Madam Speaker, I have reservations about this bill but I support it strongly despite those reservations.
I am a former smoker and at one time I smoked 60 cigarettes a day, which is a lot of tobacco. I first began smoking at age 16 as a result of peer pressure and gradually I began smoking more and more. Tobacco is a very insidious drug. It tends to grow on you and the addiction develops both physically and psychologically over the years. It was very difficult to quit the habit but I did about 10 years ago. So I know something about the problems of tobacco.
I support the spirit of the bill because it is certainly true that young people tend to be the ones who get first hooked on tobacco products and become the addicted adults later in life. In reality cigarettes are a nasty product when you are first introduced to them. I am sure if people began as adults to try cigarettes they would reject them absolutely. It is something that really develops as a result of peer pressure. The idea behind the bill that we should address the problem of young people beginning to smoke is a very good one.
I am not entirely certain that creating more restrictions on young people who smoke will actually have the desired affect because when you prohibit something from young people they tend to want it that much more. On the other hand, given the importance of the intent of this legislation, it is worth trying these restrictions that the legislation proposes.
The second reservation I did have is sponsorship. I always regarded the sponsorship by tobacco companies, breweries and distilleries of arts and sporting events as something they did as good corporate citizens. In reality we need the tobacco companies, the distilleries and the breweries. If legitimate companies do not produce these products that are demanded by the consumers, even though these products have adverse health effects, then we know from past historical experience that organized crime will produce these products. It is a very necessary and good thing to have legitimate industry producing these products for the marketplace. The benefits flow to shareholders of those public companies, and that is as it should be.
I always thought the payback of companies engaged in producing products that have potentially adverse health effects would be that they would want to be especially good corporate citizens. I always regarded the sponsorship of tobacco companies of things like the Grand Prix, or the breweries and distilleries of things like the theatre, as something that they did as good corporate citizens in order to in a sense make up for the fact that they were producing products that did have adverse health effects.
I must say that in my own riding this theory that I have held for a very long time was eroded somewhat when I found that a local volunteer theatre, Theatre Aquarius, developed in the community, wanted to go into the big leagues and managed to obtain some government money and also some sponsorship from a tobacco company. When the new theatre was built as a result of this sponsorship they changed the name to the du Maurier Centre. That was about 10 years ago. I felt at the time that was a terribly tacky thing to do and that it eroded the whole sense of generosity from the tobacco company that it should want to rename the theatre with its own logo.
In the one sense I am not so sure that the sponsorship of these major events that has been the subject of so much debate here actually is going to have an effect in deterring young people from smoking. I am not sure that is going to be the case. However, again, like the other aspects of the bill, it is worth trying.
In the other sense I do not understand why the tobacco companies if their intention is not so much advertising as it is being good corporate citizens, I do not see why they take umbrage at the provisions in the bill which do not eliminate their logos but which merely put them in a less prominent position. I would have thought that this would not be something that they would reject so hotly, as appears to be the case.
That brings me to the third point. The reason why the tobacco companies react so aggressively to Bill C-71 is a tremendous climate of conflict has been created as a result of the lobby groups on both sides of the equation. Certainly the tobacco companies have been able to afford very strong lobbyists but what has actually fueled the acrimony and the conflict have been the government funded lobbies that exist on the other side, the anti-smoking lobbies like the Non-Smokers' Rights Association and the Canadian Council on Smoking and Health.
These groups have received tens of millions of dollars from Health Canada and provincial health ministries over the years in order to promote anti-smoking. I wish I could say that this was something that was prompted by altruism, but I am afraid that big bucks count in this instance and many of the principal players in these lobby groups, just like the lobby groups supported by the tobacco industry, are getting very big bucks indeed. In fact, if we try to find out how much money they are receiving it will enter into the range of $100,000 plus.
Indeed I believe a chief executive of one of the anti-smoking lobbies is around the range of about $180,000 a year. This is government money ultimately, government money coming from our Department of Health. I point out that the Department of Health has supplied $500,000 a year over the last two years to the Non-Smokers' Rights Association, a lobby.
The lobbying extends beyond these named organizations. It also includes various health organizations that have very much something at stake. What is at stake ultimately is research dollars.
If we look at the public accounts for Health Canada what we find is a disproportionate amount of money from Health Canada which is spent on various types of studies on tobacco control. Some of these studies are nothing less than exercises in propaganda, attempts to propagandize members of the House of Commons.
I refer very quickly to a study that we all saw, a questionnaire that we were approached with last November from the faculty of medicine of York University, I believe it was. It was conducted by Mary Jane Ashley, M.D., faculty of medicine of the University of Toronto. This was a survey that asked us for our views on health promotion. It was a telephone survey. After one got into the survey by the person questioning one realized that these questions were directed toward tobacco control.
I submit that this survey was nothing more than an exercise to propagandize members of the House. When I called the authors of the survey they refused to give me copies of the survey. As a matter of fact, they hung up on me. When I called Health Canada to find out how much money was spent and whether I could get a copy, because Health Canada was sponsoring the survey, it said the survey was not available.
In other words, I could not get a copy of the survey that was phoned to all the MPs in this House of Commons from either Health Canada or the authors of the survey even though it was entirely financed by Health Canada. So it was simply a propaganda exercise.
I am happy to say that I do not believe that this Minister of Health or this government is bringing forward C-71 as a result of being driven by these propaganda exercises by these various lobby groups that stand to make so much money in government funds. I really do believe that the bill is being driven by a genuine desire to find a solution to young people smoking.
What I do hope is that when this bill finally passes, the health minister will turn to the Department of Health and do something about the $60 million in the last three years on tobacco control research. I hope he will turn back to the department and redirect that type of funding to health care, research, muscular dystrophy and cancer and even the creation of tobacco abuse clinics. However, let us stop funding lobby organizations. That is the third reason why I support this bill.
The fourth and final reason is the amendments moved by the member for Lambton-Middlesex, a backbencher, who moved I think the most important amendment and the most important element of this bill which is to require that any regulation to be set as a result of this legislation be referred first to this House of Commons and debated by a standing committee before the regulation can be passed. This means that when this legislation passes there will still be an opportunity for all the stakeholders to make sure that the regulations really do reflect the needs not only of the tobacco industry and the freedoms of the tobacco industry but also the needs of Canadians.