WINDSOR, Ontario - Canadian convenience stores are claming that Ontario public health offices are using minors to conduct mystery shops for tobacco purchases, the Windsor Star reports. The "unethical" strategy hopes to find which retailers sell cigarettes to underage buyers, according to the Ontario Convenience Stores Association (OCSA).

"We have so many sales to minors in our community. ... This strategy is not exploiting, whatsoever. What it's doing is identifying an underlying problem that persists in our community," said Neil MacKenzie with the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit.

Dave Bryans, OCSA president, believes that its not right for the province to use minors for tobacco stings, which are conducted as part of the enforcement of the Smoke Free Ontario Act. "We strongly believe the health units and, by extension, the provincial government are acting inappropriately and unethically by engaging in this tactic," he wrote in a letter to the editor.

Bryans also explained that while it??s not illegal for underage persons to have tobacco, the government prohibits selling tobacco to those underage. "Ontario's health units are exploiting this loophole," his letter read.

However, MacKenzie countered with the fact that this program of using minors for tobacco purchases has been in place in Ontario for years. "Without (the program), we would have no way of monitoring and trying to correct the situation," he said.

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