I do not know if I inhaled. I do not think I did, I was coughing so hard.
I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. When I was in grade 8 our school was closed and we were bused into the big city. One day while walking at noon I saw a pack of cigarettes on the sidewalk. I kicked it, as young lads are prone to do. I could tell by the pressure on it that it was not an empty box. I picked it up and opened it and, lo and behold, there were still some cigarettes in it. In retrospect I presume someone had decided to quit smoking and had thrown away the cigarettes. I hope that was the case.
As an aside, I read somewhere that people who decide to quit smoking and throw away an unfinished pack have much higher success rates than those who say that they will finish their current pack and then quit. I say that as an interesting psychological side trip.
I picked up the pack of cigarettes and hid to make sure no one could see me. I took one of the things, put it in my mouth and lit the end of it. It was probably the most incredible thing I had done in my life. I began hacking and coughing. It was the most undesirable thing.
As a young fellow in grade 8, about 12 or 13 years old or maybe 14, I made a decision that day before I finished the first cigarette. I decided I would not smoke. It occurred to me that smoking was stupid. Why would a guy do it if it only caused him to cough uncontrollably? Besides that, I was sure it would cost money. It may amuse young people today to know that my allowance then was 10 cents a week and I could scarcely afford it.
That was my first experience with smoking. The later one occurred when I was in university, and it was also quite incredible. I drove a truck, a big rig on the highway, for my summer job. I enjoyed that job. I loved driving and I still do. I still have my class one licence, so if I lose my job here I can go back to that if nothing else.
One of my fellow drivers challenged me. He will know who he is if he finds out I am telling the story. We had stopped at a coffee shop and he bought a cigar at the counter when we were leaving. He said that I should buy one as well and, for some stupid reason, I did.
While driving down the road I put the silly thing in my mouth and drew in the smoke. I was silly to do that. To my knowledge those are the only two occasions on which I succumbed to the temptation.
I repeat, what is it that causes young people to decide to take up smoking in view of what it does to their health?
Many years ago I heard a motivational speaker address a crowd of young people about smoking. He said one of his strongest arguments against smoking was that no one he had met who had smoked more than five years had ever suggested to him that he start. Not one person who has smoked for five years or more would recommend that someone else begin.
Now that I have said this on worldwide television, and I know millions of Canadians are listening, I imagine I will begin to get e-mails suggesting that I start and that it is wonderful. People have told me they enjoy it and that is why they do it. Okay, so be it. That is the reason they do it. However not even those people have suggested I start in order to share their joy.
Because of its addictive nature I am very much opposed to anything that would promote the taking up of this habit, especially by young people. I have been told and have read that once one begins smoking it is a lifelong habit. It is one of the most difficult addictions to break.
I used to teach mathematics. How I wish we could use audio visual aids in the House. I would love to have a prop with a piece of paper just big enough for the cameras. I could show the House an exercise I used to give my students when I taught mathematics in high school and at a technical institute.
When we did exponential functions, when I taught finance and when I taught students how to use electronic calculators or computers, I made them do a calculation. I am describing it without a visual aid, but it went something like this: 365 times 5 times (1 plus 10/100), to the power of 65 minus 20, minus 1, all divided by 10/100.
My students evaluated it to see if they were using their computers or calculators correctly. When I asked them if they knew what they had computed they said they did not. It was a random formula as far as they were concerned. I told them they had computed the following: 5 is the cost of a pack of cigarettes; 365 is the number of days in a year; the 10/100 is 10%, which is pretty high but there are times one can get it in an RRSP; the minus one is just part of the formula; divide by 10/100, again that is 10%.
They had computed the costs of smoking for their lifetime from age 20 to age 65. The formula told them how much they would have in the bank at a 10% rate of interest if they started saving at age 20 and retired at age 65. My students were amazed because the sum was $1.3 million.
I then had them do another calculation which demonstrated that such a strategy would ensure them an annual pension of $139,000 until age 95. That is a fantastic pension. It is even better than the MP pension plan.
I told my students they had learned some math but that they also had a choice to make. They could smoke and at age 65 live on whatever meagre pension the government gives them, or they could instead retire on $139,000 a year by putting that money into the bank.
Smoking is wrong in terms of both its health effects and its lack of consideration for fellow citizens.
I happen to be on the non-smoking side of the issue. There is a temptation for what I am about to say to come out wrong. I would like my friends to know that I do not dislike people who smoke but I do dislike their smoking. I would like to differentiate that. I love people but if they would not smoke it would be that much more pleasant.
Last Sunday I was out with my wife and some friends at a restaurant. We asked for the non-smoking section and it was given to us. That was nice but there were people smoking. The smoke drifted across and we could smell it. We briefly talked about it. It was too bad but we had to live with it. My advisers told me not to say in my speech that having a non-smoking section in a restaurant is like having a non-peeing section in a swimming pool. I was advised not to say it, but it is a fact.
When I went to pay the bill the guy from the smoking section was there in front of me. Did he put his cigarette out while we were paying? No. He was right there and by the time we got home our clothes reeked. I set them in another room because they stunk.
I ask members not to get this wrong. It shows a lack of respect for other people when one insists on smoking in the presence of non-smokers. Some people would say that I am moralizing and not like me for it. I apologize but there are many people who feel that way.
At the hotel where I am staying I always get a non-smoking room, but in spite of the laundry process, the smell of cigarettes on the pillow was not eradicated. I wake up the next day with a headache because of the smell.
Even around the House of Commons we may wish to consider doing something about smoking. Every member and visitor to this place has to walk through a wall of smoke at the main entrances because of all the people smoking. It is not pleasant. Could we arrange for them to have a room somewhere, maybe with fans? They should not have to go outside into the wicked Canadian winter. We should show them some respect, but let us not allow them to smoke at the main entrances to our buildings and force everyone, smokers or not, to go through that wall of smoke.
I wish to come back to the health issue. I was forced in my previous employment to share an office for a time with a smoker. One can imagine what that was like. I suggested to him, as kindly as I could, that it bothered me. This was before the days of the non-smoking environment. I suggested to him that he could go outside and smoke because it bothered me. He told me that it did not bother me. I thought to myself how arrogant he was. He arranged for our organization to buy an air purifier and he set it beside him when he smoked. I had a headache pretty well every day. It affects me adversely. There are many people who have that allergy or that medical response to second hand smoke.
I had a dream where I died and went to heaven. When they asked me why I was there I said it was because of second hand smoke in my office. I told my office partner that the next day. He laughed about it and thought it was very funny, but there is some evidence that second hand smoke is a health hazard.
I remember teaching statistics in a math course. One of the things that we did was to try to interpret statistical data. One of the examples that we used was death by heart and lung disease. It was interesting that the percentage of deaths caused by heart and lung disease at that time, a number of years back, peaked between the ages of 40 and 50 and then it dropped off. I asked my students to interpret the statistical data. They concluded, correctly, with the premise that if someone has a biological predisposition to getting lung cancer or heart disease due to smoking they would get it and die in their forties, most likely.
How can we condone smoking when it literally puts at risk thousands of people who die in their forties because of it? Obviously we need to take some action. I thought of an example. What would the Minister of Transport or the House of Commons do if there were an airplane crash today in which 100 people died and tomorrow there was another airplane crash of the same type?
I have a suspicion that on the second day all airplanes around the world would be grounded voluntarily by the airlines and by compulsion of governments. Yet every day in Canada 100 people have a premature death due to smoking and we are doing absolutely nothing about it.
Even this measure is tepid in comparison to what we should be doing. This is an issue of great proportion and we should do everything that we can to reduce smoking and to discourage young people from taking up the habit.
I remember as a student going to the museum of science in Portland, Oregon. I remember vividly seeing two lungs hooked up in parallel to the same pipes and a pump that was providing an increase and decrease in pressure. We know that it is atmospheric pressure that allows us to breathe. When we drop the diaphragm there is a space to be filled and it is the air pressure around us that pulls the air into the lungs.
What was happening was a simulation of a person breathing. They had two lungs from cadavers, actual human lungs. One was from a healthy person who died in a car accident and the other was from a person who died of emphysema or lung cancer. One was a diseased lung and the other one was a normal lung.
As the pressure went up and down the normal lung expanded and contracted to allow the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide to give a healthy life. The other lung barely moved. It was atrophied. It was all solid because of the effects of smoking. This had quite an impact on me. It happened a little less than 40 years ago and I still remember it. The impact that it had was amazing.
Should we do something about it? I absolutely and profoundly say yes. Am I in favour of tax increases? No, I am not. I am in favour of the bill only because of the impact that it could have and hopefully would have. I hope the government in increasing those taxes would also have the fortitude to enforce the rules and to make sure that we do not have an increase in the smuggling of cigarettes in addition to the supply that would keep coming in.