Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Calgary Centre for his question because I know that it was heartfelt and well meant. I am glad he asked it.
I do not know the exact dates because I am far too young, but there may be others in this House who do, but many years ago when we had prohibition in this country, I had a great uncle by marriage who made a great deal of money from prohibition because he owned a number of boats that sailed from St. Pierre de Michelon down through the St. Lawrence before the seaway right into Chicago. He was a rum runner. He sat at a desk in an office in Cape Breton and made a whole lot of money being a rum runner because, as we learned then, one cannot prohibit by law certain things. There are certain laws that cannot be enforced.
This legislation that I am advocating here does not prohibit the sale or the purchase of cigarettes. That would not work. I wish it would and I wish it could, but it does not.
What does work, however, is chipping away at the idea of young people that smoking is somehow a good thing. I go back to the words I used in my original speech, that it is cool, sophisticated and grown-up. The hon. member knows, I know and all of us in this House know that what smoking leads to ultimately is lung cancer or emphysema or asthma or heart disease, all of these terrible things that we want our children to avoid as much as possible.
Consequently, we are not going into the area of restricting rights. People still have the right to go, if I may use the word, to hell in their own direction and in their own way. They can walk into any store if they are of age in the relevant province and buy cigarettes. I wish they would not and I wish they could not but I know, as the hon. member knows, we cannot prevent that by legislation.
However, we can and we have a duty and an absolute responsibility to do whatever we can not to make it look as if it is either benign or a good thing that people should smoke.
Most particularly in this debate, when we tie cigarette advertising to one of the most glorious manifestations of our joint culture and society, that of the performing arts, it absolutely inflames my heart that we have to do this, that we have to have this kind of a debate. It is wrong that we let a product that hurts people and that can hurt our children be one that puts us into a debate on the future of our magnificent artistic endeavours.