Mr. Speaker, I am happy to rise today to speak to this bill. It is the first opportunity I have because, at the second reading stage, we were precluded from doing so because of the squabbling between the Reform Party and the Liberal Party which was meant to keep the parliamentarians from debating democratically. It is unfortunate, in a Parliament which should be a forum for discussion and where truth should be sought as much as possible. So there is nothing to be happy about.
As far as Bill C-71 is concerned, I wonder if the Minister of Health was in good health when he introduced this bill. I doubt it, for various reasons. This is the same minister who, from one day to the next, had decided that raw milk represented a danger to human health and had drafted some kind of weird regulations which would have restricted our cheese consumption to Cheez Whiz and other products like it.
This to say that I am not impressed by the minister. The Liberals are arguing that their only motivation is the health and best interests of Canadians and Quebecers, but I, for one, do not buy it. You just cut $4.5 billion out of health expenditures, including $1.3 billion in Quebec. You did not even realize at that time how detrimental this could be to the health of Canadians. Strange that you should not have cared a bit about that.
Out of nowhere, the government introduced with a bill; health had become important overnight. If the impact had been the same in Toronto as it is in Montreal, I doubt that this bill would have been introduced by the minister. I think that members from the Toronto area would now be on the benches defending the bill, which is not what members of the government party coming from Quebec are doing.
Madam Speaker, I feel that you will agree with me.
There is more to it, there is something worse than the bill. I agree with everything my friends have said. Of course tobacco is harmful. I look at my package of cigarettes: 16 per cent tar-