Public Safety committee  I think Monsieur Ménard is referring to the CRA's proposal to bring in a stamp that basically has a hologram and coding linked with it that would be applied on all cigarette packs, with effect from 2010 onwards. It's an interesting idea. The reason for that is really to deal with

Public Safety committee  Yes, there is a possibility of using things like tax stamps for what has been described as track-and-trace technology. You need coding, which could be applied through the tax stamp, that would enable one to identify which manufacturer produced that cigarette, and when, and in whi

Public Safety committee  I think it's roughly a third, given that in Ontario and Quebec the provincial tobacco taxes are higher, roughly double what the federal excise is.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely, I totally agree. That's why on the last page of the presentation, when we come to potential solutions, first and foremost, it's proper enforcement of the law. And that's not just the law concerning tobacco taxes, but everything else Mr. McCarty referred to. Let's face

Public Safety committee  In answer to the question concerning youth smoking, we don't have market research information on youth. We don't track that, but the government statistics do. There is a survey conducted by the federal government. The long-term decline in the adult population that smokes has be

Public Safety committee  We don't make tubes. We do sell them from others who make them, but tubes are not used in the manufacture of cigarettes. They're used by consumers who buy loose tobacco, fine cut, and assemble their own cigarettes. In the manufacturing plants, the cigarettes are made directly fro

Public Safety committee  I would suggest that the key priority would be to call a national task force, given the wide number of areas that are impacted by illicit trade and the different enforcement actions that need to be taken, at the provincial as well as federal level. I think the appointment of a se

Public Safety committee  First of all, we always have a proportion of non-Canadian tobacco leaves for—

Public Safety committee  The majority is Canadian leaf, and we will continue to use it as our main source.

Public Safety committee  It has increased over the years.

Public Safety committee  That's all in; that's federal and provincial tax.

Public Safety committee  Canada-wide. Obviously, the bulk of it is in Ontario and Quebec.

Public Safety committee  Absolutely. They're losing, by our estimate, $120,000 in revenue every year because of illicit trade--obviously, in Ontario and Quebec, those that operate in those provinces.

Public Safety committee  I think the RCMP will corroborate this information. By far the majority--the greatest part of raw tobacco used for illegal manufacture--originates from the U.S. Some of it comes from North Carolina and some of it comes from elsewhere in the world. We've heard reports also, anecdo

Public Safety committee  What we're picking up in the survey--and this was in face-to-face interviews with consumers who showed what they were smoking at the time--those numbers take you to that total level of 22% across Canada. These are smokers who actually had illicit product with them. The larger s