Ban flavoured vapes now, anti-smoking groups urge Carney’s government
Global News
Several anti-tobacco groups are calling on Canada's health minister to finalize regulations that would ban flavoured vaping products.
Several tobacco control organizations are renewing their calls on the federal government to put a ban on flavoured vaping products as a new Parliament begins and a new health minister settles into their role.
That comes as data over recent years has shown half of Canadian young adults have tried vaping, and after previous health minister Mark Holland took aim at the tobacco industry during the previous Parliament, telling it to “stay the hell away from our kids.”
Action on Smoking and Health, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control and Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada called on Health Minister Marjorie Michel to finalize regulations first put forward in 2021 that would prohibit flavours, except for tobacco, mint and menthol, from being added to e-cigarettes.
However, the group said it wants those regulations further strengthened to prohibit all but tobacco flavours and for it to happen in Michel’s first 100 days in office.
“Let’s be clear, we’re not calling for a ban on all vaping products, but only for a ban on flavoured versions that make them interesting and highly appealing to youth,” said Flory Doucas, co-director of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control.
Flavoured vaping products have been a topic of discussion among governments for years and the regulations noted by the groups was a promise made by Ottawa in 2021.
Three years later, no such restrictions exist on a national level, but the promise has remained amid a broader federal push to crack down on the sale and appeal of new forms of nicotine for youth, including a ban on flavoured nicotine pouches put in place last year.
“We cannot afford for this government to sit on its hands or take the same laissez-faire approach to the tobacco and nicotine industry as its predecessor,” Cynthia Callard, executive director of Physicians for a Smoke Canada, said in a press release.
