Mr. Speaker, my colleague, the member for Saint-Jean, is generous enough to share his 20 minutes with me.
What I feel like saying about this provision on sponsorships is that the government missed its mark. We agree, the Bloc has always agreed with the purpose, the principle of the bill which is aimed at curbing tobacco use. But as regards these provisions on sponsorships, it seems there is no correlation between them and the stated purpose of the bill or the arguments offered.
Especially since Montreal's cultural and sports events are directly affected, the city having already been dealt a serious blow at the social and economic level as a result of the policies implemented by this government since it came into office. I would be remiss if I did not review them with you. Montrealers are angry because this is like the last straw. This measure would have a devastating impact on Montreal, not only economically but also culturally and socially.
Here is the list. As a result of this government's drastic cuts to unemployment insurance in its very first budget, Montreal was hit with $290 million in cuts in 1995. With the new employment insurance scheme, Montreal will lose another $125 million this year. Benefits will be reduced by $415 million in the Montreal area alone, and by more than $800 million for all of Quebec.
Who is affected by Bill C-29 aimed at banning the additive MMT in gasoline? The Montreal refineries. Who will be affected by the ports' user fees? All the ports on the St. Lawrence River, which will have to pay more than other ports on the Atlantic and the west coast for ice-breaking and dredging. Montreal will be particularly hard hit.
There are as many poor people in Montreal as there are in all the Atlantic provinces combined. Where is our Hibernia project, in which the federal government invested over $2 billion? Where is our bridge to the mainland, our Confederation bridge, built at a cost of $800 million for the 130,000 residents of Prince Edward Island?
Did the federal government build the proposed fast train link between Dorval and Mirabel? No. That was too much money for Montreal.
Given this situation, the government, which has been in power since 1993, comes up, on the eve of the Grand Prix, with provisions that put it in jeopardy. You have seen the outcry from the people involved when that decision was made in Ottawa, in this House,
where the Prime Minister shed a tear for the young Quebecers who smoke more and earlier.
Does he know that there is a strong link between poverty and smoking and does he realize that his government is contributing to the impoverishment of Montreal and Quebec? Will the bill ban clips by their favourite performers if they are smokers? No. Does it prohibit models? And it could not do so anyway. We know that Montreal and Quebec, as well as regions with a high unemployment rate, are those that bore the brunt of the deficit reduction, whether through employment insurance cuts or the Canadian social transfer.
There is a relationship between poverty and smoking. This is true for young people and also for people in other age groups. Yes, Montreal is poor. And it is humiliating to have to come here, to Ottawa, to plead or to be angry with a government that does not care about the plight of people in Montreal, which has an unemployment rate of 15 per cent. Montreal is one of the poorest major cities in Canada and, when the governments stopped funding these cultural and sporting events, we managed to get some sponsorships and to keep alive and vibrant. Now these are being cut under the pretext that young people will start smoking.
I do not want young people to start smoking, but I do not want them to be used as a pretext for a policy that says it is aimed at protecting health, but that, in fact, is an attack on the economy of Montreal and Quebec.
I repeat, it is humiliating to have a decision imposed on us, as the president of the Montreal chamber of commerce said, without any consideration of its immediate impact. The government cannot say that it does not see the economic impact this will have on Montreal.
If the government had been concerned with not creating such an impact on the economy, it would have tried to find some solutions. All the suggestions that were made by the official opposition have been rejected, swept aside and abandoned. No one will convince me that the desired effect is not to harm the economy of Montreal. No one will be able to convince me of that. There is no urgent need for these harmful provisions.
Young people do not start smoking because of advertising, but because of peer pressure.
Sponsorships are being targeted, singled out. The leader of the official opposition asked a very simple question, which is worth repeating. He said: "What will a young person coming back from a tennis tournament ask his parents for: a tennis racket or a pack of cigarettes?" He will ask for a tennis racket and, on top of that, he will be aware of the fact that, if he wants to be any good at a sport that requires so much speed, he had better not smoke. Young people are aware of that.
We feel the joke is on us, a joke of monumental proportions, which is not funny at all, because health is no joking matter. We do agree with the health related principles, but not with the means. We are being forced to choose between what would be a health related objective and events that help young people get by in a context where jobs are scarce, cultural events that attract tourists and promote a degree of economic development without which Montreal would do ever more poorly than it is doing.
Montreal is not doing as well as it should. It used to be the metropolis of Canada, it is the metropolis of Quebec, but it has suffered terribly from this unresolved issue between Quebec and Canada. No metropolis can develop properly without a State with full powers behind it. Montreal does not have this State with full powers behind it and both Montreal and Quebec as a whole are badly off because of it.
This bill is a hit and miss bill. What is hits is Montreal and cultural and sporting events in Quebec, and it hits them hard.