Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2018

The Current Transcript for November 19, 2018

Host: Anna Maria Tremonti

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You know I haven't had a terrible life, but I could have been so much more.

ANNA MARIA TREMONTI: He's a grown man, whose sexual abuse by his high school teacher decades ago has affected everything that followed and it turns out he's not alone among those who went to the same Ottawa school. A number of those who once attended Bell High School in the 70s and 80s are demanding accountability now, but at least one mom remembers demanding accountability then and getting excuses.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: The man have to go and if you don't do anything about it, I'm not going to let it go.

AMT: Today, Julie Ireton brings us the story of one high school, three teachers, multiple traumatised victims and abuse that persisted for years. What happened then raises questions about what's in place now to protect students and to force school officials to respond. All of this, as headlines are full of the news story on student on student abuse at a private Toronto school. We're devoting our first and second half hours to this broad issue today and in an hour, Canadian and U.S. health authorities take aim at vape culture among teens.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There's an epidemic spreading. Scientists say it can change your brain.

AMT: I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. This is The Current.

Back To Top »

Cases like abuse at Ottawa high school still 'far too common,' says expert

Guests: Julie Ireton, Nicholas Bala, Nick Scarfo

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE 1: I knew there was something wrong with it.

VOICE 2: Saying dirty comments and perverted things and gestures constantly.

VOICE 3: He would ask for a hug after band. Oh my back hurts, I could really use a hug.

VOICE 4: I just felt like this has to be my fault.

VOICE 5: It's deep. I mean it's institutionalized.

VOICE 6: I wish nobody felt what I felt and nor what I feel.

VOICE 7: What did I miss? Honest. That's what I said, what did I miss?

AMT: Over several decades, three teachers at one high school in suburban Ottawa preyed on students and got away with it. After years of silence, victims started laying charges in 2016. One teacher is in prison, the other two are now dead. A CBC investigation found that students, teachers and parents warned authorities about the behaviour of two of the teachers, back in the 70s and 80s, but little was done to protect kids. CBC Ottawa's Julie Ireton has been working on this investigation for months and she joins me now. And a warning to listeners, some of this report is graphic and troubling. Hi Julie.

JULIE IRETON: Hello Anna Maria.

AMT: So how did this begin for you?

JI: Well it all began when I met Peter Hamer in March. Now Peter is 51. He manages a health centre and he's married with two teen kids. In the mid-1980s, Peter went to Bell High School. He played clarinet in a band led by Bob Clarke.

AMT: And Bob Clarke is one of the three teachers you end up investigating for the story. What do we know about him?

JI: Well Mr. Clarke was a very popular music teacher at Bell High School. He was there from 1972 to 1986. His bands won competitions. They even cut vinyl records. And Peter started taking music from Clarke when he was just in Grade 9 and at first band was this place where Peter felt like he could be himself, somewhere he belonged, but by the end of Grade 11, as you're going to hear, the music room became this unwelcome place. Peter and several other victims have asked the court to lift the publication ban on their names, so I can tell their stories and what happened at high school still lives with them. So I want you to hear this tape. Peter took me back to Bell High, on the night of a concert and the high school band was just warming up.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: This was the door that I came in and out of all the time.

JI: Oh it's open.

VOICE: And it is open.

JI: Okay, so tell me where are we?

VOICE: The music room is just down here. It looks like a store room back there, but it wasn't a store room before. It was, that's where Bob's office was. And it's funny how shaky I feel right now. Yeah.

JI: Where are we now?

VOICE: We're in the back part of the music room. The little room is where he would take people to do their music tests. And certainly playing a solo was something that would have made me very, very uncomfortable. Everybody's in the classroom and you had to go into the back with your musical instrument and you would have to play a solo for him. And I remember asking him, I said isn't there any way that you can grade me instead of having me play a solo? Because I'm like you know my hands are shaking. This is terrifying. And he said yes, if you would let me take pictures of you naked, you don't have to play and you'll get a good mark.

AMT: So what happened Julie? Did he do that?

JI: No, he didn't. He refused, but that was not the end of the story and just another warning here, what I'm going to describe is explicit. Peter says his teacher's inappropriate behaviour escalated. It begun with Clarke asking for long hugs and back rubs. There were constant come-ons, sexually explicit remarks, talk about masturbation and sex. One time on a bus trip, he put his hands on Peter's leg, edging up towards his groin, asking him to touch him and then on another occasion, Peter says Bob Clarke stripped and masturbated in front of him, asking him to take part. As you can imagine, going back to Bell High after 30 years was difficult for Peter. So we stepped outside and I asked him if he regretted coming back.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: No, not at all. I really, really needed to come back here. I dream about this place, probably weekly.

JI: Really?

VOICE: Yeah, I. [Cries] Sorry. It's in my dreams and I used to dream about being in the hallways and I have no good memories of high school. Everything that was supposed to be good was tainted by Bob Clarke's behaviour.

AMT: So many years later and it's still so painful for him and we can hear that. Was Peter Bob Clarke's only victim at Bell High School?

JI: No he wasn't. We know now that Clarke was abusing students from the early 1970s into the 1990s and not just at Bell. Last spring, Clarke pleaded guilty to abusing eight former students, including Peter Hamer. Most of the victims were in Clarke's music classes. Now, you know just down the hall from that music department, is the gym and the locker rooms. And over the same period of time in the 1970s and 80s, that's where victims say another predator lurked.

AMT: Is there any connection between the two?

JI: No I found no evidence of that. They just happened to be operating at the same school, at the same time. It appears to be a very disturbing coincidence.

AMT: So who was this second teacher just down the hall in gym?

JI: It was Don Greenham. He was a popular, maybe even legendary basketball coach at Bell. People told me he was a towering figure and his teams won regional championships. Greenham was the basketball coach at Bell from the mid 1970s to 1982. And in the end, there were some 50 counts of gross indecency and indecent assault against him, involving 22 former students. Many were his basketball players. I spoke with several former students and many of their names remain under a publication ban. Some of them outlined from a horrific abuse that really changed the course of their lives. They suffered the kinds of assaults that they have trouble talking about, but one of Greenham's victims is speaking out.

AMT: Well tell me about him. What's his story?

JI: Well, Franz Glaus was a really bright kid, so much so that he actually skipped two grades. And it meant in junior high, he was a bit smaller than the other kids with this mop of dark brown hair. In the 1970s, Don Greenham taught at a junior school, but was still coaching basketball at Bell High School and it was in grade 8 that Franz had this encounter with Greenham. Franz lives in Montana now and he remembers a sick game Greenham used to play. His description is disturbing.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Donald Greenham actually grabbed my testicles and this was through my clothes right so, fortunately, but still and the idea was you would name a chocolate bar and if it was a crunchy chocolate bar, he would squeeze harder. If it was a soft chocolate bar, he would relaxe his grip. Of course, you're sort of half basking in the attention you're getting from this you know, demigod, Don Greenham.

AMT: Did he tell anyone?

JI: He didn't tell anyone at the time, but kids told him about this game and it was fairly common, along with some other hazing types of abuse, including taping or tying boys' penises together. Other victims detail sexual groping, molestation on canoe trips, in junior high or in hotels at out of town basketball tournaments, while playing for Bell High School. Students at the time and this was the 1970s, knew some of what Greenham was doing and Franz's mother, Madeleine Glaus ended up catching wind of this.

AMT: So his mother finds out, how does she react?

JI: Oh Madeleine was shocked. She asked Franz, if he knew about Greenham's behaviour and he confirmed that he had and that it had happened to him and that's when Madeleine went to the principal of the school where Greenham taught. This is what she remembers telling the principal. Here's Madeleine, she's now 84.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: You have to do something about that because I think this man doesn't deserve to be around kids. And certainly not going in canoe trips with them, where he's free to do whatever he wants. Any he said, oh I'm very surprised to hear that. That I remember and he said his wife works here with him. She's a teacher and they're very respect. I looked at him. I couldn't believe what he was just telling me after I have told him about that. So I said, I don't care. The man have to go and if you don't do anything about it, I'm going to go further. I'm not going to let it go. You know, look at me. I'm not gonna let it go.

AMT: Now she would've sounds like she was a force to be reckoned with at the time. What happened next?

JI: Well Madeleine says she then went to the scoreboard. Franz describes his mom as a lioness, you know not quick to back down from a fight when it involves kids. And Franz confirms that he and his brother were then interviewed by school board officials. Madeleine's goal was for Don Greenham to lose his job at the junior high school. She wanted him away from kids. But she now knows from police reports that her complaints did nothing to stop the coach from molesting other kids.

AMT: Was she the only parent speaking up at the time?

JI: Madeleine says she tried to get other parents to make a fuss, but none would. Madeleine was appalled at the time, but she wasn't sure what else to do. She does suspect that no one was interested in disrupting this winning basketball team at Bell High School and perhaps parents just didn't realize that their kids were potentially being harmed.

AMT: Did any other kids ever speak out?

JI: Well we know that another student did come forward in 1978 and complained to a principal at the junior school where Greenham was a teacher. That principal was Mike Vyse and I have talked to him a few times. After the boy complained to Vyse, he says he reported it to the school board that June. By September, Greenham had been moved and was teaching at another school, but Greenham continued coaching basketball at Bell High School into the early 1980s.

AMT: So how did this all finally catch up with the coach, Don Greenham?

JI: Greenham continued to be held in high regard throughout his career, so much so that he actually ended up on provincially appointed advisory boards in his retirement. It wasn't until 2016, decades later, Madeleine and Franz learned several former students were talking to police about Greenham's abuse and Franz got in touch with police and laid charges of indecent assault.

AMT: And what happened?

JI: Just before Greenham was about to face those 50 some charges in court last spring, he died and all of the charges were stayed. Greenham's victims will never get to face the man who was their coach and alleged predator. And all this really saddens Madeleine Glaus, especially because her warnings to authorities in the mid-1970s, came long before some of the victims were ever assaulted. She says she was upset when she learned that there were so many other victims.

SOUNDCLIP

JI: What did you think? What came to your mind?

VOICE: Disappointment. Total disappointment of the whole system. Especially the guy I talked last, how could he send him to another school, after I have told him everything. He betrayed me. I'm really, I'm really cross and really sad that this is happening and all those people shut up and don't say anything. Don't they want the children to be safe?

AMT: Now you can hear the anguish in her voice, Julie.

JI: Yeah and you know it's all the more intense because her son wasn't just subjected to Donald Greenham's abuse. He also had an encounter with Bell High School teacher, Bob Clarke.

AMT: You mean the same man who abused Peter Hamer?

JI: Mhmm.

AMT: Well what happened?

JI: Well when he got to high school, Franz dropped out of basketball and got into music and he became lead trumpet in Clarke's high school band. He says that one day Clarke was giving him a ride home from band practice and he grabbed his leg. Now Franz says nothing more happened, he spoke to police about Greenham and lay charges there, but he did not lay charges against Clarke. He really just thinks Clarke was testing him and I should make it clear that I did reach out to Bob Clarke in prison and asked him for an interview as part of this investigation, but he declined.

AMT: What about other teachers at this school, did any of them have concerns about the behaviour of their colleagues?

JI: I talked to close to 30 teachers and principals from these schools who worked with the accused teachers. Most of them knew nothing about what was going on, but Diane Langlois did. She had concerns about Bob Clarke. Her office was next door to the music room, so she says she saw Bob Clarke every day. She also happened to coach basketball with Don Greenham. For 28 years, Bell High School was her life. She loved the school, but now as we looked back through old yearbooks, she feels differently.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It just makes my heart go pitter patter. It throws a sadness on what I thought was such a happy, happy time.

JI: So when you heard about the charges against Bob Clarke for instance, were you surprised?

VOICE: No, no. I wasn't surprised at all, but I didn't have any proof of allegations. All I had was the information when I was a new young teacher in there, a student came to me, really early before morning basketball railing at me. Why aren't you doing anything and she just went you know he's hurting people, he's getting away with things, he shouldn't be doing things. And I said to her, what is he doing? She says he's hurting students. You know he's taking things from them. She never ever used the word sexual, but she says he's doing things to them and I said I'll deal with this, I promise you I will.

AMT: And what did she do?

JI: She remembers telling a school administrator about the student's concerns in the late 1970s and Langlois assumed something had been done, but there was another incident when a parent made a complaint and we now know from evidence that was presented in court that the parent complained to principal John Beatty about Clarke around 1975. Clarke pleaded guilty to indecent assault of this teen. Court documents also mentioned that Clarke had been peeping into this kid's bedroom window at night. The boy's father told principal Beatty that the music teacher was spending too much time with his son, giving his son too much attention. Now I spoke to John Beatty. The former principal says he was given very little information about the complaint and was not aware that there was anything sexual in what Clarke was doing. He also said that the father's warning was vague and that he did not want it to be taken further, he just wanted this so-called behaviour to stop. Beatty says he did speak to Clarke about this and as far as he knew, Clarke stopped doing whatever it was that he was doing.

AMT: And what happened next?

JI: Well anything that was said to Bob Clarke at that time appears to have had little effect because we now know, Clarke went on to abuse other teens right into the 1990s, including Peter Hamer, the first person that we spoke to. Even though he was just a teenager, Hamer actually did his part to try and stop this teacher.

AMT: What did he do?

JI: Well in 1986, Peter was in Grade 12 and he had had enough of Clarke's abuse. But the bigger issue for him was his brother was going to be starting high school the next September. So Peter decided to tell his principal at the time, that was Patrick Carroll, he says he told principal Carroll about this inappropriate sex talk, the long hugs and the music teacher wanting to take naked photos of him for marks.

AMT: And does the principal remember that encounter?

JI: Well unfortunately, Patrick Carroll died last July, but the way Peter remembers it, the principal told him that it would be taken care of. Peter took that to mean that he would get rid of Bob Clarke and then by the next September, Mr. Clarke was moved to a different school.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: That's the last we talked about it. That's the last I talked about it with anybody. I graduated Grade 12 and Bob Clarke got moved to Sir Robert Borden High School. And they hired a young university graduate by the name of Tim Stanutz and Tim worked his career from 1986 to 2016 and was getting ready to retire. He was my brother's music teacher and my brother loved him and in fact I think he was a really well-respected, well loved music teacher. And in May of 2016 I was reading Facebook and somebody had posted that Tim Stanutz had been arrested for sexually assault his. Sorry. [cries]

JI: It's okay. Take your time. Take your time.

VOICE: He had been arrested for sexually assaulting students and I lost it.

AMT: So the teacher who replaces Peter's abusive bandleader leader, the new music teacher is also charged with sexual assault? This is the third teacher in the story, Julie?

JI: That's right. So Tim Stanutz was a music teacher and like Bob Clarke before him, he led these award-winning bands at Bell High School, took kids on band trips across the country and he appeared to be very popular, very well loved by some students, but in 2016, as Peter mentioned, Stanutz was charged for abusing two teenage girls in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And these girls, now women in their 30s, they did not know each other, but you know they both experienced abuse in those isolated music rooms at Bell High, the same music rooms that Bob Clarke propositioned teen boys in years before. The first sexual assault charges laid against Tim Stanutz inspired Peter to go to the police himself.

AMT: So everything was starting to unravel at the same time.

JI: Exactly. Within a matter of weeks the curtain was pulled back on what was happening at Bell High over the decades because five days after Clarke's charges were announced in the media, police also launched an investigation into the former basketball coach, Don Greenham. But until now, no one has dissected these cases, you know heard from victims and pieced together all these overlapping stories.

AMT: That's incredible.

JI: So by the fall of 2016, there were close to 70 charges against these three Bell high school teachers. Victims were reporting abuse, as far back as 1970. So the Stanutz case, the Tim Stanutz case is different, there is no suggestion that anyone in a position of authority suspected anything about this predatory behavior, but it was his arrest in 2016 that did lead to the rest of this all coming out.

AMT: Well and there are so many more questions. We are going to break for a moment, but we are going to hear more about Julie Ireton's investigation and how authorities responded, both in the past and now. Julie will be with us, right after the news. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Stay with us. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: Still to come, proponents say vaping is an effective way to help adults quit smoking. Critics say that with an array of appealing candy like flavours, e-cigarettes are targeting a new generation of young addicts. Health officials in the US say they've seen a spike in adolescent use. We'll find out what's happening in Canada in less than 30 minutes. But first, stopping sexual abuse at school.

[Music: Theme]

AMT: If you're just joining us, CBC Ottawa senior reporter, Julie Ireton has been outlining her investigation. For months Julie has been looking into what went on at an Ottawa high school over four decades. If you missed the first part of this, you can find it on our website, cbc.ca/thecurrent. We're going to continue with Julie's story. It all began when victims began sharing their stories. Three teachers who worked at the high school eventually faced nearly 70 charges. Julie Ireton's investigation has revealed that students, teachers and parents warned authorities about the behaviours of two of the teachers in the 1970s and 80s, but little was done to protect the students. In 1986, Peter Hamer complained to his principal about being sexually abused by Bell High School music teacher, Bob Clarke. The music teacher was moved to another nearby high school and abuse continued. Marc Leach was the youngest man to lay charges

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Just before we went into court, Peter came up to me crying, apologizing because he thought it was his fault for sending him from Bell to where I was and he was blaming himself for what happened to me. And I immediately said it wasn't, not his fault. He had nothing to do with it. It was some administrator that shuffled the deck.

AMT: Marc Leach is one of the many victims now looking for answers and demanding some accountability and that is where we're going to pick up the story. Julie Ireton is still with us in our Ottawa studio. Hi Julie.

JI: Hi there.

AMT: So your investigation has uncovered teachers who abuse students, parents and others who complained years ago and in some cases teachers were moved. It's not on the same scale as the movement of priests in the Roman Catholic Church, but the tactic of transferring seems to be the same.

JI: It is eerily similar, just that movement of problematic teachers to different schools. I talked to a law professor at Queen's University who says this kind of solution to a problem was not unusual, whether it was churches or public schools. Nicholas Bala's specialty is child and family law and he's followed these cases for decades.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Certainly in the school system now, when a child comes forward, the allegations are fully investigated. The teacher is suspended, but in, the 1980s 1970s, when a teacher was reported to have sexually abused a child, when a child came forward and was complaining, often the child's complaints were dismissed or denied or minimized and there was a tendency in the school to say, oh this is a problem, let's get rid of this teacher, but they'd say the teacher has to leave this school, but they'd give them a reference to go and work somewhere else. And they'd just go from school to school. And of course it wasn't only in the school system, we've seen this in volunteer organizations and certainly in religious organizations as well, that the person's abuser just moved on to another place where they again re-abuse children. That fortunately is changing, but it's been a long struggle and far too many children were victimized along the way.

JI: And Nicholas Bala says in the 1970s, the rules regarding duty to report abusive teachers was somewhat unclear. When the law was first written, it actually applied to suspicions about parents, so teachers, principals and doctors did not necessarily understand that they had a duty to come forward and to report abuse of teachers.

AMT: But did any of the former administrators you spoke with talk about this duty to report?

JI: Well throughout my investigation, I tracked down several former principals. Some have ailing health or poor memory, others are dead. I mentioned John Beatty before the break, he was a principal at Bell High School between 1975 and 1980. As I mentioned, Beatty remembers at least one complaint from a parent about music teacher, Bob Clarke. He says he remembers the warning was vague, that Clarke was bothering a kid, getting too close and that the parent didn't want it to be taken further. He says he wasn't made aware then of any of the horrible things that we now know about this teacher, but Beatty notes it's just not fair to judge these administrators who worked years ago through today's lens.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Given the system as it was and frankly given the values of the time, one of the things that worries me a little bit in a situation like this is that the questions come from the point of view of the values of 2018 and you know things were different 25-30 years ago. There was a very different set of legalities and a very different set of processes.

JI: Back then were you clear on what the duty to report was? Because I know that law was on the books, but it was how it was interpreted has really changed.

VOICE: Yeah I would say that I probably wasn't clear on that. It was only later that for instance, the duty to report to a children's aid societies became something that was very, very firm in people's minds.

AMT: Two things jump out at me at what I just heard there, Julie. One is he's talking about values were different 25-30 years ago. I don't know if he's thought the values of how to treat children, I don't think were different, but then he's talking about the process. So I'm guessing what he has to say is cold comfort to some of the victims. What are the rules now?

JI: There are new laws in place in Ontario and jurisdictions across the country to prevent this from happening today. And school boards generally have stricter policies when it comes to what kind of teacher behaviour is tolerated. And of course most teachers are now much more aware of what the boundaries are. The responsibility today is much more clear, police and child welfare organizations must be alerted.

AMT: Did that ever happen in any of these cases?

JI: Yes It did, but not until 2016. And that's when Tim Stanutz, one of his victims, told her therapist that her former teacher had sexually assaulted her. The therapist did exercise that duty to report to children's aid and to the police and Stanutz was charged and removed from the classroom.

AMT: Is that the only case where other authorities were brought in?

JI: Well none of the administrators I spoke to told me police were ever notified about the complaints against the other two teachers. Of course these cases of abuse happened several decades ago, in some cases 30 or 40 years have gone by, but as far as the victims are concerned, crimes were still committed and the school boards still hold some responsibility for failing to protect them.

AMT: So what do these victims want now?

JI: They still want answers. Some of them are calling for the board to do an investigation now.

AMT: They're not satisfied with what's come out in court?

JI: Well two of the teachers are now dead. Don Greenham died at his home this past March. So there were no court cases for either of these men and then this past spring, Bob Clarke made a deal with the crown. He pleaded guilty to eight charges laid by eight victims. There was no trial and then very little information came out at that sentencing.

AMT: So those are criminal proceedings. What about civil cases, has anyone filed lawsuits?

JI: Several victims are suing. Currently there are more than $20 million in lawsuits filed against the teachers or their estates and the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, which is also named as a defendant in these cases and I'm told that more cases are pending. In a statement of defense, two lawsuits launched against the board regarding the youngest teacher, Tim Stanutz, the school board denied he molested students, but it said, if abuse did happen, it was done without their knowledge and was not their fault. Statements of defense have not been filed yet for lawsuits relating to Clarke and Greenham.

AMT: What else does the school board say?

JI: The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board refused all requests for an interview. In a statement the board says, "abuse should never happen, especially not to a child and not at a school where children should be able to learn in a safe environment." The board says it reviewed employee files to see if anything could have been done differently in these cases and it has fully cooperated with the Ottawa police service investigations. When I asked about the possibility of investigating these historical cases, the board said, "given the passage of time, the turnover of staff, the limited detail known to us about the incidents and the victims, we do not believe that an independent administrative investigation at this point is necessary to inform our commitment to student safety."

AMT: And what do victims think of that?

JI: It makes them angry and they say it's not good enough. You know there are many scars here. I've spoken to more than 20 of the victims. Some suffer from depression, anxiety, guilt, shame, distrust, sexual problems, substance abuse. Everyone wears this pain in his or her own way and obviously some of them have felt the traumas, more than others. I'm going to leave you with the voice of another of Bob Clarke's victims, a man named John Myers. He's now 58 and 40 years later, he's still dealing with the aftermath of some terrible trauma. He struggles with panic disorder.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: It's hurt me in immeasurable ways. Like it's every relationship I've had with a woman, every relationship that I've had with men, with men in power, all that sort stuff has been altered and the generalized anxiety doesn't allow me to go very far or really leave my home anymore. And you know I haven't had a terrible life, but I could have been so much more and it upsets me that nothing was done by the school at the time. You know there's an assumption that we're protected when we're in school and that wasn't the case. And it upsets me too for the people who came afterwards that something should have been done to prevent this from happening to other people, as well.

AMT: Wow is that ever a powerful. I could have been so much more.

JI: Yeah.

AMT: Julie, this Is really important. Thank you for bringing us this story.

JI: You're welcome.

AMT: Julie Ireton is a senior reporter with CBC Ottawa. She is currently working on a podcast about this investigation and it will launch in the new year. That investigation into this one Ottawa school leaves a lot of lingering questions about who ultimately should be held responsible and whether enough is being done now to protect students. My next two guests are going to help us find some answers. You heard Nicholas Bala a few minutes ago. He's a professor of law at Queens University. He's been involved in a number of public inquiries dealing with child sexual abuse in the 1980s and 90s and he is joining us from Kingston, Ontario. Nick Scarfo is a former principal. He's assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education and he joins us in our Toronto studio. Hello gentlemen.

NICK SCARFO: Good morning.

NICHOLAS BALA: Good morning.

AMT: Nicholas Bala I want to start with you. What strikes you most about what Julie Ireton's investigation has uncovered?

NB: Well it's a deeply disturbing story. Unfortunately, it is far too common. One might think that this is an isolated example. Unfortunately, we've had cases like this from coast to coast to coast. We have many survivors of these acts of abuse and I think it was you know we heard a lot from or we heard from a number of those victims today, about how they're continuing to hear and feel the effects. And I think that there has to be, there are certainly questions about compensation for those people and particularly support. Institutions on some level have to be held accountable. There should be apologies. We also have to recognize that as time goes by, we're not going to have perfect justice for what happened 30 years ago. We have learned, there are still continuing issues I think at the opening, you mentioned we still have an incident in Toronto where the first response was not to say, my goodness, we have abuse, we better call the police it was oh we have a problem here, I wonder how we're going to deal with it. So I think there are ongoing issues in our schools about how to deal with these cases, how to educate students to deal with it. You know in Ontario we're having ongoing discussions about consent, teaching children, young people, adolescents about consent. So although some of the things are in the past, but there are also issues here in the future and for the present.

AMT: I want to bring Nick Scarfo into this. How are you reacting to what you heard?

NS: Well certainly the story is very shocking, there's no doubt about that. But Anna Maria, I'll tell you that I'm not surprised. This as Nicholas mentioned a moment ago, this type of behaviour was something that seemed to be happening numerous times and that whole issue of of transferring problem teachers, as opposed to addressing the problem, seemed to be the practice back then and it is one that certainly in terms of the work that we do in courses, parent teachers, we take a look at these issues and take a look at their understanding of professional boundaries and what's appropriate and what isn't appropriate. And hopefully that what they're learning from those courses in the teacher training will come out in their practice, daily practice and the way they deal with students on a regular basis.

AMT: You know there was never a report by the Toronto Star that said, as recently as last year, teachers were still being transferred.

NS: Yes that's correct. I mean it's like I said it's a practice that seems to continue to happen. And to me, it doesn't make any sense. You know if there's a teacher that obviously is problematic or he is dealing with some issues then the principal or the superintendent of the board needs to deal with that, as opposed to just moving the problem to another place and hoping that it won't rise up again. It just it's mind boggling to think that's still happening.

AMT: Nick Scarfo, you worked as a principal and we heard that comment from Bell High School's former principal, John Beatty, who said that things were different 25-30 years ago. Well what do you make of that comment?

NS: Well I think the just the procedures and the understanding of those procedures wasn't quite as clear as they are today. But I would like to think that you know when we make decisions, we make them in the best interests of students and children, and whether it's 1970, 1980 or whatever, I would like to think that hasn't changed. Sometimes we can get I guess clouded in not really being clear as to what that procedure is when an issue is brought forward, but there have been changes, certainly to the legislation around what is expected. There was this what I call, this code of silence that existed and it exists today where colleague in Julie's story talked about a colleague who was made aware of this, but maybe didn't pursue it ,as strongly as she should have. We find that today we find that colleagues that hear about things, but tend to pretend that they didn't and it allows that abuse to carry on.

AMT: Now you work with teachers, want-to-be teachers and principals, do you not?

NS: That's correct, yes.

AMT: So Nicholas Bala has just referred to of course the situation under way in the news today regarding St Michael's School in Toronto, private Catholic school, not involving teachers, but involving students and more has come out even over the weekend. But we know that students were expelled after the school received videos of alleged assaults, including alleged sexual assaults, but the school did an investigation internally for a few days before reporting to police. What does that tell you about what practices are in place and what teachers and principals understand right now about these ongoing issues?

NS: Certainly there's clear police protocol that is in place within school boards. The school that you mentioned is an independent private school. I would like to think that there's a policy there as well, but certainly principals and vice principals are expected when they feel that police need to be involved that they are contacted. A principal certainly will go through preliminary investigations and sometimes that takes a little bit of time, but if there's a sense that the crime has been committed, then the expectation is that that administration needs to contact police and have them involved.

AMT: Nicholas Bala, do you want to speak to some of the policies in place?

NB: Well just to go back, the issues of different values and knowledge and policies in the 70s and 90s is a valid one, in that I think that understanding of child witnesses, their reliability and the need to further investigate when there are vague allegations was not understood and practiced the way that it is today. It would not only be the high school principals, but also the police, child protection. So our understandings have changed, hopefully our values have always been ones of protection, but clearly there was not that kind of understanding and therefore emphasis at that time. Today, we still have ongoing issues. We've certainly improved. We have new legislation, some that came in over the years. Starting early in this century there have been requirements that any suspected abuse by a teacher, a principal or other teacher finds out about has to be reported. One of the things that was mentioned was there still is a bit of a culture of silence in every institution, hopefully today and certainly what is being done in teachers colleges and professional education has been changing, but we still have issues to be dealt with. I think the investigations that are ongoing indicate that there are cases albeit what appear to be less serious cases, where teachers are being transferred. One of the key things is that when there's one child coming forward, there is very, very, very rarely just one victim. And so it's really important when now when a teacher or a principal hears something to say, oh well it's just one thing, it sort of didn't sound that bad, maybe we shouldn't look at it. I think that in the St. Michael's case is unfortunately a good example, when there's one incident, there's often multiple ones and there has to be careful, thoughtful, sensitive investigation and we certainly have to go back and look at what we can do even now for the victims who the school board failed to protect.

AMT: And Nick Scarfo, there can be allegations against a teacher and then there can be charges. What does it take for a teacher to lose their license?

NS: Normally it's through the Ontario College of Teachers that would determine whether a teacher will keep their license or not. And so it starts with a complaint coming from the public to Ontario College of Teachers, they would investigate and their discipline committee would determine whether the allegations, first of all whether they're false or not. If they prove to be that they are not false, then the OCT has the right to impose penalties. It could be anywhere from revoking their teaching license to a reprimand or a caution, it depends really on severity of the allegation that's there.

AMT: And the teachers unions are sometimes criticised for protecting teachers. How do you see that?

NS: I hear that a lot and I can see how the public may look at it that way, but I'd like to suggest that teacher unions are there to protect the process, that every teacher who is charged has a fair hearing and there have been numerous cases of false accusations, which when we think of teachers who are put in a position of trust, that when an allegation about the way they've treated a student and if it's false and they are cleared of it, there's still that lingering doubt in the mind of people in that school community. When a teacher loses their credibility, they have a lot of difficulty getting back into the profession again, even though the allegation was false.

AMT: Nicholas Bala, who should be held responsible for the historical failings of institutions, including school boards when it comes to protecting kids then?

NB: Well I think depending on the circumstances, the school boards may well have liability. One of the things I think we've seen, we've seen legislative change and policy change. One of the things that has actually really been driving change on the ground is the fact that school boards, but also recreation authorities and churches have been held civilly liable. So the issue of civil liability is a very live one and will have and does have and should have an impact on the schools and does provide also compensation. Some of the people you heard from have been permanently damaged, some of them need ongoing therapy and a civil suit can provide compensation. I should say we also have compensation for victims of crime funds, even if the school board is not held liable. The issue of direct liability will depend on you know who knew what? Did they take appropriate steps? Did they actually follow up? I think the moving of someone from one school to another however and when there's abuse in the second school suggests that there was not an appropriate response at the time. I think we have to recognise that these decisions really partly reflect the culture of the time, you know looking back and holding one principal accountable is not the same thing as saying that there was a systemic problem.

AMT: Nick Scarfo, you said that it doesn't surprise you this as sad as these stories are, what has to change?

NS: Well I'd like to believe that the things that are happening today are making a difference. I think of the discussions that are happening in teacher training programs across this province where it is mandatory that we do talk about ethical issues in education law and understanding the boundaries of professionalism and between students and teachers will have an impact, but that's just one approach. I think there needs to be an awareness that it's happening around, but that's one way we can do that.

AMT: Gentlemen, we have to leave it there. Thank you both for weighing in on this.

NS: Thank you.

NB: Thank you.

AMT: Nick Scarfo is a former principal and he's an assistant professor at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. He's in our Toronto studio. Nicholas Bala is a law professor at Queens University in Kingston and that's where we reached him. Let us know what you think. You can tweet us @TheCurrentCBC. Find us on Facebook. Go to our website cbc.ca/thecurrent. Stay with us, in our next half hour, the USFDA has announced a crackdown on vaping. That happened last week. Today, Health Canada restrictions on vaping promotion and sales to minors kick in. We're talking about vape culture and the ability to smash it, when we return. This is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

More can be done to curb vaping among Canadian youth, professor says

Guests: Cameron Prosic, James Van Loon, David Hammond

AMT: Hello. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti and you're listening to The Current.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: I've only tried vaping, but I haven't tried cigarettes or anything. I think the flavours are like a big part of like with just a normal cigarette, it's like just tobacco, right. But with vaping it's like you can get different flavours in like vanilla, cherry, blueberries, like there's so many flavours out there.

AMT: E-cigarettes have been promoted as a way to help smokers switch to a less harmful source of their nicotine fix, but as you heard from that vaping Vancouver teen, he was never a smoker and the rainbow of colours and flavours makes the plumes of smoke palatable to him and his friends.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: Flavours just try to trap kids and like people to make it like taste good. Like as smoking you just say smoke, but vaping you can enjoy it.

AMT: Well according to many health experts, young people are enjoying vaping too much. Last week the US Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, released data that shows vaping increased nearly 80 percent among high schoolers. 50 percent among middle schoolers, since last year alone. Here's how FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb describes that problem.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: E-cigs have become an almost ubiquitous and dangerous trend among teens. The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we're seeing in youth and the resulting path in addiction must end.

AMT: Vaping among young people is an issue in Canada too. New federal rules and restrictions around the marketing and packaging of vaping products kick in today. According to Health Canada, the numbers of teens using e-cigarettes is much lower in this country, but people working with teens say curbing the appeal of the devices may prove difficult. Juul, one of the largest vaping companies in the world began selling products in Canada this summer. My first guest says he has been watching with alarm, the growth of vaping among his teenage peers. Cameron Prosic is a Grade 11 student at Sir John A Macdonald Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario and he's in our Hamilton studio. Hi.

CAMERON PROSIC: Hi Anna Maria. Thanks for having me.

AMT: Now you heard those teens that we just heard in the clip there in Vancouver, how familiar does that sound to you?

CP: It sounds very familiar. I've seen a huge growth in you know people just like the flavours, they like the marketing, they like the colours that are associated with these vaping products.

AMT: And so how common is it among your friends and classmates?

CP: It's extremely common. I'm seeing it grow at like a huge rate, you know people in my immediate friend group, people who I'd never expect to you know touch tobacco products are picking up these vapes at like an alarming rate and you know you can throw stats around like you know 46 percent increase from 2014-2015, but when you see it happen in high schools, it gets very alarming. Like people are collecting them, people are collecting the flavours and collecting the different types of vapes. It's almost like Pokemon cards now.

AMT: And so what else are you seeing at your schools, at your school?

CP: I'm seeing a lot of people as well people you know who smoke convert to these vapes because they're marketed as healthy, but I'm seeing a lot more people who do not smoke picking up these vapes and you know starting to use them just because they're marketed as being healthy and marketed with all these flavours and bright colours and it's just very scary to see these allowed to be marketed to youth.

AMT: So when do they smoke them Cameron? Are they sneaking out you know to the bathroom to have a puff, when do you see this happening?

CP: Yeah, especially with the Juul. You know I had a friend who was talking about how she saw someone charging their Juul in their laptop in class and then you know people will sneak out into the bathroom, especially because these Juuls are so small, they're very easy to sneak around. They'll go into the bathroom and they'll take a hit of nicotine and then go back to class like nothing happened.

AMT: So smoking has been on the decline for decades. What do you think it is about vaping that makes it so appealing to people your age?

CP: It's just the fact that it's not marketed as a tobacco product and it's not marketed as being addictive. So many people don't understand the actual you know the repercussions of using these products. You know the addiction factor, all of that. It's marketed so much as being healthy, even though it is a healthier alternative to smoking, it definitely isn't healthy by any means.

AMT: So you volunteer your time to campaign against tobacco and vaping. What things do you do to try to convey the harm, what do you use?

CP: Yeah so through the City of Hamilton Public Health we have an Unfiltered Unchecked campaign, where we basically have an interactive presentation that we bring to schools and we just raise a lot of awareness and we target the industry, not the users. So we target, we push for policies that put more restrictions on these tobacco products.

AMT: And how are your peers reacting to that message?

CP: They react very positively I feel like once they actually have the information, it really helps them understand that hey you know this stuff isn't healthy, it's just a healthier alternative. If I don't smoke, I should not be using these products.

AMT: So Cameron why does this matter so much to you?

CP: Both my parents are actually smokers. So you know 40 years ago when it wasn't, people didn't know the repercussions of smoking, they got addicted to it and they've been addicted ever since. And now it's really taken a toll on their health so.

AMT: You don't want that to continue in your generation?

CP: I don't want that to continue in this generation. Yeah.

AMT: We don't know a lot yet about the health effects of vaping.

CP: Yeah that's a big part of it too, that why we call it Unfiltered, Unchecked because we really don't know what the actual long term health effects of these vapes are, since they are so new. We have no idea what they can cause to your lungs in the future.

AMT: There are also vaping conventions, there are vaping contests, there's vaping Instagram stars who perform tricks with the smoke. How does the culture around those devices make it harder for you to combat it?

CP: Yeah it's just the fact that you know people don't really don't realize the repercussions of it and it's difficult to reach a lot of people when you go up and say hey I want to talk about vaping. The thing is that you know you lose a lot of interest when an adult goes around and says hey kids, don't vape. You know what I mean? But when it's youth speaking to other youth and that's the important thing is it gets a lot more attention. And you know giving them the facts instead of using scare tactics. That's what really gets their attention. But recently the government of Ontario has allowed vapes to be advertised and marketed freely and openly. So it's just reversing 40 years of work that we've done against the tobacco industry. Now they can be displayed in convenience stores with the candy flavours, right near the candy section and so it's really difficult to combat it, especially when the government is allowing things like that to happen.

AMT: Well I have someone here from the federal government waiting in the wings to tell us a little more about what restrictions will be in place. So thank you, Cameron.

CP: Thank you.

AMT: That is Cameron Prosic, he's a Grade 11 student at Sir John A Macdonald Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario. So new federal rules restricting the promotion and sale of vaping products do take effect today. To help explain what those regulations are and the thinking behind them, I'm joined by James Van Loon. He is the Director General of the Tobacco Control Directorate at Health Canada. He's in our Toronto studio. Welcome.

JAMES VAN LOON: Thank you. It's great to be here.

AMT: What has changed as of today for people who want to use vaping products in Canada?

JVL: Last May the government passed new legislation to create a regulatory framework for vaping products in Canada. The federal government is one of the governments that's regulating vaping products, but provincial governments are also participating as well, as Cameron mentioned. As of May, there were already a bunch of restrictions on how you can promote vaping products in Canada. You couldn't use any ads that are appealing, you still can't, use any ads that are appealing to young persons. You can't use lifestyle advertising so promoting them as things that are sort of sexy or risk taking or manly or whatever it is, thinking back to the 1970s tobacco ads. No sponsorship and like naming of facilities and stuff like that and you can't kind of giveaway vaping products as part of your promotion.

AMT: So what changes today? What restrictions come in?

JVL: Right, as of today, a whole bunch of new ones. So this is six months after that new piece of legislation came into enforce. So the big ones I think right now are as of today there can be no sort of testimonials or endorsements that would include by celebrities and stuff like that, but also includes bifictional persons or animal characters or anything like that. So that's another big area where you could imagine sort of very appealing advertising going out. You're not allowed to make any statements about the products that would make them appear healthy in any way. We do agree that they're less harmful than smoking, but that's not very difficult to do. Smoking is horrifically bad.

AMT: What about the flavoured stuff?

JVL: On the flavours, provision comes enforced today against using any flavours that are things that are like you can't promote your product as flavour as something that's appealing to kids. So it can't be like a, you can't call it a candy name, you can't call it a dessert name. You can't name it a soft drink name. So the idea there is so that the products don't look like things that are appealing to young people.

AMT: And are you going to police those? If you see quasi-candy name are you going to like pounce on these guys?

JVL: Absolutely. Health Canada has a compliance and enforcement program for tobacco and that includes some folks coast to coast, working in vaping Compliance and Enforcement will be looking for it.

AMT: What about selling to minors?

JVL: As of May last year, no sale to anybody under the age of 18, nationally. I'll point out that there are a couple of provinces that have put in their own limits of 19.

AMT: Okay so we've heard the FDA call teen vaping an epidemic in the United States. Is that what it is in Canada?

JVL: So in the United States, the FDA was responding to this pronounced increase in the number of kids who said that they had vape in the last 30 days. Our most recent data is from 2017, from a national survey called the Canadian Tobacco Alcohol and Drug Survey, in there we did not see in the national statistical data, a big increase in the amount of kids smoking.

AMT: And how many kids did you survey in that 2017 survey?

JVL: Oh it's thousands, but I can't actually remember the correct, the exact number.

AMT: Now did you survey middle school kids too?

JVL: So that is like a population level survey that's conducted in part with Statistics Canada. We also have a survey that's conducted in schools, called the Canadian Student Tobacco Alcohol survey, but the last one of those that we had data from is the year before.

AMT: 2016. So when you say thousands in the 2017, thousands of people, not thousands of teens.

JVL: It would be tens of thousands of people, I wouldn't be able to say offhand exactly how many teens I'm talking about.

AMT: So is it fair to say you're not quite sure about the increase in vaping in the last year?

JVL: No we have, that is statistically significant Stats Can survey data that indicates that between the last cycle and this current cycle, which is between 2015, 2017, the number of 15 to 19-year-olds who had ever tried a vaping product was steady at 23 percent and the number that had tried them in the last 30 days, which is the number that the FDA was using, was at 6 percent.

AMT: Juul has often been talked about because it's got a much more convenient, it's more convenient size. It's you know not bulky like the other ones. So did you see a rise in vaping when Juul hit the market?

JVL: So Juuls only been, so thank you for that. I want to be very clear, like we have seen these things to be steady, but that data it's like a year old and this is a very very rapidly evolving marketplace. Juuls only been in Canada officially since the beginning or the end of the summer and we do need to be paying very close attention to these new products that could be appealing and seeing whether they're doing. So Health Canada has got a bunch of different ways of looking for data about increases in youth use of vaping products.

AMT: I know you also have restrictions that extend to social media, but there's an enormous vaping culture online with social media, Instagram, YouTube, some of it not even coming from Canada. How do you police that? What do you do?

JVL: For this point, like that's a great challenge that's facing all regulators globally. How do we deal with sort of social media cross-border and nobody's got a really great solution on it, just yet. We're all trying to find the right things to do. In the meantime, we'll be focusing on the domestic compliance of our promotion restrictions and working with others to figure out how to address that sort of trans-border promotion via social media, but also like running education campaigns. We'll have a new one coming out the next couple of months on the effects of vaping and what they can mean for kids.

AMT: I want to ask you a little bit more about the actual stuff that's in there, it's called e-juice, right? How safe is that stuff?

JVL: So we don't know what the long term effects of inhaling e-juices are. So those typically, they can typically contain something called Propylene glycol, something called vegetable glycerin and some flavours and some nicotine. Those certainly can cause irritation to lungs. Nicotine is highly addictive and should be avoided for anybody like these should not be used by anybody who isn't a smoker. We are supportive of these products insofar as they might provide less harmful products for smokers to use. If you're not a smoker, you shouldn't be vaping. The the long term health impacts of inhaling that stuff are unknown. Cameron's absolutely right. We do not have the kind of epidemiological history that we have with tobacco to know this for sure.

AMT: And we do know that Propylene glycol is a common food additive, but I guess the question is if you can, just because you can ingest it, doesn't mean you should inhale it.

JVL: Yeah certainly eating stuff is not the same as inhaling stuff. Just Nicotine, if you swallow a bunch of e-juice, you will be very very ill. Some can be killed by this it's why it's important to have child resistant caps on those things.

AMT: So how will you measure success?

JVL: Well Health Canada's overall objective in tobacco control right now is trying to get the population level of tobacco use down under 5 percent by 2035. This is because tobacco continues to kill 45,000 people give or take a year. Cost us $16.5 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. It's a tremendously difficult problem. So being on part of my objective or our objectives in the Tobacco Control Directorate is to see a downward trend and hopefully what's happening is that at least some smokers are finding that vaping products are a good way to get off cigarettes. That said, we do not want to see a loss of the progress that we've made over the past generation in terms of young people not using nicotine.

AMT: It's a real conundrum.

JVL: It's a bit of a balancing act that needs to be struck.

AMT: James Van Loon, thanks for coming in.

JVL: It's my pleasure.

AMT: James Van Loon is the Director General of the Tobacco Control Directorate at Health Canada. He's in our Toronto studio. Well Health Canada regulations target the wide range of flavours as you heard that seem to be attracting teens to vaping. You can find people testing out flavoured vaping pods on many YouTube channels.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: We've got the crème brulee flavour next and yeah I really like crème brulee in real life, so I guess I'm setting a pretty high standard here, but yeah let's just go ahead and try this one out.

[Inhales vape]

So the first thing I get with this flavour here is the kind of salted caramel. It tastes to me like a nice melted kind of toasty caramel over the top of like a vanilla custard or something like that. It's really intricate if you look into it. If you close your eyes and experience it, you get a lot more out of it.

AMT: That's a very detailed description of one of the many vaping flavours, which no longer are allowed under the new Canada health regulations that kick in today. New measures from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration also put limits on flavours. The FDA says the sheer number of teens who are vaping in the U.S. is cause for alarm and it is targeting them with this new ad.

SOUNDCLIP

VOICE: There is an epidemic spreading. Scientists say it can change your brain. It can release dangerous chemicals like Formaldehyde into your blood stream. It can expose your lungs to Acrolein, which can cause irreversible damage. It's not a parasite. Not a virus. Not an infection. It's vaping.

AMT: That is a new ad from the FDA, which announced a crackdown on vaping products last week. David Hammond is tracking the effects, the efforts south of the border and in Canada as well. David Hammond is a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. He's in Toronto today and he's on the line. Hello.

DAVID HAMMOND: Good morning.

AMT: So what do you think of what Health Canada has to say about how, first of all, our last guest made very clear that they don't have complete numbers because it's changing.

DH: Well I certainly agree that it's a rapidly changing market. It is a real challenge to regulators, but you're absolutely right. The government doesn't have numbers from 2018. Actually later today, I'll be sharing some new data with the government, which has some very ominous signs. So you heard the FDA talking about the increase in vaping among youth in the last year. We've seen the same level in terms of the increase among Canadian youth. And we've also seen, perhaps most worrisome, that there may be some stalling or maybe even backslide in terms of the progress in reducing youth smoking. So a lot has happened in the last 12 months since we've had government data, but the data that we've collected suggests that we're seeing the same phenomenon as the FDA commissioner has commented on the US.

AMT: So you're going to share it with them later today, can you tell me a little bit more about it then? Can you share a little more with us? What are the numbers that you have?

DH: I can tell you that it's gone up pretty much to the same extent as in the U.S. that a fair amount of that has been, has happened among non-smokers, which is a concern. And we saw, we were in the field a month before and the month after Juul became legally for sale in Canada and even in the first four weeks when it was illegally for sale in the market, we saw a huge jump in the number of Canadian youth using Juul.

AMT: So just to clarify, the United States says that there's an 80 percent increase in teens in high school, 50 percent in middle schools and you're saying those numbers are similar?

DH: Yeah we looked at 16 to 19 year olds, they're similar and where that's probably most important is not in terms of just trying this once or ever trying, but in terms of months or weekly use. So those more regular patterns of use and as I said, we see the same, even maybe a touch greater increase in vaping among Canadian youth.

AMT: And why does this concern you?

DH: Well as you've heard, these products are less harmful than smoking. Good thing if it helps people get off smoke, bad thing if it brings new people into the market. And products like Juul, this isn't your, never mind your grandpa's e-cigarette, this isn't your older brother's e-cigarette. Juul is now about three quarters of the U.S. market. This is a product that uses new technology, so there's two things, one it's been really successful being marketed to kids, two, it actually packs a much bigger concentration in nicotine hit. And that's the product that we now have on the Canadian market and you know you can't attribute all of our changes to Juul, but it's the reality that regulators will need to confront.

AMT: So do we know what the health effects or what the concerns about the health effects might be, especially on younger lungs?

DH: It's what you've heard before, which is we know enough now to say that nobody, no kid should be using these. And you know unless you're an adult smoker trying to quit, you should not be vaping. I don't use the word safer, I use the word less harmful. So we don't know what the exact disease is, how high they'll be, but we do know enough to say now that when you inhale chemicals, if you do it chronically in to your lungs from vaping, it's probably going to have some level of harm and enough for us to discourage young people from using them.

AMT: Are you telling me that we don't know because we have to wait and see what it does to the people using it now?

DH: Yeah, it's a horrible natural experiment, isn't it? I mean it took us, there's a 10 or 20 year lag for the onset of most smoking diseases. And it'll be the same from chronic lung exposure from vaping. So you know, it will take us a while, but it's a bit of a gruesome experiment. We know it will be less harmful than smoking, but we also know enough now to say you know what, you shouldn't be doing this at all, unless you're trying to quit smoking.

AMT: We did ask the Juul company for an interview about its approach to young people and vaping in Canada. They did give us a statement and I'm going to quote it here. " Juul is a switching product for adult smokers. It's not intended for non-smokers or minors. Those who do not currently use nicotine products, should not start using Juul. We continue to adhere to all federal and provincial regulation and are taking a conservative approach to the retailing of our products." Juul also says and this is another quote, "flavors have been shown to be important in helping adult smokers make the switch away from combustible tobacco." This restriction on flavours, they say that's part of the whole you know making it work for the people who actually need to get off tobacco.

DH: Well let's be clear, there's a few bans on ingredients in Canadian e-cigarettes, like caffeine, but the rest of it is just the ban on a promotion. You can still have cotton candy and crème brulee in the e-cigarette, you just can't promote that flavour. Now I would say that if it's a problem promoting, it's probably a problem having it in the product. The second point to note here is that after the FDA sort of cracked down and raided Juul offices and threatened regulation, Juul has voluntarily taken a couple steps. They actually said they're not going to sell crème brulee at convenience stores. Now they haven't made the same announcement in Canada. So I would suggest that if they think that it's a problem selling that in certain retail outlets in the U.S. because it appeals to kids, I suspect that the same would be true in Canada. The second piece is that Juuls actually lowered the level of nicotine in their e-juice in markets the U.K. and England because of their maximum nicotine limits. Canada, we still have the full nicotine version. So you know they, I have no doubt that they are complying with laws, but I think one of the things we'd like to see is if they're taking actions to reduce youth use in one market, it probably makes sense that they would be doing it in other markets like Canada as well.

AMT: And speaking of markets, the provinces have jurisdiction over sales in convenience stores and things like, do they not? Not the feds.

DH: They do and you know we have a big problem now. We have about seven provinces that have banned advertisements in retail stores. We have three that haven't and I don't know if any of you listeners have noticed, but I noticed when I went into a store to buy an Archie comic for my kids and I've never seen as big a poster behind the corner store counter, there was products on the counter and they're you know, sitting right above the candy. So we have several provinces that allow this and I would suggest that when we try and seek that balance between making these available to smokers, but discouraging kids, probably putting those ads next to the slurpee machine might not be the best execution of that balance.

AMT: Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan still allow.

DH: That's correct.

AMT: David Hammond, we have to leave it there. Thank you for your thoughts.

DH: Thank you.

AMT: David Hammond, professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems at the University of Waterloo. That's our program for today. Stay with Radio One for Q. We're going to leave you today with a little bit from The Current. Yesterday was an important day for us, here at The Current. It marked 16 years since our program launched on November 18th of 2002. So we'll leave you today with a look back at the brainstorming session in which The Current was born. Credit goes to Peter Anawati, long-time radio producer in Fredericton, who first suggested our name, The Current. I'm Anna Maria Tremonti. Thanks for listening.

SOUNDCLIP

Sounds from an original brainstorming session of The Current.

[Music: Theme]

Back To Top »

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

Nov. 19, 2018 episode transcript

More Stories Like This