By Andrew Mitchell
After more than five years of lobbying, a campaign to create national standards for helmets used in snow sports is one vote in the House of Commons away from becoming a reality.
This week Vancouver Centre MP Hedy Fry, the opposition critic for sport and the Vancouver Olympics, submitted a private member’s bill in the House of Commons. If adopted, the bill would classify the helmets as a hazardous product, which means the sale and manufacture of helmets would have to legally conform to national standards. The bill also includes a provision for bike helmets, which would make it illegal to sell helmets that are not certified by the Canadian Standards Association.
According to Fry, work on the bill has been in progress for over a year, and she was in the process of tabling a bill before Parliament was cut short by the last federal election. As a doctor, she is particularly interested in seeing this bill pass.
“My familiarity with the issue is as a physician, and one who knows that a head injury of any kind, and especially with recreational sports, is purely preventable… with the right kind of good head protection,” she said, adding that she was part of the campaign to make bike helmets mandatory for children in 1982.
“There are so many reasons why it is important. There’s the human tragedy side, the loss of potential, the loss of quality of life. There’s also the cost to the system — we know that recreational head injuries cost us about $100 million a year to treat. We know that someone in acute care with head injuries costs $3,800 a day.
“There’s the loss of productivity, as people with brain injuries may not be able to work in the job they would ordinarily be working.
“There are all kinds of reasons to protect the head, and from my view the whole concept of good health care is to prevent what is preventable.”
The Canadian Standards Association is currently working on developing a set of national standards for helmets used in snow sports, with funding from the B.C. government. Those standards should be finalized by the end of the year.
However, Fry says that is just the beginning.
“Once the standards are set they are useless — there are bike standards for example, but retailers can still do what they want,” she said. “The first thing to do after we get a standard established is to put the helmets into the Hazardous Products Act… along with hockey helmets and helmets for lacrosse.”
Once entered into the act it will be illegal to make or sell helmets that don’t meet the standard, punishable by fines that range anywhere from $100,000 to $1 million, and the potential for up to two years in jail. Companies will be given time to familiarize themselves with the standard, after which point the law will come into effect.
The second thing to do is to find funding for education and the implementation of the standards, says Fry. She requested that money from the federal finance minister in April of 2006, and only received a reply this past February that acknowledged the importance of sports but did not commit any new funding to helmet standards.
Still, Fry believes her private member’s bill will receive enough support in Parliament to pass, and that money can be found for education. After her bill was chosen in the draw this week, Fry started to canvas other members of Parliament on the issue and has received positive feedback from her fellow Liberals as well as from the Bloc Quebecois and NDP. Since it’s an open vote, she also believes Conservatives will support the legislation.
“Something like this goes beyond partisanship, and I expect it will go through once we get it to a vote,” she said.
There are still a few hurdles. The first is the lateness of the draw, which could push the vote back until the fall, depending on how fast the House of Commons gets through legislation. Fry says she will talk to other MPs to exchange draw numbers in an effort to get the bill to Parliament sooner rather than later.
Once it goes to the House it could be held up by procedure. Even if it passes the first few readings, it may be referred to other government ministries for additional work before coming back to the House. After that Fry says she will still need to find funding for the educational component, as well as to phase in the new law.
Still, for helmet advocate Richard Kinar, a former freestyle skier who has been working to establish helmet standards for more than five years, getting the private member’s bill is a huge step.
“We’re very, very excited, because I know this will go through,” he said. “What’s interesting is that a member of the Ontario legislature named Jon Malloy brought forward a private member’s bill not too long ago for mandatory helmet usage by adult cyclists in Ontario… and it passed unanimously. I look at Dr. Fry’s bills as being something similar that all parties can support and throw their weight behind.”
Kinar points out that helmet standards are already supported by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, most provincial health organizations, as well as most politicians he has spoken to over the years. Once a helmet standard is created, he believes it will be relatively easy to educate people to use them.
“I’m really optimistic that there’s a shift in culture in health care, from treatment to prevention,” he said. “We know injuries cost Canadians an estimated $14.7 billion a year, most of which can be prevented. We also know, according to the AMA (American Medical Association) that every dollar spent on helmets reduces health care costs by $29. Why would any politician vote against a law that would emphasize prevention over treatment?”
Helmets are also becoming more accepted in sports like skiing and snowboarding, and Kinar says that educational campaigns should be enough to convince a lot of people who haven’t started wearing helmets. “I really believe in a few years people will want to wear helmets as opposed to us mandating their use,” he said. “The only exception is mountain staff, who I feel should be mandated to wear the helmets through WorkSafe B.C. and the Workers’ Compensation Board. It not only sets a good example, it also sets a precedent for government to show helmets are important.”
