Council urges government to step up efforts to end contraband smokes

The promise of the current Ontario Government to infiltrate and enforce the law regarding contraband tobacco distribution networks in Ontario was front and center at City Council on Monday night.

Council forwarded a letter with their concerns to Police and Provincial officials regarding insights gained through common knowledge and studies from the local Board of Health.

City Councillors are asking the Province to investigate how contraband tobacco is being distributed and stop the sale of illegal cigarettes.
At the same time, they have issued the Provincial Government a “friendly reminder” of a certain campaign promise that was made during election time this past fall.

Council is also hoping that the Federal Government, who loses valuable health care dollars and tax revenue with every illegal cigarette being sold, will decide to take action.

In North Bay, people can buy smokes at the corner gas station and legally purchase cigarettes for around 80 bucks per carton.

They can also go to the First Nation's reserves and buy legally taxed brands.

They can also go to a mall parking lot and buy cigarettes out of the trunk of somebody's car, from a friend from work or from a person at the playground.

Those cigarettes are most likely contraband, trafficked across the Province, free from control, taxation or regulation.

Recent studies show that 42 percent of smokers in the North have purchased at least one pack of cigarettes from an outlet not paying full Federal and Provincial taxes within the last six months.

In addition, 53 percent of students in Ontario who smoke (grades 7-12) have smoked contraband cigarettes within the last year.

While by no means a new problem, tobacco smuggling, as some would call it, has been going on since at least the early 90's throughout Ontario.

But council says that with today's increased availability and lower prices, tobacco is finding its way smuggled into the community and to increasingly younger and more naive hands.

The problem is exasperated by the fact that illegally sold tobacco is said to fund organized crime and finances their activities, therefore making it extremely difficult to regulate.

While an aspect of the illegal trade not only targets the young and the vulnerable with addictive nicotine, sales lost from legitimate tax paying merchants have undoubtedly resulted in the closing of business and loss of jobs outside of the black market.

It might not be fair to simply blame those supplying a willing market and one wonders if this will end up in politician simply blowing smoke or if changes are truly in the air.

Regardless, Councillor Mac Bain and Councillor Darryl Valliancourt brought forward the concerns from the North Bay Health Unit and it doesn't take long to see just how invasive a problem this is when evidence of it can be found in communities all around our municipality.

“It's having multiple effects,” says Councillor Bain, stating that contraband tobacco is allowing young people to start smoking because of the ability to buy the cigarettes at a much reduced price.

He also says that it's having a negative impact in the fact that if they're not paying the tax on a cigarette that they purchase, the health care system doesn't get the needed resources.

While nobody is fooling themselves into believing that cancer sticks are good for anyone, the fact is that when you buy a legal cigarette, there are strict guidelines on how it's being manufactured. It's still a cancer stick. However, with contraband cigarettes, there are no regulations.

Finally, Bain says that the association that controls the convenience stores across the Province has stated publicly that, over the last two years, 700 stores have ceased operations.

3 of those 700 stores were in North Bay.

Industry officials blame the rampant sale of contraband cigarettes for the store closures.

While Bain says that he doesn't know personally if contraband cigarettes were the cause in any of those cases, they were, regardless, paid business tax and employment that was lost in North Bay.

“We're not going to get that back as long as contraband cigarettes have the ability to be sold locally and across the province,” he says.

City council says that the only way to combat the sale of contraband tobacco is to have the Provincial and Federal Governments step up with further legislative and legal enforcement.

Back in October, the Liberal Government had stated that if elected, they would “build on our contraband strategy to choke off the supply of cheap, illegal tobacco sold to our kids by doubling our enforcement efforts.”

Bain says that he's not aware of any actions that are going to be done about the growing issue in Ontario.

“I haven't heard any comments from the Ministry of Health on what they're going to be doing about contraband, “he says, “To date, there's been very little done about it.”

“For all those people who are selling those contraband cigarettes, we need to get the Federal and Provincial Governments to go after them.”