The member's comments are quite insightful. I'm sure there will be witnesses beyond us who will speak further to these issues.
As my colleague Cathy Sabiston indicated, we have found that the research that exists on menthol is primarily out of the U.S., where it is a very different marketplace. It is a much larger per cent of the overall total marketplace. It is true that it does make the cigarette less harsh. However, the evidence we have in Canada is that it is a very small per cent of the total market. It is shrinking. When we have done focus group testing, they have said it is not a preferred product.
When we looked at this, at the five million Canadians in Canada who are addicted to tobacco cigarettes, and looked at new product categories, where things are emerging, the evidence we had with respect to the appeal of this particular product for use and the differences we saw between the Canadian marketplace and.... We did not feel it was an area that we needed to be attacking.