I would like to refer my colleagues to schedule 3. This is what it says now. Here's what's banned. Confectionery, dessert, cannabis, soft drink, and energy drink. Those are the categories. Those are loopholes you can drive a truck through.
I think anybody voting against this amendment should have no illusion that once this bill becomes law, there will be vaping products that have all sorts of flavours to them that will be appealing to children. Then the only option at that point is to let the market be exposed and then try to play regulatory catchup.
Here's the problem with it. Every day that you will allow a tobacco or nicotine product out in the market is a day that someone's going to start and try it. Because of the highly addictive nature of the substance, people are going to get addicted. Because of the highly addictive nature of it, those people are going to find it very difficult to quit.
We also heard evidence by the way—This was not fleshed out a lot, but I think Dr. Strang said this at the last meeting that he felt there was some evidence people who start vaping may lead to picking up tobacco products.
What we're doing by not closing the door on this right now is we're letting the industry come up with their sophisticated flavouring, young people are going to be attracted, young people are going to start, they are going to get hooked, some of them are going to move on to tobacco products, and then maybe once it gets up to the rarified attention of the order of Cabinet, by that time we will make some legislative changes to the schedule. By that time, it's too late. A certain number of those Canadians will be hooked, and a certain number will die. Let's rest assured that's what we're doing by not approving this amendment now.
I would just say one other thing, colleagues. It's better to review this. This is new legislation. Vaping products have never been regulated in this country. This is the very first regulatory regime we put in place. Let's err on the side of making it very tight on flavouring. If, Dr. Eyolfson, your concerns come to pass, then what we can always do is loosen the regulations later. But by leaving flavouring open now, we are basically subjecting Canadians to known health consequences that we could prevent right now.