Tobacco-control office to trim 35 jobs

Health Canada is downsizing its tobacco-control program and eliminating about 35 jobs as part of the government’s ongoing cost-cutting effort. (HANDOUT PHOTO/POSTMEDIA NEWS)

SARAH SCHMIDT
Postmedia News

OTTAWA — Health Canada is downsizing its tobacco-control program and eliminating about 35 jobs as part of the government’s ongoing cost-cutting effort.

National health groups, who will be in Parliament Hill Tuesday, say the move represents “drastic cuts” to Canada’s Federal Tobacco Control Strategy, developed to reduce tobacco-related death and disease among Canadians. But the department, which promotes the strategy as “the most ambitious effort Canada has ever undertaken to fight the tobacco epidemic,” says it’s time for the strategy to undergo a makeover.

In total, $15 million is being cut from Health Canada’s tobacco control program. Last year, the budget was about $53 million.

The government says about half of the cuts are coming from reducing grants and contributions to public-health groups to conduct research. The remainder will come from fewer salaries in the shrunk tobacco-control unit, part of Health Canada’s Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch.

Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq downplayed the reductions, saying tobacco-reduction dollars will be directed to tackle aboriginal smoking rates. New funding initiatives, such as the national quitline promoted in the larger, more graphic warnings on cigarette packages, remain unaffected, she added.

“Smoking rates in Canada are at historic lows, but the smoking rate for Aboriginal People in Canada is over 50 per cent. We’re going to take a focused approach to lower aboriginal smoking rates,” Aglukkaq said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Health Canada’s First Nations and Inuit Health Branch is taking the biggest hit of the departmental branches. Of 840 jobs to be eliminated from Health Canada within three years to trim the department’s overall budget by $200.6 million, about 263 will come from FNIHB, mostly administrative and policy jobs at its Ottawa headquarters.

The branch supports the delivery of public health and health promotion services on-reserve and in Inuit communities, as well as provides primary care services. It also provides drug, dental and ancillary health services to First Nations and Inuit people regardless of residence.