Finance committee  By its nature, the contraband problem is hard to measure and to quantify, but on the example you mentioned, there are examples of products that have federal tax paid but not provincial tax, and it's supposedly for sale on a first nations reserve, but then it gets diverted off reserve.

Finance committee  Yes. I'm not sure that we need to have another panel to have another round of consultations. There was an intergovernmental task force, federally, that was announced in May 2008. That was two years ago. There's been consultation. We believe that it's time for action with respect to the other remedies, which would include the most important source, which is illegal manufacturing on the U.S. side of Akwesasne.

Finance committee  We need a series of remedies, and this is one of the remedies. It's interesting that Imperial Tobacco, which has been convicted of contraband itself, has been paying the largest fines in Canadian history, and then a civil payment that's much larger than that. They've been calling on the government to take action on contraband, but when the government takes action, they're unhappy.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Coalition québécoise pour le contrôle du tabac, thank you for this opportunity to testify today. My name is Rob Cunningham, and I am a lawyer and a senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, which is a member of the coalition, together with other groups.