Mr. Speaker, I stand in the House today as a parliamentarian who truly believes that we should have small government with as few rules and regulations as possible and that personal responsibility is very important. I try to judge every piece of legislation by those yardsticks.
On this issue I could be and have been accused of forgetting freedom. I could be accused of forgetting the fact that individuals who decide to smoke should have that ability and that responsibility. Therefore I would like to explain to my colleagues in the House and those people in Canada who are interested in this issue why I have chosen to support and vote for Bill C-71.
I do not often trust statistics, especially statistics that are gathered by those on the various sides of an issue. I made my own graph of cigarette consumption per capita for Canada and the United States between 1970 and 1994. I used figures that are completely independent of any side on this issue.
The graph illustrates that over the past 20-plus years the incidence of smoking in Canada and the U.S. has been declining, and declining considerably, in lock step in fact. The graph is fascinating. Since I cannot show it in the House, I can only demonstrate with my hand that the graph is like a toboggan hill with both Canadian and American per capita consumption rates in lock step coming down.
For the previous 15 years there had been no interruption in that downward slope. However, in 1993 the Canadian smoking rate went up while the U.S. smoking rate did not. The increase in the Canadian smoking rate makes the slope of the graph look like the lip on a ski jump.
Two things have happened in Canada during the time I have spent in this House: a tobacco tax rollback, where the price was reduced in some provinces; and the supreme court striking down the Tobacco Products Control Act, which was designed to prevent smoking.
I also independently found the figures on overall Canadian tobacco consumption which include cigarettes sold over the counter, roll your own cigarettes, non-smoke tobacco like snuff and so on, the contraband market, smuggled cigarettes. I kept the grouping together as much as possible. I found that between 1990 and 1991, overall consumption went down in Canada by 6 per cent. It then dropped almost half a per cent. The next year it dropped 3.49 per cent. This verifies what was in the other figures, that there was a downhill trend. However, in 1994 consumption went up 9.2 per cent.
These are very new statistics available through access to information. The results show what happened the first year after advertising of tobacco products was re-legalized.
After the Tobacco Product Control Act, which affected the legality of advertising, was struck down in 1996, advertising could resume and the results were powerful. Brand switching did not significantly take place during that year when advertising was re-allowed.
It is fascinating to look at what happened in the high tax provinces and the low tax provinces. When the tax rollback took place some provinces did not lower their taxes. In those provinces where taxes stayed high, the increase in smoking in 1996 was 1.72 per cent. In the low tax provinces it was 2.32 per cent. That demonstrates to me a price sensitivity in tobacco consumption, especially for youth.
Overall per capita consumption in Canada went up 2.32 per cent during the year when advertising was allowed. Those figures say to me that advertising sponsorship has an effect on youth.
Another tidbit of information that is not commonly known is that chewing tobacco was on its way out. Chewing tobacco was very popular around the turn of the century. We have all seen the pictures of the cowboy and the spittoon. Chewing tobacco is another form of nicotine consumption. There were only two groups who continued to use chewing tobacco in North America: rodeo cowboys and baseball players.
The consumption of chewing tobacco can be very clearly graphed and then an advertising program took place. We hear that the main factor in tobacco consumption is peer related. There was no peer relationship with smokeless tobacco. An advertising program was undertaken by one of the young, new chewing tobacco companies. It is fascinating to see what has happened. I will not mention the name. I do not want to give these companies an advertising presence in the House, but I have watched the name of chewing tobacco appear on race cars. I have watched chewing tobacco advertisements occur at drag races. I have watched chewing tobacco appear at rodeos.
Do you know, Mr. Speaker, that chewing tobacco consumption has gone up? It is much more prevalent today than it was. That says to me that an advertising campaign completely independent of any peer group pressure can change human behaviour.
I consequently said that my responsibility on this bill was to be non-partisan since I actually started out believing that this approach was nonsense, that there was no way to change human behaviour, that government intervention in this area was worthless. Having changed my mind, I went to my colleagues and said:
"I believe this bill will have an effect on youth". As a group we decided to do whatever we could do to make sure no roadblocks were put in the way of the bill.
Why did we decide to expedite it? I found that Jake Epp, who was mentioned before, took 13 months, plus or minus, to get his bill through the House of Commons. Because 10,000 kids a month take up smoking, and if it took 13 months to get the bill through the House, I felt it would be unconscionable. How did we decide to expedite it? We made sure there were no procedural wrangles that could lengthen the time interval that this bill would stay in the House.
Consequently, when I made my speech at second reading I asked for the question to be now put. What happened was fascinating. There was confusion in the House. All that needed to happen was for a member to stand and say debate and the debate would have gone on, but there would be no chance of procedural wrangling. It was interesting that the debate collapsed. My colleagues were ticked off at me because they said they did not get a chance to speak. I had members opposite speak to me.
I want Canadians to know there was not a Liberal on the other side of the House who had a clue what I was going to do. Not a member of the Bloc had a clue what I was going to do. I simply decided to prevent procedural wrangling. It was very effective, effective beyond my wildest dreams.
On the issue of sponsorship and job losses, my colleagues in the Bloc feel as strongly about this issue as I do. I have an interest in race cars and racing. I have raced on the same track on the same day as Jacques Villeneuve's father, Gilles Villeneuve. I still own a race car and I still race although my political job has messed it up quite royally.
I am fearful of anything that threatens the Grand Prix de Montréal. I very carefully looked at what has happened with tobacco sponsorship in other countries, with a view toward protecting my hobby, my interest, my avocation and the value of my race car.