Mr. Speaker, I think we are debating a societal value here. We are talking about the difference between short and long term.
What should we do in our society about smoking? What action should we take? Whenever a law involves tobacco, be it in the House of Commons or in the provincial legislatures, there is always a huge outcry and a great discussion. I know, because in 1986, when I was the Quebec minister of the environment, we introduced the first legislation to protect non smokers, Bill 84.
At that point in Quebec, people smoked in hospitals, in clinics, in restaurants and in classrooms. Today, things have improved considerably, I must say, but a lot remains to be done. That was the first step. However, when we introduced Bill 84, there was a whole discussion. The entire tobacco industry opposed the very introduction of the bill.
A debate was held in parliamentary committee. The subject was then discussed in the newspapers. It will go on so long as an attempt is made to reduce the effect of smoking, because the tobacco companies know very well that every country that signs on to fight smoking further restricts the market.
The statistics are alarming: 256,000 new smokers in Canada, with 30 per cent of them in Quebec; 14 is the average age of new smokers; 40,000 deaths in Canada, with the highest proportion-11,841-in Quebec; and $536 million in health care costs in Quebec. If we add on all the economic costs such as absenteeism from work, all the economic costs of smoking, we reach a figure of $4 billion in negative costs.
I heard our colleagues in opposition say: "Young people do not smoke. If they do, it is not because of a poster or advertising on a car or the like". And if it were? Why then put so much importance on this advertising? Why do the tobacco companies put so much importance on having their brand name appear on a car, a tennis court or at a festival, like the Montreal fireworks festival?
If there is no element of cause and effect, if it is not true that young people are attracted by this subliminal advertising, why then are the tobacco companies so opposed to this bill? Do we believe for one single minute that the tobacco companies would invest if they were not expecting profits at the end of the line? Do the tobacco companies not invest precisely because they know full
well that young people are influenced by subliminal advertising? Otherwise, why would they do it?
If there is not an element of cause and effect in sponsorship, why are the tobacco companies fighting so hard against legislation like Bill C-71? If there is no link whatsoever, how do we explain that France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Finland, and in 1998 the United States all passed legislation to either ban or restrict sponsorship?
To those who say that the Montreal Grand Prix is going to disappear I would read an article published in December 1992 in the daily Le Monde. It says that the IAF, International Automobile Association, is announcing the withdrawal of the French Grand Prix because of the restrictions imposed on sponsorship. And yet today, four years later, the French Grand Prix is alive and well.
I remember when Air Canada started its smoke free flights. It created an uproar: "Air Canada is going to lose a lot of passengers". Not only did the number of passengers on Air Canada not decrease, it actually increased.
I remember the uproar when Bill 84 was introduced in Quebec, when representatives of the bus company Voyageur came before a parliamentary committee to tell us that they would lose all their clientele if we banned smoking on buses. We gave them a few years' extension to gradually introduce the change.
In the end, the management of Voyageur told me that it was the best decision that could have been taken, that it was a lot cheaper nowadays to maintain buses, that passengers were now used to a non-smoking environment. There is no longer any argument, any discussion on the issue.
The tobacco companies and their allies are engaging in this heated debate because so much at stake, for them. Of course there is something at stake. Profits, clients, younger clients who get addicted to tobacco.
They say it has nothing to do with health. If it is not a question of health, then what is it? If advertising does not promote smoking, why do tobacco companies insist on using it?
There are so many examples where tobacco companies were replaced by others as main sponsors of international events. There was the Virginia Slims women's tennis tournament. Virginia Slims was replaced by Corel. There was an outcry in the United States, people were asking how a tennis tournament could be sponsored by a tobacco company. The Australian tennis tournament formerly sponsored by Marlborough cigarettes is now sponsored by Ford.
In 1988, when we tried to convince the managers of the Canadian Open Golf Championship not to accept du Maurier as their sponsor anymore, they told us that without du Maurier the Canadian Open could no longer exist. It is doing fine thank you. This year it will be held in Montreal and will be sponsored by Bell Canada.