Border integrity, illicit tobacco, and Canada's security

Summary: The small town of Cornwall in eastern Ontario can be considered the contraband capital of Canada, thanks to the high volume of cross-border smuggling and illicit trade in the area. The problem has two sources: the unique local geography combined with practical, legal, and political problems that make it easy to bypass border controls; and the tolerance of Canadian and US law enforcement toward the illicit manufacture and sale of tobacco products on the Mohawk territory that straddles the Canada-US border between Ontario, Quebec, and New York State. Much of the local problem revolves around tobacco; however, significant amounts of illegal drugs, weapons, and humans have been trafficked through the area, all of these accounting for a chain of collateral crime in the surrounding region. The gross value of these illegal practices reaches into the hundreds of millions of dollars.