Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for her speech. I know she is a medical doctor.
I actually have two questions for her. First, I am just wondering whether in her opinion, and given that all governments of all stripes in Canada, and all political parties, over the years, have collected taxes on tobacco products, and then they turn around and tell people it is dangerous to smoke, she thinks that is a little bit hypocritical on the part of the government.
Also, the member talked a lot about illegal cigarettes. To my mind, whether we are dealing with the area of legal cigarettes from the stores or illegal cigarettes, at the end of the day I think probably the solution to this problem could be along the lines of the government offering incentives for people to quit smoking.
I am sure that has been talked about by some people over the years. Being a medical doctor, I would think that she would be on the front lines of policing such a program because that is the only way it could work. If a person wanted to quit smoking for financial incentives by the federal government, it really would be turned over to the medical association to police. I think that is one way of getting people off cigarettes.
I would be in favour of banning cigarettes, but I know that does not work. People will just find another way around it.
I would ask the member those two questions, about the hypocrisy of all governments of collecting taxes on a product, when it is causing lots of problems for people, and about incentives for people to stop smoking through the medical profession.