EDMONTON — The president of a tobacco company from a 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 was convicted last month in provincial court of two other charges under the Tobacco Tax Act.
They include possessing tobacco not marked for tax sale and for having more than one thousand cigarettes.
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The Alberta Crown said whether he will be sentenced on those charges will depend on a constitutional challenge that Dickson has filed.
His lawyer said part of the challenge will focus on Dickson’s aboriginal rights to trade tobacco with other First Nations.
Dickson was charged in 2011 after the Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission and RCMP seized almost 16 million cigarettes from a reserve south of Edmonton.
The province said it would lose three million dollars in tax revenue if the cigarettes were sold.
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The cigarettes were produced by Rainbow Tobacco near Montreal and shipped to the Montana First Nation in Alberta.
The plan was to use the Alberta location to distribute and sell the federally licensed cigarettes to First Nations peoples on reserves across Western Canada.
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