Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member on his fine speech. He mentioned the problems he has had in wrestling with smoking for 25 years.
We have been talking about reducing the price of cigarettes making them affordable for young people. More and more young people, especially young ladies, are starting to smoke. We heard the medical opinion from my colleague from Macleod who told us how dangerous it is, how it ruins one's health, ruins one's lungs.
My hon. colleague personally knows how difficult it is to stop smoking. I think he said he has tried at least a thousand times, so he is a professional stop smoking person. I would therefore ask, is it far more important that we put the emphasis on making sure people do not start smoking rather than allowing them to start, thinking we will to convince them to quit later on by raising the taxes through the roof? Surely it would be much better to focus on not allowing these children to start smoking.