Various organizations are members of the coalition. For instance, the Réseau du sport étudiant du Québec. It also exerted strong pressure on us to include energy drinks in our tax proposal, because they are witnessing a phenomenon. Student sports teams will in fact attribute victory or defeat to the consumption or non-consumption of energy drinks. So you have these young athletes, role models, who are consuming these beverages thinking that this could have an impact on their athletic performance.
We received calls also from high schools, where energy drinks were being sold across the street. We are talking about 12 cans for $10. Thus, in the afternoon, in school, the children were impossibly agitated because they drank this at lunch hour.
Also, a cardiologist who is a member of the coalition told us that unfortunately this is an emerging phenomenon and there is not much knowledge on it at this time. However, in the emergency department where he works, he sees 20-year-old young men turning up with heart problems.
I think a great deal of research is going to have to be done on the issue so that we have a good grasp of the effects of those products.