Mr. Speaker, I would like to be able to stand in the House today and state that I support this bill. If I were able to put on simply a politician's hat, there would be enough in this bill for me to support. As my colleague from Kootenay East said, this is one of those difficult bills as it has more than one unrelated issue in it.
The omnibus bill is a problem. I presume that they are all lumped together because of the excise tax component to them. However I would like to express my objection to an omnibus bill as an issue here and having said that, branch off into the areas of this bill that I do agree with.
I agree with a manufacturers' surtax. The $185 million can be used to prevent smoking but of course that $185 million must be used effectively. As far as I can determine it is only in effect for three years. I wonder what will happen after the three years are up?
I also agree with the excise tax on exports of tobacco. That makes sense to me. I believe that to have tobacco going across the U.S. border and coming back makes no sense at all. The government made a good attempt to try to treat fairly those retail and wholesale outlets with inventory on hand when the changes were announced. It was a reflection that this bill might have some effect on the businesses that dealt with tobacco products.
I have occasion to also agree with the airline tax changes and philosophically agree with the fact that there will be GST changes on businesses when people entertain at restaurants. Those are the portions of the bill with which I agree.
However, I pause to think about the portions of the bill that I believe are the most important. Those of course are the portions that relate to smoking and to cigarettes.
I would like to express what expertise I have on this subject. I reflect back to my university days when in my medical training we spent two years of our lives in what we call basic sciences, studying books. We learned about anatomy, we learned about physiology, we learned about biochemistry, we learned about pharmacology.
The very first opportunity we had to deal with patients directly I was assigned an elderly patient, a fellow who had fought in the war. He was hospitalized in a veterans' hospital in Edmonton where I trained. He had a smoking related disease. He had emphysema.
I was particularly interested and keen to look after this man so well. He was my very first patient. I had responsibility for him. He was aged. He was in his mid-sixties. He had problems that related specifically to the fact that all his life he had smoked and he had emphysema. His chest was barrel shaped. He had difficulty breathing. He lay in the bed unable to get up. He was on medication that would hopefully prevent infection which often affects somebody with that disease.
I spent many hours with him. I spoke with him at length about his life, his family and his history. I spoke with him about his hopes, dreams and desires when he was a young person. I spoke with him in fact about when he started smoking and why he started smoking. Over a span of about six weeks I felt that I became his friend and his confidant. In fact he and I had many good hours together.
As he slipped quietly and slowly into a state where he was no longer able to communicate, I remember very clearly his last words to me before he passed on. He called me doctor even though I was not at that point in time a full-fledged doctor. He said to me: "Doctor Hill, I beg you to tell the young people not to smoke. I beg you to tell them not to start".
I have never forgotten that man. I have never forgotten the anguish in his heart when he died of this problem relating directly to tobacco.
One of the things we did as medical students was participate in autopsies. One of our pathology experts was a somewhat ghoulish individual in fact. I felt that his way of dealing with material that was so special was quite interesting. He had a lung. It was a lung he had taken from a specimen that had smoked. He had a lung from an individual who had not smoked. With great delight he used to come into the anatomy lab for the young students and say: "I'd like to show you young students what it means to smoke". He took the lung from the person who had smoked and it was black as coal. It looked like somebody had sprayed it with spray paint. He would take that lung and squash it between his hands. After he squashed it he would let go of it and it would stay squashed.
Then he would show us the nice pink lung, the dried up lung from someone who had not smoked. This lung was not black as coal but was pink and supple. He would compress that lung and when he let go it would expand immediately back. It was in fact very much like a piece of foam rubber. He would shake his finger at us individually and say: "Don't you ever smoke. You are going to carry the medical message to the country. Don't you ever smoke".
I reflect back on my first hospital duties and the medical staff in the hospital where I first practised. I looked around the table at my confreres and over 50 per cent of the doctors in that room smoked. I graduated back in the late 1960s. I practised medicine from 1970 until coming to the House.
I have noticed a significant change in the medical profession over those 25 years of practice. At the end of those 25 years-I hope not the ultimate end, I hope to be able to return to that practice if we can get some sanity back into the House of Commons-there was but one of the medical staff smoking.
The medical profession has learned over the last 25 years what a serious problem smoking is. It is a serious enough problem that I became a confirmed anti-smoking medical doctor. I lectured my patients about smoking. I begged my patients to quit smoking. I gave them nicotine gum to have them stop smoking. I tried hypnosis to get them to stop smoking. I sent them to acupuncturists hoping they would quit smoking. I gave them a medication called Inderal which we thought maybe would help.
I would like to say that you can usually tell how successful the medical profession is on an issue by how many different forms of treatment they have. If you are successful in the medical treatment there is one treatment. I gave you the list of the things that I tried to do as a medical practitioner to stop people from smoking. It is very difficult, very unsuccessful. I have to stand here and say that my success rate in my practice of medicine was singularly poor. I am embarrassed to admit that but it is true.
Smoking is highly addictive. It is much harder to quit once you start, and in my view all the efforts of the medical community should be directed toward youth to prevent them starting.
I believe the main problems with this bill are just those issues. All efforts are not being directed toward our youth.
I have youth in my family. I have given them every opportunity to be educated on this issue. I had a foster native son who chose to smoke and one of my natural sons also chose to smoke. Of course I asked them why. The answers they gave me were in both instances peer pressure and rebellion. If dad told me not to do it I probably should do it, an if my buddies told me to do it for sure it was going to be good. My firm hope is that those two sons of mine who chose to smoke will change their minds.
There are four main factors in starting to smoke. The price of the product is number one and this bill does have an impact on the price. Promotion of the product is number two and that is something that we can do something about. The product itself and the place in which you live are other factors in this issue. Societal factors are a big deal.
I believe that we should have freedom in this country. I believe we should have freedom to do many things that are harmful for us. It is extremely difficult to legislate people into doing what is good for them. I believe we should have freedom to eat junk food even though junk food ultimately may not be good for us. I believe we should have freedom to drink water, or juice, or alcohol even though one of those products ultimately may not be good for us. I believe we should have freedom to run home from the office for exercise or ride in a vehicle with no exercise.
I believe we should have the freedom to smoke if we choose to smoke but I do not believe that we should make it easy to start. I do not believe that we should encourage our youth to start. I certainly hope that this House will do none of those things.
I tried to look with as much favour as I could on the government's strategy here because this was not just a smoking issue. I tried to ask what is the all-embracing, anti-smoking strategy of our health minister. I have not really been able to pin
the health minister down on this issue, but there have been some pieces that have dribbled out in terms of that strategy.
The minister has said that the $185 million that will be taken in the manufacturers' surtax will be used in large measure for advertising to prevent smoking. I said before that the money must be used effectively and I have yet to see an advertising campaign that would prevent teens from starting. It certainly will have no effect on adults who have already started.
I also heard the minister talk about plain packaging. Plain packaging has had a significant amount of input and feedback in our committees and a significant amount of witnesses on both sides of the issue. If plain packaging will make a difference to prevent youth from smoking I will support it and support it strongly.
I simply ask that before plain packaging is embarked upon, an expensive proposition, a job dislocation proposition, that we have proof it will work. In my view that proof is not so far away. There is a study at the University of Toronto looking at this specifically. I thought we would have a good study from our Department of Health. I am not sure of that anymore, but I hope that study will also prove that plain packaging of cigarettes would be efficacious.
The health minister has said eventually we will raise taxes. I hope that eventually is not so far down the road that eventually will never happen.
The other point that I wanted to bring up on this debate was the issue of the freedom in this House. There are actually more medical doctors in Parliament today than I believe have ever been in Parliament before. Three of them sit on the government side. I have listened to the three of them speak about their view on this bill as it relates to health. We are going to have individuals on this side of the House voting against my personal position on this bill. I have to oppose it for health reasons. I believe there will be members of my caucus who will stand up and say they disagree with me, they agree with the government. However, I will watch with profound interest what my medical colleagues do with this bill on this issue.
I reflect upon two members in the last Parliament who voted against their government on a specific piece of legislation. I watched what happened to them. I watched them removed from their caucus. One of those individuals is in this House today. I say to the medical individuals on the government side that if you vote for this bill you are voting against everything that your medical profession taught you. You are voting against the Hippocratic Oath.
I will watch with great interest, if they do vote against the government on this bill, exactly what happens to them in their caucus. If they get booted out of their caucus for voting for the
health of Canadians our government is down the tubes. I will state that as strongly as I can state it.
There is one thing that tobacco companies have done in terms of the advertising of their product. They have a mobile billboard that they are using now. The race cars that race on the tracks of this country are now advertising tobacco. I hate to say this because I am a race car driver, but the tobacco companies have found a way around the advertising ban.
As much as I hate to say this to Jacques Villeneuve who drives a car with logos all over it, this should not continue. The racing car fraternity will choke as I say this-millions of dollars being put toward the activity that I enjoy a tremendous amount-there should not be the allowance of cultural events sponsored by the tobacco companies. There should not be mobile billboards on the tracks of this country to attract our youth to smoking.
I am going to use an illusion that comes from the race car world. When you are driving a car very fast you know that you are running into a wall of air. The car shakes and shudders, but if you can get right behind another car and draft that car you can go faster. The turbulence decreases, you can go faster than you could by yourself. Interestingly enough, you can push the car ahead of you faster. Drafting actually makes both vehicles go faster. It has something to do with the turbulence behind the vehicle that you are pushing.
I look upon this government as the car in the lead. I look upon this party as the drafting car, pushing the government faster than it would otherwise move. I challenge this government to keep us in the draft, continue with legislation like this and there could be a passing manoeuvre coming up.