WHY IS ALLAN ROCK SILENT ON TEEN SMOKING?

Under the rubric, Building Canada for the 21st Century, Finance Minister
Paul Martin made Canada's youth the centrepiece of his 1998 budget.

But there was one concern he failed to address. Thirty per cent of our young
people today face a clouded future because they smoke. Many of them will die
prematurely. Others will suffer health problems that could have been
prevented. The costs to our health system will be enormous, as will be the
costs of productivity that will be lost.

Martin could have altered this dismal outlook by investing in the kind of
vigorous anti-smoking campaign that has cut the teen smoking rate in
California to 12 per cent. That's roughly one smoker for every 10 teenagers
compared to our discouraging rate of one in three.

To finance such an important investment in our young people, Senator Colin
Kenny steered a bill through the Senate that would have imposed a 50
cent-a-carton levy on the tobacco industry and thereby provided $120 million
annually for a new independent Canadian Anti-Smoking Youth Foundation to
carry out a hard-hitting public education campaign.

In the Commons this week, an identical private member's bill was introduced
by Toronto Liberal MP, Dr. Carolyn Bennett. But the government moved
immediately to kill the bill on procedural grounds.

Liberal House Leader Don Boudria claimed the bill was out-of-order because
the levy was essentially a new tax, and as such, is beyond the reach of the
Senate.

All nice and tidy, except for one thing: The government could have adopted
the bill as its own, becoming author of the new levy, and there would then
have been no procedural issue.

With popular support, majority governments can do pretty much as they
please. And the Kenny-Bennett bill certainly had popular support - from more
than 540 groups ranging from the Canadian Auto Workers to Big Brothers and
Sisters, as well as a majority of smokers.

It would have been natural for Health Minister Allan Rock to sponsor a bill
that could have such a profound impact on the future well-being of a third
of our young people.

But Rock was silent. Once again, he seems prepared to let a fundamental
health issue take a back seat to the finance department's determination to
maintain exclusive control over the federal purse strings.

Fortunately, it is not too late. All that's required is for the ChrE9tien
government to find the gumption to do the right thing. There's no excuse for
procrastination. The federally mandated warnings on every cigarette pack say
it all: SMOKING CAN KILL YOU.

You don't have to be a finance department whiz kid to see the enormous
return Canada would reap from a 5 cent-a-pack levy on cigarettes to help
protect the kids who are this country's future.

All you need is the ability to distinguish what's important from what's not.
If the Liberals still have that ability, they will not let procedure take
precedence over our children's lives.

Checked-by: Don Beck