Senator Patrick Brazeau sponsored Bill S-254 earlier this month.  The bill, called the Food and Drug (Alcoholic Beverage Warning Label) Amendment Act, would, if passed, require all products containing 1.1 percent alcohol by volume or more be labeled with a message describing the causal relationship between alcohol consumption and the development of fatal cancers.
Labels should also state what is considered a “standard drink”, how many standard drinks are in each product and the number of standard drinks that should not be exceeded in order to avoid significant health risks.
Speaking on CFRA’s Newstalk 580 “CFRA Live with Andrew Pinsent” on Sunday, Senator Brazeau said this type of labeling is not new.
“This is not reinventing the wheel.  We went through that process with the tobacco companies,” he said.  “It’s just to let consumers know that what they’re consuming is causing cancer because the science and the research, certainly over the last decade or so, suggests that.”
A 2016 New Zealand study published in the journal Addiction found that there is strong evidence that alcohol consumption causes cancers of the liver, colon, and rectum, three types of cancer related to the throat (larynx, oropharynx, and esophagus). and in women breast cancer.  The study estimates that nearly six percent of all cancers worldwide can be attributed to alcohol.
A 2022 study in Korea also found an increased risk for all cancers among people who drank the most alcohol.
Brazeau, an unaffiliated senator from Quebec, said he wanted to take on this bill because of his own challenges with both alcohol and cancer.
“I’ve had problems with alcohol use in the past, but I’ve been clean and sober for over two and a half years now,” he said, adding that he lost his mother to cancer in 2004.
The bill only addresses alcohol’s link to cancer, but Brazeau says there are many other social issues attributable to alcohol and substance abuse disorder.
“I haven’t even begun to talk about the effects of alcohol on society and the justice system and men’s mental health.  This is just a fight against cancer,” he said.  “The introduction of this bill is to honor my mother who died of cancer and the many other Canadians affected by cancer.  At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s a family in Canada that hasn’t been touched by cancer.”
Brazeau says he expects the alcohol industry won’t accept the labels without a fight.
“There will be a serious push from the alcohol industry to not have these labels, but, at the end of the day, I strongly believe that all Canadians have the right to know exactly what is in the products they consume, just like those who have a pack of cigarettes and they decide to smoke,” he said.
In 2017 the Yukon Liquor Corporation began placing labels on alcoholic products sold in the territory warning that alcohol can cause breast and colon cancer, but the move was quickly halted after industry complaints.  The labeling was intended to be part of an eight-month study to evaluate the effectiveness of warning labels.
The new alcohol warning labels are shown in this leaflet photo (Kate Vallance/ leaflet)
Brazeau says he believes a warning label would give consumers more opportunities to make informed choices.
“I’m not telling people to stop drinking and I’m not suggesting I tell anyone what to do.  All I’m suggesting is that I’ve had lived experience and it wasn’t good with alcohol and I know there are a lot of people who struggle with alcohol and I think we need to start being honest in 2022 about the negative effects of alcohol.”
On the Health Canada website you can find a list of supports for people struggling with substance use disorders.