Smoking Ban the “Art of Smoking”

MPs and some municipalities backed off and installed smoking rooms for Veterans, figuring if they lived this long, it would only be a few years before they died anyways. What really got me going as an analyst at the time were “Special Interest Groups” who were up in arms, as per usual over allowing veterans to have smoking room, because they did not get their way and went to the media to overturn this decision.One thing I despise are Special Interest Groups and their Junk Science Polls, which stated Smokers were clearly the minority in this country, with only 1 in 10 being smokers,yadda, yadda, yadda. So ban cigarettes and increase the sin taxes for smokers and drinkers. The Liberal Government of course listened, becauselets face it, the Liberal run governments both provincial and federal and municipalities rely on Special Interest Groups input in the false sense they speak for all Canadians. We had Liberal MPs stomping on American flags with a flaccid Liberal Prime Minister doing nothing. All this from anti american info garnered from Canadian Special Interest Groups and Government Lackeys who listen.  Apparently they have never heard you should respect the office for they were elected by the people they represent, though you do not have to respect the person, per say.  Liberal did neither. Anyways so as not to go off topic.  I will stick to smoking bans.  Ottawa decided to agree with Special INterest Groups and this junk science poll and enforce smoking bans on hotels and bars, unfortunately, Junk Science and Special Interest Groups forgot to take into account in their polls that foreign tourism and their millions of dollars, a large number of these foreign tourists from Europe love their smokes, so in the end, businesses all over Ontario, bordering either the USA or Quebec and suffered when tourist saw non smoking in the hotel rooms and bars, yet businesses along the border and Quebec heavily advertised they allowed smoking, so guess where the tourists and their dollars went? Tourist went across the bridge to the states or to Hull, Quebec Hotels and did a booming Hotel and restaurant and bar business as the non smoking ban wasn’t in effect there until years later,  Ottawas Non smoking restaurants, bars , hotels and other public establishments were in an uproar as they lost business, or went bankrupt, as tourist season hit Americans,Asians, Canadians and Europeans would arrive at the Ottawa International Airport and head straight to Hull, Quebec, along with their tourist dollars. This played out pretty much the same in Canadian border towns.  Eventually Ottawa and border towns weathered the storm of the smoking ban and customers slowly came back to Ottawa especially once Quebec enforced the non smoking ban. But Ottawa and border towns still lost considerable amounts of business in the millions, of which some businesses never recovered. Funny thing is, Special Interest Groups and their Junk Science Statistics said Smokers were the minority, certainly belies what Ottawa, canadian border towns in Ontario and Hull,Quebec business owners state in their revenues certainly dispute that fact.

Oh yeah, reason why I know this as fact in case some dispute my account. I was with Revenue Canada in the Ministers Office, the millions and millions of money made and lost by these businesses for half a decade crossed my desk for review.

So with smokers quitting, sin taxes and business revenues collected by the government were reduced, the government wisely decided to get their lost revenue back somehow thanks to Special Interest Groups, hence raise taxes for everyone in Canada.  Though Health costs in Canada went down due to the smoking bans considerably, Taxpayers certainly did not see a reduction in Health premiums. In ending, The government will always get their pound of flesh, regardless, and they never give refunds.

And I am also a non smoker, for anyones info. Like I said, I only deal in facts. Special Interest Groups, deal in their own interests and no one elses.   The government wins either way.

Thanks for this great job!