In terms of electronic marking, I would just like to give you an example. Counterfeiting is a problem that has been observed primarily in the western provinces. However, this carton was manufactured on the Six Nations Reserve by GRE, which has a federal and provincial licence. Although it is subject to the federal excise tax, this product ended up on the contraband market. The provincial tax on this product has not been paid. A system of electronic marking would provide a means of tracing the product, by going back up the chain and determining who supplied the individual and who acted illegally. It would make it possible to carry out investigations. That is currently an important source of the difficulties being experienced in Ontario. No mention was made of that in Monday's testimony. In any case, such a system would help to resolve part of the problem.
At the same time, we would have to be in a position to force manufacturers on the reserves to use the electronic marking system, so that authorities could trace all of their products. Even if we managed to resolve the current problem, how can we be sure that another kind of problem will not present itself later on? Imperial Tobacco is no longer manufacturing cigarettes in Canada; it moved all its manufacturing plants to Mexico and has kept only its head office in Montreal. What guarantee do we have that products coming out of Mexico will not end up on the contraband market through other channels? With a tracing system, we could ensure that this would not happen. While it would not solve all of our problems, it would solve a good many of them. I can assure you that federal and provincial police authorities would be very happy to see such a system implemented.