The federal government will soon ban flavoured vape products across Canada, according to Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks.
The announcement comes over three years after the Trudeau government first pledged to usher in new restrictions in 2021.
The minister’s promise was in response to a press conference held in Ottawa earlier this month by an anti-tobacco coalition that demanded Saks either resign or immediately implement the ban.
“We have made a commitment from the start to restrict flavours. We haven’t wavered from that,” Ya’ara Saks told CBC News last week. “We will have this in place soon. I don’t anticipate this is going to take much longer.”
However, Saks provided no specific timeline.
The anti-tobacco groups blamed the minister’s failure to finalize regulations planned for earlier this year as the result of Saks succumbing to pressure from the vaping industry.
Health Canada initially pledged to reduce vaping flavours to just mint, menthol and tobacco in June 2021, citing a “rapid increase in youth vaping in Canada,” however, nothing materialized after that.
“The availability of a variety of desirable flavours is believed to have contributed to the rise in youth vaping,” said Health Canada in 2021.
The agency noted more than three years ago that research found young people are more likely to begin vaping with fruity and sweet flavours.
Today, Canada has one of the highest teen vaping rates globally, with almost half of all young adults having experimented with vaping, according to Statistics Canada.
Additionally, the majority of new vape users, 86%, had never smoked cigarettes before they began vaping, according to the latest Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey.
“We know that young people are being exposed to vaping first now,” said Saks.
Six provinces and territories have introduced regional flavour bans as the Trudeau government finished its consultation process on regulations, including New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Quebec.
According to Saks, the delay in Ottawa is in response to Health Canada wanting to see how things play out in Quebec, which was the first province to implement a ban last year.
“We’ve … seen in jurisdictions like Quebec, where banning of flavours has led to an illicit market that is accessible,” she said. “So as we move forward with this, we want to make sure that we get it right.”
Skas said that Ottawa wants to ensure that the new regulations will be enforceable in a way that does not easily foster an underground market.
“Just to be clear, there is no slow-walking of this,” she said. “It’s a matter of what are the lessons that we can learn right now?”
However, the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control’s co-director Flory Doucas argued that the lack of a national ban is the very reason why the province has seen a burgeoning illicit market.
According to Doucas, Quebeckers can easily order flavoured vaping products from a retailer outside of the province, as they have already been approved by Health Canada.
“The argument … of delaying the regulation because there are issues in provinces is pretty rich, because the federal framework has made it very easy for industry to skirt these provincial regulations,” said Doucas.
“We’ve been dealing with an industry that has been successful in delaying and delaying these regulations.”