How long to pay off $800K in illegal cigarette fines? 32,000 months, a judge calculates

Nova Scotia provincial court Judge Alain Bégin put a fine point on the absurdity of the situation with some quick math: it will take 32,000 months for the 68-year-old man he was sentencing on contraband cigarette charges to pay off the massive fines that, by law, had to be imposed.

On Wednesday, David Barrie confirmed he was pleading guilty to two counts related to possessing unstamped tobacco, charges that stemmed from 650,000 illegal cigarettes discovered by RCMP in a van the man was driving two years ago near Truro, N.S.

The violations were under the federal Excise Act and provincial Revenue Act, which prescribe formulas to determine the minimum fine amount, based on the number of cigarettes seized and the tax evaded.

In Barrie's case, the calculation amounts to a whopping $886,296.80, an astronomical amount for a man the court was told is disabled, unemployed and lives on an Old Age Security pension.

"What's your intention with regards to minimum payment?" Bégin asked him in a Truro courtroom. "Two hundred bucks a month? A hundred bucks a month? What are you gonna do? You pay $50 a month towards your $800,000 bill?"

"He was hoping for maybe 25," Jim O'Neil, Barrie's lawyer, replied. "All right, $25 a month on your $800,000 bill," concluded Bégin, who out of curiosity did a quick calculation. "Yeah, 32,000 months to pay off your fine."

In an interview, O'Neil said the minimum fines for illegal tobacco charges are set out in federal and provincial legislation, and judges have no discretion. It's an issue, he said, that has long bothered him when it comes to clients who are too poor to pay.

In one case involving a single mother, O'Neil said, he sought to challenge the fine based on her poverty, but after researching the case law realized the argument would not succeed in charges involving contraband tobacco.

When faced with such situations, he said, the only thing judges can do is "modify the impact" on the offender by ordering them to pay small monthly amounts, with no illusions the total fine will ever be paid off.

"An awful lot of people who are involved in contraband tobacco are themselves addicted to tobacco or they're poor," O'Neil said.

"For some reason, governments have singled out this particular offence for these huge fines and it's not proportionate to any other wrongdoings we may do as citizens."

'Nothing to show for it'

Revenue from tobacco taxes has dropped significantly in Nova Scotia in recent years. Smoking rates have declined, but a provincial cabinet minister acknowledged this spring that contraband sales may also be eating into the government's bottom line.

Provincial tobacco enforcement officers seized a record number of illegal cigarettes last year, although the statistics don't include seizures by police forces.

Barrie was arrested on May 27, 2023, after police pulled over a Ford Econoline van at the interchange of highways 102 and 104 outside of Truro, according to an RCMP police release at the time. Officers obtained a search warrant and found the unstamped cigarettes.

O'Neil told the court Wednesday that Barrie was only a courier for someone else. "That's even worse. He wasn't going to get the benefit" from the sale of the cigarettes, O'Neil said.

"Or the most foolish part, perhaps," Bégin replied. "Worse or most foolish, taking all the risk, going to get the penalty, and nothing to show for it."

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