LIBERALS REEL UNDER ANTI-SMOKING CRUSADE

OTTAWA - ACROSS THE street from my son's high school, homeowners frustrated
with the litter of cigarette butts on the sidewalks have erected a courtesy
ashtray, a square aluminum box on a pole with sand in the bottom for
butting out.

We're in the midst of a teenage smoking epidemic, as any parent knows who
drives past the crowds of kids huddling in the cold outside school doors
sucking surreptitiously on smokes cupped in their hands.

The exploding health problem is the subject of an intensive lobby on
Parliament Hill this week, causing much embarrassment to Health Minister
Allan Rock, who is being accused even by some of his Liberal colleagues of
talking a good game while dragging his feet.

The Tobacco Or Kids campaign, backed by a broad coalition of health groups,
has stepped up what is already one of the heaviest lob bying campaigns in
memory, inundating the offices of Liberal backbenchers with pamphlets
asking them to buck their own government. The lobby's aim is passage of
Liberal Senator Colin Kenny's highly unusual bill, known as S-13 (or, The
Stop Kids Smoking bill).

What makes the bill so different is both its substance and its history. If
passed, the bill would actually force the tobacco industry to pay for an
advertising campaign to combat teenage smoking. A 50-cent levy would be
slapped on every carton of cigarettes to fund the proposed Canadian
Anti-Smoking Youth Foundation, an independent panel of advertising experts
who would have $160 million at their disposal to persuade kids smoking
isn't cool.

Rock says publicly he supports the bill's aims, but he's fallen in line
with the official position of Jean ChrE9tien's government, which is that,
so sorry, but the bill is procedurally out of order. That was not the
opinion in the Senate, which passed the bill last June, after Senate
Speaker Gildas Molgat ruled S-13 compatible with Parliamentary rules.

Rock says publicly he supports the bill's aims, but he's fallen in line
with the official position of Jean ChrE9tien's government, which is that,
so sorry, but the bill is procedurally out of order. That was not the
opinion in the Senate, which passed the bill last June, after Senate
Speaker Gildas Molgat ruled S-13 compatible with Parliamentary rules.

The government now is relying on Commons Speaker Gib Parent to throw out
the bill, and thus spare Rock and his colleagues the embarrassment of
voting it down. Toronto Liberal Carolyn Bennett, a physician, introduced
S-13 in the Commons last week, with the support of other Liberal MPs,
Reformers, New Democrats and Tories.

The bill's introduction was immediately challenged by House Leader Don
Boudria, who argued a tax bill cannot come from the Senate, and an industry
shouldn't be taxed to pay for measures that would reduce its sales. He was
supported by tobacco-belt Liberals Bob Speller and John Bryden. But at
least five Liberals rose to defend Bennett's argument that the 50-cent
charge is not a tax but a special levy, and that the tobacco industry
insists publicly it doesn't want kids smoking.

Parent is supposed to rule on S-13 next week. If he throws it out, the
Tobacco Or Kids lobby will ask Liberal MPs to stand up to the Prime
Minister, and demand the government adopt the bill's central ideas anyway.
Anti-smoking crusaders argue that the Liberals caused the recent rise in
teenage smoking (500,000 kids now are hooked, 30 per cent of the 15 to 19
age group) by lowering tobacco taxes in 1994 to combat cigarette smuggling
from the United States.

Rock argues that the Canadian government has acted strongly to combat
smoking. Amendments to the Tobacco Act authorize a crackdown on retailers
who sell cigarettes to under-age customers. In five years, tobacco
advertising at sports and cultural events will be banned. He promises
regulations in the spring to force tobacco companies to list cigarette
ingredients. He has $150 million to spend over five years for a range of
anti-smoking initiatives.

But the Tobacco Or Kids campaigners argue government ad campaigns are so
bland that kids just laugh at them. They want an independent body, with a
big purse, to launch hard-hitting ads like the California campaign, which
has reduced teenage smoking to 11 per cent.

Liberal backbenchers are disappointed with Rock's letter to The Star on
Tuesday, in which he supported Finance Minister Paul Martin's dislike of
special-purpose levies, and argued that the politicians need to keep
control of anti-cigarette advertising. The agitators have little faith, if
S-13 dies, that Rock will ever produce an ad campaign that will really
work.

The government's foot-dragging is putting the federal Liberals behind the
pace of events inside and outside the country. In the U.S., tobacco
companies have agreed to pay $206 billion (U.S.) in compensation for the
deaths and disease caused by tobacco-smoking. The B.C. government is suing
the tobacco companies for compensation. The Quebec Council on Smoking and
Health has launched a court action against RJR-MacDonald, Imperial Tobacco
and Rothmans. Rock called these efforts commendable, but hasn't joined in.

Similarly, he keeps repeating the government's promise to raise tobacco
taxes again when prices are higher in the U.S. and smuggling, therefore,
unprofitable. But the price of a pack is already 30 cents to $1 higher in
the bordering U.S. states, and will go higher yet when the tobacco
companies add in the costs of their $206 billion in compensation.

Rock and his cabinet colleagues really have no excuse.

Rosemary Speirs, The Star's national affairs columnist, usually writes
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson