A proposed anti-tobacco plan is “totally irresponsible” say critics and will only fan the flames of the province’s already out-of-control illegal cigarette market.

The Smoke-Free Ontario Modernization report, released Thursday and prepared by an expert committee for Ontario Health Minister Eric Hoskins, calls for huge tax increases on smokes, among other things.

“When you talk about taxation specifically, these groups are putting their head in the sand, they’re not recognizing that there is a contraband problem in the province,” says Eric Gagnon, head of Imperial Tobacco Canada’s corporate and regulatory affairs.

“It’s totally irresponsible for any groups to advocate for tobacco tax increases in Ontario knowing that 40% of the market right now in the province is illegal and in some parts of Northern Ontario that number reaches 70%. Because even if you increase taxes in Ontario what’s going to happen is that people will just buy their products illegally.”

Gary Grant, spokesman for The National Coalition Against Contraband Tobacco, agrees the report ignores the real elephant in the room.

“Unless there’s meaningful action taken against contraband, every time someone does something to make it more difficult to purchase cigarettes, (smokers) have a very easy avenue to go to the black market and purchase cigarettes at a much cheaper price from organized crime,” he said.

Grant said one in three cigarettes bought in Ontario are illegal, the province has the highest rate use of contraband in Canada, and it’s costing over $1 billion a year in lost tax revenue.

About 93% of all illegal cigarettes are manufactured on First Nation land in 50 unregulated factories that make up to 10,000 smokes a minute that are then smuggled elsewhere into the province, he said, adding there are also 300 legal “smoke shacks” across the country, most in Ontario and Quebec, selling to First Nations clientele.

Dave Bryans, president of the Ontario Convenience Store Association, concurs the illegal cigarette problem is being ignored in the report.

“I wish this document had honed in a bit on the illegal contraband tobacco problem in Ontario that’s in epidemic proportions,” he said. “The RCMP has made it quite clear that there’s a 150 known organized gangs delivering contraband around Ontario that everyone’s closing their eyes to. We aren’t here to question the First Nations people because it is their right to have a tax free tobacco environment, but it’s being used by other people to infiltrate all the other communities in Ontario.”

Both Gagnon and Toby Barrett, MPP for Haldimand Norfolk, think Ontario should follow the example of Quebec where they had similar contraband levels a few years ago but introduced legislative measures to reduce them.

“To my mind it’s essentially throwing gasoline on a fire,” said Barrett of raising cigarette taxes. “It will just compound the problem.”