Tobacco Exit Plan Needed Immediately
For well over half a century, the tobacco growing industry has been the backbone of agriculture and an important economic force in Southwestern Ontario.
The downturn in the tobacco-growing sector is taking its toll. Social upheaval plagues our communities – businesses are closing, schools are threatened, uncertainty clouds the future, money is tight and anxiety is soaring. What or who is responsible for this chaos?
Our Provincial Government has openly declared war on tobacco and our Federal Government is seen as a world leader in tobacco control. In 2003, the Federal Government played a key role in the development and signing of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control – the main goal of the treaty being "to reduce continually and substantially, the prevalence of tobacco use and exposure to tobacco smoke." This treaty also identifies the need for adjustment assistance for those who are displaced by this global strategy.
Clearly, the actions and policies of the Federal and Provincial Governments speak to their commitment to eliminate tobacco use in Canada, thus eliminating future production. A major consequence of this commitment has been the destruction of tobacco farming in Canada. Since 1998, the tobacco crop size has been reduced by 63 per cent.
Tobacco farmers bear the brunt of tobacco control policies. Governments collect more tax revenue from the sale of tobacco products than ever before – in excess of $9 billion in 2006. Tobacco manufacturers continue to be profitable, but tobacco farmers are facing economic ruin. Tight regulations and high taxes on tobacco products have fueled an explosion in underground activity and black-market sales. Manufacturers are importing cheap foreign tobacco of questionable quality to compete with the illegal market.
Recognizing that tobacco growers can no longer continue to produce tobacco under the existing conditions, our Board designed an exit plan that speaks to the elimination of tobacco production.
The objectives of our plan are:
- Proactively address the needs of tobacco growers and their communities as part of Federal and Provincial Government tobacco control strategies.
- Implement a plan that will provide an orderly, managed and fair exit program for Ontario tobacco farmers over the life of the industry.
- Provide transition support for those communities that have long been economically dependent on tobacco production and who suffer from its decline.
We believe an exit plan can be implemented in such a way that farmers are fairly compensated for the loss of their capital investments. The industry itself could finance the plan through a special levy on all tobacco products sold in Canada. Dollars paid to tobacco farmers and communities would be withdrawn from this special fund – not from the governments’ general coffers.
