As the hon. member for Lévis said, more so the people opposite. The Just for Laughs festival has a budget of $10 million, of which $1 million is provided by sponsorship. The summer festival in Quebec City has a budget of $4.5 million, of which $500,000 comes from sponsorship. Is there a nicer area than the capital of Quebec to spend your summer? Every summer, I make a point of spending a few days there, meeting different people and enjoying varied activities.
We must set the record straight. Through you, Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the parliamentary secretary, who is here in the House, that we support any measure that will reduce smoking.
I have never smoked and I have tried to convince my close relatives to stop smoking. Let me thank my mother and father who stopped smoking two years ago. It is not easy to stop smoking, because there is a dependency involved. The hon. member for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot stopped smoking four years ago. In our environment, we know of individuals who have succeeded, and they are to be cited as examples.
We know that nicotine creates a dependency. The hon. member for Rimouski-Témiscouata reminded us that manufacturers, producers have played on this dependency; this clearly shows that it is not easy to stop smoking. Smoking is a plague that causes intoxication.
It is all fine and well to be concerned about it in terms of health, but for goodness sake we should not try to solve a problem by creating another one. The minister will find the official opposition supportive, in matters of public health needs, but we ask him to provide for transition mechanisms and to help the industry by making available to it some other mechanism whereby the activities can continue. I think this is reasonable.
If this bill is passed, Montreal will go through another economic crisis, and we have a duty to deny our support to anything that could lead to that.