Madam Speaker, I will probably be the last member to talk about Bill C-71 today. I can only expand on what my colleagues have already said before me.
The Bloc Quebecois did indeed support this bill at second reading. This party is not against virtue but is in favour of protecting the health of all Canadians and in particular the health of Quebecers. The Bloc will always support initiatives enhancing the quality of the environment and the health of Quebecers and Canadians.
But there is a limit to what one can do in that regard. This bill is paternalistic, to an unheard of degree. This government wants to control the health of Quebecers, but they are perfectly able to take care of themselves. If the government wants to regulate the health of other Canadians and if they agree, fine. Let them submit to this legislation.
Yet, as my colleague said earlier, the federal government has no right to interfere in health issues.
Quebecers are quite capable of looking after their own health and administering their other activities, as far as recreation and the environment are concerned. What does this bill do, under the guise of protecting the health of Canadians and Quebecers? It is as if someone wanted to treat an illness with medication without having evaluated its side effects. The government wants to eliminate cancer caused by smoking by giving us another illness as serious as or even more damaging than cancer: the cancer of unemployment.
Once everyone has died of unemployment cancer, there will be no victim left for cancer caused by smoking. It is as if someone decided to make everybody die of heart disease, so that there would be no one left to die of lung cancer. The government is taking steps
that will result in honourable citizens being asked to sacrifice their jobs in order to have a healthy unemployment; in Joliette this means 1,200 to 1,500 jobs. They have their jobs taken away from them, but they are told "Well, at least while you are unemployed, you will be healthy".
That is not how a good citizen should be treated. Our citizens are treated with far too much interference, far too much paternalism. You do not replace one evil with another. Ideally, we would like all Quebecers, and all Canadians, to quit smoking. I would call myself an occasional smoker, since I do not have a cigarette in hand all the time. I have stopped smoking many times, I have started over again many times too.