CORNWALL -- The reasons why a coalition is calling to keep the port of entry in the Seaway City ring false for the Cornwall Regional Task Force.
In light of this week's announcement that the construction of a new north span Seaway International Bridge will begin in the next year, the National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco (NCACT) has said again that "it is critical the permanent location for the border point of entry remain in Cornwall, and not shift back to Cornwall Island or to the U.S. side of the border."
The NCACT claims moving the border entry point from Akwesasne's Cornwall Island district to Cornwall "made it more difficult for smugglers to move illegal cigarettes from the Akwesasne reserve across the international border into Ontario and from there across Canada.
"Prior to this move, illegal cigarettes skirted the border point of entry on Cornwall Island and flowed unchecked into Canada," said the NCACT in a statement.
The task force's Sgt. Michael Harvey agreed with that statement, adding that, before the port of entry moved to Cornwall, contraband tobacco flowed into Cornwall Island from New York State, primarily by boat, to be loaded into vehicles.
Those loaded vehicles would then skirt around the customs house at the Four Corners intersection to cross the north span bridge to Cornwall.
However, because the north span bridge now ends in Cornwall with a stop at an interim customs checkpoint, smugglers have taken to bringing most of their contraband cigarettes into Canada by water craft in the spring, summer and fall or by snowmobile in the winter.
"The number of cigarettes being smuggled hasn't gone down because of the border, they've just been displaced," Harvey said. "Organized crime groups have adapted and changed their approach."
Consequently, the number of cigarette seizures in South Glengarry Township and by the Valleyfield, Que. RCMP detachment have increased substantially, Harvey said.
In 2009, the year the border shut down for six weeks and reopened in Cornwall, the Cornwall RCMP seized 272,385 cartons of cigarettes and around 7,000 kilograms of fine-cut tobacco.
To date, seizures in 2010 have included 166,196 cartons of cigarettes and 9,619 kilograms of fine-cut tobacco.
Cornwall has long been "the epicentre of contraband tobacco smuggling in Canada," said the NCACT, with upwards of 90% of the illegal tobacco sold in Canada being smuggled through the city from the U.S. side of Akwesasne, where 10 unlicenced factories churn out millions of cigarettes each day.