stake is "social engineering and personal freedom," and asks whether liquor, foods with cholesterol, and candy, not necessarily in that order, will be next.

"I'm a philosopher and I've always worked in this area of liberty- related issues," Bedard says. "You ask if it's a losing battle. Possibly you're right. Maybe we won't succeed, but we'll do our best.

"If all the smokers in this country were to quit tomorrow, I wouldn't care. They would be doing it because they choose to. But when you take billions of tax dollars for a product and it's legal, the regulations have to be reasonable."

* * *

The 1988 U.S. presidential campaign and the makers of Scotch Tape, Eveready Batteries and Jordache Basics jeans produced some of the worst U.S. advertisements of 1988, says Adweek magazine.

It cites Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis, in particular, for a series portraying Republican candidate George Bush's handlers trying to disguise their candidate's alleged shortcomings.

Adweek also says some ads run by pro-Bush organizations were so distasteful that the Bush campaign was obliged to disown them.

Other bad ads:

* Scotch Tape for its "mean-spirited spot demonstrating the product's effectiveness by dunking a woman repeatedly into a tank of water."

* Eveready Batteries for a spot featuring a gun-toting toddler with the appellation, "Holy Terror," which Adweek claims was too easily translated to "terrorist."

* Jordache Basics for "featuring whining teens making no particular point in their 30-second spot."

* Mercedes-Benz S Class because it "glamorizes fast driving and gives reckless speeding an inappropiately upscale gloss."

Illustration

Caption: Star photo Michel Bedard

Ban smoking in all taxicabs, committee asks Metro Council: [ME1 Edition]

Michael Smith Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 28 Feb 1989: A1.

Metro's licensing committee wants to kick butts out of taxicabs.

It took committee members - five former smokers, one occasional smoker and one life-long nonsmoker - little more than an hour yesterday to decide unanimously to ban smoking in Metro's cabs.

The matter goes to Metro Council on March 29. If council approves the ban urged by the committee which oversees Metro's cabs:

* Ashtrays in the city's 3,100 cabs will be sealed or removed.

* Cabs will be required to display the non-smoking symbol inside and out.

* Cabbies who want a smoke will have to pull over and get out before they light up.

The decision came despite a plea for the "responsible freedom to smoke" from the president of a Montreal-based smokers rights group, and cabbies' fears the ban would hurt their business.

"The taxi industry is the last frontier" for the no-smoking movement, said Councillor Howard Moscoe (North York-Spadina).

He said Metro has to protect passengers and drivers who get into a taxi where smoking has been allowed and "retch at the stale butts and the smell that permeates the cab."

But Michel Bedard, president of the 8,000-member Smokers' Freedom Society, said he considers it "unacceptable to treat (smokers) as outcasts, as lepers.

"There should be no government regulation in a private place like a taxicab," he said. "It should be worked out between the driver and the client."

Don Shantz, a 71-year-old cabbie who quit smoking 35 years ago, told the committee: "Very rarely does someone light up a cigarette without asking," and most of those who do, stop when they're asked to. He favors a complete ban, instead of having designated non- smoking or smoking cabs.

Cabbie Janet Lyons told the committee she polled 91 clients over the past week, and all but 16 of them felt the question of smoking should be left to the driver and the customer to work out.

Lyons said she fears a ban on smoking will hurt her business, because customers might give smaller tips or refuse to take her cab.

Cabbie Stan Steiner said drivers can't hop out of their cars every time they want a cigarette. "The taxi business requires a driver to stay in his car, if he wants to make money."

Driver Gary Walsh foresaw problems enforcing the bylaw: "If three big guys get in my cab and want to smoke, who compensates me if I'm injured?"

Copyright 1989 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 404

Workplace Smoking Is on Its Way Out

Rupnik, Frank. Northern Ontario Business 9. 7 (Apr 1989): 21,23.

Relaxing with a cigarette at work is becoming a thing of the past. Businessmen are starting to see the benefits of going smokeless, and if they don't, the government is well on its way to forcing them to.

It's an interesting sight, watching die-hard smokers standing out side the office in February puffing on a cigarette. Some may be sympathetic to their plight, but David Sweanor, the legal counsel for the Non-Smokers Rights Association in Toronto, thinks the move to smoke-free workplaces is inevitable.

"There is very positive movement in non-smokers' rights if you look at what is happening with both the federal and provincial governments and probably most particularly what is happening in private business," says Sweanor.

Some of the signs which he believes indicate the fight against smoke in the workplace is going well include:

* The ending of smoking in all federal government offices, affecting some 200,000 employees

* The Non-Smokers Health Act is awaiting proclamation and will end smoking in all federally regulated workplaces.

* The province of Ontario announced it would abolish smoking in provincial government offices by the end of March, a move that affected80,000 or 90,000 people

* The province is moving towards bringing in legislation for the end of June which would make it mandatory for all workplaces to protect the rights of non-smokers.

Sweanor believes businesses will fall in line with smoking legislation for reasons other than the law.

"It's in everybody's economic self interest to eliminate smoking in the workplace because it reduces health costs," says Sweanor.

In addition, smokers are absent from work about 50 per cent more time than non-smokers, smoking increases the need for ventilation in the workplace and smoking harms computers, he says.

Some companies are making changes in their smoking policies before the provincial legislation is enacted. Northern Telephone Limited falls into this category.

A total ban on smoking will take place at all Northern Telephone property by May 1.

According to Mike Pearson, the supervisor of corporate communications at Northern Telephone, credit for the smooth transition to a smoke-free workplace should go to a sub-committee of employees, chaired by Doug Hall of Timmins.

"The committee included smokers and non-smokers and it completed a survey of all Nortern Telephone employees and then tabulated the results into a very useful format. The company's subsequent corporate policy on smoking was a direct result of the efforts of these employees," says Murray Cooper, the president and chief executive officer of Northern Telephone.

The company shows its commitment to the proposals by helping its employees kick the habit. Kits which assist employees who want to quit are being made available at a low, refundable fee.

However, not all smokers are accepting the growing trend towards smoke-free workplaces. Michel Bedard, president of The Smokers' Freedom Society, is one of many who feel smokers' rights are being infringed upon. He is not giving up the fight.

"If you take the case of smoking in the workplace, there are two court cases filed, one in Toronto with regard to the city bylaw and the other in the Federal Court of Canada concerning the Treasury Board Policy. We never know what will happen, but according to our lawyers, it seems we have a very good opportunity of winning," says Bedard.

Bedard feels smokers' rights is a question of "mentality" and the anti-tobacco movement will fade away. He is not convinced by arguements about second-hand smoke.

"There has been nothing proven. I can provide you with thousands of studies. If you look at the health risks for smokers, they are there. If you look at the dangers of smoke in the environment, they are not there," says Bedard.

"When the Surgeon General in the United States made the statement that 2,000 U.S. citizens die each year because of second- hand smoke, a number of scientists challenged him and he then acknowleged he had pulled the figure out of a hat," he adds.

Bedard says even if scientific evidence proves second-hand smoke is not dangerous, smokers have to "be polite."

Copyright Northern Ontario Business Apr 1989

[ For many Canadians, smoking is a social... ]

Peter Maser Southam News. CanWest News [Don Mills, Ont] 27 May 1989: 1.

MONTREAL - It was one of those discoveries that makes the eyes grow wide.

Sure, the telephone listing was clear _ Smokers Freedom Society, 8615 St. Laurent Blvd.

But just as surely something was wrong. After all, who defends smokers these days? Aren't smokers as popular as Third World dictators? Isn't smoking as socially acceptable as offering PCBs to children and small furry animals?

The thought occurred that this might be a joke, a put-on by the folks who believe in spontaneous human combustion. On the other hand, maybe it was the work of dedicated radicals, the kind who smoke five packs a day and worship the late actor Yul Brynner.

Alas, the reality of the SFS is far more mundane. It was created and exists as a lobby group for smokers.

But its offices are neatly appointed and well-ventilated. Its president, Michel Bedard, is tastefully dressed and consistently courteous. He smokes, but doesn't light up until checking with his guest. He seems to genuinely believe that tobacco use requires consent.

If this is the future face of smoking, it is ultra-mild.

Of the estimated seven million smokers in Canada today, about 8,100 belong to the SFS, which Bedard, 43, founded in 1986 after teaching philosophy teacher in a junior college.

Headquartered here, it has members in all provinces and territories, most of whom smoke, some of whom do not. Most of these are married to smokers, but some have apparently joined out of pure concern for SFS objectives.

Far more suspect is the involvement of the tobacco industry, which helped get the SFS on its feet and remains a major contributor.

Bedard won't say what that contribution is worth, but he has never tried to hide the fact that his organization is getting it. What matters, he adds, is not the tobacco industry, but the merits of his arguments in defence of smoking.

Reduced to its essentials, that defence is that tobacco is a legal product and those who buy it should be allowed to use it. Instead, smokers find themselves facing unfair and illogical attacks from zealous anti-smokers and law makers, he adds.

Illogical as in former health minister Jake Epp telling the Commons in 1986 that banning tobacco advertising would have little or no effect on tobacco consumption. What did the government do then? It banned advertising.

Then there was the 1987 news report out of Halifax about the Maritime Heart Centre refusing to do surgery on smokers. That one still leaves Bedard shaking his head.

"If a robber was shot during a bank holdup, do you think he'd be refused surgery. Of course not. And yet he was taking part in an illegal activity, which smoking is not.

"There are health risks associated with smoking, but as smokers we accept them. And to put things in perspective, there are health risks in having a bad diet or drinking beer and alcohol or eating junk food and not exercising.

"And this is what we feel. We feel we have the right to choose the lifestyle we want as long as we're acting legally and with respect for others."

There was a time when smokers never thought of non-smokers, and in some parts of the country, notably Quebec, they still don't.

Bedard thinks that's wrong, and has used the office of president to make awareness of the non-smoker a central element of the SFS creed.

This can be seen in the SFS motto, which reads "Freedom to smoke, with respect for others." SFS members also receive a copy of the "six commandments of the smoker," a Bedard-inspired document that urges smokers to respect bans on buses and movie houses, use ashtrays and seek permission from those who might be bothered by smoke.

As well, the SFS newsletter that comes out four times a year is named the Calumet, an Indian word that means peace pipe and implies friendship and respect.

The newsletter is authored by Bedard, not surprising since he really is the SFS and vice versa. The society has two other full- time employees, but both are secretaries. It's Bedard who handles the lead role in the organization's prime activities _ public relations, research, lobbying and support for court challenges.

One of these is a challenge to the ban on smoking in federal workplaces, a ban Bedard finds hypocritical since smoking is still allowed in MPs' offices on Parliament Hill.

Also being challenged with SFS backing is Toronto's tough anti- smoking bylaw. That case was heard in Ontario Supreme Court in March.

Asked if he finds it awkward to defend smoking, Bedard replies that a strong majority of Canadians are non-smokers, but only a small minority are anti-smokers.

"For smokers, it's tough fight right now. But most people have an incredible amount of common sense . . . and that's why I believe it's possible to find a reasonable accommodation on a free- choice basis."

(Copyright Southam News 1989)

Word count: 819

New anti-smoking regulations take effect today: [HO2 Edition]

Andrew Duffy Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 01 Jan 1990: A4.

Smokers who want to light up at work, in banks and on airplanes will be subject to a new battery of regulations this year.

The federal Non-smokers' Health Act and the provincial workplace smoking law both take effect today, further limiting the ability to puff in public.

Non-smokers and smokers alike, however, are critical of Ontario's workplace smoking law, which will affect 233,000 workplaces and 3.9 million workers.

Non-smokers' rights groups have said it will do more harm than good.

"A bad law is worse than no law," said Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Non-smokers' Rights Association. "You can always correct an absence of legislation, but it's much more difficult when you have bad law on the books - your options are foreclosed."

The Smoking in the Workplace Act, introduced by former labor minister Greg Sorbara, bans smoking in all but designated areas - limited to 25 per cent of a building's floor space. Employers who break the law can be fined up to $2,000.

It will not apply to buildings controlled by the federal government, hotels, detention centres, restaurants or vehicles.

Ontario is the first province to introduce a law to restrict smoking in the workplace.

But the law, Mahood said, is "public relations fraud" that does nothing to reduce the amount of smoke in a given work environment. No rules govern the ventilation of a smoking room or what constitutes a smoking area, he said.

Smokers' rights advocates also are critical of the new law.

"The government has no right to go into the private workplace and tell businessmen what they have to do," said Michel Bedard, president of the Smokers Freedom Society, an 8,000-member organization financed by tobacco companies and growers.

In cities that already have workplace smoking bylaws - Toronto, Etobicoke, Markham - the provincial law will have little effect since most companies have designated smoking and non-smoking areas, said a ministry spokesman.

Added to the phalanx of rules will be a new federal law, known as the Non-smokers' Health Act.

The law guarantees a smoke-free envirnonment for employees in banks and crown corporations.

Copyright 1990 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 350

Opposing Groups Fume, While Employers Comply With Smoking Regulation

Vendramin, Lorie. Northern Ontario Business 10. 5 (Feb 1990): 1,15.

While two organizations on opposite sides of Ontario's new anti-smoking legislation resort to mud-slinging, accusations and counter-accusations, most companies in Northern Ontario are complying with the new workplace smoking legislation.

Bill 194 was introduced into Ontario's 233,000 workplaces Jan. 1, prohibiting smoking or decreasing the available smoking area in the workplace by 75 per cent.

"Our hope is that legislation will lead to a substantial reduction of (the number of) people who smoke in the workplace," said Ministry of Labor working environment inspector Gerry Giasson.

Under Bill 194, employers must explore every "reasonable" avenue to accommodate a non-smoker who voices a complaint. However, Giasson said the employer is entitled to designate a smoking area within the building of no more than 25 per cent of the available floor space. If a non-smoker requests relocation, the employer must attempt to comply with the request.

"Workplaces providing designated areas will be the exception, not the rule," predicted Giasson.

CAMOUFLAGE

Although some people congratulate this legislation as an attempt by the provincial government to better working conditions in Ontario, Garfield Mahood, executive director of the Toronto-based Non-Smokers' Rights Association, believes the province is trying to camouflage the real issue.

"We don't consider this a victory to the extent that the Ontario government thinks it is. It thinks this legislation may earn political brownie points. It is hood-winking the public."

The Non-Smokers' Rights Association is concerned the legislation contains no concrete definition of what a designated smoking area can be.

According to the association's The Real Guide to Ontario's Workplace Smoking Law, "employers may simply draw imaginary lines around the desks of smokers and call these workplaces 'designated areas.'"

Giasson said he is currently investigating a complaint concerning a Sudbury company which designated 25 per cent of its lunchroom for smoking. Giasson does not believe this type of designation is suitable.

Meanwhile, the Montreal-based Smokers' Freedom Society is battling to protect the rights of the smoking workforce in Ontario.

Don Whiteside, a consultant with the organization, said, while the group does not advise people to smoke, it believes "adults can handle their own actions, without the state telling them how to act."

Whiteside believes smokers' rights are in jeopardy because of the provincial government's new legislation.

"Smokers have rights. If you're a murderer or a dope dealer, you still have rights. And smoking is not illegal."

Gary Hryrtsak, vice-president of the union local representing Falconbridge workers in Sudbury, is also concerned with the rights of smokers.

All of the mining company's operations were designated non-smoking areas Jan. 1. Hryrtsak said the union questions whether the company's primary reason for implementing the no-smoking policy was stictly for health reasons. He said Falconbridge admitted productivity was a factor, but not the main one.

Hryrtsak said the union would be satisfied if the two sides could agree on designating 25 per cent of the work area for smoking. To his knowledge, Falconbridge is the only underground mine operation, except for uranium mines, to impose a complete ban on smoking.

Hryrtsak said this disagreement is affecting both company officials and employees.

"Of course it is affecting employees. Nobody likes being told that they can't do something. And it is creating another rift between the company and its employees."

While Falconbridge may be experiencing some resistance, for most Northern Ontario businesses, it has been a smooth transition.

Norm Slongo of Charlebois & Slongo, an accounting and bookkeeping firm based in Thunder Bay, said two-thirds of the office's staff smokes and the company has decided to designate a smoking area in the workplace.

Slongo, even though his company is co-operating, is not pleased with Bill 194.

"This is just ridiculous. Why don't they just outlaw tobacco?"

Although the Peat Marwick Thorne accounting office in Sault Ste. Marie has been considered smoke-free since June 1989, manager John King said two designated smoking rooms were set up to accommodate two pipe smokers in the office. He said the initial plans for a smoke-free working environment came about because of "the general feeling among the staff."

Twenty-five per cent of the staff at Wardlaw Fuels in Sault Ste. Marie are smokers. One year ago, Greg Wardlaw's company also decided to become smoke-free. Wardlaw said he initially encountered the problem of three or four staff members going outside for a cigarette break all at once, leaving the phones unattended. However, now the staff takes more organized breaks.

Wardlaw agrees with the legislation, yet he does not believe it will force employees to quit the habit.

"If they want it (a cigarette) bad enough, they'll just go outside."

Wardlaw's father issued $500 cheques to employees who were interested in quitting smoking. If an employee was successful in quitting for a year, he or she was awarded the cheque. According to Wardlaw, two employees took advantage of the bonus system and were successful.

Falconbridge and its unionized workers are investigating an employee-assistance program which would help and encourage employees to kick the habit, said Hyrtsak.

Because most of his employees are truck drivers, Bob Burey of Custom Concrete in Timmins, said his company won't be greatly affected by Bill 194. The only minor problem he forsees is that many drivers will forget about the legislation and will unintentionally light up in a client's workplace.

A representative with Dutem Enterprises in Haileybury, who asked not to be named, voiced his disapproval of the new anti-smoking policy.

"I think it sucks. The next thing you know, they (the province) will be telling us what color of socks to wear."

As the employees of B & R Rubber Services, based in Sudbury, work with flammable material, smoking was banned within the building long before the law came into effect.

Owner Reg Michaud said he has not encountered any real problems with the ban, but he disagrees with the legislation and believes the government has "gone overboard."

PENALTIES

If an employer and/or employee decides to disobey the legislation, it could result in a maximum $500 fine for an employee and up to $25,000 for an employer.

Giasson said the initial enforcement is the responsibility of the employer. However, he said if the employer records of continued warnings to an unco-operative employee, Ministry of Health inspectors will summons a ticket "comparable to a speeding ticket" to the employee. If the employee wishes to appeal the ticket, he can follow the appeal procedure in provincial court.

Under the bill, a Ministry of Health inspector can investigate any workplace at any given time, without a warrant. These investigations, Giasson said, could happen during routine checks or because of individual complaints. Giasson said he has already received complaints regarding some Sudbury-area workplaces.

According to the government, public places such as hotels and motels are the only exceptions to the rule.

While Giasson cannot predict if there will be changes to the anti-smoking legislation, he recognizes the controversy, and said Labour Minister Gerry Phillips "has not closed the door on this issue."

Copyright Northern Ontario Business Feb 1990

Word count: 1158

Show mutual respect in smoking restrictions: [SU2 Edition]

Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 22 Apr 1990: B2.

Re Bylaw would allow smoking in cab (April 10): The Smokers' Freedom Society hopes that the recently proposed bylaw that would allow either driver or passenger to smoke in taxi cabs by mutual consent, marks the beginning of a more enlightened direction in freedom of choice.

Our position has always been that a responsible approach to smoking is achieved through tolerance, mutual respect and common sense.

Metro's determination to impose a total ban on smoking in cabs was unfair, unenforceable and unreasonable. We believe that governments at all levels in this country have lost sight of the democratic process in their artificial zeal to legislate anti- smoking measures.

DON WHITESIDE

Ontario Co-ordinator

Smokers' Freedom Society

Nepean

Smokers demand their right to puff: [SA2 Edition]

(AP). Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 27 Oct 1990: A14.

HELSINKI (AP) - Delegates from 23 countries, including Canada, puffed on pipes, cigars and cigarettes but said they wanted to clear the air between smokers and non-smokers as an international conference on smokers' rights began yesterday.

"We are not puffing into the faces of non-smokers; we are just fighting back and want them to be aware of our feelings, as we are of theirs," said Steve Handman of the American Smokers Alliance.

The Canadian delegate, John Hutchinson, president of the Smokers' Freedom Society, said a resolution adopted yesterday would be taken to the United Nations General Assembly.

"It is the opinion of those attending the conference that current legislation in countries such as Canada, which places unreasonable restraints on individual rights, contravenes the U.N. Charter of Human Rights," he said.

The resolution contends smoking is a human right.

The two-day meeting, called Smokepeace 90, was attended by more than 120 delegates from around the world.

Copyright 1990 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 156

[ By David Vienneau TORONTO STAR OTTAWA - The federal ...]: [ONT Edition]

Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 27 Feb 1991: A21.

By David Vienneau TORONTO STAR

OTTAWA - The federal government has hiked the cost of cigarettes by 3 cents each in order to discourage teenagers from smoking.

"Our national strategy . . . is aimed at discouraging young people from beginning to smoke," Finance Minister Michael Wilson explained in his budget speech yesterday.

"It is estimated there will be about 100,000 fewer teenage smokers because of this tax increase."

The 3-cent hike was effective midnight yesterday, and was to be applied at the retail level as soon as each store's existing inventory is exhausted or whenever it sells 1,000 cartons - whichever comes sooner.

It will mean an increase of 75 cents on a pack of 25.

Taxes on roll-your-own tobacco, cigars, pipe tobacco and snuff will rise proportionately to the increase on cigarettes.

Even though Wilson says the new tax could eventually cost the government money as smokers kick the habit, he believes it's worth it.

"In light of the damage to health caused by smoking, this is one kind of revenue erosion that I am pleased to accommodate," the finance minister said.

He estimates the tax increase will raise $1.4 billion in the 1991- 92 fiscal year, and approximately $1.14 billion, $1.03 billion and $980 million over the next three years.

Studies by Health and Welfare Canada show that a 10 per cent price increase in the cost of a package of cigarettes will reduce cigarette consumption among budget-conscious 15- to 19-year-olds by as much as 14 per cent.

At the same time, between 4 and 9 per cent of adult smokers can be expected to butt out.

Wilson also tightened tax loopholes on loose or fine-cut tobacco.

A number of tobacco manufacturers have marketed products that take advantage of the fact that loose tobacco is taxed at two- thirds the rate of manufactured cigarettes.

Such products include "tobacco sticks," rolls of tobacco that smokers insert into cigarette tubes to make their own cigarettes. Such sticks will now be taxed at 5.4 cents each, regardless of weight - an increase of 3.3 cents per stick.

David Sweanor, legal counsel for the Non Smokers' Rights Association, was ecstatic over the news.

"This guarantees that tobacco consumption will continue to decline at record levels," he said in an interview yesterday.

"It truly is the equivalent of a very significant health breakthrough."

But the tobacco industry branded it "abusive, inflationary and regressive."

The tax is clearly inflationary and will "further exacerbate the cross-border shopping and smuggling problems which governments already consider to be serious," said an Ottawa spokesperson for the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council.

The 8,000-member Smokers' Freedom Society in Montreal said Ottawa "continues to place the burden of the national deficit on the backs of those Canadians least able to carry the load."

And at least some Metro teenagers say the tax hike won't stop them from smoking, The Star's Jim Wilkes reports.

"Quit? I won't quit," said 17-year-old Tony, who puffed his way through a pack of cigarettes in a Riverdale restaurant.

"Sure it's going to cost more, but I guess I'll have to pay it. I'm not going to stop smoking just because the price is going up."

Pal Andrew agreed.

"I started smoking because all my friends smoked - not because of what it costs," the 16-year-old said.

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 552

Pink lungs for all leaves smokers in black rage: [FIN Edition]

The life-savers are going in for the kill.

The tobacco tyrants, the nicotine nay-sayers, the carcinogen crusaders, the defenders of pink-lungs-for-all - THE FUMING FASCISTS OF THE ANTI-SMOKING LOBBY - well, they're at it again.

Dr. Perry Kendall, a thoroughly charming (alas) former chain- smoker who is Toronto's medical officer of health, is scheduled to bring his latest smoking sledgehammer before the city's board of health today.

The proposals, designed to remove second-hand tobacco smoke at work and in public, effectively bans smoking from the workplace unless the employer can provide a fully enclosed designated smoke room with separate ventilation to the outside, a prohibitively expensive procedure.

The bylaw amendments drawn up by Kendall would also ban smoking in day-care centres, laundromats, health-care facilities and all lobbies and stairwells, starting next January. Owners of chronic care, rehabilitation and mental health hospitals or nursing homes could establish designated smoking areas for the exclusive use of patients, however, and those patients who are confined to their rooms could smoke in their sleeping quarters, provide they have their doctor's permission.

In other words, if you're chronically ill, physically disabled or mentally incompetent, this law's for you.

The rest of us - dirty, nasty, deviant and unkissable - will have to retreat to our own homes or the great outdoors for a smoke break. And who knows how long we'll even be allowed that.

Unhappy with the existing, highly restrictive, municipal and provincial anti-smoking legislation, Kendall and his tyrannical cohorts want to expand their clean air horizons.

"Our present bylaw was appropriate when it was drafted," Kendall says. "But the evidence of second-hand smoke being one of the most dangerous and preventable carcinogens in the atmosphere is a lot stronger now than it was then. I don't think you could find any epidemiologist in the world who would not agree that the evidence has been proven to a degree that we accept as scientific proof."

Well, pffft.

It says here that this anti-smoking hysteria is not about health at all, it's about lifestyle. It's about the empowerment of some not- rather-nice pink lung advocates (read: boors) who have been conned into believing that they can exercise some control over their lives - and that of others - by jumping on this particular me-me-me bandwagon. It is the cult of selfishness.

It is also, increasingly, a class war. Outrageous tobacco taxes in recent federal and provincial budgets - a pack of smokes now carries $4.38 in taxes - mean that low-income Canadians are being unfairly slammed for one of the few forms of pleasure they could afford. Ditto booze. But it's easy to dismiss the rights of "those people" whose idea of a good time is a pack of smokes and a case of 2-4. Getting around the tax-grab has also created an atmosphere rich in possibilities for mobsters and other entrepreneurs. Good going, guys.

But, finally, there are indications that smokers don't have a glass jaw after all. Already a tax protest is under way, with smokers (and non-smokers who value civil rights) whipping off objection forms (now available in many convenience stores) to the Prime Minister's office.

Next month, the Smokers Freedom Society will be moving its offices from Montreal, where no one pays much attention to municipal anti-smoking legislation anyway, to Toronto. President-elect Phil Gillies, who used to run his own communications company, says Ontario's 2 million smokers are ready to mobilize against "the excessive measures" which have been enacted here, largely in the absence of any resistance. "It's been a heyday for the anti-smoking lobby," Gillies says. "Some of this new legislation constitutes nothing short of gross infringement on the rights of smokers. We will be marshalling our resources. We've planned a massive membership drive and information campaigns. And we will be gathering funds to support legal challenges.

"The regulators have simply gone too far."

Bill Murray, former executive director of the provincial Liberal caucus, has been working for the Smokers Freedom Society. In the past few months, he has travelled through the United States to study other municipal bylaws on smoking. (Interestingly, smoking advocates have won several key legal challenges in America recently.)

"I don't think the anti-smoking movement can be stopped," Murray admits. "But I do think we can slow it down."

Smokers unite! As for the fascists, kiss my . . . butt.

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

New-style tax revolt plays into hands of rich: [SU2 Edition]

Caplan, Gerald . Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 07 July 1991: B3.

TRAINED, Pavlov-like, never to miss a good demonstration, I dropped by Queen's Park just before the long weekend when the Men in Suits were protesting against the Ontario NDP government.

The crowd was considerably smaller than the organizers had predicted, but that was to be expected. A number of chauffeurs, I take it, were on vacation, and then the valet parking that had been promised for protesters' Porsches was suddenly cancelled.

Still, it wasn't a bad show. I loved the banker wearing the "F -- - censorship" T-shirt and holding the sign reading: "Bob Rae and Bob White are the same A--hole." And the cunning designer posters reading "Socialism - Slavery," "Comrade Bob," "David Saddam Cooke," "Smokers Freedom Society." And I'd give my party card for one of those great "Premier Bob" buttons with a picture of Bob White.

There's a serious movement building here, though - inspired directly by strategies that've been so effective in the United States. The protest organizers are clearly pretty shrewd cookies.

For years, tax revolt in Canada has meant the attacks by the NDP on corporate welfare bums and all those corporations who get away without paying any taxes. The new movement turns this on its head.

It cleverly combines opposition to all new taxes, including corporate taxes, with general opposition to any progressive government, especially Bob Rae's. What was once a left-wing crusade for fairer taxes now becomes a right-wing populist campaign against all taxes that are used to support the poor and vulnerable.

The model, of course, is the United States. After all, there the demand that business should pay its fair share is considered positively anti-American. Ordinary Americans, the great middle class, have been conned into believing their interests lie with the rich against the poor, that what's good for General Motors is good for the workers, that the real crisis is too many public handouts to lazy bums.

They seem even to agree that progressive taxation is a radical plot to confiscate legitimate profits, that the corporate sector can't bear any more tax burdens, and that tax write-offs for business, such as entertainment allowances, somehow benefit all Americans. Look at the results of these remarkable delusions.

Do you know that last year the head of H. J. Heinz was paid 38.5 million American dollars? That Michael Eisner of Walt Disney got $11.2 million? Apple's John Sculley $3.2 million? That the pay of top U.S. executives rose 12 to 15 per cent even though profits of the Fortune 500 companies fell 12 per cent? Do you realize that the CEOs of America's largest companies made 160 times as much as the average blue collar worker in 1989? Can you imagine how envious Canada's revolting men in suits must be?

Well, the Reagan-Bush formula for such spectacular achievements is clear enough: first, instead of throwing public funds at all those bleeding-heart causes so dear to Rae's government - say, battered women and hungry kids - cut them off instead. Secondly, look at the American tax system.

Last year, adjusting for inflation, the top 1 per cent of American income earners paid $84 billion less in taxes than they had in 1977. Recent tax breaks will save business $212 billion in corporate taxes and the rich $205 billion in personal income taxes between 1989 and 1993. This is big, big money.

In fact, on an after-tax income basis, the U.S. is the most unequal of 10 modern nations just studied by a congres

sional committee. Under Reagan and Bush in the last 10 years, the average low- and middle-income family lost between $600 and $800 each in real after-tax incomes, while the top one-fifth gained $18,000 each.

Of course then there's the real fortunes that pals of Reagan- Bush have made since 1980 - those that didn't get caught breaking the law and end up in the slammer, that is. So when the government deregulated the savings and loan industry, a few hustlers grew rich beyond the dreams of avarice - including George Bush's little boy Neil - and the rest of those poor saps in the silent majority are picking up the tab of maybe 1 trillion big ones. Yes, the word is trillion.

I guess the leaders of the new Canadian protest movement are still busy celebrating July 4th - practising for when it becomes our national holiday, too. (But will they deduct the cost of their big bash as a business expense?)

But they'll be back, so next week I'll share with you some of their really terrific, simple, Reaganite ideas on how government can save piles of dough. Brian Mulroney's been working at it for years now.

In the meantime, just remember this: the NDP may have won the government of Ontario, but the protesters' side still has the power.

* Gerald Caplan is a former national secretary of the New Democratic Party and a public affairs consultant.

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 820

Make half of each eatery smoke-free, board urges: [ONT Edition]

Susan Reid testreject. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 11 July 1991: A6.

Toronto's board of health wants half of every restaurant in the city to be smoke-free by January.

The board yesterday endorsed recommendations of its medical officer of health to increase the non-smoking areas of Toronto restaurants to 50 per cent from 30 per cent.

The proposed regulations, which go to council for approval Aug. 12, would amend a bylaw that currently applies only to restaurants with a minimum seating capacity of 40 people.

The Ontario Restaurant Association has said its members can accept the proposed increase.

"This is a very modest proposal," said Councillor Jack Layton, who heads the board.

"Toronto is moving slowly and deliberately to make more space free of smoke."

City council last month approved new bylaws to restrict second- hand smoke in the workplace and many public places, such as laundromats, day-care centres, and hotel lobbies.

Yesterday's debate drew an audience of one at city hall's council chamber.

Former Progressive Conservative MPP Phil Gillies was also the only speaker in his new capacity as president of the Quebec-based Smokers' Freedom Society.

Toronto and other municipalities are "captives of the anti- smoking lobby," Gillies told the board. "And we feel it's a very unhealthy situation."

Gillies said the board should drop the across-the-board percentage and promote separate contracts with restaurants based on their clientele's wishes. He said his organization, which has "8,000 people on the mailing list" and is expanding to Toronto, is supporting an Ottawa restaurant owner's battle in court to increase his smoking section to bring back business.

Ottawa restaurants are required to designate half their seats to non-smokers. The restaurant owner says he has lost half his business because his clientele smokes, Gillies said.

Gillies, who was Ontario's first minister for youth, said he smokes one to two packages of cigarettes a week and can go without.

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 304

'Too quiet' smokers get call to battle: [FIN Edition]

(CP). Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 18 July 1991: A8.

DELHI, Ont. (CP) - Groups battling for smokers' rights need to light a match under their members to fight coming battles, says the leader of the national Smokers Freedom Society.

Smokers have been "a little too quiet, a little too gentlemanly," Phil Gillies, a former Conservative cabinet minister in Ontario, told the annual meeting of the province's Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Market Board yesterday.

"That has to stop. There is a very fierce struggle ahead" over rising tobacco taxes and laws limiting smoking in public places, said Gillies, whose group claims 8,000 members.

Canadians spent $8.7 billion on tobacco products in 1990, of which about $5.8 million was in federal and provincial tax, say statistics released by the board.

The province's 1,223 tobacco growers are looking to foreign markets to boost production, said board chairman Albert Bouw.

Delhi is in the heart of Ontario's tobacco-growing region, 35 kilometres southwest of Brantford.

Illustration

Caption: PHOTO: Phil Gillies

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 155

A pack of TROUBLE: [FIN Edition]

Bill Taylor TORONTO STAR. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 22 Oct 1991: C1.

JILL AND HER FRIEND are chilly as they huddle outside Honest Ed's in the blustery October wind.

But that's okay because, in their own eyes at least, they're also cool. And that warms their 15-year-old hearts even as their lungs are warmed by the smoke from the cigarettes they've just lit.

"My first today," says Jill. "This wind is good. My mom won't smell smoke on me when I go home."

"Gum," says her friend. "Don't let me forget to buy gum. My mom smelled cigarettes on my breath one time. She flipped.

"I told her if that was the worst thing I ever did, lighting a cigarette - I didn't say I smoked it - she should be pretty pleased. But she still flipped."

Jill ("It's a real common name. My parents won't recognize me.") and her friend ("Don't call me anything, okay?") are two blips on a graph that has been in a nosedive for 12 years.

In 1979, 47 per cent of Canadian males and 46 per cent of females aged 15 to 19 smoked, according to a Health and Welfare Canada study. In 1989, that had fallen to 22 per cent of males and 24 per cent of females. The downward trend is continuing, the Canadian Lung Association says.

But, with a legal battle being waged over the resumption of tobacco advertising, the association is worried that the Jills of this world and their friends could begin to multiply once more.

Teenage girls take the most notice of advertising, Laurie Batignani of the American Lung Association of Connecticut, told the Hartford Courant. Tobacco advertising is legal and widespread in the United States.

That is why American teenage girls are the fastest-growing population of smokers in the United States, the association says. A recent poll showed 20 per cent of U.S. high school senior girls smoke regularly, compared with 16 per cent of the boys.

That's the first time teenage females have been shown to smoke more than males.

"There's certainly no room for complacency," says Ron Jette of the Canadian Lung Association. "We can be a little bit optimistic, sure, but this problem is not licked.

"We still have one out of four or five teenagers smoking. And, yes, it appears that more girls than boys smoke."

A survey in 1988 indicated that some 500,000 Canadians aged 15 to 19 were regular smokers. This year, says the National Campaign for Action on Tobacco, 120,000 young Canadians will take up smoking. More than 70 per cent will start before they are 14.

Bill Neville, president of the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council, is quoted as dismissing this in a new book, High Society: Legal And Illegal Drugs in Canada.

Neville tells author Neil Boyd: "The charge that's made that most people start to smoke when they're teenagers is one of those wonderful pieces of rhetoric that's meaningless . . . That's when we start to do everything.

"That's like saying the beer companies get most of their people when they're young."

It has been illegal since 1908 to sell tobacco to anyone under 16, and in Ontario and New Brunswick the current age cutoff is 18. But, according to Health and Welfare Canada and other studies:

* The median age for becoming a daily smoker is 15.

* More than 90 per cent of young smokers say they started before they were 17. The average age for starting to smoke was 12 and for beginning to smoke daily was 13.

* Canadians under 18 spend more than $200 million a year on tobacco.

* Up to 66 per cent of adolescents who try as few as two cigarettes go on to become regular smokers.

* Kids aged 10 to 13 are likely to smoke only three cigarettes a week. But those 14 to 17 report smoking 68 a week and those 18 to 19 smoke 97 cigarettes a week.

* Among male smokers now aged 15, more than one in four premature deaths will be attributable to smoking, and among female smokers, more than one in 10 will die prematurely.

"Unfortunately, that's not the sort of statistic young people take much notice of," Jette says. "It's more effective to tell a kid that smoking will make him or her smell funny."

"I never smoke indoors, because then it smells up your clothes," says Jill. "But there's no place hardly where you can smoke indoors any more. You can't even smoke in the Eaton Centre, for god's sake."

"I'm thinking about quitting," her friend says. "But I don't want to get fat. I mean, that's not healthy either."

In fact, says an American study done in part by Harvard Medical School, while smokers weigh an average of 7 pounds less than non- smokers, they tend to have more body fat around their waists, increasing the risk of heart problems and diabetes.

And University of Utah researchers revealed last year that teenage girls who smoke and sunbathe are 12 times more susceptible to premature wrinkling.

"I'd worry about wrinkles more than I'd worry about lung cancer," Jill says. "But I don't smoke enough to worry about either of them, really.

"I get through a couple of packs a week, tops. That's all I can afford. The price of cigarettes is crazy, way out of line."

As far as the Canadian Lung Association is concerned, the price of cigarettes is one of the most important deterrents to smoking.

"We've lobbied the government long and hard and their tax initiative has been very significant," Jette says. "You're looking, I think, at upwards of 100,000 teenagers who might have been smoking but aren't."

Less-direct advertising methods still have a considerable impact, he says.

"You can't say Export A, but Export A Inc. is fine," he says. "So there's all this tobacco company sponsorship of cultural and sporting events.

"These kids see their tennis heroes and big-money golfers and race car drivers all involved in these events. It has a terrific impact.

"The tobacco companies would never admit to marketing to teenagers but who else is it aimed at? One of the most successful advertising campaigns in the States is the Camels cartoon character."

Jill, who sees a lot of cigarette ads in American magazines, says she likes the half-man, half-camel character, portrayed as living the good life with a cigarette stuck at a devil- may-care angle between his lips.

Jill's friend thinks the camel is "a sleazoid, like one of those slimy guys no one'll have anything to do with. Like he wears a toupee."

Both girls agree that having tried Camels, they'd never smoke them again.

"Camel is right on," says Jill's friend. "That's what they taste like."

She and Jill say they started smoking at 13 "because everybody else was trying it. It was cool."

"I never got sick or anything," Jill says. "All our friends smoke. None of them smokes a lot, like a pack a day or anything."

Three years shy of the minimum age to legally buy cigarettes, how do they obtain them? Jill's friend rolls her eyes.

"Go in the store and ask for them," she says. "No one ever says anything. They just want your money."

"This is a big concern of ours," says Phil Gillies, president of the Smokers Freedom Society, which claims more than 8,000 members nationwide and is funded in part by the tobacco industry.

"We exist for the purpose of protecting the rights of adult smokers. But there is no question that someone should be of legal age before they make the decision to smoke.

"We've advocated, for example, the elimination of unsupervised cigarette machines. And we favor any measure to bring sanctions against retailers selling to under-age kids. The fines should be stiffer, the inspections more frequent and more rigid."

Jill and her friend say they never smoke when they're alone and smoke most when they're in a crowd.

"My dad would say we're victims of peer pressure," Jill's friend says.

"I smoke because I like to," says Jill, who, ironically, wants to be a doctor. "No one tells me I have to. I guess if I ever get into med school, I'll quit then. I wouldn't be a doctor and smoke.

"It's my decision."

Jill's friend rolls her eyes again and, through a veil of blue- gray fumes, the two girls giggle.

Illustration

Caption: Photo silhouette woman with cigarette: Smoking among teenagers is down, but there are indications that interest in the habit among girls may be growing

Copyright 1991 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 1418

Even smokers back tough law, poll finds: [ONT Edition]

Lisa Priest TORONTO STAR. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 21 Jan 1992: A6.

Smokers are almost as eager as non-smokers to find new ways to discourage people from puffing on cigarettes, a survey by the Addiction Research Foundation says.

And smokers are almost as likely to favor measures that would protect minors from smoking, said the survey released yesterday.

"Most smokers want to quit," foundation researcher Roberta Ferrence said. "We're seeing a real change in attitudes with smokers."

More than 85 per cent of smokers and 94 per cent of non-smokers surveyed support workplace smoking bans, while more than half the smokers and 70 per cent of non-smokers favor the ban on tobacco advertising.

The telephone survey, conducted last October by the foundation and the Institute for Social Research at York University, canvassed more than 1,000 men and women across Ontario, of whom 30 per cent are smokers.

Many of the smokers who were surveyed support a ban on cigarette vending machines and suspension of tobacco licences for retailers who sell to minors. And more than one-third of the smokers support a reduction in the number of stores that can sell tobacco.

Phil Gillies, president of Smokers Freedom Society, said his group did a random survey in an Ottawa mall last year of 500 shoppers on smoking.

Of those, 69 per cent said smoking should be banned in that mall.

Eighty-two per cent favored having half the mall's food court set aside for smokers.

Gillies noted the sample was skewed because 40 per cent of those in the survey were smokers, compared with 30 per cent in Ontario's population. Still, "we thought the reaction was quite startling."

Meanwhile, an anti-smoking organization is working to put together a petition more than two kilometres (1.25 miles) long to promote a smoke-free planet.

The campaign by the Council for a Tobacco-Free Ontario, a non- profit organization, would result in the the world's longest petition. Yesterday, students at Adam Beck Public School in Toronto were urged to sign.

The National Clearinghouse on Tobacco and Health estimates that for every 100,000 smokers now age 15, 18,000 will die prematurely from tobacco-related diseases. In Ontario, more than 13,000 people die each year from illnesses caused by smoking.

Copyright 1992 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Don't leave Rosie, smokers need you: [AM Edition]

Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 12 Jan 1993: A12.

Ten hurrahs for Rosie DiManno! ( Get burning mad about nico- Nazis, sheepish smokers, Jan. 4). Finally somebody in town has told it like it is.

But despair not, Rosie. The present anti-smoking officials are on their way to losing. By pushing beyond the realm of the ridiculous, they've shown their true colors - those of fascists, health fascists, this time around; nico-Nazis, to borrow your term.

They are oppressors for oppression's sake. Their harassment of years has finally started to make the sheep into wolves.

By treating smoking citizens as second-rate ones, as criminals, they've created a force that will push them back. They've shown that what they are doing isn't motivated by concern for public health any more, it is about the imposition of the ideas of a lobby, the anti- smoking lobby, on the general population, with total disregard for the feelings of that population (even those of the majority of non- smokers), and worse, with total disregard for reality.

Does it make sense to forbid smoking, even in restricted areas of hospitals, where patients are bored and under stress? Why does a gravely ill patient have to go out in the cold, with total disregard for his/her condition, in order to be able to relax with a cigarette? Whose health are they interested in?

Does it make sense to forbid smoking, even on the open-air platforms of the TTC? (Can't think of an area more "directly ventilated to the outside".)

Rosie, the fascists have reached their summit; from there, the only way for them to go is down. Why, if they had taken a quick look at history, they would have found that prohibition didn't work in the '30s, and it had to be repealed.

They are going to find a fight on their hands, much bigger than they bargained for. I, too, hate living in a city that does this to its people. But, Rosie, please don't leave town, we need more like you. And now, you don't even have to leave; you can join our society, you can join the ranks of your fellow human beings made into pariahs by the enemies of human freedom! Let's fight!

CARLOS FERNANDEZ

Smokers' Freedom Society

Toronto

Smokers light up city's phones: [FIN Edition]

Susan Reid Toronto Star. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 20 Jan 1993: A1.

Smokers jammed the telephone and fax lines at Toronto City Hall today to protest the city's tough new anti-smoking bylaws.

It was an overwhelming response to an advertisement placed by the Smokers' Freedom Society in today's Star and Toronto Sun.

The ad challenges angry puffers to "blitz" local politicians.

"We're getting a lot of calls," a spokesperson in Mayor June Rowlands' office said.

"A lot of them say they feel the bylaws are too tight and want to see them amended. A couple have been non-smokers who wanted to give their support to the bylaw."

Smoking has been banned in all workplaces and public indoor areas in Toronto except in sealed rooms ventilated directly outside. The bylaws were approved by council about 1 1/2 years ago but only came into effect Jan. 1.

Receptionists taking calls for the six city councillors who sit on the Toronto Board of Health said they were being bombarded by calls from opponents of the board's ban on smoking.

"It was the first thing I heard about this morning," said one.

The Smokers' Freedom Society, which describes itself as a non- profit society dedicated to the protection of individuals' rights, urged newspaper readers to telephone or send a fax to Rowlands and the councillors.

The ad calls on the city to repeal the bylaw and replace it with something more moderate.

"We wanted to provide a way for people to register their feelings, and the indication we're getting is that it's working, " said Phil Gillies, president of the Smokers' Freedom Society and a Tory MPP from 1981 until 1987.

Councillor Peter Tabuns, a member of the board of health, said he doesn't expect the city to back down on its anti-smoking position.

Copyright 1993 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 289

Restaurateurs fear all smoking will be banned: [ONT Edition]

Anti-smoking activists squared off yesterday against restaurateurs and pharmacists at the launch of a three-day public hearing into proposed provincial legislation to curb tobacco use.

Toronto restaurant owner Rob Cook said he fears tough new measures being considered by the Ontario health ministry will soon result in a complete ban on smoking in all restaurants.

"We would ferociously fight a total ban," said Cook, part-owner of Hemingway's on Cumberland St. and Chandlers on St. Clair Ave. W. "We, and many other restaurants, would go out of business."

Second-hand smoke and young smokers are expected to be targeted in the new legislation, which will be introduced by the NDP government in the spring after public consultation.

Cook told the committee that improved ventilation systems would cut down significantly the risk of second-hand smoke for customers.

While the province is poised to pull tobacco from pharmacy shelves, pharmacist Murray Rubin told the committee that drugstores in small towns may be forced to shut down if they can't count on the revenue from cigarette sales to keep their businesses afloat.

"For retailers, this is a buck issue," said Rubin of the Pharmx Rexall Drug Stores Ltd. chain.

Anti-smoking lobbyists also urged the Ontario government yesterday to make mandatory a pull-out package insert spelling out in detail the health risks of smoking, from lung cancer to strokes and heart disease.

"Anything that gets the job done (to discourage smoking) is not extreme in any sense," said Gar Mahood, head of the Non-Smokers Rights Association, who feels the reading material will force people to face the facts about the hazards of tobacco use.

Dr. Margaret Fitch, a Toronto cancer researcher, suggested cigarette vending machines be banned from restaurants because they are too accessible to young people and that owners be barred from selling tobacco products if caught selling to minors.

But Luc Dumulong of the 11,000-strong Smokers' Freedom Society urged the panel to stop the "Big Brother" approach to curtailing smokers' rights.

"This is open discrimination based on a lifestyle choice," said Dumulong. "There is a demand for the product - like it or not - and if it's not available (to minors) legally, they will find other means of getting it."

The province's aim, outlined in a discussion paper called the Ontario Tobacco Act, is to cut Ontario's tobacco consumption in half by the year 2000 and reduce the annual 13,000 deaths attributed to tobacco in the province.

Copyright 1993 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

6 million smokers demand cut in tobacco taxes: [FIN Edition]

(CP). Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 10 Aug 1993: A1.

OTTAWA (CP) - A group which says it represents 6 million Canadian smokers launched a crusade today to get tobacco taxes slashed in half.

The Smokers' Freedom Society said today it will survey all candidates in the coming federal election to determine their position on tobacco taxes and will publish the results.

It hopes smokers will vote against candidates who don't support that position.

"We're trying to get this on the agenda," said Phil Gillies, president of the group, at a news conference in a crowded restaurant.

The group receives substantial funding from the tobacco industry.

Gillies also wants municipalities to stop restricting smoking in restaurants and bars, saying policies should be set by the managers and employees of each establishment.

The group released a Gallup survey of 300 Ottawa residents age 21 or more which suggested that 53 per cent agreed the government has unfairly penalized smokers with high tobacco taxes.

But the poll also found strong support for restrictions on smoking in public places. Four per cent believed smoking in restaurants should be permitted without any restrictions.

Similarly, a strong majority of respondents believed smoking in bars, restaurants, malls, municipal offices and other public places should be permitted in designated areas only.

Gallup said the results are accurate within six percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Respondents who supported more anti-smoking measures (38.6 per cent) exceeded the percentage who thought government had gone too far (31.4 per cent.)

Copyright 1993 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Smokers want taxes on tobacco cut in half: [AM Edition]

(CP). Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 11 Aug 1993: A10.

OTTAWA (CP) - A group claiming to represent 6 million Canadian smokers hopes to smoke out unsympathetic politicians in the next federal election.

The Smokers' Freedom Society said yesterday it will survey all candidates in the coming federal election to determine their position on tobacco taxes and will publish the results.

The group, which receives substantial funding from the tobacco industry, wants tobacco taxes cut in half. It hopes smokers will vote against candidates who don't support that position.

"We're trying to get this on the agenda," said Phil Gillies, president of the group, at a news conference in a crowded restaurant.

Gillies also wants municipalities to stop restricting smoking in restaurants and bars, saying policies should be set by the managers and employees of each establishment.

The group released a Gallup survey of 300 Ottawa residents aged 21 or more which suggested that 53 per cent agreed the government has unfairly penalized smokers by high tobacco taxes.

However, the poll also found strong support for restrictions on smoking in public places. Four per cent believed smoking in restaurants should be permitted without any restrictions.

Similarly, a strong majority of respondents believed smoking in bars, restaurants, malls, municipal offices and other public places should be permitted in designated areas only.

Gallup said the results are accurate within 6 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Respondents who supported more anti-smoking measures (38.6 per cent) exceeded the percentage who thought government had gone too far (31.4 per cent). Another 27.7 supported the status quo.

Gillies said his group is not promoting smoking and in an ideal world no one would smoke, but politicians should take the world as it is.

Illustration

Caption: CP photo: UP IN FLAMES: Phil Gillies, president of the Smokers' Freedom Society, lights up prior to a press conference in Ottawa yesterday launching a pre-election campaign. The group wants to weed out politicians opposed to tobacco.

Copyright 1993 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Tough bills aim to stub out teen smoking: [SU2 Edition]

Lois Sweet TORONTO STAR. Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 07 Nov 1993: H5.

Jason Olivo has been smoking since he was 12, although he's not particularly proud of it. "It's gross," says the 18-year-old, lighting up one of the dozen or so cigarettes he has daily.

Does he worry about potential health problems?

"Well, yeah, but usually not, 'cause it feels better to have them than to not have them. Besides," he adds, "I can always quit. I don't intend to do this forever."

Maybe not. But statistically, the odds are that he'll be as hooked at 40 as he is today. Which is why a major campaign is under way to prevent young people like him from lighting up in the first place.

The Ontario tobacco bill, promised by the NDP government last year, is aimed at cutting off access to tobacco for young people. In January, Queen's Park released a discussion paper outlining the principles behind the proposed legislation. A similar bill was introduced by Nova Scotia Health Minister Rod Stewart Thursday, to take effect in June.

In both cases, the first principle is prevention.

A way has to be found, the Ontario paper argued, to keep young people from smoking at all. Why? Well, because the teen years are when the majority of future hard-core smokers begin to get addicted. And once hooked, as any anxious-to-quit smoker can attest, it's very difficult to stop.

If, however, people hit the age of 20 without smoking, then the chances are good that they probably won't ever begin.

The big question is: How can this be accomplished?

IF THE anti-tobacco proponents get their way, Ontario will bring in the hardest-hitting anti-smoking legislation in the world. If, however, the government is swayed by the protestations of industry people and smokers' rights advocates, then Ontarians could be facing a watered-down set of controls.

Then again, the NDP government could opt to do nothing at all. That's what will happen if the legislation isn't introduced during this session. Unless it is tabled before the Christmas break, there's probably little chance that it will get through the passage process before the next election in 1995.

For anti-tobacco activists, this would be nothing short of tragic.

"Every month they don't bring out this act, they lose the chance of stopping kids from starting to smoke," says Michael Perley, director of the Ontario Campaign for Action on Tobacco.

"If there is one thing the government could do, it's to enact legislation to protect the most vulnerable members of society against the most preventable form of disease and death."

Perley, noted for his success in educating, lobbying for, and getting, American legislation on acid rain, doesn't trade in scaremongering or hyperbole. The straight facts are good enough for him.

"Every month, 3,000 kids start smoking in this province," he says. "They are a new source of addicts. So that's where we have to start - to make sure they don't get access to it."

Perley, the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, and an impressive array of health care organizations and professionals, know what they want. They figure that anything less than an all-out attack on the source of supply would be a failure of imagination, will and opportunity.

Their ideal legislation would include:

* An absolute ban on tobacco sales to anyone under the age of 19.

* Prohibition of tobacco sales in pharmacies.

* Banning cigarette machines.

* Requiring that cigarettes be sold in plain packages with stern, personal, and detailed health warnings.

Perley believes such a law would be neither unfair nor excessive. Tobacco industry officials and smokers' rights people say it is both.

Take the age restriction of 19.

Anti-tobacco advocates say making the legal age for buying tobacco and alcohol the same would simplify enforcement. An age-of- majority card, with photographic ID, would make it easier for sales staff to comply with the legislation.

Retailers would have to post a sign stating they will not sell to anyone under 19. In fact, they would have to be licensed in order to sell tobacco at all. If they were caught selling to minors, they would face anything from fines (the Nova Scotia bill calls for fines up to $10,000) to losing their license. And by banning vending machines, one more outlet for tobacco sales to minors would be eliminated.

Unfair? Excessive? Phil Gillies, head of the Smokers' Freedom Society, certainly thinks so. He points out that some provinces still consider 16 to be a reasonable age of consent. "But our organization supports a uniform, national minimum age of 18," he says.

"And because there's already federal legislation prohibiting the sale of tobacco to minors, we think provincial legislation isn't necessary."

As for vending machines, well, Gillies thinks banning them would be simply absurd. Since only 1 per cent of all cigarettes sold in Canada come from vending machines - and half of those machines are located in places minors aren't allowed into anyhow - why punish adults and businesses by eliminating them?

"They could just say vending machines can only be in licensed establishments," he says.

But Gillies saves his wrath for two of the most controversial proposals, the ban on tobacco sales in pharmacies and the demand for plain packaging. They are "examples of over-regulation by government," he says.

"A business should be able to decide for itself what kind of product it wants to sell."

As for plain packaging, he considers it nothing short of insulting to the intelligence of smokers. Besides which, he thinks it might be legally unacceptable.

"For society to say it's legal to sell this product, then to put overwhelming restrictions on the packaging, might be something the court says you just can't do."

And then, of course, there's the whole dilemma of cigarette smuggling. If the government makes it virtually impossible for young people to get cigarettes legally, it could just play into the hands of one of the fastest growing industries in Ontario.

Officials at the ministry of health have heard all this before. But John Garcia, director of Ontario's health promotion branch, says there's another good reason behind getting tough on tobacco sales to minors.

"There are more than 13,000 premature deaths every year in Ontario because of tobacco use," he says. "It's a major cause of health service utilization. We want an Ontario in which people live longer and disease is reduced. We can't do that without reducing smoking."

The Canadian Pharmaceutical Association agrees. Since the mid- 1980s, it's been pointing out how highly contradictory it is for health care professionals to be selling tobacco products.

But Leroy Fevang, executive director of the association, says some pharmacies have stopped making tobacco products visible or have even stopped selling them altogether. "But the movement isn't satisfactory. We've come to the conclusion that the only way to get this public health measure is through legislation."

But could Ontario legally demand a certain kind of plain packaging from tobacco manufacturers?

GARCIA SAYS former health minister Frances Lankin wrote to the federal minister of health asking him to legislate plain packaging of cigarettes. The idea, he says, is that plain packaging would be less attractive to children and would provide a means of communicating health information.

And, of course, plain packaging would certainly differentiate between cigarettes bought legally, in Ontario, from those smuggled in from south of the border.

Health Minister Ruth Grier says she initially supported plain packaging, but has since rejected it. She says she'd rather attack smuggling by hiring more police, not by insisting on plain packaging.

Grier says, however, that there's strong support in her caucus for some sort of law to prevent young people from lighting up. That law, she says, is in the process of being drafted.

"There is enormous consensus that we have to do something because we have come so clearly to see the link between tobacco and disease," she says.

"The legislation is taking a long time because we've had long discussions on how to make it simple and avoid layers of bureaucracy. We don't want good principled legislation that doesn't contribute to anything in practical terms."

But Michael Rachlis, a medical doctor and health care consultant, worries that the NDP government is getting cold feet.

"One out of five deaths in Ontario is caused by smoking,' he says. "This is not a minor issue. There is no other case of an epidemic being treated in such a trivial manner by government.

"Government intervention is essential," he adds. "There are dozens of examples of where we restrict freedom for the collective good. I mean, you can own a handgun in Canada, but we don't advertise guns.

"Tobacco is the only product sold legally that is still dangerous when used as directed. Put it all together and any government action, short of banning the production and distribution of tobacco, is justified to protect the health of Canadians."

Illustration

Caption: drawing (BARRIE MAGUIRE) couple smoking - dynamite!

Copyright 1993 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.

Word count: 1483

Report says tobacco-related deaths are an economic advantage (Imperial tobacco)

Canadian Press NewsWire [Toronto] 01 Sep 1994: n/a.

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MONTREAL (CP) - A report commissioned by Imperial Tobacco says tobacco-related deaths are an economic advantage because cigarettes kill people before they become a burden to the health-care system.

"Anti-smoking groups rarely consider the reduction in health costs resulting from the premature death of certain smokers," said the report, written by economist Jean-Pierre Vidal.

"A person who dies of lung cancer at age 70 will not be hospitalized later with another disease."

Imperial Tobacco spokesman Michel Descoteaux said Wednesday the report does not mean the company shares Vidal's view about the role of tobacco in cancer deaths.

Vidal, co-author of a 1992 study on the same theme, was commissioned by Imperial in June after Leo-Paul Lauzon, a University of Quebec accounting professor, published a scathing report of the tobacco industry.

Lauzon said tobacco companies raked in huge profits while controlling the market for a deadly product that costs Canadians $9.7 billion annually in health- care costs.

In 1992, Vidal and University of Montreal economist Andre Raynaud co-wrote a report for the Smokers'Freedom Society, which concluded that smokers offer a financial benefit to society by paying high taxes and dying early.

Using figures for 1986, the most recent year for which statistics were then available, they found that smokers' medical and other costs are lower than many people believe and are easily outweighed by the tobacco taxes they pay.

The net over-all contribution of smokers to nonsmokers in 1986 was $4.3 billion, they said.

In his latest reort, Vidal, a non-smoker, concluded that Lauzon had no evidence that smoking had a negative impact on society.

Vidal also said that Lauzon's $9.7-billion estimate was too high. Health and Welfare Canada has estimated the cost to be $2.9 billion, he said.

Lauzon and his research assistant, Martin Poirier, said the $9.7-billion estimate came from a chapter on Canada in a 1991 report from the World Health Organization on the health-care costs of tobacco in North America.

In his report, Vidal also contends that revenues lost by smokers because of premature death are not a cost for governments or taxpayers because people who don't work simply are not paid.

In an interview Wednesday, Vidal said he did consider the cost to taxpayers when families are forced on to welfare because their breadwinner has died from tobacco-related causes. But this cost is minor because most smokers die around retirement age, he said.

And there may even be another social saving there, he added: dead smokers don't collect the pensions they've contributed to all their lives.

Lauzon laughed off Imperial's complaints about his report, saying: "If there were big problems in my study, they would have called a news conference to complain about it."

Vidal's statement that tobacco deaths could be considered a social benefit is "practically inhuman," Lauzon said.

Copyright Canadian Press Sep 1, 1994

Deaths related to smoking save money, report claims: [MET Edition]

(CP). Toronto Star [Toronto, Ont] 01 Sep 1994: A12.

MONTREAL (CP) - A report commissioned by Imperial Tobacco says tobacco-related deaths are an economic advantage because cigarettes kill people before they become a burden to the health-care system.

"Anti-smoking groups rarely consider the reduction in health costs resulting from the premature death of certain smokers," said the report, written by economist Jean-Pierre Vidal.

"A person who dies of lung cancer at age 70 will not be hospitalized later with another disease."

Vidal, co-author of a 1992 study on the same theme, was commissioned by Imperial in June after Leo-Paul Lauzon, a University of Quebec accounting professor, published a scathing report of the tobacco industry.

Lauzon said tobacco companies raked in huge profits while controlling the market for a deadly product that costs Canadians $9.7 billion annually in health-care costs.

In a five-page letter sent to Lauzon along with a copy of Vidal's report, Imasco Ltd. chairman Purdy Crawford took exception to Lauzon's portrayal, arguing there is competition in the tobacco industry.

Montreal-based Imasco is the parent company of Imperial Tobacco.

But Crawford did not directly address the question of social costs, saying he had commissioned Vidal to analyze the issue.

In 1992, Vidal and University of Montreal economist Andre Raynaud co-wrote a report for the Smokers'Freedom Society, which said smokers offer a financial benefit to society by paying high tax and dying early.

Copyright 1994 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved.