Madam Speaker, I have paid great attention to the very meaty and lengthy speech by my hon. colleague from Joliette. It appears that he has not bought into the notion-nor have I-that a person will live forever if he stops smoking. People do die of other things.
Unfortunately, I am one of those victims of cigarettes. I am a heavy smoker, as you know, Madam Speaker. But I am free to do so. There is one aspect of this bill which I do not feel has been discussed enough. I may cough a lot, but I would rather die of lung cancer than to die a captive, a victim and a prisoner. Sad to say, that would be even worse.
Since the sixties, we have moved into the era of "one size fits all", ready to wear clothes that fit everybody but do not really fit anybody, and fast food, "ready to eat". Maybe that is what lies behind the problems of obesity my colleague was referring to. Then there is the "ready to think", the "one thought fits all". We certainly cannot ask the questions that bother us any more. Let us take one simple example: immigration. It is certainly frowned on for a citizen to ask whether we are letting too many immigrants in, or not enough, one type rather than another, and so on. One can no longer ask questions in this area, for it is not politically correct. So now we have "one p.c. thought fits all".
Now, with this bill, we have the "one sight fits all". They want to ban from the public eye certain names, corporate names, honest names that have earned their visibility. That is one of the aspects of the bill. They are treating as something shameful the names of corporations, good corporate citizens nonetheless, who have-or so I hope-paid their fair share through their taxes and so on. I therefore approve of the hon. member for Joliette's reference to doing away with excess, whether eating, smoking or whatever. I agree with him, but people must be left with the freedom to choose.
I have always been afraid of regimes that feel they are the possessors of the absolute truth, with a calling from the Creator, telling us "From now on, you will no longer smoke". I ask my hon. colleague for Joliette if he does not believe instead in the virtue of educating our young people, for they are the ones we want to protect.
I would also ask him whether he could address the regulatory aspect a bit. There are whole chunks of the bill, seven sections of it, which leave a shameful amount of discretionary power to the Minister of Health, someone who has not dazzled us with his judgment so far. To confer upon a man lacking judgment the power to judge is not such a great idea for a bill. The power needs to be
channelled, the regulations need to be passed by the governor-in-council. That way, if there is one minister who is not all there, the others can put him back on track. But that is not the case.
Now, without any judgment-the Liberals showed that they did not have any in the raw milk cheese issue-the minister will now, on his own, be able to issue rules, poultices and wooden legs from one day to the next and have regulations made in response to pressure from anti smoking groups or others. The worst of it all is that, if Bill C-25 is passed, the regulations will not even be made public.
So, I ask my hon. colleague from Joliette to say, for the benefit of this House and especially for the minister responsible for the Federal Office of Regional Development-Quebec and also for the benefit of the Liberals present, whether he does not see a certain danger in the legislation.