Justice committee  The contraband tobacco issue—this sounds kind of strange—is a unique issue, but it's not. What I mean by that is that the profitability for contraband tobacco for organized crime groups in Canada is absolutely huge, and contraband tobacco is a Canadian problem. Ninety per cent of the contraband tobacco that we seize in our country is from Ontario, in most cases.

Justice committee  It's an important tool for law enforcement from the perspective that it gives us the opportunity to make sure, when we charge and arrest people and do significant investigations, that there is the opportunity that they could do some jail time.

Justice committee  The investigations that we were doing were very high level. These aren't individuals that are walking down the street with a baggie of contraband tobacco. We're talking about full tractor-trailers and things of that nature. We have seen the opportunity for the individual to go to jail, but most often it's a significant fine, sometimes $200,000 to $300,000 or more, but not jail time.

Justice committee  Yes, I can, and that's an excellent question. There's absolutely no doubt in my first-hand, lived experience that in probably the last 10 years or so, it's not been uncommon for police to do significant high-level investigations targeting contraband tobacco or cocaine, methamphetamine or fentanyl and during the course of those investigations to run into significant amounts of whichever drug, but at no time in my experience have I seen high-level organized crime groups working in a linear fashion, just dealing in contraband tobacco.

Justice committee  My experience would show that over the years, individuals whom we've caught doing trafficking in contraband tobacco in significant amounts usually ended up with a hefty fine the first time and usually the second time as well. It's not until the third or fourth time that they usually end up with a small jail sentence.

Justice committee  Thank you, sir. Good afternoon, committee. My name is Rick Barnum, and I am the recently appointed executive director of the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco. I most recently served as deputy commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police and had an over 30-year career in law enforcement.