When the Standing Committee on Finance looked at this bill, there were only certain clauses in it that pertained to financial matters. It was quite evident that there was total support for that move. However, the other parts of this bill deal with legislation. Personally, I have some problems with the legislation part of it. As a Dene person, we use tobacco differently than other Canadians. I quit smoking but I still purchase tobacco because it is part of our religion, our spiritual belief, that we use tobacco.

Some of you may have participated in the fire ceremony that the Dene in my region have where we collect food and tobacco and feed the fire. We use tobacco as a means to feed the fire. That has been part of the Dene way for many, many years. We also use tobacco as gifts. We give it to our elders. Sometimes, when I travel down south into the provinces and in the states, to attend different Indian gatherings and ceremonies, people give me a carton of tobacco. In the Indian world, and in the Dene world, when somebody gives you gift, you don't say, no, I don't want it. You have to take it.

If I go down south and am given four or five cartons of tobacco, I don't know whether I'm going to be receiving this tobacco, so I can't apply for a permit before I go. And, I wouldn't know how much it would cost, tax-wise, to bring it back. If I bring it back across the US border and the Alberta border and the RCMP stops me, according to this, for a first offence, for less than five cartons, I'll be fined $1,000. If people have been very generous down there and gave me more than five cartons, I could be charged $5,000 for a first offence. That's quite the substantial penalty for me. I've talked to people in my constituency about this and people agree that we should keep the rates that high. There's no problem with it. For the implications that I just explained, it puts us in a very awkward position here. The clauses are put in there for very serious smugglers, people who predetermine ahead of time that they are going to go down there and get a substantial amount of tobacco to resell in the north and make a huge profit. That is the intention to put this in there but there are cases, as I explained, where people will become criminals for practising their religion, if they go right by the law. Based on that, I have some problems with this bill in that area. If there could be some changes made or something added to it to allow for people to carry on in their tradition without any harassment from police officers or any threat. If this is in place and people understand the law, then every time they're practising their religion they will be frightened or afraid whenever they see a police car come down the road because they're carrying tobacco.

Tobacco is also used by some spiritual people that have pipes that are given to then. They practice their way of life quite substantially so they carry tobacco that may not be sold in the store; they make their own. They get the raw tobacco and they chop it up themselves and make their own tobacco. They carry it in pouches and they're not marked. If we go by the letter of the law here, they're also going to breaking the law and will be in trouble. There are a number of examples in that area that I'm aware of that should be stated in the House and people should be made aware that practices like these do happen.

This is legal stuff that we're talking about here. I was told that the last case of somebody getting caught for marijuana was fined $200. If you get caught for the legal stuff here, you get charged $1000. That's a big difference. I was told by these people to raise this in the House. That's the point I was asked to make. I don't know what the implications of what I just said would cost but that is fact of what happened in the community. Either the fines for marijuana charges should go up substantially, that's one way of dealing with that. If some changes can be made to allow for the spiritual significance of what I said for aboriginal...Even non-aboriginal people are starting to practise aboriginal religions now so it not only pertains to aboriginals, it's something that I wanted to raise in the House. If the Minister could reply to that to see if there could be some changes to that bill in this regard. Thank you.