Not guilty verdict in cigarette import case

The president of a tobacco company from Mohawk territory in Quebec has been found not guilty of importing millions of cigarettes without a licence for resale to a central Alberta reserve.

Robbie Dickson of Rainbow Tobacco G. P. was convicted in provincial court of two other charges under the Tobacco Tax Act for possessing tobacco not marked for tax sale and for having more than 1,000 cigarettes.

Whether he will be sentenced on those two charges will depend on the results of a constitutional challenge that Dickson has filed and which is to begin in February, Crown prosecutor Leah Boyd said.

Defence lawyer Josephine de Whytell said part of the constitutional challenge will focus on Dickson’s aboriginal rights.

“We are contending that the Mohawks travelled across Canada and traded their tobacco with First Nations across Canada. It was customary for those First Nations to have possession of tobacco on or around the different First Nations,” she said.

“Robbie Dickson possessing tobacco on the Montana First Nation is the continuation of his aboriginal right to go about his traditional avocations.”

Dickson was charged in 2011 after the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and the RCMP seized almost 16 million cigarettes from a warehouse on the reserve south of Edmonton.

The Alberta government said at the time that it would lose $ 3 million in tax revenue if the “contraband” cigarettes were sold.

Court documents say the cigarettes in about 75,000 cartons were produced by Rainbow Tobacco on the Kahnawake reserve in Quebec and shipped to the Montana First Nation in Alberta.

The plan was to use the Alberta location as a hub to distribute and sell the federally licensed cigarettes to aboriginals on reserves across Western Canada.