Justice committee  Yes, it is, in part. The other issue was that there was a measure of discomfort in placing minimum penalties of imprisonment in the Excise Act. The Excise Act, as you know, is a revenue statute. While it's viewed as being okay to have minimum fines in a revenue statute, there w

Justice committee  That is correct.

Justice committee  It may send the message, but unless there's a clear notice given—

Justice committee  Yes, there has to be notice given.

Justice committee  Yes, if he meets the various elements of this offence. If he sells 10,000 unstamped cigarettes, yes.

Justice committee  I don't believe it is, actually. If the cigarette is stamped, this offence would not apply. If the cigarette is stamped it means that the federal excise tax has been paid, but there are provincial taxes that have to apply as well. Theoretically, it would be possible for an offic

Justice committee  Regarding the way the imposition of a minimum sentence is announced, the prosecutor must give notice. In fact, the requirement to give notice is contained in section 727 of the Criminal Code. This covers all cases involving minimum sentences. If a prosecutor intends to ask for a

Justice committee  No, actually, to tell you the truth, we did not consider “trade”. We did consider “brokering” but excluded that. We wanted to focus primarily on the actual movement. If an individual is trading without having it in their possession and if that individual is high enough up in the

Justice committee  That's probably likely. Mind you, in the case of a criminal organization offence, there is also the offence of instructing. That may be a little easier to prove than the conspiracy offence. If you can put together sufficient evidence to demonstrate trade, that's very close to t

Justice committee  That's correct. If an individual is going to trade 10,000 cigarettes for a car—at first, I would say it would be a very cheap car—but it's likely, then, that the individual would be in possession of the cigarettes. At one point, it seems to me that the individual is going to be

Justice committee  Thank you, Ms. Boivin. We consulted people from Revenue Canada, from the Department of Finance, from the Department of Public Security and from the Department of Justice. Our consultations were with government bodies only. We also consulted with the RCMP. I will now talk about

Justice committee  Yes, we did consider the issue of possession. We had been asked to address the situation of trafficking. There is possession for the purpose of trafficking, but in our view, simple possession was not part of the description of what really constitutes trafficking, namely the movem

Justice committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't really have a long statement. What I just want to say are a few words explaining the legislation. The bill proposes amendments to the Criminal Code in order to provide for a new offence of trafficking in contraband tobacco. The particular activ

Health committee  There are differences between federal and provincial privacy laws. My colleague from the department is a specialist in privacy law, if you would like him to address that question, Mr. Chairman.

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Part of the answer is that under the CDSA, the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, the offence of seeking or obtaining an authorization.... It is a requirement for anyone who obtains a second prescription to declare to the physician any prescription obtain