Under the pressure of the antismoking groups, now the Federal Government is considering a package of restrictions which could effectively eliminate tobacco company sponsorship of arts, entertainment and sports events. The result may well be the disappearance of many of these events.

The Alliance for Sponsorship Freedom, a national group of over 250 concerned organizations and sponsors of arts, sports, fashion and entertainment events in Canada has published a full page ad in The Globe and Mail to try to call the Government to its senses.

In times of deficit and cutbacks, many of these events will not be able to support themselves without the sponsorship of tobacco companies. Our spirit will suffer. Our culture will suffer. We will plunge even more into the cultural brutalization that is endangering us all, the same brutalization that has allowed the antismoking cancer to spread to the level of an epidemic.

If sponsorship restrictions will be implemented, tourism will also suffer, and our fragile economy with it. Moreover, this will set a fundamental precedent for even more state interference in private enterprise under the banner of public protection.
Alcohol is no doubt next in line.

Following is the list of the endangered events, according to the newspaper ad. The list speaks for itself.

We want to add just one thing. If Canadians do not take positive action against this kind of aggression, soon it will be too late, and anything that makes us a free society will be gone, lost in a clean, healthy, and sterilized society.