Mr. Speaker, I do not know if the previous speaker managed to convince himself after the fact, as his government is now trying to do, but he would like to convince us that the decision that was made was the right one.
I think that the government lowered taxes on cigarettes because it did not want to tackle the real problem and stop the distribution of contraband goods on the territory implicitly affected by this bill; instead of dealing with the smugglers themselves, they went after the product. Except that it will be easy to replace that product with another, like alcohol, drugs or cocaine. To justify themselves, they said that they asked the commissioner of the RCMP, who told them to cut taxes. It is not up to the commissioner of the RCMP to make the laws in this
government, and you also need the political will to enforce the laws. When there is no will to enforce the laws, we end up with a bill like this one.
The government shot into its own net with this. There can be no solution to this problem as long as there is no political will to intervene and break up the distribution networks for cigarettes, drugs, popcorn or whatever. We must break up the distribution networks. That is what the government did not have the courage to do.
I would now ask the hon. member who just spoke if he has a personal solution to suggest to his government to break up the distribution networks. That is where the problem lies.