Fear is a dangerous thing. Once it is sanctioned by the state there is no telling where it might lead. It is always a short path to walk from being suspicious of our fellow citizens to taking actions to restrict their liberty.
I apologize for this letter in advance, as I swore I had more time to prepare. I was planning to piece together a much more polished letter to express, not just my opinion, but proven factual evidence which is clearly being ignored in Bill S5. But this is the major issue we face with vaping be shoe horned in to Bill S5. There is simply not enough time to properly evaluate a reasonable course of action. As it stands this will not provide a solid foundation for all future regulations. Nor does it ensure survival of what has been proven time after time to be a 95% or more, less harmful means to consume nicotine.
I am glad to know there are people fighting with me who are far better spoken than myself. However, I do not understand how it is coming to pass that our National Governing body is attempting to write laws on nothing more than fiction? Vaping Is Not Tobacco! End of Story. This behavior exemplifies the extreme prejudice being displayed by privately funded “studies” and propaganda campaigns of misinformation. As the elected body of representatives, you are charged with educating the public where this serves to promote harmful assumptions and misinformed decisions. By not presenting factual research by respected medical authorities or even our own research commissioned by Health Canada at the University of Victoria you are deceiving Canadians. This silencing of the truth is action. Action you will have to answer for.
I do not have all the answers as I am quite incapable of being a lawmaker. However, even I can see that making a hasty decision now, will contribute to the early demise of millions of Canadian lives. Their dreams will be quashed and their families will be broken. Do not kid yourself! The Vaping industry has brought about a HUGE magnifying glass into the workings of not only our health care system but our entire way of democracy! I would say I’m astonished this storey hasn’t been reported on. It does present a performance thus far that could never live up to what our own prime minster claims are Canadian values. There is a growing mistrust on government around the world and I can easily see why. You are not making an unpopular decision it may statically be a popular one, but this is not an election campaign were you can waste time flopping this way of that, this is a failure of a government to protect it’s people. This is a failure of government to educate it’s people.
Why do we need to remove Vaping from S5? Simple, it’s irresponsible to make such decisions when evidence so drastically opposed and growing stronger everyday. No one has been mortally wounded from vaping to justify the expediency inclusive of being written on Bill S5. The world has the proper evidence showing us the incredibly positive findings. You must create the time for the rest of the public to learn from it, to allow for the right kinds of policy to be made. There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about vaping which deserves a Criminal Punishment, nor are the punishments even close to matching the offenses you are going to create.
The perceived fears that are being regulated against are a fiction. If You pass this bill with Vaping as it is you show no moral fortitude, leadership, Backbone or even old fashion common sense. Medical marijuana, vaping, and tobacco all being lumped into the same frame work which allows for far too much misunderstanding and assumptions. Add this to your body of silence and you will find this is the crime that is far closer to your proposed punishments. This is a costly mistake which is not ideal for any of these industries, nor is it the positive benefit to Canadas overall healthcare system that it should be. This isn’t a proposal to protect the public for the future. This is a discussion about removing what is being called the largest medical contribution to human health ever created.
No amount of bi yearly reviews will justify the suffering that could be prevented! The stifling effect on innovation, community participation and truthful communication, (Which are essential to help people quit smoking) will be enormous. The potential to remain the life saving force for which the vaping industry has become should be encourage and supported and treated with the respect it has earned. To regulate out of fear is to live in fiction and no amount of taxing, lawmaking or punitive behavior will ever make this ok!
Let it be known that every death caused by tobacco from the moment S5 receives royal assent will be a mark of shame that could have been stopped. Something that us as a civilized country, have the obligation to prevent! I will live with this guilt of being unprepared to properly submit a fully articulated and formatted proposal. What will you live with for being the ones so eager to pass a law that is so blatantly in opposition to your own factual evidence. Separate vaping from S5, and allow for the proper attention to research and development to happen.
This will be a defining moment in history where the world will watch Canada either hold true to the now fading light which was our national spirit and pride, or falter and break at the cost of Canadian lives.
Are we a nation so easily bullied into making the same mistakes as those before us have made?
Are we a nation who has lost the respect of its own researchers to the point of flat out ignoring their evidence?
Are we a nation who must seek approval from corporate interests so eager to leave us with the consequences of an insatiable greed for power?
Or. are we a nation who contributes to the betterment of the entire human race? Who is proud to stand up for truth and peer reviewed research? Do we not have some of the most respected minds in the world? Supported with proven processes in place to nurture those minds? Are we not the country who is attempting to right a wrong from history that can never be undone? Or do we now rest on the laurels of such great contributions as our proud arm in space, and no strive at building a country that got it there? Is all of this simply a race for PR for the media headlines? I suspect it is and then some. To which I say to your short game, bad form!
Where is the leadership on Parliament Hill!? Is there any body in the cabinet that I could describe to my children as a positive example of what it means to be a leader of Canada? Some one who can reflect back on their service and say that they were able to get the job done and maintain integrity. Someone who measures the success of their policies by the outcomes they create rather than the worst-case scenarios or what it had been before? For it’s the cowards who speak of the failings of others when promoting their own agenda.
I fear that I will no longer be able to wear a mantle of pride when traveling as a Canadian when there are simply no immediate risks, or reasons to justify such an avoidable and costly mistake. I fear this will be passed to achieve a gain somewhere else.
————-VAPING MUST BE REMOVED FROM THIS BILL! ——————-.
Do you even know what it is you’re regulating against? Do we now create harsh laws for fear of the dark? Or creatures under the bed I’ve heard they might be organizing, better get to work! Wait how ignorant of me it’s the Nicotine poisoning you say that deserves such an over reaction? That may work for the headlines but I must tell you that even as a child i knew the old saying “Don’t use cannon to kill mosquito!”. Stop reacting to headlines, you have the opportunity create them! To be the government who goes down in history as the key decision makers that turned the tide that saves a billion lives through appropriate observation and understanding and international leadership. A transparent cabinet of leaders who chose to empower their citizens by educating them about the facts.
But where it is now you’ll be known as the Government who caved in the face of lies and miss-information. Who ran to corporate interests and allowed thousands of it’s citizens to suffer the consequences. They might even say you were the government who allowed too many unelected parties a little to close to public safety decision making in pursuit of election speeches and personal gain.
This all weighs on you.
I plead with you, Nay!
Please, listen to reason, listen to science, listen to the world’s largest college of physicians and call a wrong a wrong!
REMOVE VAPING FROM BILL S5!
If you would knowingly make the same mistake as me in taking action while unprepared, be ready for the reminders you will see on every cigarette pack that remains, for they will endure. Your plan of claiming credit for falling cigarette use over the next 10 years will lost and be scene as the failure you already know it is. After all it doesn’t work nor has it for 50 years and is really a glaring reflection of shame when measured against any reasonable standard. It isn’t going to work tomorrow either. Just Be ready to tell you children how your decision contributed to failure of this disruptive technology and how you stood by when you had an opportunity to make the right choice. It’s not even a choice, not any more. REMOVE VAPING FROM BILL S5. It’s the only way the law to pass without committing more smokers to an early grave, show you in a positive light and give researchers the opportunity to provide proper amounts of data.
I should have ended this letter paragraphs ago but it feels wrong to do so. I know it’s too little too late to affect real change, and for that I am sorry. But this is where Canadians need you to hold fast and not allow outside pressures to throw responsible decision making off course.
Honorable Ministers, you have an opportunity. Rise above the influence of those who deceive our nation. Promote research, fund education and reward the hardworking business owners who would risk it all to be apart of that moment, when a smoker suddenly realizes they might have a shot at kicking the cigarettes to the curb.
Show the public the information that is more than a headline. Speak with the conviction you would show when describing the color of the sun and the ground beneath your feet. This is the kind of leadership that wins you elections. This is how you make decisions that will allow you to stand tall and speak true. This is how you show the world what it means to be Canadian. Give them the strength to follow our example and help as many people as they can.
As our leaders you are fortunate enough to suffer or celebrate the decisions made for the betterment of Canadians everywhere, and this one is easy, the work needed is nothing, but it’s entirely yours to ruin.
Remove Vaping from Bill S5 and keep Canadian laws grounded in truth.