As for me, I actually have been doing government affairs for Casa Cubana for the last six or seven years now. I'm not a lawyer. Interestingly enough, I'm actually a tobacco control advocate. I've been on this file for the last 18 years.
Perhaps unlike any other tobacco control advocate in this room, I've actually sat at every side of the policy table in tobacco and tobacco control. I worked as a policy analyst with the Non-Smokers' Rights Association of Canada, as a data specialist and media relations manager with the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health, and as director of the National Clearinghouse on Tobacco and Health. I worked in Health Canada's tobacco control program, in research, surveillance, evaluation, and policy and planning. I'm here to say that Bill C-32 is basically the perfect example of everything that's wrong with the tobacco control movement in Canada. This committee cannot allow this bill to become law in any form for two reasons.
Number one, there's absolutely no relevant research that supports in the least banning flavours in tobacco products, let alone banning singles, for example.
Number two, as much as people may hate the industry or people in the industry, the reality is that if you pass this into law, you will cause much greater harm to society. It is a fact that if you ban these products, you're essentially giving exclusive market rights for these products to a growing and existing illicit trade in tobacco, which includes flavoured products, according to the RCMP. You will be putting much more tobacco, much cheaper tobacco--