Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Despite all the wonderful presentations, my questions are directed to Mr. Cunningham.
With all respect, I don't sit here to represent Imperial Tobacco, but in my riding of Willowdale I have one heck of a lot of convenience stores, and they are not happy, obviously, with the contraband tobacco situation. Stamping cigarettes might address those who try to pretend that they're selling a particular brand to a store that might actually be in a position to tell the difference. But I can tell you that most of the people who are really worried, certainly in my riding, are worried about the bags of cigarettes. They are not in a position to believe that a stamp, and an added layer of cost for the legitimate tobacco companies—and I'm not here to comment on that—will come close to addressing the issue of contraband tobacco. My concern is that all the effort put into something like that may in fact take away from any effort by this government to truly deal with contraband tobacco.
I would put it to you now, because you have already acknowledged that this is not the only solution, to make suggestions. Concrete suggestions would be great.
You've said that you think the biggest challenge comes from the illicit manufacturing. I would suggest, and I ask your opinion.... The Imperial Tobacco suggestion has been--and we've certainly heard this elsewhere--that we finally have an independent expert panel to address this issue. It seems all too often that this issue, which has a huge dollar value and a huge effect on many small businesses, continues to be swept under the rug, because people are simply not willing to address first nations issues and the criminal element in other organized crime.
Can you speak to this at all?