Justice committee  Perfect. I will table it. I don't know if you have read the report by the Quebec government's advisory committee on the economy and public finances. The committee held public hearings on contraband and issued a report with all the steps take by the Quebec government. It also contains recommendations on another series of steps that the government plans to take in the coming years.

Justice committee  There have been negotiations on sharing income from tobacco tax. The first nations quickly understood that if taxes are charged on their tobacco products, sales would simply disappear. Yes, tobacco may be part of their culture, but what you probably mean is the traditional use of tobacco, and not the commercial use, or cigarette sales.

Justice committee  The amount of contraband has very clearly gone down. Even the tobacco companies acknowledge that internally. However, they have started a public relations campaign so that the government mainly draws attention to contraband and nothing else. We aren't saying the problem has been eliminated; the problem still exists.

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and all the members of the committee for granting me this privilege to offer a few of my own comments on the importance of Bill C-10. First of all, l would like to say that the Non-Smokers' Rights Association is a national non-profit health organization working for more than 35 years in the development and promotion of effective tobacco control policies, including tobacco taxation, to reduce the death and diseases related to tobacco use.

Public Safety committee  The first measure you have to go ahead with is to block the supplies of raw materials. If you can't take action on the reserve, take action out of the reserve and hold accountable the people who are supplying those materials.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I'll be very quick. There are harmonized customs tariffs for cigarette paper and filters. There are about five cigarette filter manufacturers in the world. It would be possible to control that market. We don't know why they don't want to do it. They say it is used for a lot of other products, but we don't believe that.

Public Safety committee  I just have another piece of information. Of course, we're concerned for the public health side of the issue, because we're seeing a levelling off of smoking prevalence across the country. We made great strides in lowering tobacco consumption in this country for many years, and now we're hitting a plateau, which is why we have to take care of this issue so that we can get back into a downward trend.

Public Safety committee  Just to give you an example, in Quebec, when we had the tax rollback, smoking prevalence amongst teenagers went from 19% in 1991 to 38% in 1996, which was a disaster in terms of public health. The federal government, when they lowered taxes in the first year alone, in 1994-95, lost a billion dollars, even though the contraband was there.

Public Safety committee  That is your next question. We are talking about...

Public Safety committee  To both: the provinces and the federal government.

Public Safety committee  All the other millions of dollars go into the consolidated fund as well, and a large portion goes to the provinces. You also have to know that a few months after the agreement with Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. in July 2008, the federal government allocated about $300 million to help farmers, particularly to help them get out of the tobacco growing market.

Public Safety committee  Let's look at the amounts for the first two companies. The penalty was on the order of $1.15 billion, so $300 million for the farmers, as I said. There is also $20 million for combating contraband. Part of the money goes to the provinces. There is also $550 million for the last agreement with JTI-Macdonald.

Public Safety committee  Yes.

Public Safety committee  For the federal government and the provinces, yes.

Public Safety committee  May I add something to the answer?