Mr. Speaker, I will be brief. I want to thank hon. members on all sides of the House. Many members realize the work I have put into this issue over the past number of years.
My riding has the majority of the tobacco farmers in the country. They are farmers who are looking very intently at this policy. They tried for a number of years to push the previous government actually to crack down on this issue.
I also have the Six Nations Reserve in my riding, which is the largest native reserve in the country, one whose communities have been fraught with a number of smugglers in this country.
In my riding alone I have 200 smoke huts on the reserve. I have had many people including the band council and most people on the Six Nations say: "Mr. Speller, would you please do something about this problem. This problem is hurting our community. We are getting a bad name across this country because people are blaming this problem on natives". I was glad that the Prime Minister today pointed out that 95 per cent of this problem is organized crime and it is not with natives in the country.
I was also pleased to learn that the Solicitor General had sought to have the head of the RCMP to sit down with my community of the Six Nations and discuss ways in which this problem could be resolved. I commend the Solicitor General for that.
In terms of my tobacco farmers who have a large concern with this because of the problems that they have been having in the tobacco communities and the surrounding infrastructure, we have a number of people within my community and the surrounding ridings who consider this to be a very important issue. I know they will be pleased today to learn that the government has finally taken the initiative to come forward and has given a commitment to work with these communities in order to resolve the problems of adjustment that may occur because of some of the policies that have come forward today.