Health committee  Thank you for your questions. I will answer in English, if that's okay with you. I think it's a very interesting question. Organized crime groups are profit-driven, and they don't care about anything else but the profit. Then you have to look at domestic production, those clandestine laboratories.

Health committee  I was talking more about a combination of the two: domestic production, but also entry into the country of precursor chemicals as well as the finished product, which is called “meth”. So there are actually three different aspects to that issue.

Health committee  Thank you very much for the question. That's exactly what the national chemical precursor diversion program.... There is an acronym for it. We usually just use the acronym. I don't have to spell it out. For me, it's outreach. It's outreach to those companies, as far as even Canadian Tire and Home Depot, to be able to make them aware.

Health committee  Yes, there are some cases, and you're getting that information directly from Winnipeg. You're correct.

Health committee  Maybe I'll leave that part of that question to my colleagues in Health Canada, but what I can say, sir, when we're talking about the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act, is that, if you are caught in possession of methamphetamine, the sentences go up to about seven years. I believe that for production they go as high as life imprisonment.

Health committee  My experience with the organized crime groups is that you have to be careful with just putting one amount on it, a dollar figure, because it's profit driven, and depending on supply and demand, that can vary. My colleague has given accurate numbers as I know them today, and when you're talking about the street, you have that street gram level, but you also have hits, which are called points, that are sub 0.1 of a gram.

Health committee  That could very well be accurate, yes.

Health committee  These clandestine laboratories that are basically providing methamphetamines to the population are very dangerous explosives. I'm not an expert in the explosives category but there's also the matter of the effects on the person. When police are called to a situation in which someone may be on methamphetamines, obviously it's not a good situation.

Health committee  There is one thing I could add, if that would help. I'm certainly not a chemist, but what I can say is that when we go to these clandestine laboratories, a lot of the time we will find packaging of ephedrine, so we know that's an ephedrine that was used maybe in that process. In terms of chemical analysis, it's not—

Health committee  Thank you for the question. What I can say is that substances come legally into Canada, and then there are distributors within Canada who then ensure access for Canadians. As part of the national chemical precursor diversion program, we keep very close relations with those distribution companies, to be able to give us any kind of indication of something that's unordinary, not legit.

Health committee  We do get information and follow up on it. Some of those investigations lead to accusations, and some do not.