April 30, 2009
For Immediate Release

McGuinty Ministers ‘duck and run’
Barrett’s tobacco questions

Queen’s Park – Ontario’s Minister of Health Promotion skirted a report that indicates smoking in our part of Ontario has increased by 33 per cent.

“Minister, according to this morning’s Hamilton Spectator, smoking has risen by more than one third in one year in the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN, which also includes Burlington,” Barrett told Minister Margarett Best. “Officials in Cancer Care Ontario indicate these numbers are ‘cause for alarm’… could you tell us why there would be a 33 per cent increase in the number of smokers, a 33 per cent increase in smoking in an area with a population of about one million people? That’s up 33 per cent in a population akin to the province of Saskatchewan, for example.”

The Minister did not answer the question but used her time to gloat that the McGuinty government has the most comprehensive anti-smoking legislation in North America and then continued to read statistics.

Barrett then called Best’s statistics phoney.

“This morning’s report indicates that: a report of a 33 per cent increase in smoking. You talk about your programs. You’ve spent $13 million on Smoke-Free Ontario and $7 million on cessation ads,” Barrett pressed. “These campaigns aren’t working and they won’t work until you admit smokers are getting cheap cigarettes from smoke shacks in Brant County, Six Nations and on government land outside of Caledonia.”

When Barrett asked Best what her government’s plan is to rid of these cheap illegal tobacco, she tossed the hot potato to the Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

To the dismay of the House, Cabinet Minister Bartolucci inappropriately responded by saying, “Let me tell that member that on the eve of the police memorial celebration he chooses to demean the work of police services across Ontario and across Canada. He should be ashamed of himself.”

Barrett immediately rose on a Point of Order to admonish the Minister that: “If anybody in this House is pro-police and particularly the OPP — it’s me.”

Following Question Period Barrett said he was disappointed by the ‘duck and run’ of the Health Promotion Minister and was angered by Minister Bartolucci impugning motives in Barrett’s concern regarding illegal tobacco.

“Nowhere in my questioning did I ask about policing,” Barrett indicated. “It’s interesting the lengths McGuinty’s Ministers will go to when they are cornered.”