Justice committee  What I will tell you is that the coalition is funded by its members, as I said, but it's on the public record.

Justice committee  Well, in dealing with education, I would like to remind members of the government that some time ago the promise was made to undertake a massive public education campaign. We'd like to promote that again. I think the boots on the ground will be very well utilized. I've been on tours around Ontario and other places.

Justice committee  Well, I disagree. The coalition is funded by its members. The members are widely spread across the spectrum. In my view, we're talking about a bill that's going to deal with the criminal activity. I'm a non-smoker. I discourage smoking and I think smoking should be eliminated, but in my view as a police officer, I can recognize the difference between a legal and a regulated enterprise and a criminal enterprise.

Justice committee  Yes, well, in my view, the funding of the committee, in a sense.... We're here to talk about the crime, and the goal of the coalition...and I wouldn't be involved with it if it were to sell legal cigarettes. My mission, as a former police officer and a father of four, and the coalition's mission, is to raise awareness of the negative impact of the contraband trade on all Canadians.

Justice committee  I'm not able to answer that. What I can tell you—

Justice committee  We don't have a position on that. We have seen the RCMP lab results of the contraband cigarettes. They're not pretty. Nobody wants to compare cigarettes with cigarettes, because they're all bad. So we don't have a position on that.

Justice committee  Sorry, I was going to follow up on that. There was a recent study where the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health indicated that, while teen smoking rates at one time were on the decline in Ontario, they are no longer on the decline. What they have found through their studies is that, if teens are smoking now, they're smoking more contraband.

Justice committee  Madam, the 16 members are pretty broad-spectrum. We do have the Canadian tobacco manufacturing council and the Canadian association—

Justice committee  We also have the border guards—

Justice committee  No, no, I realize that. It is part and parcel of our coalition, and it's a broad-based coalition.

Justice committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, everybody. I am Gary Grant, and I'm the national spokesperson for the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco, the NCACT. I'm a thirty-nine-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service, and I'm also the founder and chair of Toronto Crime Stoppers.

Finance committee  It is an enforcement issue. It's a legislative need as well. Some of the laws that have been in place have restricted officers in what they could do, but that has been slowly improving. There are powers of search and seizure. I think now it's more of a let's get to the source of the contraband tobacco issue and a public awareness issue.

Finance committee  There are two types of people we're talking about here. If you're discussing the aboriginals, the majority of people who live on the native reserves are law-abiding and want to get on with their lives. They're basically being intimidated and terrorized by the criminal element in their communities, which is manufacturing these cigarettes and reaping huge profits.

Finance committee  You're exactly right; the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health study indicated that teen smoking rates in Ontario, which were declining, are now starting to go on the rise again, likely because of contraband. They said that 43% of the young people who smoked were smoking contraband cigarettes.

Finance committee  The police services, even when I retired...it was sort of under our radar screen in Toronto. This was predominantly seen before as a Revenue Canada and an RCMP problem. Police officers, provincial and municipal, might get a seizure, and they'd call the RCMP or the revenue people.