OTTAWA - The federal government is promising once again to crack down on contraband tobacco.
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day says more police officers will be dedicated to seizing illegal cigarettes, and a public education campaign will be launched to convince people not to buy black-market smokes. Day says the campaign will tell people that buying contraband gives money to organized crime groups and funds the drug and firearms trades.
Details of the new strategy, such as how many new officers will be hired or how extensive the education campaign will be, are not clear.
Contraband tobacco sales have skyrocketed in recent years.
RCMP say they seized 618,000 cartons of cigarettes across the country last year - an all-time record, and five times the amount seized in 2004.
