Feds spend millions on cigarette pack labels

Health Canada spent more than $3.6 million developing new warning labels for cigarette packages, newly released documents show.The warning labels will be on all of the brands, no matter it is the best brand like Marlboro cigarettes or is Astra cigarettes.

There's a dispute over whether the new labels will even make it onto the packs, with critics saying the government has scrapped the plan and Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq insisting it will go ahead.

From 2004 to 2010, Health Canada spent almost $1.9 million on public opinion research, like focus groups, about the warnings. The department doled out $945,090 in contracts for mock-up cigarette packs, literature reviews, text revisions and organizing meetings, according to documents provided to the House of Commons health committee.

But in September, then-B.C. health minister Ida Chong said Aglukkaq told the provincial and territorial ministers the labels wouldn't go ahead because the department wanted to focus on contraband cigarettes.

Last week, Aglukkaq denied the project was dead.

“I don't think there's anything wrong with taking a step back to re-examine whether we are making the investment in the right place,” she said.

Aglukkaq said more people are smoking contraband cigarettes, which come in plastic bags and don't have warning labels, and that the department's trying to use social media like Facebook and Twitter to get its message out.

In a statement Wednesday, Aglukkaq said the department is still looking at the research on how to best reach smokers.

“To ensure that we communicate our anti-smoking messages effectively, we are examining innovative options including social media,” she said, adding the feds spend $15.7 million a year to cut smoking rates.

A spokesman for the Canadian Cancer Society said the government could still move ahead with the labelling even if Health Canada wants to design a social media plan. It takes six months to a year to get through the regulatory process with the labels.

“The current warnings have been on packages for 10 years, unchanged, and are stale,” said Rob Cunningham.

Opposition MPs say Aglukkaq has being influenced by the tobacco industry.

“Why aren't we moving ahead with this? The evidence is there. We know that it works. It doesn't make any sense except for caving to the tobacco lobby,” NDP health critic Megan Leslie said.

“The labels were introduced in 2000, There was a dramatic drop in the number of smokers and a dramatic increase in the number of quits. That has flatlined.”

Liberal health critic Ujjal Dosanjh said ads have to be updated to have any impact.

“It's absolutely shameful. Reprehensible,” to let the campaign drop, he said.