Mr. Speaker, we resume consideration of report stage of Bill C-71. With the guillotine the government just imposed on this bill, we unfortunately have only today's sitting to try to explain to Canadians what the situation really is right now.
Thus, for the benefit of our viewers and in the hope that the government will finally understand, I remind the House that the Bloc Quebecois supports 80 per cent at least of this bill. We are not ashamed of saying it out loud and clear: we agree with 80 per cent of this bill.
This having been said, I want to stress an extremely important matter. The government is missing the whole point with this bill, since it does not recognize in the first clause that tobacco is a hazardous, highly addictive and potentially lethal product. That is what should appear in clause 1 if the government were really being consistent.
But no, the government refuses to do that because it would then have to crack down on tobacco and, eventually, to declare it an illegal substance, thus losing billions of dollars in taxes. That is where the problem lies. When the time comes to collect money, the government has no problem with tobacco, but when the time comes to let tobacco companies give money for cultural and sports events, especially in Montreal, which receives half of the sponsorship money, the government claims that its duty is to protect children's health.
To protect children's health, the government would first have to control tobacco. The government should be able to force tobacco companies to reduce the nicotine content of their cigarettes.
With its insidious measures and fallacious arguments, the government has brought us to a dead end because, in the past ten years, it has financed tobacco producers to help them make tobacco more addictive. Consequently, a young person who starts smoking today needs another cigarette after an hour and a half. That is what tobacco companies have decided. A smoker cannot go for more that an hour and a half without having a cigarette. That is how long he can go before having a nicotine fit. We even see people who, unfortunately, have to slip out; even though they work on the sixth floor, they rush downstairs to light up outside the building because they cannot wait more that an hour and a half. That is the problem.
The government should stop doing that, recognize that tobacco is a dangerous product and force tobacco companies, which are mostly located in Ontario, to reduce the nicotine content of their cigarettes.
If it controlled tobacco products, the government could then regulate access to these products and control tobacco advertising, but it should not ban sponsorships because this is a dead end for the government. There is not one serious study that shows a direct cause-and-effect relationship between tobacco advertising and smoking.
I would really like to know how a young person can see the Rothmans logo on Jacques Villeneuve's car zooming by at 240 kilometres an hour. One must really have good eyesight to see the words Rothmans, Players or du Maurier at those speeds. One must have really sharp eyesight. The ban on sponsorship will really put us into trouble.
I repeat that tobacco should be a controlled substance, it should be declared a dangerous product under the Food and Drugs Act. This should be the first step, but the government refuses to take it.
The second step should be to regulate the inspection process. There should be standards setting the maximum nicotine and tar content. Instead of that, the government chose to spend millions of dollars to try to show us that unidentified packages or plain packages would prevent people from smoking. The clever ones lost no time in designing even more attractive packages.
Complete and effective legislation would first control the product and its publicity; not ban it, but control it, control the sale of cigarettes. We have been saying for a long time that there should be effective coercive measures against people who sell cigarettes to children, one cigarette at a time.
In her magnificent letter, Senator Hervieux-Payette said that when she was chairperson of a school board in a Montreal suburb, she fired some employees who sold cigarettes to kids. As some editorials pointed out this morning, we must first take certain measures before falling into the trap of exaggeration or, worse, extremism.
Sales must, therefore, be controlled. We need some coercive measures. For example, the convenience store owner who sells cigarettes to children, one cigarette at a time, could be fined $5,000 for the first offence, $10,000 for the second offence and, for a third offence, he would lose his permit to sell cigarettes. If it is a hazardous product, a permit should be required to sell it, and there should be someone monitoring permits.
Access to tobacco should also be monitored. The government has gone overboard: it is forcing convenience stores to conceal their displays. We saw cases where a special gadget is required that only store employees can operate in order to release a pack of cigarettes. In bars, cigarettes are hidden from view so that no one can buy them. We have seen some completely ridiculous situations.
In an effective bill, the government will first make sure it has good controls in place, and then proceed to take action. Controls must come before action. Behaviour can be dealt with later. The best way to influence the behaviour of young children is through proactive measures that build esteem and encourage.
It is extremely important not to tell young children that they may not do something, because as soon as you do, what is the first thing a child or an adolescent wants to do? The very thing he was told not to do beckons to him. Rather than set restrictions, it is better to tackle behaviour.
Rather than spend $3 million to fund research centres, the government should take this money and put together kits promoting health, exercise, outdoor activities, anything to keep people from taking up smoking.
Then, the environment has to be tackled. Yesterday evening, we heard how Toronto had gone to some ridiculous lengths. Smoking has apparently been banned in washrooms because they are located in the wrong part of the restaurant.
It must be possible to alter the product. The government must alter the product in order to make it less dangerous and less addictive. It is extremely important that people be aware of the difference between the cigarettes smoked in the past and those available today.
The Liberal government is showing a great weakness in its inability to come up with a global perspective on the hazards of the product, smoking behaviour and the social and physical environment in which all those concerned are evolving: smokers, non-smokers, merchants, health stakeholders, tobacco companies and distribution networks. There must be recognition at the social, political and legislative level that the hazards and addictiveness of tobacco products take priority over banning sponsorships.