Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe that the report of the Standing Committee on Social Programs speaks on a number of issues that we heard from the communities, but I just want to make a couple of points here that the interested public might want to know about how we have considered their input. I have been, and I think some of the Members in this House have been, contacted by those who really feel that we should not have made changes to the requirement that would have prohibited bars from selling cigarettes. I understand that
there are studies done in this area and there are many experts who believe that there is a close link -- Dr. Corriveau could be one of them, I don't know -- between the use of tobacco and the use of alcohol. When people are in bars or when they are in drinking environments, people who have quit smoking or who have never smoked or try not to smoke, may be more inclined to take up the habit again. The purpose of having that prohibition in this legislation before it was amended was to prevent that happening.
I think there is a lot of merit in that. I haven't seen any scientific studies in that regard, but I think common sense and any knowledge of these two addiction issues could see how that could be very much plausible. I just want to state that I found that point very interesting. I have thought about it in my head and I think all of the Social Programs committee debated the issue at length. I think it really is a question about balancing the issue of how much, weighing the possibility of people going back to smoking when they're in a drinking environment, to people, if they want to smoke in a drinking environment, they will anyway and they'll try to get the tobacco, whether they get them from outside of the bar where smoking would usually happen or they would go to try to buy cigarettes elsewhere. So it was a balancing of what we're preventing to do and what we're causing side or second and third issues from preventing the sale of tobacco in bars.
I just want to make it clear here for the record that all the input from the public in this regard and the conversations I've had with people on the phone about this, I just want to make sure that everyone knows that input was not taken lightly and it was well considered, and this decision was made after much analysis and reflection and debating about it by all the Members.
I think that second issue that I've been getting some feedback on is the amendment that we're putting here to put some responsibility and legal penalty for the young people who may, knowing that they're not supposed to, that they may try to buy cigarettes in some way. I think that is, it's a different step that we're taking and there is a question about whether we are penalizing victims and penalizing youth who may be better served by a more positive feedback. I think that's important and I think antismoking campaigns are important to let the young people know about the downside of smoking and there's a lot of work that's going on there. But I think on balance, for me anyway, and I'll speak as a regular, you know, just one individual Member here, I think this is just a part of denormalizing smoking, sending out the message that smoking...We want to discourage young people from starting to smoke and that there are laws that prohibit them from buying cigarettes underage, and if they try to do that, knowing that they're not supposed to, and trying to do it in a, you know, in whatever way they find, I'm sure there can be creative ways to do that, then there are going to be consequences for that action.
Once again, it's a balancing question about what we want to do as a Legislature to discourage and reduce chances of young people from picking up the habit in the first place, because that is the best way to get at this problem, I believe. Just putting some onus and responsibility on the young people. I think for lots of young people who may choose to make the choice of trying to buy cigarettes, I think they are mature enough to know and take responsibility for and to deal with the consequences of that. I think most young people would have all the faculties and wherewithal to make the choice that there are some serious legal consequences to trying to buy cigarettes. So hopefully this will go a long way to...This is not in any way to be punitive excessively toward young people. I think it's just putting some responsibility on them where that wasn't there before.
I just want to make those two comments because it wasn't the kind of detail and the individual opinion that we would be able to put into a committee report anyway. So thank you. I just want to say that I will be obviously supporting this bill. Thank you.