Mr. Speaker, as I indicated earlier, illegal importation of cigarettes is very costly in different ways. The most obvious ones would be the potential loss of revenue, the health care impacts of having cheap cigarettes on the market and the activities of gangs in selling illegal cigarettes.
One of the issues that is really important for us to recognize is that the government needs to be more proactive in dealing with the number of people who take up smoking.
I see that $90,000 can be spent on just one economic action plan ad. That 30-second ad could be put into our high schools to promote and encourage young people against even taking up smoking in the first place. That would have an impact on illegal cigarettes and the demand for illegal cigarettes.
I am wondering if the member would agree that the government could be doing more and could even use some of the resources it is currently using in the exploitation of tax dollars to finance advertising for its economic action plan. Does he not agree that there is some benefit in reallocating those dollars and putting them into ways to decrease the demand for cigarettes in general?