Thank you, Chair.
I'd like to build upon—I pointed my finger and I didn't mean that in a derogatory sense. I'd like to follow up on what you said, because I think that's one of the things we have been saying here for some time, that the aboriginal community is being used by organized crime, not that the aboriginal community is organized crime.
When you go to the city of Toronto and they talk about vanloads of cigarettes being sold in baggies for $6, $8, $10, and $12 a bag, I don't think that's of great benefit to the aboriginal community. Somebody else is taking advantage of that.
When we talk about trying to reduce smoking by youngsters when the kids at the high schools are smoking $8 and $10 cigarettes from baggies, I don't think that helps the aboriginal community. It's not of benefit. But there is somebody who has benefited from that, and that tends to be...whether we call it organized crime, whether other people call it organized crime, it's an organization that operates out there to take advantage of your good name and the opportunities they see and seize upon.
I think what we have been looking for here is to find a solution among all of us that benefits the aboriginal communities, that helps those communities that want to reduce smoking, particularly I think for our vulnerable people. Mr. Jock, I think you spoke about the funds that were seized in 2006. If we have three times the national average of smoking among young people in aboriginal communities, we failed long before 2006. The money, obviously, was not as effective as it could have been, and we need to find that.
But I've also seen in most of your presentations—and Chief Jacobs and I have talked a little bit about this—that we need to find that solution amongst all of us that works for the benefit of all of us. If there is one group that we need to take out of it, it's that middleman who's taking advantage of the opportunity to get large quantities of cigarettes to take to the city of Toronto, to take to the city of London, to take to my city and others, and sell very cheaply and circumvent what would be the natural rules as you see them.
I see in a number of your presentations, either to us verbally or written, that you all talk about some kind of regulation. I don't think any of us would disagree. We might say it in different words or different terms, but do you see some opportunity that we can sit down to come to some solution that's good for the community, for your community, for our community, where we can put a handle on that, to take the middleman out, not to denigrate the aboriginal community, but to take this out of the hands of the people who are making the money and have no concerns, apparently, for who the ultimate user is of the product?
That's one of the problems we hear and see: the young people at the high schools, young people at other places, the opportunity for people to profit off the backs of aboriginals. Is there some system we can develop that works for all of us?
