Mr. Speaker, the first area of consultations is with our own constituents. In the last seven years, almost every second month someone has come to me and asked what I am going to do about the people who are selling illegal cigarettes out the back door and closing legal businesses, in particular the corner stores that we all go to on a Sunday afternoon when most of the big stores are closed, where we go to buy our chocolate bars or lottery tickets or whatever we are going to buy. These stores are drying up around my area, especially the little “mom and dad” operations that are not associated with the big chains. They are the people being put out of business by the sale of illegal cigarettes.
We all know where most of them are emanating from, and I have to say it in this House that they are emanating from mostly first nations territories where somehow, some way, these illegal cigarettes are being sold. What is more, they are now being sold in our schoolyards.
This very House, in a previous Parliament, did an exhaustive study on the sale of illegal and illicit cigarettes. It is out of that study that this legislation emanates. I mentioned in my speech that there was a panel that advised the Minister of Public Safety on it; so we have done those consultations.
The time for consultations is over, and the time for action is now. That is why we ask that Bill S-16 be supported.