Ken Epp

[Criminal Code, May 1st, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to be able to represent the people of Elk Island on this important debate. I would like to begin by saying that it is quite inappropriate of us to have a committee arbitrarily say that the member for Calgary East who proposes the motion has the right to bring it to the House for a one hour debate after which it is dropped.

There is a committee that has said we cannot even vote on this bill. I want to be on record as saying that I strongly object to it. I believe that on an issue of importance like this one it is totally appropriate for us to be able to express our opinions on it. At the end of the debate process we should all be given the opportunity to say whether or not we favour the measure.

If the Liberals are against it, let them stand and say that they are against it. Let them say that they will continue allowing people to be attacked in their homes and have their property removed while they are out. That is atrocious. I would like to see them stand and say that to Canadians across the country.

I would like to speak for a few minutes about the whole system of justice and the idea of break and enters. I wish to emphasize that we need to do better right across the country in building into our youth when they are young a strong sense of morality, a strong sense of what is right and what is wrong.

What has happened in the country? We actually have young people and even adults who think that they are doing nothing wrong when they walk into another person's property with the intent of removing property, whether or not the people are there. Where did that come from?

I remember growing up in Saskatchewan many decades ago when we did not even have a lock on the door of our farmhouse. My dad used to say that someone could come by when we are not home and need to use our phone. We left the house open so that if people came by to use the phone they could.

There was no fear that someone would take our furniture. Maybe we were so poor the furniture was not worth taking, I do not know, but it was probably as good as someone else's down the road. We did not worry about those things in those days because there was a built-in sense of morality and community. We cared for each other and we would not in any way steal from one another. We have lost the sense that it is wrong to take someone else's property. Somehow in our society that built-in sense of morality has evaporated.

I remember when I was the chairman of the Strathcona Christian Academy, a new private school that we started. I was involved in writing our first handbook. We patterned it after handbooks in other schools. There was an instruction in one of the handbooks which said that students should not bring valuable property to school because of the danger of it being stolen. We added in our book, and I am very proud that I was part of the construction of that book, notwithstanding that students should be careful what kind of property they bring to school, we expected them not to take things which were not theirs even if the temptation presented itself. We made that very clear because in our school we taught more than academics. We taught respect for one another and respect for property.

I wish that we would have strong schools, strong churches and strong families that would pass that sense of morality on to the next generation so that this epidemic of break and enters and stealing would come to an end. It is atrocious that we have allowed it to happen.

I would also say that in no small way I attribute the onslaught of violence to all the sorts of things that have been on television over the years. I read somewhere that by the time a student graduates from grade 12 he or she has observed an average of 18,000 murders on television. How could we then be surprised when students grow up and simply act out what they have been taught all their lives, that it is okay to do that? There is something fundamentally wrong. We have lost the handle.

That is step one. We should train our young people so that as they become adults they are responsible and respectful citizens who do not abuse other people and their property.

Lo and behold, some people make mistakes. What should we do with a first time offender? The bill that my colleague has put forward does not deal with first time offenders. He is talking about repeat offenders. What do we do with a first time offender?

My brother-in-law would be very happy if I were to mention a program he has worked with. He was involved in the justice system in a provinces I will not identify. He worked hard as a volunteer in what was called restorative justice.

There are a lot of young people who just simply make a mistake. They bow to peer pressure or whatever. They with their friends break into a place and take things that are not theirs. It is a genuine error. Those young people are retrievable. Those young people can be shown, taught and corrected.

I do not believe putting young people in jail at that stage is as good as what my brother-in-law and his wife did. They worked with couples and young people. They also worked with families whose homes were broken into. In conjunction with the justice system in the province, they brought the offender and the offended together.

I remember my brother-in-law saying that one young person said that doing six months in jail was nothing compared to having to look the person in the eye whose house the individual broke into and finally saying sorry that he or she had made a mistake.

The next stage then is restitution. The young people stole something that was not theirs. Now it becomes their responsibility to restore the property that was stolen. Those young people, having faced the victim and having restored the things, are much less likely to reoffend. This is statistically proven. Generally, we do not teach people to not reoffend by putting them into jail. I personally am in favour of that kind of restorative justice at the early stages of young people's lives before they become hardened criminals.

This bill talks about repeat offenders. If the young person has failed to learn the principles of respect before the first offence and, having gone through the restorative process or whatever is chosen for the first offence, has still failed to learn, now the law has a responsibility to restrain and to protect innocent victims. The member is talking about the sentence for a repeat offender, the one who did not learn it in the first place, who did it once, still did not learn and did it again.

There was a case in Edmonton where a group of thieves were found. In a one week period, while on probation, they broke into 80 homes. What a busy week they had. Are they incorrigible? I venture to say they need to have some time to think about it. A minimum of two years would not be too much for them to admit they were on the wrong track.

I remember also the grievous case in Edmonton of Barb Danelsko, a young mother. She and her family were sleeping upstairs in their house. She heard a noise downstairs. She thought the dog wanted to go out. Dogs do that in the middle of the night. They say “Please, master, let me out. I have some need to go outside.” She went downstairs. Lo and behold there were three youngsters there. Before they left, that young mother was dead. They attacked her with a kitchen knife when she came down. She was not expecting invaders in her house at that time of the night. They prevented her from seeing her children grow up. They deprived those children of their mother and her husband of his wife.

I simply want to say that we need to make sure that those who have not learned the lesson are restrained. A mandatory minimum two year sentence is the minimum that we can do to show those people that if they have not learned the lesson after the first offence, then this is what will happen. We as a society will take the measures necessary to remove them from society because we deserve to be protected.

I urge the government to rethink its decision on whether or not we should vote on the motion. We really should get this thing going because it is a necessary step.

[Farm Credit Corporation Act, April 30th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I value the privilege of speaking to the bill because it addresses the wider issue of agriculture, a very important aspect of what happens here.

I was not originally scheduled to speak on this but after listening to the debate throughout the day, and especially to my hon. colleague from Crowfoot, it got me fired up. I felt I had to get to the House and deliver some words that would castigate the Liberal government for its total mismanagement of the agricultural sector.

We are here talking about the Farm Credit Corporation, a corporation that should have been designed to help farmers but which, too often, has been just the opposite. What the country needs is a government policy that would permit farmers to actually produce and market their product at a price they can afford to pay for production and provide themselves and their families with a reasonable living. That is what is really needed and that is the part that is missing.

Therefore in the few minutes I have I will talk a little bit about not only the Farm Credit Corporation and financing for farmers and agricultural producers, but I also want to address briefly and tie it in with the whole idea of marketing by the wheat board and the way it applies and misapplies.

The reason I became fired up is that I remembered not long ago speaking with a farmer from Saskatchewan. I have said a number of times in the House that I was born in Saskatchewan. I used to say that I was actually born at home because it was a long time ago when a lot of people were born at home. I used to say that as soon as my mother saw me they had to rush her to the hospital. That was not really true. It was just a little bit of humour.

However I was born and raised on a farm in Saskatchewan in the last year of the thirties. Out west we know the term dirty thirties. I do not think that term is as well known in Ontario and points east. In those years we had a tremendous drought. We had jokes about how poor we were and all sorts of different things. However I do not want to get into that. What I want to say is that when my mom and dad got married and started farming it was a difficult uphill climb. It meant long hours of work, being subjected to extreme variables and, once in a while, getting a good crop.

In those years a really good crop meant maybe 20 to 25 bushels to the acre. Ten to fifteen bushels was considered average and anything less than that was mediocre or a crop failure.

The incredible thing is that right now farmers are producing crops that average 40 to 50 bushels per acre on the same land. Production has gone up because of the advanced use of modern technology. Efficiency has also gone up.

My dad and his two boys farmed 10 quarters, which was considered a pretty big farm back in the forties when I was a young boy. A typical farm today that can make its own way is at least 10 times as large. We are talking about 40 quarters to make a good viable farming operation.

Instead of summer fallowing every other year and having only half the land in production, with the use of chemicals and modern farming methods they are able to do much better than that, in many instances not engaging in summer fallow for the rest of the land at all.

It is really true that my brother and his boys today can produce four times as much crop per acre as my dad did some 40 years ago. What is so absolutely distressing is that in this modern day, when production has never been as good, farmers are suffering more than ever. We need to ask ourselves why that is.

My dad, who is in his 90th year and has seen many crops come off the land, cannot be kept off the land at harvest time. There is something magnetic about the grain coming out of the combine or, back in the old days, out of the threshing machine. We are producing food to feed people who would otherwise starve to death. That is a very noble profession.

My dad told me last year how sad it was that when we have one of the best crops ever farmers are not making it. That is really sad because farmers still work hard and long hours, as we do. Nothing has changed. For farmers to be successful they must work long hours, especially during seeding and harvest. It involves a great deal of hard work, massive investment and a lot of risk taking, studying and reading to be competent in all the different aspects of farming. What do we have? We have a government that stands in the way.

I want to talk about a farmer to whom I spoke. When I go to Saskatchewan to visit my relatives, I go with my brother to the elevator to look at the prices, to deliver a load of grain or to do different things and I end up talking with different people. When they find out that their neighbour's little brother is an MP they like to talk to me. I talked with a farmer who was very frustrated. This is very relevant to today's discussion. He told me that he was frustrated because he was going to be out of business with the way things were going. He said that his payments were due and that the Farm Credit Corporation was telling him to pay up or it would foreclose on his farm.

The same farmer told me that he could pay the bill. He said that he had a market for his bins full of grain if only he could be permitted to get a trucker to haul it. He said that he could sell his Durham wheat for approximately 50% more than he would get from the wheat board. He said that he could get the cash right away, make his payment and then everyone would be happy. However the wheat board said no. It said that he had to sell it to the wheat board at a loss. The government agency, the wheat board, which presumably is there to help farmers, in this instance specifically prevented the farmer from even surviving.

Do members of the House see why I am fired up and had to rush down here to say this? This is so wrong. Liberals ought to wake up and realize that if they cannot give a proper price to farmers for their product so they can pay their bills, make a living and not go deeper into debt until they face bankruptcy and lose farms that have been in the family for 100 years, then maybe they should consider that their policies might be wrong. Maybe they should think about that.

The Farm Credit Corporation was supposed to be designed to help farmers. The only way one can help people by lending them money is if those people have the ability to repay, otherwise it becomes a massive, socialistic way of confiscating farmers' land.

Under the bill, the Farm Credit Corporation, under its new name, which will cost thousands of dollars to change all the stationery and everything, would have the right to own property and lease it out. In other words, this is a very thinly disguised plan to simply take over all the farmland on behalf of the government. I am not one to say that this is the government's overt plan, but I predict it will be the result of it.

The Farm Credit Corporation has the ability to lend money to farmers when those farmers at the same time do not have the capacity to pay that loan back as well as pay for their other operating costs because of the restrictions of the wheat board and other government policies, such as high taxes and a whole bunch of other things. In the end farmers will face foreclosure and the Farm Credit Corporation will end up owning the land, which by the way, in the short term I think it is inevitable that some farmers will not make it.

However in this particular bill the Farm Credit Corporation would now be given the freedom to continue to keep that land, farm it or rent it out to other people. It is a straight form of confiscating the very essence of what farming is all about, and that is the private family farm.

I am very concerned that the government, in tinkering with stuff like changing the name of the Farm Credit Corporation, is missing entirely the whole impact that agriculture has and the impact that this lazy, Liberal federal government has on the farm scene in Saskatchewan, Alberta and in Manitoba particularly.

I do not know what members think about this, but I believe in the equality of people. It does not seem right to me that a farmer in one of the prairie provinces can be coerced, under the threat of going to jail, to sell his grain to the wheat board, whereas farmers in other parts of the country are not so required. Other farmers can get an export permit if they want and can export to the United States if they find a market for their product.

I am at a loss for proper vocabulary here. I know I must be respectful in the House, but why, in the name of everything going, can the government justify that? If there are farmers in Saskatchewan who want to build a co-operative pasta plant together, what is it in the government's motivation that says that they cannot do it, that they must first sell all their wheat to the wheat board at a loss and then the wheat board will sell it to the pasta plant? Farmers look at the bottom line and say that if they need the wheat board as the middle agent here, they cannot make it and therefore the deal is off.

What is it in the government's interest and in the people of Canada's interest to say to farmers that they might have an idea that will help them but that they had better not do it because it is against government policy? It is self-evident that the policy is totally wrong. If a person actually comes up with a solution to the problem, why would the government not allow them to expedite that solution?

Other businesses have no such restriction. A good friend of mine is a car dealer who has a lot of inventory. I asked him one day how he managed to keep so much inventory. He said that it was a good business decision. He said that when his lot is full of new cars, people come by and say that he is really successful because of all the new cars he expected to sell. They pop in and buy a new car. His volume goes up simply because of his business decision. There is no government rule that says he cannot do that.

There is another car dealer nearby who has a very small inventory. He claims he has lower costs because he does not maintain a big inventory. Therefore people can go to him and get a lower price.

It is competitive. Both of them are doing fine. They do not need a government agency to tell them how to run their businesses.

It is high time that the federal government butts out of most of its very restrictive rules and regulations and gives farmers the freedom to market the products they produce in the way they choose. After all, one could properly ask who owns the product? Who is making the payments on the land? Who is paying for the fuel and paying all the taxes on it? Who is buying and repairing the machinery? Who is getting up at 4 o'clock in the morning to work on the land? Who works all day until sundown? Who is taking all the financial risks? It is the farmer.

What does the government do? It says the last thing it wants is a successful farmer in Canada. That is really the message it is giving. I cannot understand it.

In essence what I am saying is that the bill is totally misdirected. The government should be focusing much more on getting its act together with respect to marketing and international agreements. It should do what it should have been doing for the last seven years, and frankly it was the same for the Conservatives before. The government should have been working on making sure the world market had a level playing field, something the government totally failed to do. That is what it should be concentrating on. That is what we should be discussing.

Instead what we are discussing is changing the name of the Farm Credit Corporation so that it can in the name of government confiscate all the property in the country that belongs to farmers, meanwhile making it impossible for farmers to make a living because they cannot sell their product for what it costs to produce it. How shameful. I think the government is totally misdirected.

In conclusion, I would like to ask a question. I think members of the House should ask this question, as should anyone who happens to be watching on television.

By the way, I doubt there are very many farmers watching CPAC right now. This is not the time of year to be sitting in the house. In Saskatchewan and Alberta right now it is 3.30 in the afternoon. Farmers are out there working. They are not watching television, but I hope the word gets to them.

The questions that they should be asking are: Why should they be supporting a government which uses the very agencies that should be helping them and why should they be supporting a government which makes it virtually impossible for them to succeed? The government's policies do that.

Another example just came to mind. I talked to a farmer in Saskatchewan. My roots are there and I know a lot of people, although I represent a riding in Alberta. I speak to a lot of farmers there as well. This farmer in Saskatchewan said that what he did best was raise durum wheat, that his soil was best suited for that. He said he could not make a living with that and had to diversify. He has. He now does other things. He has entered into contracts with international companies.

This individual is a successful farmer. I think it is totally ironic that to be successful he had to divest himself totally of wheat board crops so that he has the freedom to make a living. Is that not ironic? The government should smarten up. That is my final answer.

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I apologize. I do know those rules. I thought I was being careful. I said that the Liberal members did not seem to be interested in participating in the debate, and my statement stands.

The member made a very good speech. She showed a genuine compassion for people who want to quit smoking. It occurred to me while she was speaking that perhaps we, as leaders in the country, as those who set the standards which our young people should follow, are not vigorous enough in providing leadership in this particular area. Has she speculated as to what we could do, perhaps something really radical, that would turn this thing around, because it is so long overdue?

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I suppose someone has to keep the debate rolling since the 172 Liberals do not seem to be interested in getting into the debate.

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the speech the member just made. I spoke on this subject before question period. I feel very passionately about it because of the impact that it has particularly on our people who take up a lifelong addiction when they start smoking. The implications that this has range all the way from health to premature death and loss of loved family members to even issues like fires which are caused by careless smoking and so on.

Would the hon. member care to address the one burning question, if I can use a pun here, on this issue? Will the increase in taxes and the resulting increase in the cost of cigarettes actually curtail the number of young people who would start the habit? Does she have confidence in the Liberal government actually stopping the resulting smuggling of cigarettes which may again increase.

[The Economy, April 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, the minister keeps saying that our fundamentals are all right. If that is true, then why are we losing jobs? This is actually happening. My colleague just mentioned that. Why is the rate of growth of our economy less than the Americans by one-third? This is true. I do not think the minister should be denying that.

Our growth rate is increasing but at a very slow rate. The Americans' growth rate is increasing at a higher rate. Why is that? It is because of a lack of a tax plan that would give aggressive tax rate cuts to our citizens. When will he do it?

[The Economy, April 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, our economic growth is continuing slowly, while the American growth rate is about three times as high as ours. Our dollar is languishing around 65 cents and eroding the assets of every Canadian. Why? It is because our tax rates are still too high and there is no legislated plan for debt reduction.

Will the Minister of Finance respond to these concerns and table some concrete plans to address these issues?

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

I do not know if I inhaled. I do not think I did, I was coughing so hard.

I grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan. When I was in grade 8 our school was closed and we were bused into the big city. One day while walking at noon I saw a pack of cigarettes on the sidewalk. I kicked it, as young lads are prone to do. I could tell by the pressure on it that it was not an empty box. I picked it up and opened it and, lo and behold, there were still some cigarettes in it. In retrospect I presume someone had decided to quit smoking and had thrown away the cigarettes. I hope that was the case.

As an aside, I read somewhere that people who decide to quit smoking and throw away an unfinished pack have much higher success rates than those who say that they will finish their current pack and then quit. I say that as an interesting psychological side trip.

I picked up the pack of cigarettes and hid to make sure no one could see me. I took one of the things, put it in my mouth and lit the end of it. It was probably the most incredible thing I had done in my life. I began hacking and coughing. It was the most undesirable thing.

As a young fellow in grade 8, about 12 or 13 years old or maybe 14, I made a decision that day before I finished the first cigarette. I decided I would not smoke. It occurred to me that smoking was stupid. Why would a guy do it if it only caused him to cough uncontrollably? Besides that, I was sure it would cost money. It may amuse young people today to know that my allowance then was 10 cents a week and I could scarcely afford it.

That was my first experience with smoking. The later one occurred when I was in university, and it was also quite incredible. I drove a truck, a big rig on the highway, for my summer job. I enjoyed that job. I loved driving and I still do. I still have my class one licence, so if I lose my job here I can go back to that if nothing else.

One of my fellow drivers challenged me. He will know who he is if he finds out I am telling the story. We had stopped at a coffee shop and he bought a cigar at the counter when we were leaving. He said that I should buy one as well and, for some stupid reason, I did.

While driving down the road I put the silly thing in my mouth and drew in the smoke. I was silly to do that. To my knowledge those are the only two occasions on which I succumbed to the temptation.

I repeat, what is it that causes young people to decide to take up smoking in view of what it does to their health?

Many years ago I heard a motivational speaker address a crowd of young people about smoking. He said one of his strongest arguments against smoking was that no one he had met who had smoked more than five years had ever suggested to him that he start. Not one person who has smoked for five years or more would recommend that someone else begin.

Now that I have said this on worldwide television, and I know millions of Canadians are listening, I imagine I will begin to get e-mails suggesting that I start and that it is wonderful. People have told me they enjoy it and that is why they do it. Okay, so be it. That is the reason they do it. However not even those people have suggested I start in order to share their joy.

Because of its addictive nature I am very much opposed to anything that would promote the taking up of this habit, especially by young people. I have been told and have read that once one begins smoking it is a lifelong habit. It is one of the most difficult addictions to break.

I used to teach mathematics. How I wish we could use audio visual aids in the House. I would love to have a prop with a piece of paper just big enough for the cameras. I could show the House an exercise I used to give my students when I taught mathematics in high school and at a technical institute.

When we did exponential functions, when I taught finance and when I taught students how to use electronic calculators or computers, I made them do a calculation. I am describing it without a visual aid, but it went something like this: 365 times 5 times (1 plus 10/100), to the power of 65 minus 20, minus 1, all divided by 10/100.

My students evaluated it to see if they were using their computers or calculators correctly. When I asked them if they knew what they had computed they said they did not. It was a random formula as far as they were concerned. I told them they had computed the following: 5 is the cost of a pack of cigarettes; 365 is the number of days in a year; the 10/100 is 10%, which is pretty high but there are times one can get it in an RRSP; the minus one is just part of the formula; divide by 10/100, again that is 10%.

They had computed the costs of smoking for their lifetime from age 20 to age 65. The formula told them how much they would have in the bank at a 10% rate of interest if they started saving at age 20 and retired at age 65. My students were amazed because the sum was $1.3 million.

I then had them do another calculation which demonstrated that such a strategy would ensure them an annual pension of $139,000 until age 95. That is a fantastic pension. It is even better than the MP pension plan.

I told my students they had learned some math but that they also had a choice to make. They could smoke and at age 65 live on whatever meagre pension the government gives them, or they could instead retire on $139,000 a year by putting that money into the bank.

Smoking is wrong in terms of both its health effects and its lack of consideration for fellow citizens.

I happen to be on the non-smoking side of the issue. There is a temptation for what I am about to say to come out wrong. I would like my friends to know that I do not dislike people who smoke but I do dislike their smoking. I would like to differentiate that. I love people but if they would not smoke it would be that much more pleasant.

Last Sunday I was out with my wife and some friends at a restaurant. We asked for the non-smoking section and it was given to us. That was nice but there were people smoking. The smoke drifted across and we could smell it. We briefly talked about it. It was too bad but we had to live with it. My advisers told me not to say in my speech that having a non-smoking section in a restaurant is like having a non-peeing section in a swimming pool. I was advised not to say it, but it is a fact.

When I went to pay the bill the guy from the smoking section was there in front of me. Did he put his cigarette out while we were paying? No. He was right there and by the time we got home our clothes reeked. I set them in another room because they stunk.

I ask members not to get this wrong. It shows a lack of respect for other people when one insists on smoking in the presence of non-smokers. Some people would say that I am moralizing and not like me for it. I apologize but there are many people who feel that way.

At the hotel where I am staying I always get a non-smoking room, but in spite of the laundry process, the smell of cigarettes on the pillow was not eradicated. I wake up the next day with a headache because of the smell.

Even around the House of Commons we may wish to consider doing something about smoking. Every member and visitor to this place has to walk through a wall of smoke at the main entrances because of all the people smoking. It is not pleasant. Could we arrange for them to have a room somewhere, maybe with fans? They should not have to go outside into the wicked Canadian winter. We should show them some respect, but let us not allow them to smoke at the main entrances to our buildings and force everyone, smokers or not, to go through that wall of smoke.

I wish to come back to the health issue. I was forced in my previous employment to share an office for a time with a smoker. One can imagine what that was like. I suggested to him, as kindly as I could, that it bothered me. This was before the days of the non-smoking environment. I suggested to him that he could go outside and smoke because it bothered me. He told me that it did not bother me. I thought to myself how arrogant he was. He arranged for our organization to buy an air purifier and he set it beside him when he smoked. I had a headache pretty well every day. It affects me adversely. There are many people who have that allergy or that medical response to second hand smoke.

I had a dream where I died and went to heaven. When they asked me why I was there I said it was because of second hand smoke in my office. I told my office partner that the next day. He laughed about it and thought it was very funny, but there is some evidence that second hand smoke is a health hazard.

I remember teaching statistics in a math course. One of the things that we did was to try to interpret statistical data. One of the examples that we used was death by heart and lung disease. It was interesting that the percentage of deaths caused by heart and lung disease at that time, a number of years back, peaked between the ages of 40 and 50 and then it dropped off. I asked my students to interpret the statistical data. They concluded, correctly, with the premise that if someone has a biological predisposition to getting lung cancer or heart disease due to smoking they would get it and die in their forties, most likely.

How can we condone smoking when it literally puts at risk thousands of people who die in their forties because of it? Obviously we need to take some action. I thought of an example. What would the Minister of Transport or the House of Commons do if there were an airplane crash today in which 100 people died and tomorrow there was another airplane crash of the same type?

I have a suspicion that on the second day all airplanes around the world would be grounded voluntarily by the airlines and by compulsion of governments. Yet every day in Canada 100 people have a premature death due to smoking and we are doing absolutely nothing about it.

Even this measure is tepid in comparison to what we should be doing. This is an issue of great proportion and we should do everything that we can to reduce smoking and to discourage young people from taking up the habit.

I remember as a student going to the museum of science in Portland, Oregon. I remember vividly seeing two lungs hooked up in parallel to the same pipes and a pump that was providing an increase and decrease in pressure. We know that it is atmospheric pressure that allows us to breathe. When we drop the diaphragm there is a space to be filled and it is the air pressure around us that pulls the air into the lungs.

What was happening was a simulation of a person breathing. They had two lungs from cadavers, actual human lungs. One was from a healthy person who died in a car accident and the other was from a person who died of emphysema or lung cancer. One was a diseased lung and the other one was a normal lung.

As the pressure went up and down the normal lung expanded and contracted to allow the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide to give a healthy life. The other lung barely moved. It was atrophied. It was all solid because of the effects of smoking. This had quite an impact on me. It happened a little less than 40 years ago and I still remember it. The impact that it had was amazing.

Should we do something about it? I absolutely and profoundly say yes. Am I in favour of tax increases? No, I am not. I am in favour of the bill only because of the impact that it could have and hopefully would have. I hope the government in increasing those taxes would also have the fortitude to enforce the rules and to make sure that we do not have an increase in the smuggling of cigarettes in addition to the supply that would keep coming in.

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

It is shameful. I am embarrassed about it.

[Tobacco Tax Amendments Act, 2001, April 27th, 2001]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by accusing my colleagues in the House of the wrong motive in agreeing to split my time with the member who just spoke. I think they did so to avoid listening to me for 40 minutes. I could speak to the issue for at least 40 minutes and now I will be limited to 20. That is really regrettable. However I shall do as well as I can in the time allotted.

I cannot believe that as a member of the Canadian Alliance I am standing in the House of Commons this day to speak in favour of higher taxes. I cannot believe I am doing that, yet I must support the bill because of its objectives. It bothers me to speak of higher taxes because we are already taxed to death. We are taxed at every turn. We even have taxes on taxes. The government collects GST on excise and gasoline taxes. The same is true for cigarettes. There are taxes on cigarettes and then the 7% GST on top of that.

I am, however, in favour of this tax. I cannot believe it and yet I am. My apologies to friends, constituents and Canadians who expect us in the Canadian Alliance to consistently oppose higher taxes and the burden they create for our citizens and young people. However this is an issue that we are appropriately addressing. This is a health issue and our concern is to reduce smoking, especially among young people.

I do not know if my colleagues have thought about it, but what attracts young people to put a bunch of weeds wrapped in paper into their mouth, light the end of it and suck on it? It is a strange motivation and I have often wondered about it.

My colleagues will be disappointed in this, but when I remember my own youth I must confess, with humble heart and bowed head, that on an occasion or two, actually two, I succumbed to the temptation.