Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to the report stage motions in Group No. 2 of Bill C-71.
I was a member of the standing committee on health of the House of Commons in 1994 and this was an issue that was before the committee on a number of occasions for a number of reasons. I recall when the committee held public hearings with regard to the issue of plain packaging for tobacco products. We also, as members know, had hearings with regard to the proposed legislation, Bill C-71.
There was a common element in both about which I want to advise the House. I do not think many people realize what happened. The tobacco companies did not, and I stress that, appear before the standing committee on health on either occasion. They demonstrated what we must all accept as one of the most brilliant strategies in terms of an economic strategy for a failing business.
Tobacco companies had to do something to deal with the fact that the health care industry: doctors and nurses, medical officers of health, the communities in which we live, the social agencies that have to deal with the aftermath of problems associated with tobacco consumption and addiction, the Addiction Research Foundation, the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, were saying very clearly: "Tobacco hurts Canadians and we have to do something about it".
The tobacco companies had virtually everybody against them. There was absolutely no future for the tobacco industry in Canada. There was no place for them to go. They had to find some way to continue to be in business but they had to insulate themselves from the real people of Canada.
They used their influence to manipulate people. That was their brilliant strategy. They took a position with their resources, with their money. They bought people. Everybody has a price, so they say.
Who appeared before the committee? Cultural groups, recreation groups, sports groups, all came to say: "This is terrible. If you do this, we are going to lose our tobacco sponsorship and we are going to lose these events". That is the brilliance of the strategy. The tobacco companies said to the groups that they were sponsoring: "Let's go-"