Should it be a criminal offense to smoke within 1000 feet of a person under age 25? Penalty should be $1000 fine if it's a young woman, $100 fine if it's a young man, as young women are far more influenced by the sight of someone smoking. If it's a cigar the fine automatically doubles.
I think - building on this fine idea - that a smokers registry should be set up by the federal government. This would be similar to the gun registry or the sex offenders registry. We could then hire additional police officers or CSIS agents to secretly monitor the activities of the smokers so that effective enforcement of the law could be carried out efficiently. The fines above are OK, but I think you'll need to differentiate the cigarettes...like regular, king size, and 100 mm...and the fines could be adjusted depending on the length of the cigarette.
Ditto for cigars...you can't just levy a fine based on a cigar...you'd have to determine if it was a cigarillo, a "crookette" (skinny one), or a big fat Havana special. Now, what about pipes? Don't forget they are have to be included, unless of course it's one of those water things used for smoking dope. That of course should be legalized, I've heard.
We then come to the issue of lighters and matches, which are integral parts of the criminal act. After all, what good is a cigarette if you can't light it? So, there should be special licences issued for those things, and of course, they could only be issued to people with a good reason to have them (like those with wood stoves for heating) and they would have to prove competence in their use through an extensive government testing program. And guidelines would have to be established as to when and where they could be used in open sight of young men and women. After all, "flicking your Bic" in public would certainly lead to uncontrolled depravity in the streets.
Additionally, a crack team of academic people would have to be assembled to review the entire process as they are above average in every way, including their insight into what is wrong and what is right. This board of special people would have the responsibility of overseeing the enforcement of the new laws and regulations as ultimately, they hold the future of Canada in their hands.
As we all know, this activity is conspicuous by its absence in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and thus, should be treated not only as a crime by those who know everything, but also as a potential threat to National Security.
Lastly, we would need to seek guidance in our pursuit of the criminals who smoke, and I believe the best qualified folks to consult would be select members of our First Nations, who have the most experience in this area. (That would only apply if my understanding of where tobacco use originated is correct. If not, I apologize and withdraw the suggestion.)
Once we deal with this threat to our society, we could then move on to other critical issues such as the overconsumption of poutine, the breakfast cereal crisis (the ones with sugar), the elimination of religion (that would require an amendment to the Charter, of course, thus making it a more long term goal), the complete elimination of the consumption of alcoholic beverages (because that is a dangerous habit too), a crackdown on cell phones (to eliminate brain cancer from heavy use), the elimination of priimary power lines from any inhabited area (dangerous if you live near them), the end of cheering at public events such as hockey games (damage to hearing could result, not to mention the stress), and finally, the elimination of automobiles in our society - the obvious cause of many deaths and injuries every year.
If we keep working on it, we'll eventually get the mess cleaned up so that everyone can live in safety, peace, and happiness. So when do we start?
