Mr. Speaker, I can agree about 85 per cent with my colleague from Calgary Centre.
First, I agree with him most emphatically that the law enforcement the government has talked about simply has not happened. I draw a comparison between what would happen in a neighbourhood in most communities in Canada if there were a suspicion for example that there was an illegal marijuana garden in the basement of a house.
I can assure members that from seeing the results of such activities in the papers over many years the RCMP is over that residence like a swarm of bees. I suggest that growing marijuana is breaking the law the same as smuggling cigarettes. I have not seen the RCMP forces over the known areas of smuggling like a swarm of bees like we would see in other communities. I suggest that although law enforcement has been spoken about by the government it has not been happening.
I also agree that a combination of law enforcement and tax changes regarding cigarettes is necessary to solve this problem. However I suggest a different formula.
I suggest that rather than reducing the taxes on cigarettes in Canada we should have doubled the export tax that we presently have to $16 a carton. With the extra $8 a carton we could use that money to pay for increased law enforcement to cut down on the smuggling. We could cover the areas where the smuggling is taking place with a larger and more effective police force, one that was being paid for by the export tax that should have been added to the cigarettes.