I am not afraid. I am going to speak to that later. I am not embarrassed to mention the name of a tobacco company. I am not even afraid to hold a cigarette in my hand. I do not smoke. We have to be careful that we do not demonize in our society. We do not want to demonize things the way we did with firearms. Good people have firearms. Good people smoke and let us recognize that.
There happens to be a jazz festival in Toronto. There happens to be jazz festivals in Montreal and in Vancouver and a tobacco company happens to sponsor part of the costs. It is a good thing that the jazz festival happens. I want to see those events continue. The government recognizes that there could be a difficult period of adjustment. It has allowed two summers of adjustment. Technical provisions in the bill may further complicate the adjustment. Perhaps the minister's regulatory authority will be able to smooth that over.
As an MP I will be working with others in my community to make sure these events can continue without the high level of tobacco advertising support that they currently have. That does not mean that there cannot be any tobacco advertising support, but under this bill a lot of that support will be reduced.
We have two seasons to work on this. I hope we will have some success. I commend the tobacco companies to the route that says get creative, work within the law and advertise their product to the extent that it is legal. I exhort them to stay away from our youth, but I do not have any problems with attending a festival that happens to have a tobacco company sponsor.
I found it disappointing to hear references in the media over the last couple of days about the impending cancellation this weekend involving an Australian auto racing event. It is almost unbelievable to think that an advertising agency would consider doing this.
This bill has not even left the House yet, let alone to get into the other place. It is not even law yet and someone is saying we are going to have to punish the people of Canada for considering this. We are going to punish the people who are fans of driver Villeneuve. We are going to victimize Canadians because they are considering this legislation.
I was very disappointed by that. Shame on those who conceived of this as a way of influencing us. Hopefully the event will still be publicized and the fans of Jacques Villeneuve will get to see him.
I want to comment on the insertion in the bill of a provision that allows the House to review regulations put in place by the minister. This is the first bill that I recall in some time that has such a provision. I want to commend the member for Lambton-Middlesex for her drafting and moving of this provision. It is a concurrence provision that may be the precursor of others which we may wish to make use of in the House of Commons, given the extremely high volume of delegated regulatory authority not just in this bill but in many other bills. Once we delegate that authority rarely do members see the regulations again. This amendment will allow the regulations created under this bill to come before the House for our approval.