Mr. Chairman, the reason why one carton of cigarettes, tax-free, was put in the legislation is because that parallels Canada Customs and makes for efficiency. I'm told it would avoid nuisance cases, so we were trying to align ourselves. The high fines parallel other jurisdictions, British Columbia in particular. I don't make any bones about having high penalties in this bill. As I said before, Mr. Chairman, there is no point in fining someone $20 and saying they've been a bad person. If you're going to do something like this, then you're going to have to point to a fine that is substantial and meaningful. If we're not going to take it seriously, we shouldn't be attempting to do this kind of legislation.

You've seen how serious smuggling can get in southern Canada. You've seen the effects. I don't think it's going to get to that kind of crisis state in the Northwest Territories, but I certainly think that without some penalty being there when they're caught, I'm sure people will consider the practice of smuggling. I'm not particularly keen on raising the number of cartons a person can bring into the Northwest Territories.

I think six cartons over the period of a year, six trips, one carton at a time, is a little bit more generous in the number of times than Canada Customs. I think they have four. But, certainly, the amount is the same and I think it is a reasonable amount. It is certainly a lot better, as Mr. Zoe said, than the existing legislation. If you were going to start to go to five cartons at a time, you would allow people to go out once every three months and practically bring in all the cigarettes they need for a particular period of time.

Mr. Zoe again mentions the cultural aspect and so on and so forth. As I said, if there are cultural needs, someone can get the product from the Hay River reserve and pay absolutely no tax at all. I think that's reasonable as far as Dene who require tobacco to pursue cultural or religious activities. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.