Smokers, and there are still a large number of them in this province, will be disappointed to hear about McGuinty's tax hike on cigarettes. His plan is to raise the cost of a carton of cigarettes by $10.

This amounts to $1.25 for each pack (before GST). Those of us who smoke are paying anywhere from $8.25 to $9.00 already, after Mcguinty a pack of cigarettes would cost $10 or more.

Think about that. Those who don't smoke are probably wondering what all the deal is, but what you may not realize is that 3 or 4 years ago a pack of cigarettes cost $3.50.

Now an average smoker (pack a day), is paying more than $60 bucks a week (almost all taxes) to do something that is completely legal. Depending on the province, approximately 65-80% of the cost of a pack of cigarettes is tax. The tobacco companies sell their product for a little over $2.00. A tax increase of $1.25 amounts to 60% of the cost of a package of cigarettes before tax. That's a pretty hefty tax increase.

The June 2001 figures for the number of smokers (among people over 15 years of age) in this country are 5.7 million people, or 23% of the population. Essentially one in four Canadians smoke. Assuming that the numbers are fairly similar for Ontario, that's a lot of people who by default are not even going to consider the Ontario Liberal party's message in this election.