Public Safety committee  I agree with you. We're not here to advocate a tax rollback. I think the gap, compared to the nineties, is much bigger than we've ever seen. All we have to face is the reason the consumer is changing. It's no different on July 1 in Ontario. More consumers will be looking for alte

Public Safety committee  From the convenience association, show some leadership and bring the provinces together. You come together, all of you, and let's correct this. And finally, look at a different way of collecting tobacco taxes. We're collecting them at three different levels in this country. There

Public Safety committee  Right now, tobacco is the only high government tax product that actually is allowed to be collected from different sources. Alcohol is all collected...you never even pay GST at the till. For gasoline, you just pay one price; you don't see any other taxes. The problem with tobac

Public Safety committee  I'll try first. Not at all. We've seen this grow from 15% to, now, up to 48%, and it continues. There's no plan to correct contraband in this country. I think this committee is the first chance we've ever had an opportunity to talk about it, and we implore you to work with us to

Public Safety committee  I think when you look at the whole tax...tobacco taxes have the consumer looking for alternate products, and we've seen that. We're not here to advocate a tax rollback or a tax reduction. It is part of any longer-term solution. The government, in the nineties, decided on their ow

Public Safety committee  No.

Public Safety committee  I'll try to answer that. We've worked well with the RCMP, as a coalition. They do work with their U.S. counterparts. I believe the RCMP is doing a very good job with the resources they have, and they've worked very well even with the coalition and have actually toured around

Public Safety committee  They'd have to answer that directly. I don't have that answer.

Public Safety committee  I'll go first.

Public Safety committee  Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Dave Bryans. I'm the president of the Canadian Convenience Stores Association and a founding member of the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco. I will speak first, and my colleague from the Customs and Immigration Union will speak