Mr. Speaker, obviously the issue of contraband tobacco attacks Canada's initiatives on many fronts.
It attacks it on the health issue. It attacks it on the issue of gaining access to a dangerous product for many youth. The Department of Health has taken many steps to bring forward warnings of what the dangers of tobacco are, as well as hiding them behind screens when it comes to purchasing them or putting the grotesque warning signs on the packages. Those are the cigarettes that are distributed legally.
What can we do about cheap tobacco finding its way onto schoolyards at a very affordable price? It is a matter of breaking up this activity because it is bad for health. It also finances organized crime, which we know uses the funds, which it does not pay taxes on, to fuel its many activities, one of them being the trafficking in human beings.
It is a vicious circle when it comes to breaking up illegal activities. They are all very integrally tied. One of the them that seems to be harder to discern is tobacco. Tobacco is legal when it is sold under the rules and regulations of the Government of Canada. Therefore, how does one really tell, without looking carefully, whether a cigarette being smoked has been legally produced and sold versus one that has not?