Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to speak in this debate, and I will be making use of several documents which I feel to be of great importance.
I have here a letter signed by the Prime Minister himself, Jean Chrétien, dating from 1995, which says the following:
I am very pleased to have this opportunity to extend a welcome to all of you attending this concert presented by Du Maurier Arts.
This event, part of a prestigious six-concert series in six Canadian cities, is evidence of a long and faithful tradition of promoting and encouraging our Canadian artists. Since its inception, Du Maurier Arts Ltd. has been a major supporter of the arts, and has provided many outstanding talents with the opportunity to develop their careers and to bring honour to our country.
I congratulate this organization for its outstanding contribution to the expansion of the arts, and I hope that each and every one of you will have a most entertaining evening.
So there you have six cultural events in six major cities that will no longer be able to take place, thanks to Bill C-71.
This morning we also received a letter from the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, telling us that they had been involved in the Du Maurier matinees for 25 years, and now these matinee performances are in danger of going up in smoke-no pun intended-because the government has decided to pass a bill, some of the clauses of which are anything but sensible.
For the benefit of those of our hon. colleagues who are with us today, I would repeat that the Bloc Quebecois supports at least 85 or 90 per cent of this bill, but that we have been given responses this afternoon which have come very close to verging on the opposite of truthfulness.
Clause 31 states, and I quote:
31.(1) No person shall, on behalf of another person, with or without consideration, publish, broadcast or otherwise disseminate any promotion that is prohibited by this Part.
(3) No person in Canada shall, by means of a publication that is published outside Canada or a broadcast that originates outside Canada or any communication other than a publication or broadcast that originates outside Canada,-
This is clear as mud, and the Supreme Court is going to have fun trying to interpret all this.
-promote any product the promotion of which is regulated under this Part, or disseminate promotional material that contains a tobacco product-related brand element in a way that is contrary to this Part.
At noon, they explained to us on television what all this meant. It means that the Australian Grand Prix on Sunday might not be televised, although the hon. member opposite insisted that anything goes and that nothing is prohibited in this bill; although the minister said during question period this afternoon that he had nothing against promotions and sponsorship and that it was still allowed; and although they told us the present situation might continue until October 1998.
They would have us believe that it will go on until 1998, just enough time to have an election in between. People are not easily fooled. They realize that the Bloc Quebecois, while it disagrees with this bill, supports a healthy life style. No one would be against that. We are all for health, but we do not think this is the way to keep people healthy.
When you do not give people the jobs they need, when you cut their unemployment insurance and when all they have left is welfare, you should at least have the decency to let them have a smoke with their feet up on the wood stove. Taking away their right to smoke would be the last straw.
The government is about to regulate people's private lives, telling them what they can do, who they can talk to and what they can watch. This is absurd.
There is also the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac which issues press releases that are entirely misleading and refers to us as a party that caves in to pressure groups. As if they were not a pressure group! What is this coalition? A pressure group, pure and simple. It is just applying pressure in the opposite direction. That is the only difference.
We represent the interests of Quebec. We promised Quebecers that we would go the limit to defend the interests of Quebec and that is what we are doing now. We want to tell this government, which is insensitive and is even deaf to the demands of its own supporters, we say to this government that it makes no sense at all to paint yourself into a corner the way it has done. How they can back out? By saying that they will add an extra year or a fourth or a fifth? That does not change anything. It just postpones dealing with the problem.
We want this government to deal with the problem right away and to make the right decisions. I spent 35 years of my life teaching young children, and I can tell you that preventing young people from watching the Grand Prix and their idol Jacques Villeneuve is not going to deal with the problem of smoking in Quebec.
Just let them try to make us believe that one. Earlier, I was listening to a young driver, who was totally shattered this afternoon to hear the minister lay the guilt on him for the death of 40,000 people, because he races cars, and tobacco companies sponsor car races.
He was totally shattered at the attempt to link these two things. Are we now going to be prevented from smoking in our own cars, because it could be dangerous and could cause accidents? Smoking has already been prohibited in aircraft, because the people in front were sending their smoke to the back or the other way around, according to how the air circulated.
We are on the point of being regulated everywhere, and that does not make a lot of sense. What does the coalition have to say?
The Bloc is acting as if the question of tobacco sponsorship concerned only economic interests and had nothing to do with tobacco and its effects on health, that is, the 12,000 deaths annually in Quebec. Do we have to again repeat what we have said so many times? This bill is first and foremost a matter of public health.
In 80 per cent of the cases, we agree that it pertains to public health.
I met Dr. Vanasse in my riding, who is in charge of public health in the region. Even though he came to my riding office to lobby for my support of the bill, he said that it avoided the heart of the issue by not controlling the product. So, the government is not dealing with the essential, but with the secondary and is preventing people from having access to cultural and sporting events.
Do you know what is important for a people? It is to develop culturally, and sports are an integral part of the cultural life of a people. I would like to thank the Liberal Party officially. I would like it to be noted in Hansard that I am thanking the Liberal Party, because what happened in Montreal at noon is totally amazing.
The city shut down between 11.30 a.m. and 11.45 a.m., taxi drivers and everything. Because of a bill that has a number of stupid clauses, you enabled us to make a few political points. The next time we will win even more ridings in Quebec, and it will be one more reason to leave this country, which wants to prevent us from fulfilling ourselves.