Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Centre.
I rise on behalf of my constituents from Okanagan-Similkameen-Merritt to state our opposition to Bill C-71, the Liberal government's proposed tobacco act. My constituents and I have discussed the bill at length. We have talked about it at town hall meetings and I have had a great deal of correspondence on the issue. People called with their views when the Liberals introduced the bill. I also conducted a poll in my riding.
The poll confirmed that a statistically significant majority of respondents do not believe that tax increases will cause people not to smoke. Most important, 70 per cent of the respondents who
were less than 18 years of age said that taxes were not a deterrent to smoking.
When I recently visited the Keremeos Secondary School we discussed the bill. We held a classroom poll. The students agreed that they would not be deterred from smoking because of the contents of the bill. They felt that negative impacts of the bill would cause more harm than good.
The students listed the problems they predicted if the bill were passed. They felt the black market in cigarettes would be encouraged and incidents of theft would increase. They were concerned there would be a rise in youth crime as a result of the bill.
I have received a great deal of telephone calls and letters by mail and fax from businesses in my riding concerning the bill. These retailers are already doing everything in their power to prevent the sale of tobacco products to young people. The following retailers are furious the measures in the bill target them directly: Lai Wah Lok, owner of Courtesy Corner in Lower Nicola; Adam Eneas, owner of the Snow Mountain Market in Penticton; Denis Bissonette, owner of the Osoyoos Duty Free Shop; and Dennis VanRaes of the Super Save Gas Bar in Penticton.
All of them wrote to me outraged about the bill. They spelled out the hardships their retail outlets would experience as a direct result of Bill C-71. They are furious with the Liberals. They have told me about the construction costs they will have to pay to modify their retail outlets to satisfy the tobacco display requirements of the bill. Their businesses will suffer once Bill C-71 becomes law. Their businesses will be left with virtually a clandestine method for selling tobacco products.
The Liberals should be creating and developing a climate that encourages growth for small and medium sized firms. Instead, the Liberal approach is to penalize entrepreneurs with red tape, restrictions and bureaucracy.
Bill C-71 is creating a special police force responsible for patrolling small businesses to ensure they are not in contravention of the bill. This is unbelievable in Canada, not to mention that it is very costly.
With Bill C-71 we see that the Liberal solution to a problem is to impose restricting regulations, laws and tax increases. The bill will not solve the problem. The Liberals have let us down again.
The real answer to the problem of young people smoking is education. My constituents and I want to see the government educate our youth with respect to the effects of smoking.
Children are not stupid even though the Liberals think they are. I have talked to many young people, students and very young children in every corner of my riding. They are all very eager to learn. It can be seen in their faces. The Liberals should throw away the bill and all the things in it and focus their efforts on talking directly to children.
The bill makes it clear the Liberals have totally disregarded the option of spending federal government time, effort and resources on delivering an anti-smoking message directly to the young people of Canada.
My constituents do not want the federal government to be given more power and control over our lives. We do not want the government to interfere further into our lives.
Therefore the Liberals are not deterring smoking with the bill. They are making older Canadians pay more for a substance to which they have become addicted, tobacco, which has been legal all their lives. It is not fair to tax senior citizens who began smoking decades ago and cannot quit.
The bill should not seek to punish smokers. It should seek to help prevent people who do not smoke, especially young Canadians, from smoking.
The bill imposes a de facto ban on tobacco company sponsorships but the Liberal health minister says that is okay. He talks about the high profitability the banking industry is enjoying and that it should be sponsoring events the Liberals are preventing the tobacco companies from sponsoring.
Is the minister making a threat? Are the banks the next industry to be punished by the Liberals in their attempt to address the problem of smoking? How much of a punishment tax will the Liberals make the banks pay to finance the sporting and cultural events that have been stripped of funding by the same Liberals?
Who else will the Liberals tax to pay for these events? Will it be other financial institutions? Maybe communications firms or telephone companies. I predict the Liberals will pick a prosperous industry, one that provides jobs for Canadians. Then they will proceed to kill those jobs. They will assault that industry with a tax grab and force it to pay for lost funding of cultural and sporting events. The Liberal solution to every problem is tax, tax, tax, which kills jobs, jobs, jobs.
The bill imposes a de facto ban on tobacco product advertising. In my previous career I sold advertising. The bill makes clear that the Liberals have made a serious error in their understanding of how advertising works. They have seriously overstated the influence of advertising on the Canadian public.
The Liberals believe we can lead a horse to water and make it drink. The bill and its emphasis on advertising is an insult to the intelligence of Canadians.
I do not smoke. I have never smoked. I am not influenced by tobacco advertising. When I was young I was not influenced by
tobacco ads. Nor was I influenced by one of my parents, three of my siblings and most of my peers who smoked.
Who are the people the Liberals think are affected and influenced by tobacco advertising? The young people to whom I have spoken do not feel that they are influenced by tobacco ads either. Products are sold through advertising efforts that are aimed at the people who use the product. Companies pursue a market share. They are chasing a piece of the pie and that pie consists only of people who smoke. Tobacco advertising is focused on the people who smoke.
Tobacco companies are concerned about increasing the sale of their brand by securing a larger percentage of the market. Their advertising effort is not aimed at non-smokers. Such campaigns do not work. There is no getting people to smoke. The results from that kind of effort are not worth the cost of such a campaign. From a sales and advertising campaign perspective, teenagers are not the target, smokers are the target.
For example, if you are selling Cadillacs, you are going to starve if your strategy is to sell a Cadillac to a person that drives a compact car. Your advertising should be directed at the consumer in the luxury car market. A Cadillac can be sold to a person that drives a Lincoln.
The Liberals think that Canadians are stupid. This bill is so typical of virtually all the legislation the Liberals have proposed and passed during the course of this Parliament. The Liberals support big government supported by big taxes and their policies have resulted in high unemployment. This bill continues the legacy of Liberal mismanagement.
Products that assist Canadians to quit smoking are becoming very popular. Devices such as the patch and other therapies designed to help smokers quit is a boom industry. What did the Liberals do to help Canadians quit smoking? They raised taxes on smokers and promise to raise them even higher and higher in the future. What a pathetic effort.
My constituents and I are amazed at the parallels that can be drawn between this legislation and the Liberal's Canada pension plan contribution changes announced last month. The Liberal's proposed Tobacco Act is not the solution to the problem and it will punish Canadians who do not deserve to be punished.
In the case of the Canada pension plan the Liberals are punishing young Canadians because successive Liberal and Tory governments have mismanaged the Canada pension plan. Young Canadians have to pay through the nose because of the largest payroll tax grab in Canadian history. The Liberals promised Canadians jobs, jobs, job. Their proposed Tobacco Act will kill thousands of jobs as soon as its blade slashes through corner stores, cafeterias, truck stops and gas bars across the country.
My constituents and I believe that young people are not going to be prevented from starting to smoke as a result of this bill and therefore I am very proud to stand on their behalf and vote against Bill C-71.
