Justice committee  Thank you for the question, sir. In the last five years, in the Cornwall region, we have noticed that they have figured them out a lot. They are very innovative. They have changed their means of transportation. I wish I had brought photos to show you, because it is really incr

Justice committee  At the moment, we collaborate with the RCMP in a major way. The team in Cornwall is made up of about 50 officers, most of whom are RCMP. We have 12 officers assigned to the operation. We work with the RCMP a lot. I mentioned the boat incident a few weeks ago. That case was handle

Justice committee  Bill C-10 will give us another tool. When officers stop someone in possession of contraband tobacco or cigarettes, they will have a choice. That person might have to face a criminal charge. We have talked before about this change in perception: it is a criminal offence now.

Justice committee  Let me make sure I understood the question. You are saying that the federal act will have an effect on our young people because there is a danger of them being charged. Is that correct?

Justice committee  I will go back to what I said a few minutes ago. We are not focusing on the kids, but on the source, on those responsible for the smuggling and the distribution. We are not looking for kids buying a pack of cigarettes or whatever. I work in a region where we collaborate with ab

Justice committee  Exactly.

Justice committee  In our opinion, highway 401 is the main corridor for distributing contraband goods. You have heard a lot about the Akwesasne area. The vast majority of the products move in that region. Highway 401 becomes a main route. We conduct a lot of operations on the highway, on the border

Justice committee  I will be struggling with my answer too. We work with the Sûreté du Québec a lot. They are a great partner. We do not just have partners in Ontario; we do a lot of work with Quebec. As I understand it, the province has new laws that have helped the Sûreté du Québec to do their j

Justice committee  The buyer is clearly the driver of the business. For us it becomes a resource issue. How do you address every buyer and where are you most effective? I spoke earlier about deploying your resources to where you're going to have the most impact. We go where the smuggler is, where i

Justice committee  I'll have to research that a little bit. It's not something I considered. You're suggesting trading for—?

Justice committee  That's a good point. I apologize, I haven't really considered that.

Justice committee  I need to go back to 2009 and to my involvement in that respect. With regard to the aggressiveness of their tactics, as you said, it was private property, private docks, at any time of day. Regardless of whether the owner was there or not, they were doing their business, they w

Justice committee  No. I don't want to go down that road.

Justice committee  We were constantly in vehicle pursuits with smugglers. There was almost a daily incident going on in the eastern part of the region. We were in marine pursuits and incidents. I just told you about the incident that took place a couple of weeks ago. Those types of activities wer

Justice committee  In terms of the penalties in this piece of legislation, I believe it's a step forward. It's a tool. To what extent it will be effective, etc., in the realm of everything else that we utilize now, I do believe it's a start. But again, as many have said, it can't just be about enf