Mr. Speaker, just like my colleague for Saint-Hyacinthe-Bagot has just said, this is one of the rare occasions when I am not pleased to take the floor to deal with a bill. This bill will be really detrimental to the economic health of Quebec, and to the well-being of an important part of the Canadian economy, the Montreal area, more particularly during the summer tourist season.
Like my colleague for Rimouski-Témiscouata, I think it is very important to stress, as a first point in any speech, that the Bloc Quebecois supports part of Bill C-71, and indeed most of it.
Like all Canadians, the Bloc Quebecois takes to heart the health of Canadians and Quebecers and would like to protect the young from smoking and being hooked on cigarettes.
The Bloc Quebecois has supported the principle of this bill because it thought wise amendments would be made and tangible improvements would make the bill more palatable for communities. But that was not to be. The intent of Bill C-71 should have been to prevent the promotion of smoking among our kids. What kind of prevention does this bill provide? The bill could have proposed a partial ban on cultural and sports sponsorships instead of a total ban.
I would really like to see the government party tabling a study in this House showing how many young Canadians started to smoke after watching the fireworks from the Jacques-Cartier bridge. Or how many youngsters took up smoking after watching a tennis match at the new Du Maurier stadium or at the old Jarry park? Nobody was ever able to prove young people started smoking after attending such events and noboby ever will.
I would also like to know what the Liberal Party's objectives are, with such a bill, in terms of a decrease in the number of young smokers 3, 4 or 5 years down the road. If, at this point in time, 10,000 young people take up smoking every month, and this is a figure I just made up, what impact will the new bill have on the number of young people who will stop smoking in the years to come because of the ban? Will we have 2,000 or 3,000 fewer smokers than we have now? They will not tell us, because, first of all, they do not know, and second, there will not be any decrease.
Instead of focusing on prevention, education and awareness, the bill neglects these issues in favour of a type of coercion that is totally off the mark. They are not targeting the people who take up smoking, but rather hitting on those who benefit from the sponsorship.
The sponsors have a very important 1 per cent share of the market. The Bloc Quebecois and I believe that tobacco companies use their ads to target those who have a favourite brand. If you smoke a specific brand of cigarettes and you attend a sponsored event, you may be tempted to switch brands, and in my view that is why tobacco companies sponsor these events. But will people be tempted to take up smoking, that is another matter. Thus, those we want to target are the tobacco companies and sports and cultural events, not young people as originally intended.
The Bloc Quebecois opposes Bill C-71 at third reading simply because the primary objective-to prevent smoking among young Quebecers and young Canadians-will not be achieved. But there is more. Our Liberal colleagues probably did not watch television this afternoon and see the success of the protest in Montreal. All retailers and stakeholders in the Greater Montreal area were asked to let business come to a symbolic stop between twelve noon and 12.15 p.m. to show what Montreal could look like after the act comes into force.
The operation was a tremendous success. These people are not sovereignists or wicked separatists. They are restaurant owners, hotel operators, taxi drivers, people from all walks of life who benefit from these sponsorships, from the economic benefits generated by tourist attractions and events like the Grand Prix and the fireworks.
The demonstration was a great success. People with very different interests got together to try and make the government understand that its bill does not make any sense, especially for the people in Montreal but also for those in Toronto and Vancouver.
Moreover, they are saying: "It is nothing by a smoke screen. The Montreal Grand Prix will stay in Montreal and it will only change names. It will not be called the Players Grand Prix anymore". Again this morning, we heard the Grand Prix promoter say on television that, contrary to what the Liberals are saying, it is not true that the Grand Prix will simply change names and major sponsors. Perhaps it will be called the Cottonelle Grand Prix. But it remains to be seen whether this company will agree to sponsor the Grand Prix.
If, for example, milk producers-who now sponsor the Tour de l'île-decided to sponsor another event that lost the sponsorship of a tobacco company, the subsequent shift in sponsorships would indirectly affect the cultural and sporting events currently benefiting from the current arrangements. The affected events will either disappear or lose money to other events and activities. There will be an indirect impact on sporting and cultural events.
Therefore, I believe that the Bloc Quebecois has clearly showed that Bill C-71 does not achieve its main purpose, which is to prevent young people from starting to smoke. The reason we will be voting against this bill is simply that, unlike the Liberals, we care about the health of Canadians and that the Liberals are missing the mark with this bill. It is not because we are not concerned about or interested in health. We were told that this bill was mainly about health. This is not the case, but it will have an impact on the economic health of sports and cultural events.
I began by asking how many children started smoking after watching the Benson & Hedges fireworks. I think that there are not many and the Liberal Party could not introduce them to us. Let us see who the other sponsors could be. The major banks were mentioned. They already sponsor some events. They do not sponsor the events we are talking about here because they do not have a direct interest in them. The pool of potential sponsors is
already spread thin. The government wants us to believe that there will be other sponsors, but it could not prove it.
Demonstrators gathered very quickly, and the Bloc Quebecois has noticed that, in spite of its agreement in principle to protect the health of Canadians, the government does not have the will to protect it at the present time. For all these reasons, the Bloc Quebecois and all the people of Montreal have until Thursday-we have been gagged because the government does not want to let us speak-to express their opposition and try to knock some sense into the government members across the way and the ministers from the Montreal area, who will have to justify their decision in the next election.
When people see the unemployment rate go up and when students lose their summer jobs because the events no longer exist, we will go to the ridings of the Minister of Human Resources Development and the Minister of Immigration, we will go to the riding of Outremont, which is represented by the hon. cigar-smoking minister who tried to express his opposition but was rebuffed by the majority of his colleagues, to explain to the people why Montreal went downhill after this bill was passed.
It is still time because we have 48 hours left to make the Liberal members understand that their bill, in its present form, does nothing for the health of Canadians, but is detrimental to the economic health of Montreal. That is why we will vote against this bill.