This short page sits beside our closing response.
The alliance proposed a three-year public reporting requirement on Bill 208 early in the debate cycle. The parent group has asked for the same thing, in nearly the same words. The public-health network has said it would welcome the same review on this side of the debate as well.
That is unusual. It is rare for three groups publishing from three different positions to converge on the same instrument. The instrument should be named clearly:
- A short, public report to the Assembly, three years after the Act and its regulations are in force.
- Plain reporting on three things: youth uptake of vaping products in Alberta, retail compliance at the lawful counter, and illicit-channel displacement, including out-of-province online sale.
- Drawn from the same data sources the Tobacco and Vaping Reduction Strategy already relies on, so the cost of the report is small and the comparability is high.
- Tabled publicly, not held internally, so the Assembly and the public can read it together.
The alliance would support a three-year review even if no one else had asked for one. The fact that the public-health network and the parent group have both also asked makes it easier for MLAs to support it without anyone having to claim it as their own idea.
That is the only point of this note.
Sources cited
- Bill 208 (PDF): PDF
- Government of Alberta, Tobacco and Vaping Reduction Strategy: alberta.ca, strategy page
- Government of Alberta, Reducing smoking and vaping: rules and enforcement: alberta.ca, rules and enforcement