Ontario Government Must Stop Dragging Its Feet On Skin Cancer Prevention Bill

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

It was a no brainer four months ago when Niagara area MPP Cindy Forster pressed Ontario’s Liberal government to pass a bill that would ban tanning beds for people 18 years old and younger, and it is a no brainer now.

Niagara students David Nguyen, left, and Sarah Lukaszczyk and Karen Babcock, to the right, present MPP Cindy Forster this past spring with more than 2,500 post cards, signed by young people in support of a tanning bed ban in Ontario.

So what is Premier Kathleen Wynne and her government waiting for ? What is the hold up when five other Canadian provinces have already approved such a ban and when public health experts across North America have been warning for years that the amount of UV exposure from these tanning systems increases the risk of skin cancer and raises that risk for younger people by as much as 75 per cent?

This spring,  Forster, the NDP representative for the Welland Riding in Niagara, urged the Liberals to pass a bill put forward by one of her party colleagues earlier in the year, making a banng teens 18 years and younger from using commercial tanning beds the law in Ontario.

“I recently met with Brock University student David Nguyen and Grade 12 Notre Dame student Sarah Lukaszcyk regarding Bill 30, the Skin Cancer Prevention Act, originally brought to this House as Bill 74 by my colleague from Nickel Belt,” said Forster in the legislature  in early June. “These students are part of a youth group in Niagara known as React, which focuses on peer-to-peer health promotion and education.”

Last summer, added Forster, these students  “created a postcard campaign known as TOAST, Teens Opposed to Artificial Skin Tanning. They collected 2,500 signatures entitled, “You Wouldn’t Burn Your Toast, So Why Burn Your Skin?””

Forster went on to remind the legislation that Gary Burroughs, the chair of Niagara’s regional govnerment, informed the government’s health minister, Deb Matthews that there are more than 80 tanning salons in Niagara alone that are unlicensed and unregulated.

Matthews released a statement early this September saying that her government is prepared to “fast-track” the bill (which the Liberal’s now identify as its Bill 30 in place of a virtually identical Bill 47 – more plainly known as the ‘Skin Cancer Prevention Act – which was tabled by the NDP several months ago) by the end of this September.

More recently the Liberals have charged that NDP members are trying to hold up passage of this legislation but Forster told Niagara At Large in a recent interview that that is an unfair accusation.

What the government has done, said Forster, is bundle the tanning bed bill up in a package with some other bills, including proposed legislation known in Queen’s Park and media circles as the EllisDon bill which the NDP does not want to support because it would break an old agreement EllisDon, a major construction company in the province, has with unions only to hire unionized workers.

The province’s Conservative Party, which has opposed the Liberals on almost eeverything it has tabled including budgets, has agreed to fast-track the EllisDon package on the grounds that the ability for the company to hire non-unionzed labour  would make it more competitive with out-of-province contractors and protect jobs here.

Regardless of how you feel about the Conservative’s argument for supporting the EllisDon bill, bundling that together with tanning bed ban that the NDP first championed, then turning around and accusing theNDP of holding up passage of the ban is playing politics with something that is intended to prevent disease and save lives.

The Liberals should do the right thing now by heeding the warnings of agencies like the World Health Organization about the cancer risks possed by tanning beds, and separate the ban out as a separate bill.

Join provinces like British Columbia, Manitoba, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Quebec and get this ban passed into law in Ontario as soon as possible.

(Niagara At Large invites you to share in a discussion below with your views on this issue. Remember that NAL only posts comments  by individuals who also share their first and last name with their view.)

The pic L-R has David Nguyen (Brock Student) Cindy, Sarah Lukaszczyk (Gr. 12 student at Notre Dame) and Karen Babcock, Health Promoter at Niagara Region Public Health who presented over 2,500 post cards to Cindy on the provincial bill dealing with tanning beds and there support for the bill originally brought to the house by France Gelnas, NDP Health Critic.

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