Province may follow Hat's lead on smoking ban

Once again, the provincial government appears poised to follow in the City of Medicine Hat's footsteps when it comes to anti-smoking legislation.
Recently, premier Alison Redford publicly restated her campaign pledge to look into a province-wide ban on smoking in vehicles where minors are present. Redford's announcement comes just months after the City of Medicine Hat's decision to pass its own bylaw to that effect Ñ a bylaw that makes Medicine Hat the largest of four Alberta municipalities that currently already ban smoking in cars with children.
In June of 2011, Mayor Norm Boucher wrote a letter to then-Health Minister Gene Zwozdesky, informing him of Medicine Hat's new bylaw and encouraging the province to take similar action. The letter received in response gave council the impression that the province had no intention of pursuing a provincial ban -- however, under a new premier, the mood of government has changed. Redford has indicated a new strategy aimed at combating youth tobacco use is in the works, and will contain a number of initiatives being pushed for by the anti-smoking lobby group, Action on Smoking and Health.
"We have reason to be optimistic. We certainly hope the premier will deliver on her promises," said Les Hagen, executive director of Action on Smoking and Health.
Hagen said he believes the City of Medicine Hat's bylaw sent a message to the provincial government Ñ and pointed to the fact that Medicine Hat and other cities enacted their own smoking bans in bars and restaurants years before the province followed suit in 2008.
"I think that would have been much longer in coming if not for the actions of local municipalities like Medicine Hat," Hagen said. "It (a municipal bylaw) definitely raises the profile of the issue and gets people thinking about what the provincial government's role is."
Ald. Les Pearson, who was council's most vocal supporter of the local bylaw banning smoking in vehicles with minors, said it is gratifying to hear Redford's intentions. However, he said it is unfortunate that municipalities so often have to take the lead on what should really be a provincial responsibility.
"It's frustrating," Pearson said. "The city pays a lawyer to develop a bylaw, it's an expense for the municipality, and we know that when enough municipalities come on board, then the province comes forward."
Since Medicine Hat's bylaw came into effect September 1, only one ticket for smoking in a vehicle with children present has been issued.
However, Michelle SauvŽ of the local Canadian Cancer Society Ñ which also lobbied hard for the bylaw Ñ said that's not the point.
"This is about education and denormalization," SauvŽ said. "Most people are law-abiding citizens. It's like when the seatbelt legislation came in many, many years ago - a lot of people weren't wearing seatbelts, and then the law came in, and people started wearing their seatbelts."