Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to speak on the bill. I would like to raise a few important notices.
Three years ago the government had an ideal opportunity to do something about the horrendous smoking situation. We were faced with the terrible situation of smuggling occurring primarily in Quebec.
The government, however, chose to take a path that compromised the lives of Canadian children at the expense of political gain and of political courage. It chose to lower the taxation and cost of cigarettes in an effort to address the smuggling issue.
In terms of decreasing the smuggling of tobacco, that issue was addressed because it decreased. However the cost was the increase in consumption and the increase in the number of young people smoking by the amount of a quarter of million every single year.
Over the last three years the government by lowering the price of cigarettes introduced a quarter of a million new children to cigarette smoking every single year, or 750,000 children over the last three years, half of whom will die prematurely and virtually all of whom will suffer diseases, mortality and morbidity at a rate much higher than Canadians who do not smoke.
The smuggling issue is an interesting one. Smuggling not only involves tobacco. It also involves guns, drugs, people, alcohol and cigarettes. The amount of cigarettes smuggled was all that was decreased. The conduits of smuggling existed as they do today. The solution we proposed three years ago would have effectively decreased the consumption of cigarettes and would have addressed the smuggling issue.
Our proposal was to bring the export tax to where it was in 1992. The Conservative government of the day brought in an export tax of $8 per carton. In six weeks smuggling of cigarettes plummeted almost 70 per cent. The tobacco companies, fearful of a decrease in their profits, said if the government of the day did not remove that export tax they would leave the country.
What happened? The Conservative government of the day buckled under pressure of the tobacco companies, removed the export tax, and consumption went right back up. The smuggling issue was not addressed. If we put on a tobacco export tax smuggling will go down.
Also the law should be enforced. No one speaks about the people who live in these areas, many of whom are on aboriginal reserves on the Quebec-U.S. border. No one speaks about law-abiding innocent individuals living on these reserves who have to put up with thugs engaged in the movement and trafficking of illicit cigarettes as well as alcohol, weapons and drugs. Much of this is tied into criminal gangs in the United States. It is not run by law-abiding people. It is run by thugs and crooks.
The single most important thing we could do is decrease consumption. I do not care about the issues of sponsorship or education. Education is important but unless people have been living in a cave for the last 30 years they know smoking is bad for their health. Smoking is addictive and smoking kills. It is not a problem of education. Cost is the single most important determining factor in consumption, particularly in children. There is ample scientific evidence showing that the supply and demand curve for consumption is very elastic in price.
To decrease consumption tobacco taxes should be what they were before January 1994. In that way consumption will decrease. Revenues to the government will increase and health care costs will go down. It is unlike any other tax. We are a party firmly in favour of decreasing taxation.
Tobacco presents a different situation. If tobacco taxes can be what they were as of January 1994, consumption will go down. Costs to the taxpayer will go down in terms of health care costs. By lowering the taxation rate government revenues have gone down and the costs to the taxpayer have escalated dramatically in terms of health care.
With respect to the sponsorship issue the members of the Bloc Quebecois like to trumpet, let us call a spade a spade. I do not think anyone in the House has been deluded into thinking for one moment that tobacco companies are sponsoring the Grand Prix and
the Players International Tennis Championship out of the goodness of their hearts.
The tobacco companies sponsor events like the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Players International Tennis Championship and the Grand Prix so that children will take up cigarette smoking. The only reason any company invests in advertising is so that people will buy their product. The product in this case is a cancer causing, debilitating, addictive substance called tobacco.
There is ample evidence to show in countries such as New Zealand, Great Britain and France tobacco sponsorship has been banned from sports and arts and cultural festivals. The festivals did not decline or go away. Rather they thrived because they found sponsors in other areas.
There is no reason to believe that cultural and sporting events would leave Canada. Where would they go? Would they go to the United States? I think not. The United States is in the process of banning tobacco advertising in sponsorship and cultural events. Will they move to Europe? Of course not because it is banned in most countries there. Where will they go?
It is a false promise trumpeted by the tobacco companies that cultural and sporting events will leave Canada because tobacco companies are not allowed to sponsor them. They will not leave Canada.
The government can propose some alternative solutions to ensure cultural events survive quite nicely, perhaps by using some interim funding from tobacco taxes. By increasing the taxes we would decrease consumption, particularly among children.
Education about tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana and other drugs including solvents is very important. Money from tobacco taxes could be applied to early childhood education to educate children in Kindergarten that smoking, drinking, solvents, cocaine, pot and heroin are all very bad and can ruin their lives.
If the government proposed that along with its provincial counterparts a co-operative and productive situation would result. There would be a decrease in consumption of tobacco without compromising the lives of Canadians and without compromising our sports and cultural events. We are sensitive to that and believe the proposals put forward in the past will ensure cultural events continue and the consumption of tobacco decreases.
In closing, three years ago the government had an opportunity to address the smoking epidemic in our midst. Instead of making the situation better it made it worse by making cigarettes more affordable for the children of our great nation. It is a terrible legacy to leave Canadians. It is the single worst piece of legislation affecting the health of Canadians I can remember in the last 35 to 40 years. I cannot think of a piece of legislation that has been more damaging to the health and welfare of Canadians than what the government did back in February 1994.
Amendments can be made today in the House. However the government needs to have the courage to stand up to the smoking lobbyists and tobacco companies and say "We are not going to take it anymore. We are going to address this health epidemic. We are going to do it for the betterment of all Canadians".
The proposals are out there. We and other Canadians have proposed them. Now take it and use it.