Thank you, Madam Chair.
I thank the officials for coming.
Like my colleague, I think this is important legislation. This is a product that, to quote Gro Harlem Brundtland, “statistically kills half of its users”. This is very encouraging legislation.
My first comment is around contraband tobacco.
Mr. Glover, I think you said that by its very nature we drive it underground. The current use of contraband products--and you can correct me if I'm wrong--is about 48%. If we're going to further drive this underground, I don't think we're closing the loop on it. We talked about excise tax and the Criminal Code.
A second thing I would ask about is the regional variation of tobacco use for youth. I think it's important to look at those figures.
The third issue is around menthol. Again to pick up on my colleague's comments, I think it's less frightening for youth to use menthol: it's mint. If we remove flavoured products, and I think this is really important, I'm wondering whether our youth will go to menthol products. I'm wondering whether we've looked at the projected impacts of it.