Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois for his question.
My party has put public health as the number one priority. I think our critic would certainly be open to the suggestion of bringing beer into this. I am not certain as to the reasons that beer was excluded but we are supporting the bill because we feel that of all the public health care issues that exist today, cigarette smoking is public health care problem number one. It is a preventable problem. Our combined efforts are needed to address it. Children truly become addicted to nicotine very early on. The bill, by raising the taxes and harmonizing it, will go a long way to affecting the most vulnerable people in our society. That is the reason we want to do this.
If my hon. colleague wants to add beer to the bill, then we would need to bring it back to the House. We would need to work with the government to show the flaws in the bill and work with other political parties to ensure that beer is included in a reasonable fashion.