TORONTO (CP) - The Ontario government is asking Ottawa to investigate a series of cigarette billboards near a Six Nations aboriginal reserve that the province's health promotion minister believes are a violation of federal law.
The lighted signs and billboards, which line a highway leading to the southern Ontario reserve near the town of Caledonia, advertise cigarettes for sale on the reserve.
"These clearly, in our opinion, are a breach of the federal advertising law," Jim Watson said Tuesday before the Liberal government's weekly caucus meeting.
"We hope the federal government takes its responsibility seriously and is very proactive in making sure the law is upheld."
Since the province's Smoke-Free Ontario Act does not apply to aboriginal reserves, Watson has written to federal Health Minister Tony Clement to ask for an investigation on the grounds the billboards violate federal laws that forbid tobacco advertising.
One of the billboards features a cartoon bull with a feather between his horns, having a drink and a smoke, Watson noted.
"We're trying to get young people not to smoke," he said. "This does exactly the opposite."
Transportation Minister Donna Cansfield said Tuesday that the tobacco billboards were being removed.
"The advertising signs on Highway Six between Caledonia and Hagersville are currently being removed in accordance with normal ministry policy," she told the legislature.
But Cansfield contradicted herself minutes later, outside the House, when she told reporters that the province was investigating the roadside signs to determine if their placement violates Ontario's Highway Traffic Act.
"What we're doing is doing that investigating to ensure that they are first of all illegal, and on our property and not on reserve property and not on private property," she said. "I think we'll just follow the normal ministry procedure."
Cansfield said the ministry would give the signs' owners 24 hours notice to remove any signs found to be illegal - and on public property - before the ministry removes them.
"This is not the first time a member of the McGuinty government has misled the legislature," said NDP Leader Howard Hampton.
"They say the signs are illegal and coming down, and yet they can't even definitively, in terms of the law, say that."
Conservative Toby Barrett, whose riding includes the Six Nations reserve, said drivers can see many tobacco billboards along Highway Six - including some for brand name cigarettes - for sale on the reserve.
"The question is, is your government content with all of the tobacco signs along provincial Highway Six?" Barrett asked in the legislature.
Premier Dalton McGuinty said it's up to Ottawa to deal with illegal enterprises on aboriginal reserves.
"When it comes to activities on the reserve, and cigarette production on the reserve, that remains the preserve of the federal government."
The province is also talking with aboriginal leaders to enlist their help in fighting tobacco use and the illegal sales of cigarettes both on and off the reserve, Watson added.
"We think they should be putting the health of those of their fellow citizens ahead of profits."
A study released last week by Imperial Tobacco Canada said at least 95 per cent of illicit cigarettes sold in Canada are manufactured on aboriginal reserves, and nearly 97 per cent of them are produced in Ontario and Quebec.
The industry-sponsored survey also concluded that nearly one-quarter of all cigarettes sold in Ontario are illegal, noting that illegal sales cost Canadian governments and tobacco firms hundreds of millions of dollars a year in lost revenues.