Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In Canada smoking is at an all-time low. We've dropped from 22% to 16% in the last decade.
We're obviously primarily and especially concerned with adolescents taking up smoking, because it does lead them onto a path of lifelong smoking—but smoking by them is also at record lows. We're only at 7%. Of Canadians aged 15 to 17, only 7% smoke. I believe that on an international basis we're leading the world in banning flavoured cigarettes, and we prohibit companies from advertising directly to children.
I want to follow up on the concern of one of my opposition colleagues about smoking e-cigarettes with or without nicotine in public places. I guess my concern is twofold. One, even if there is nicotine in that e-cigarette, I am less concerned about the fact that there is a dramatic decrease over combustible cigarettes, because I think the expectation that Canadians ought to have, certainly for ourselves and for our children, is that they should be in smoke-free environments altogether.
Additionally, I think we also want to de-normalize smoking. Children are particularly susceptible to social cues, so if they just see the behaviour.... You can remember that entire concept that smoking in movies just seems rather cool, or the fact that it seems rather normal that you would be out in a restaurant, a public place, or a place of work and people are out there smoking an e-cigarette, with or without nicotine. I think it sends a terrible message to youth, and I think we want to de-normalize that.
I think that's a separate conversation, though, from whether or not we want to offer adult choices to folks and provide e-cigarettes for sale in Canada with nicotine content. I would hope that as a nation we would encourage those who ban cigarettes currently from banning all e-cigarettes, with or without nicotine, because I think we genuinely do want to target adolescents and ensure that they aren't picking up on this habit and that we're not normalizing it.
Would you have any comment, though, on the concept of e-cigarettes with nicotine and ensuring that we have smoke-free places as opposed to just lowered output? Currently in Canada, we're banning that. You can't just go and smoke in a restaurant. I'm very concerned that you would be recommending that there isn't much harm there. Could you perhaps extrapolate?