Thanks very much, Ron, for sharing your time with me.
It seems to me I've heard this song before. I'm addressing this to advertising and to sports. I was around this block when cigarettes were being advertised and promoted at all the festivals, at jazz and sports and everything. People said, “Gee whiz, we're never going to get any money once you cut this.” But we did it because we knew that just like drinking a beverage that's high in sugar, there's only one way to drink that beverage. Cigarettes were very harmful because if you use them as directed, you will get sick. We had to target cigarettes.
Eventually, the government phased out advertising and phased out promotion in some of the important arenas like sport. I'm not saying you don't need the money and the sponsorship. But we actually moved it, and the government played a role in helping to do some sponsorship. Today no one talks about the lack of tobacco advertising and promotion.
I heard a sports group talk about restaurants. Obviously, restaurants have options. They can promote healthy food. Restaurants may have an incentive to start talking about salads, to start talking about greens and fruit, lower sodium in some of their foods, low-fat milk, and so on. That's possible. I see no reason that we cannot look at how we set guidelines for restaurants. They actually can target and can advertise. I've seen that change happening in restaurants like McDonald's and Tim Hortons. People are looking at healthier alternatives. When we talk about the beverages, I don't see any alternative. No matter how you spin it, if you start using pop, it will increase type 2 diabetes. We know that the sugars are terrible. Even by advertising and telling kids that it's okay if they drink Coke Zero or Diet Coke or whatever.... We know that's not actually true.
Basically, then, I do think this could be seen as not a negative thing—I hear you about the timelines, and I hope those things are negotiable in terms of adult advertising times—but it could be seen as an incentive for restaurants, fast-food restaurants, beverages, and other products that are being sold today to start changing their menus and changing the way they produce their product. Why is it that a small carton of yogourt, which is good for you, contains 15 to 25 grams of sugar? Why? We know that sugar is addictive. Once children get sugar at a very early age, they crave sugar from then on. Adults do too.
Let's look at what this benefit is. You talked about jobs and about how taxes to the government, etc., would be diminished. I'm saying to you that the government already carries the can for all the type 2 diabetes, all the cardiac disease, all the high blood pressure, all the kidney disease. Those are health costs to the government, so it is in the government's best interest, and in the best interest of citizens, to move in this direction.
I'm using tobacco as a good example of how you could move forward without denying the sponsorship abilities of other people to come in and take their place. It is an incentive, I think, for menus, restaurants, and products and beverages to start looking at what they are marketing and the amount of sugar, etc., in their products. I do not think Red Bull should be targeted to children at all. We looked at this in the health committee a few years ago. We've had incidents of children dying because of having two or three Red Bulls on a hot day and having all that caffeine and all that effect on their hearts.
I just wanted to say that I hear you, but I think we should flip this and look at it from a positive perspective and at what can happen for the sports groups, etc., with changing sponsorship and having other people step in with healthier alternatives.
Thank you.