Election: Hey Hampton - ban barbecues, not smoking!

NEWS RELEASE

MYCHOICE.CA

************************* Back off Mr. Hampton – tax gouges and privacy invasion not what voters want

(Tuesday, September 25) - Howard Hampton’s election promises make it clear Ontario’s NDP Leader sees smokers as a prime target if his party forms a government – and that is bad news for all Ontarians.

His promise to increase taxes on smokers by 17 percent – on top his other pledged income tax hikes for anyone his party considers to be well off – is irresponsible.

Tax hikes by the Liberal government over the past four years have already helped create a huge illicit tobacco trade in the province.

Even health groups concede these illegal products now make up at least 25 percent of sales in Ontario.

Hampton’s 17 percent hike – and the resulting further growth in illicit trade and loss of government revenues from legal tobacco sales – would affect all Ontarians.

This, however, is only half the story.

Hampton [shown last night stumping at the Steamy Bean in Sault Ste. Marie] has also indicated his party will move to ban smoking in homes and backyards.

In a September 19 press release, he stated: “We know there’s a direct link between tobacco, exposure to toxins and cancer. It we’re going to fight cancer, we need to stop exposing our families to cancer-causing agents including tobacco and toxic substances in our homes and backyards.”

Nancy Daigneault, president of Canada’s largest smokers’ rights group, mychoice.ca, said: “The thought of the NDP giving itself the power to come into our homes and gardens to dictate how we live our private lives should be enough to give all Ontarians cause for concern.”

Daigneault noted that a backyard barbecue creates vastly more quantities of smoke compared to a cigarette, and it is the smoke from combustion that carries toxins.

“Using Mr. Hampton’s own logic, his election pledge would make little sense unless he also plans to extend his ban to include barbecues, and any other form of smoke-causing combustion in the home and garden – such as wood fires and bonfires," Daigneault said.

Mychoice.ca is sharing Mr. Hampton’s views with its almost 25,000 registered members in Ontario.

He has not yet responded to mychoice.ca’s candidate survey on issues of fairness for the province’s 1.8 million adult smokers, but his election promises appear to provide all the answers anyway.

Mychoice.ca members are making fairness an issue in the election campaign, through a Fair Play Smokers’ Code and a survey that is being sent to all candidates in the election.

Several candidates have already endorsed our Fair Play initiative.

Details of the Fair Play Code and the Survey are included below.

More information on the Fair Play campaign can be found at MyChoice.ca.

The mychoice.ca Fair Play Code

- The legal choice to smoke comes with responsibilities.

- Mychoice.ca members are committed to an environment of respect.

- We are courteous to non-smokers.

- We recognize their rights and concerns.

- We observe regulations governing public and work spaces.

- We promote non-smoking in the presence of children.

- We seek to avoid littering.

- We believe in negotiation not confrontation.

- Mutual respect works both ways.

- We request our own designated smoking bars, clubs, etc, where non-smokers need not go, and fair play for residents of long-term care facilities and patients at hospitals.

The mychoice.ca candidates’ survey

1 - Do smokers have rights?

2 - Should laws promote cooperation and mutual respect?

3 - The provincial government has broken its own law and provides smoking shelters attached to its casinos to retain customers? Should this option be available to others?

4 - Fewer than 20 of Ontario’s 600+ long-term care facilities are able to maintain smoking rooms because regulations governing exemptions for these homes are too restrictive. Should steps be taken to help these homes provide safe and secure smoking rooms/shelters to their residents?

5 - Would you consider changes to the law to permit smokers designated venues where they can go to smoke without imposing on non-smokers?

6 - Are smokers entitled to equal access to the health care system?

7 - Should smokers face discrimination when seeking a job or a home?

8 - Should the government ban people from smoking inside their own home?

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