Thank you.
As I came into the city this morning, I heard a report that was talking about a percentage of 50% or 46% at the race track.
First, I would like to make it clear that the Ontario Provincial Police provides public safety services. We work within the laws that are in force in order to eliminate smuggling. In 2009, we re-established our regional task force and we had a lot of success in this region. Let me give you some figures. When the regional task force was re-established, in 2009-2010, we were seizing 400,000 cartons of cigarettes a year. Last year, we seized about 180,000. You have to understand what that tells us. Personally, I consider it is a success, because we are limiting the number of offenders crossing our region.
As for the impact on contraband tobacco in our communities, if we see that contraband cigarette use is higher in specific places, it probably means that we should deploy our resources to those places.