Public Safety committee  For our purposes tobacco is a legal commodity. It's only considered contraband when it's diverted from the legal market to illegal distribution. If individuals are declaring it as they enter the country, it's legal, but when it's diverted from that declaration, then it becomes contraband.

Public Safety committee  The CBSA has a counterfeit detection--

Public Safety committee  For the agency's purposes, we've developed a counterfeit detection kit. When we discover tobacco, we can test it and determine if it is counterfeit or not. We do share that kit with both our domestic and international partners.

Public Safety committee  We can't go to that level; it would obviously have to be sent to a lab. But for the purposes of doing a quick determination, we have a kit available to do that sort of analysis.

Public Safety committee  I will just add that as an agency we have a number of officers embedded with various joint force operations, including the IBETs. That includes our U.S. partners: U.S. Coast Guard, ICE, and CBP. We have a very tight relationship, and we share information on a daily basis to interdict at ports of entry and in between the ports.

Public Safety committee  Yes, I can answer that. In 2007 we did seize 268,754 cartons, of which 257,531 were from China.

Public Safety committee  That was just in the last year.

Public Safety committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. On behalf of the CBSA, I am pleased to appear before the committee to explain to you how the CBSA addresses the contraband tobacco situation in the context of our border mandate and to respond to any questions you may have.