Mr. Speaker, every year smoking kills over 45,000 Canadians. It is our country's most pressing public health issue. The new federal tobacco control strategy is ambitious and bears witness to the government's commitment to fight tobacco use and its effects on the health of Canadians.
This comprehensive strategy is based on our significant successes in recent years: the Canadian tobacco use monitoring survey for 2000 indicated that tobacco use among Canadians aged 15 years and over had reached its lowest point, 24%, since the survey was initiated in 1965.
Among young people, one of our greatest challenges in the fight against the use of tobacco. The rate of use among youths aged 15 to 19, which had been 28% in 1999, is now reported to be 25%.
In the next 10 years, we will be working to achieve our objective of cutting the number of smokers by 20%, reducing the number of cigarettes sold by 30% and increasing to 80% the number of retailers complying with the provisions of the Tobacco Act, which prohibits the sale of cigarettes to young Canadians.