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“Once we leave the firm ground of science, we could be viewed as zealots — fanatics trying to eliminate smoking anywhere and everywhere,” said Dr. Siegel, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.

Just this week, the Montreal Island city of Côte-St.-Luc passed Quebec’s strictest anti-smoking bylaw, prohibiting smoking within 20 metres of the city’s playgrounds and sports fields as well as in public parks during special events.

“Basically, what this new by-law does is take the rules against smoking one step further,” Councilor Steven Erdelyi said in a statement. “Smoking in a public place, even outdoors, is a nuisance for all those close to the smoker.”

The Ottawa Board of Health last month recommended a smoking ban on all city property, including parks, beaches and restaurant patios. Over the past three years, dozens of municipalities from British Columbia to Newfoundland and Labrador have legislated similar sanctions, and the list of grows with each month that passes.

Smokers cannot light up in city parks in Barrie, Ont., or in Bridgewater, N.S. They cannot smoke within 7.5 metres of a bus shelter in North Vancouver, within nine metres of a wading pool in Toronto, or anywhere on Vancouver’s municipal trails.

“This is not a health issue and it has nothing to do with helping to protect children,” said British sociologist Frank Furedi. “There’s a kind of crusading spirit behind this. It marks a slow process where people lose the critical capacity to say, ‘This is enough.’ … People become very scared to speak out because they will be accused of being complicit in endangering the lives of children.”