Addictions Minister Once Promoted Smoking, Alcohol, Gaming

This past week Manitoba and New Brunswick became the first Canadian provinces to impose province-wide bans on tobacco smoking in all indoor public places - workplaces, restaurants, and bars included. Saskatchewan is poised to follow suit on January 1, 2005. The Liberal government in Ontario is talking about the possibility of going the same route, with Toronto leading the way.

However, smokers here in B.C. don't appear to have any reason to fear that the provincial government here will take the same step. Not only did the Campbell government take the previously unprecedented step of overruling its own Workers Compensation Board when the Board wanted to bring in strict no-smoking rules to protect the health of its workers.

Now the premier has reinforced the position by appointing Brenda Locke to the post of Minister of State for Mental Health and Addictions.

Smoking bans spreading

The idea of wholesale smoking bans across Canada obviously has the tobacco industry running scared. The industry, which has previously been content to work behind the scenes when local governments were imposing such bans, last week took the major step of announcing a new smokers' rights association and website, very directly sponsored by, and financed by, the Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers Council. The tobacco council is contributing $2.5 million to the new web-based group, which can be found at www.mychoice.ca.

The council is paying the salary of a "president" for the group, Nancy Daigneault, a former radio journalist who most recently was the communications guru for Jim Flaherty, one of the high-profile cabinet ministers in the "Common Sense Revolution" Ontario Conservative government of Mike Harris.

"There are five million adult smokers in Canada, which should make for a powerful voice by any standard. Yet this group is heavily taxed and regulated by various levels of government without being consulted or heard. Taxation and regulation without representation - is it any wonder why many smokers now feel like second-class citizens?" says a statement from the tobacco council posted on the group's website.

B.C. not targeted by pro-smoking site

Although the council promises that mychoice.ca will be an independent smokers' voice, it makes clear how it sees the issue of smoking bans: "Meanwhile, across Canada, municipalities that have not already done so are under pressure to impose total public smoking bans, not only inside work places and all publicly accessible buildings, but also outside on patios, sidewalks, even public grounds. What's more, campaigns are also underway to bypass such local decision making by having governments impose province-wide bans."

The site warns of apparent attempts by non-smoking advocates to carry the bans further, to outdoor locations and even to one's private home or vehicle. (It doesn't cite any examples of Canadian governments actually enacting this sort of law.)

British Columbia, however, is scarcely mentioned on the website (although the Greater Victoria area was in fact the first in Canada to implement a full non-smoking bylaw on January 1, 1999). It may be that B.C. does not rate highly on the list of jurisdictions where the tobacco industry fears its profits may be put at risk by government action.

Minister formerly lobbied for bar owners

Which brings us back to Gordon Campbell and Brenda Locke. Locke, who hadn't been in cabinet until her appointment last month, is the MLA for the riding of Surrey-Green Timbers, first elected in the 2001 election. She is a well-liked MLA, and has shown that she does understand the complexities of dealing with mental health and addiction issues. In the legislature last year, she delivered a thoughtful Member's Statement (one of the few ways that backbenchers can get their views heard in the legislature) on the "growing scourge" of drugs in Surrey. She made it clear that she understands that a "war on drugs" is doomed to failure, and that a wide variety of interventions by police, health officials and community groups is necessary is needed to make any progress.

But for all that, Locke cannot escape her past when it comes to looking at addictions. Although more headlines are garnered by marijuana grow-ops and the ravages of crystal meth, there's no question that by far the largest proportion of those in B.C. with addiction problems are addicted to alcohol or nicotine or both.

Locke, before she was elected MLA, served more than 15 years as Executive Director of the B.C. Liquor Licensee and Retailers Association (formerly the B.C. Neighbourhood Pub Association). And in that role, she made it clear she was much more interested in supporting the financial interests of bar owners (and tobacco companies) than in looking at smoking and drinking from a public health viewpoint.

'Sort of an adult thing to do'

From the time that some municipal councils began examining the idea of no-smoking bylaws, Locke was one of the leaders of the charge against it. Not only did she argue that such bylaws would be devastating to bars and pubs financially, but she also embraced a "freedom of choice" argument in which she said bar and pub staff should be free to choose to work in the unhealthy atmosphere of a smoke-filled bar if they wanted to.

"They've made a decision to work in a pub," she said at a Lower Mainland hearing. "It's legal and it's a sort of adult thing to do."

That sentiment was echoed by Labour Minister Graham Bruce once the Liberals were in power when he overruled the WCB to insist that designated smoking rooms be allowed in bars - and that the bars be permitted to hire only workers who were willing to spend time in the smoking rooms.

Locke and her organization were also one of the groups that led the charge against the WCB's first efforts to eliminate smoking in bars and pubs. They were a leading player in the lawsuit challenging the rules, a lawsuit in which they were successful in B.C. Supreme Court.

One of the best measures of her success may be the fact that Imperial Tobacco was an Associate Member of Locke's association during her time as president.

Urged VLTs to lure bar customers

However, smoking bylaws were not the only issue to which Locke turned her attention and that of the association. When the then-NDP government proposed that the level at which a driver could be considered impaired should be dropped from .08 to .05, Locke was frankly horrified.

"I certainly hope it's a trial balloon," she said. "I certainly hope we can pop the balloon … it would be devastating to our industry."

She was equally upset when the NDP government announced that its gambling policy would not allow video-lottery terminals, and certainly wouldn't allow them in bars. Studies had shown the VLTs (widely considered by experts to be the most addictive form of gambling) could bring in as much as $240 million a year, but Locke said the pubs probably wouldn't make a large profit on them. Rather, she said, they would have been used to attract patrons to the pubs where attendance had been falling.

It may all be a question of optics. But by appointing Locke to be in charge of addictions, Campbell has sent a message likely well received by those in the business of alcohol, tobacco, and gaming.

Barbara McLintock is Victoria contributing editor for The Tyee.