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Black Market Tobacco is Hand in Hand With Government Risk Management for Flushing Your Tax Dollars Down the Crapper  

Listening to the retailers association, the RCMP and Imperial Tobacco crying the blues over black-market tobacco is like listening to the cheating husband, his mistress and the wife lamenting over getting too much sex, not enough sex, and not wanting sex.

The first is crying wolf as they benefit from the problem, the second is crying about not getting enough when they aren’t doing anything to advance their cause, and the third is crying foul when they are possibly the source of the problem.

In every province except Quebec, there is an electronic program available to the government to not only monitor tobacco purchases on reserves, but to police off-reserve individuals and make sure they don’t get access to exemptions on tobacco that they are not legally entitled to.

You see, black-market tobacco is not the only problem.� There is also the issue of tax exempt tobacco, legally obtained for the purpose of resale on reserve, and then being sold illegally to off-reserve purchasers. This adds another $1.5 billion in fraud to the $2 billion already mentioned.

Every province employs a system for managing tobacco on reserves. Only one province even comes close to getting it right, but they do a pathetic job of it nonetheless. . . .

Listening to the retailers association, the RCMP and Imperial Tobacco crying the blues over black-market tobacco is like listening to the cheating husband, his mistress and the wife lamenting over getting too much sex, not enough sex, and not wanting sex.

The first is crying wolf as they benefit from the problem, the second is crying about not getting enough when they aren’t doing anything to advance their cause, and the third is crying foul when they are possibly the source of the problem.

In every province except Quebec, there is an electronic program available to the government to not only monitor tobacco purchases on reserves, but to police off-reserve individuals and make sure they don’t get access to exemptions on tobacco that they are not legally entitled to.

You see, black-market tobacco is not the only problem. There is also the issue of tax exempt tobacco, legally obtained for the purpose of resale on reserve, and then being sold illegally to off-reserve purchasers. This adds another $1.5 billion in fraud to the $2 billion already mentioned.

Every province employs a system for managing tobacco on reserves. Only one province even comes close to getting it right, but they do a pathetic job of it nonetheless. . . .

Governments believe that if you have information, you have control. This is a false assumption, because you must have an enforcement mechanism as well. So really it means that information, coupled with legislation, provides enforcement, which is control.

When you add in the division of responsibility between the provinces and the federal government, you end up with practically no information (most provinces couldn’t supply you with an accurate list of First Nations members if they tried), and zero accountability. Not my province’s problem, say the feds. Not our problem, says your provincial government.

A simple, uniform swipe card with a biometric component, such as a fingerprint, would eliminate the $1.5 billion dollars per annum in fraud overnight, at a cost of perhaps $45 million in the first year.

The first part, the identity card, has been on the table and tested in various populations since 1998 starting with Treaty 7 in Alberta. 13 years later and less than 20% of First Nations members have it, and you would crap your pants at what the feds pay for a simple 2D barcoded swipecard that goes for $2.50 in the open marketplace.

Now go find your MLA, MPP, or whoever, and bitch about this, because if you think this is upsetting, you’ll cry in your beer when I tell you about the holes in the health care system and how they represent close to $30 Billion in lost taxpayers money every year simply because of the fundamental design flaws in the provincial systems, and that they could be fixed for less than $1 billion in upfront costs.

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