Smoking Ban Will Close Farms, Encourage Spread of Foreign Tobacco: Farmers

Source from:  Canadian Press TORONTO (CP) 04/26/2005

Ontario's proposed smoking ban will put the province's tobacco farmers out of business and foster the spread of cheaper, foreign tobacco, a public hearing into the legislation heard Thursday. "There's never been before a more pressing or health-related need . . .for government to actually help farmers protect the Canadian marketplace from foreign threat," said Luc Martial, a consultant with the Tobacco Farmers In Crisis, a non-profit organization which represents Canadian tobacco farmers. The proposed Smoke-Free Ontario Act doesn't guarantee that Ontario farmers will supply the existing market for cigarettes, and encourages cigarette manufacturers to turn to less-controlled foreign tobacco, which Martial said already dominates the more than 16 billion cigarettes sold in the province each year. The province's farming communities are already plagued by bankruptcy and debt due to conflicting government policies, the group's president, Brian Edwards, said outside the hearings. There are about 775 active growers left in the province, down from 1,100 five years ago and 2,000 a decade ago. "The stores are being boarded up, people are leaving, because there's just no money being spent in the area," he said. "When you take $150,000 out of the cash flow of an individual (farmer) in three years' time, it hurts big time." In March, the government announced it would put $50 million into a transition fund for tobacco farmers looking to get out of the business. But given the smaller size of tobacco farms, switching to alternate crops is a "dangerous" move that frequently fails, Edwards said. The proposed legislation - if passed - will have Ontario join Manitoba and New Brunswick as the only provinces to go completely smoke-free, and also join Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Nunavut in restricting the display of tobacco products. Health Minister George Smitherman has said Bill 164, which would outlaw smoking in all public and workplaces starting June 1, 2006, will replace local anti-smoking initiatives that have too many exemptions and loopholes. Like its predecessors in other provinces, the legislation, part of what the government considers the toughest anti-tobacco strategy on the continent, has come under fire from a number of groups. The legislative committee will spend four days holding public hearings into the proposed Smoke-Free Ontario Act, which will also be held in Oshawa and Tillsonburg. Enditem