Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Hamilton-Wentworth for his remarks.
A long time ago, Victor Hugo wrote, in Les Misérables , that the State does the accounting for us and it does not make mistakes. That is what Inspector Javert told Jean Valjean when he put in a request for payment of the very small amount he had earned after spending 19 years in jail in Toulon.
Today, the modern version of Les Mis would read: ``The State thinks for you and it does not make mistakes''. As my colleague, the hon, member for Chambly, said earlier, ready to think has replaced ready to wear, one thought fits all has replaced one size fits all.
There is something fundamentally wrong in this. Everyone in this House is against smoking and against tobacco being readily available to young people, but this is not the way to deal with the problem.
I myself come from a family of smokers. My father's father used to smoke a pipe, my mother's father smoked Alouette tobacco, and both of them enjoyed cigars. My father smoked approximately two packs of Export a day, unfiltered, and my mother still smokes the same brand today.
I saw so many of those packs of cigarettes on the kitchen table at my parents, so many cigarettes and butts all over the place, that the thought of starting to smoke never occurred to me. I have never touched that forbidden fruit. Perhaps I should have abstained from other things, but seeing my parents and family smoking around me acting as a disincentive, made me a non smoker. Still today, I look at my mother smoking and it says right on her pack of cigarettes that smoking is harmful to her lungs, that it could be dangerous if she became pregnant-nothing to worry about on that score-and, since she smokes American cigarettes, that the surgeon general has determined that smoking can be dangerous to your health.
Smokers do not even read these warnings any more, they are so used to them now.
The education effort the hon. member for Joliette and the hon. member for Berthier-Montcalm referred to earlier is the best thing we can do.
Where should it start? In school and with people giving a good example, but it should continue at work. When our young people go to work, when they are in school-let us prevent dropping out-they are not smoking.
When young people are at work or in school, they do not engage in criminal activities. It is all a matter of how one uses one's time. One way to keep our young people busy is to get them back in school or in the workplace, to convince them to pursue their professional development.
Reducing tobacco use is definitely a noble cause, but I do not think that the bill will help that cause. Rather, it will result in economic losses for regions such as Lanaudière, and it will also increase unemployment in regions such as Haldimand-Norfolk, which is represented by the hon. member.
Are we going to solve a problem by creating other problems elsewhere? I do not think so. Nor do I believe that the promoters and sponsors themselves would be seriously hurt if international events in Montreal, Valleyfield, Ville-Marie and elsewhere in Quebec and in Canada were to disappear because of the loss of major sponsors.
Therefore, I will oppose Bill C-71, as I did at second reading.