Mississauga-Streetsville MPP Bob Delaney believes the public will strongly support the ban on smoking cigarettes in cars carrying children which Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty announced yesterday.
"It's an important thing to do," Delaney said in an interview a few hours after McGuinty announced that he had changed his mind and his government will proceed with legislation making it illegal to smoke in a car where there are children under 16 present.
"There will be some people who will maintain that we are scaling back people's freedoms in their own car," Delaney told The News. "But the question is, 'Do people perceive a greater public good in protecting children?' I think they do."
Earlier that day, Delaney said he had pulled up beside a car where a man was smoking a cigar. Even though both windows were rolled up on the chilly morning, "you could smell it clearly," the MPP said.
Concentrations of carcinogens from cigarettes are about 60 times more concentrated in the enclosed space of a car than they are in a home, medical experts say.
Delaney said the public attitude towards smoking has changed dramatically in the recent past. "About two decades ago I served on the smoking committee where I worked and we made a perfectly logical recommendation to have smoking banned except in a small portion of the cafeteria that was ventilated," he said. "To get that approved took six months of meetings and discussions."
NDP MPP Michael Prue suggested the Premier must have changed his mind about the issue not because of health concerns, but based on public opinion polls his government has taken.
Arminda Mota of MyChoice.ca which supports smokers' rights, predicted the proposed ban will lead to more infringements on individual rights. "Obese people, watch out... they're coming after you next," she said. "They're imposing their big nanny state all over the place."
jstewart@mississauga.net