Madam Speaker, I am very interested in the smuggling issue with respect to raising taxes on cigarettes. I may have missed the early part of the member opposite's speech. Did he make any reference to the price of cigarettes and tobacco in the United States?
During the last go around on this issue, the reason smuggling became such a large industry, particularly in eastern Canada and the Montreal area, was because of the price disparity of cigarettes across the border. I wonder whether the member opposite has done any analysis or looked at all at what the current prices of tobacco are right now vis-à-vis the time before when we went through a major price increase because it seems to me that the price of cigarettes in the United States has risen in the interval and that may ameliorate the smuggling problem when we raise the taxes ourselves.