| Of the more than five million Canadians who are smokers, those that haven’t resolved to butt out in 2005 will feel right at home in Calgary, where "Welcome to Malboro Country" is starting to look like an appropriate slogan.
While entire provinces have gone smoke-free and most of Canada’s largest cities have now prohibited smoking in bars and restaurants, Calgarians still have to wait until January 1, 2008 for the city to ban smoking in all public places.
City council passed a smoking bylaw in 2003 that gave businesses such as bars, restaurants, casinos and bingo halls the option of continuing to allow smoking until January 1, 2008 as long as they didn’t allow minors in their establishments. Restaurants and bars also have the option of going completely smoke-free or having a closed off smoking room as well as a non-smoking section.
Meanwhile if you go to almost every other city in the country, including Victoria, Vancouver, Winnipeg, Toronto, Halifax, Whitehorse and Yellowknife, smoking is banned in restaurants and bars. Edmonton will be smoke-free in July of this year. Banff banned smoking in bars and restaurants last fall. And entire provinces, including New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as well as the Northwest Territories and Nunavut, have banned smoking in all public places – Ontario will join them in 2006.
According to Health Canada, more than 45,000 people will die prematurely this year in Canada due to tobacco use – at least 1,000 of them will be non-smokers.
Joanne Stewart, community services team leader with the lobby group Smoke Free Calgary, is critical of the fact that Calgarians, including hospitality workers who have no choice, will still be exposed to second-hand smoke for another three years. She questions why the city doesn’t just push forward the bylaw.
"We’re very much behind and I’m not exactly sure why that is," she says. "It hasn’t been one of Calgary’s priorities."
Stewart says three years of exposure to second-hand smoke may seem minor to some people, but the time period is "significant health-wise."
"We know there’s no safe exposure to second-hand smoke," she says. "We know second-hand smoke has been linked to cancer and respiratory diseases, yet people are continuing to be exposed. It’s difficult to see why we aren’t moving forward here," she says.
The smoking bylaw has been a divisive issue for city council – some aldermen want to impose the bylaw earlier and others want to give businesses more time to adjust. Mayor Dave Bronconnier wasn’t available for comment, but his spokesperson, Peter Brodsky, says Bronconnier remains firmly in favour of the current timeline.
Smoke-Free Alberta, a coalition of various provincial organizations, says the provincial government should be showing leadership on the issue and declaring the entire province smoke free, as other provinces have done.
"We believe the government should ensure the appropriate regulations are in place to protect all people from second-hand smoke," says Susan Mide Kiss, a spokesperson for Smoke-Free Alberta.
Mide Kiss says a provincewide smoking ban would help reduce smoking and would therefore save the province money in health care costs. She says right now the province is "falling behind" most other Canadian jurisdictions.
Howard May, Alberta Health and Wellness spokesperson, says the government has decided to let local municipalities determine what best suits them. |
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