Double Standard

I wonder if convenience store owners/workers, who seem to be mainly from the far east, can go to the HRC pleading they are being discriminated against because indians, Canadian version, don't have to abide by the same regularions.

Cigarette rules show laws have no reservations

The checkout clerks at my local supermarket were in a bad mood leading up to June 1. They were rehearsing for Ontario's new smoking regulations and they hate them. "You could lose your job really easily," one told me. "All it will take is one little mistake." It seems the new Smoke Free Ontario Act, which went into effect June 1, involves more than just hiding cigarettes behind flip down covers. You have to be careful how much of the shelf you expose when you look for the right package. You have to make sure you don't pull out the drawers where the cartons are stored too far in case a passing child spots the evil things and is instantly hooked for life. The supermarket chain provided the girls with a big binder full of its own regulations. Now the girls have to ask every customer, not just the young ones, for government photo identification. The province's penalties for breaking the rules are so stiff -- fines start at $10,000 for the first offence and jump up to $100,000 for the third -- that the girls face instant dismissal if they goof. So just before the new rules came into effect, they asked the boss to take the cigarettes out altogether. Complying with the law is just too difficult for them. The boss is still making up his mind. Of course, these clerks don't care because even though many of them smoke, they seldom buy cigarettes in their own store -- only if they run out and can't get to the smoke shacks on the reserve 15 miles away. Around the corner at Mac's Milk, it was much the same. "I don't know how anyone will know we sell cigarettes," said the clerk as she wrestled with the cover hiding the smokes. Convenience store operators face real financial hardship since many depend on cigarette sales to survive. But in Ontario, about a third of all smokers are already buying contraband cigarettes from First Nations. In my community, cigarette sales are lousy because no one in their right mind will pay $90 or more a carton when they can buy the contraband equivalent for as little as $12. I wondered how my local reserve smoke shacks were reacting to the Smoke Free Ontario Act so off I went on a rainy Sunday afternoon, cash in hand. Butts in the open Surprise, surprise. It was business as usual. There were the cartons displayed on open shelves behind the counter above the piles of plastic bags containing the really cheap stuff. And there were the customers, lined up as usual. The woman ahead of me bought nine cartons while her husband waited in the lineup outside to gas up at eight cents a litre less than it was up the road at the non-native station. The kid next to her bought a $12 bag. He didn't look 19, but no one asked his age. Back in early May, federal Justice Minister Stockwell Day and the RCMP announced a crackdown on contraband cigarettes. They were going to target the reserves where the bulk of the cigarettes are produced -- Six Nations, Akwesasne and Tyendinaga in Ontario and Kahnawake and Kanesatake, in Quebec. Amusingly, the minister pleaded with Canadians to do the right thing and stop buying illegal tobacco. Yeah, right. That'll really work, won't it? The government can't even get help from the Americans because they're reportedly not interested. And so far, nothing much else appears to have happened. The piles of cigarette cartons are as big as ever and the lineups at least as long. Nope, for the people who run Nan's Smokin' Coffee drive-through, the ironically named Smoke's Smokes and all the others lining the road through the reserve, life goes on and the money continues to roll in. Oh but the new laws will really mess up the big manufacturers, right. Nope. Rothmans announced last month its annual profits are up a whopping 18% even though it shipped less tobacco. Harassing retail clerks and putting corner store operators out of business helps no one. Unless and until governments are ready to raid the big reserves and shut down the illegal manufacturing -- which you can be pretty sure they won't do since it will mean open warfare and likely many deaths -- nothing is going to happen. Smoke-free Ontario indeed. connie.woodcock@sunmedia.ca