Health committee  To start, just to be clear, I was not at RBH at the time. The reality at the time was that even though it was in 2008, you're talking about behaviour that had taken place many years before.

Health committee  My understanding is that—and you can look to the specific settlement that was reached—there was product coming out of Canada going into the U.S. and back into Canada.

Health committee  I'm sorry. There are two things.

Health committee  At least. First, we're not coming to the committee to talk about plain packaging; that's not our focus for today. Our focus is on doing the right things for Canadian smokers. Second, I think it's important that we look at what the state of the industry is today and not talk ab

Health committee  We don't think it's effective, but it's not something that we're opposing.

Health committee  Yes, that's correct.

Health committee  Number one, there have been a number of people who have come out, including Public Health England. There was a recent review done of all the evidence submitted to the FDA in the U.S. A number of positive statements came out of that, including, as I mentioned in my testimony, the

Health committee  It was a group of people picked by the FDA for their independence explicitly. I can provide a list of those names.

Health committee  Absolutely.

Health committee  Yes.

Health committee  It's based on a wide body of research that's looking at a number of things.

Health committee  It's a combination of industry-sponsored research. We, obviously, pay for a large portion of the research that's done over here. It is also being independently verified by numerous people around the world, and this is published—

Health committee  Absolutely. I think the most recent would have been by Public Health England, which has said that all of the evidence suggests there is a reduction in harm associated with these products.

Health committee  That report came out just a few weeks ago.

Health committee  Absolutely. Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me here to speak with you today. I'm Peter Luongo, the managing director of Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., a fully owned subsidiary of Philip Morris International. I'm here to talk with you today about