Public health advocate organizations and Canada’s largest cigarette maker are both urging the new federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to tighten the rules on e-cigarettes, especially the fruity and candy flavours, which critics say hook teens.
In separate statements released this week, anti-smoking coalitions demanded that Michel ban all flavourings within her first 100 days in office, while Imperial Tobacco Canada signalled support for limiting flavour choices to tobacco, menthol, and mint.
Although the two sides often clash, both agree youth vaping is an issue and that federal regulations have not kept pace with a rapidly changing market.
“Minister Michel has inherited the youth vaping crisis, and her intervention is urgently needed to clean up the mess her predecessors left behind,” said Les Hagen, Executive Director of Action on Smoking and Health.
Flory Doucas of the Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control warned that without swift action, the industry will “recruit more than 15,000 school-aged children” before classes resume in September.
Doucas said parents, teachers, and doctors have spent seven years trying to protect kids from products “sugar-coating a harmful drug with exotic flavours and playful devices.”
Citing federal data, she noted that nearly half of Canadian teens aged 15 to 19, over one million young people, have tried vaping and that 17% now vape every day.
Health Canada legalized nicotine vapes in 2018 under the Tobacco and Vaping Products Act, hoping adult smokers would switch to a less harmful alternative.
Unlike cigarettes, the new devices were initially exempt from tight marketing rules, standardized packaging, and most flavour restrictions.
Since 2019, Ottawa has promised to close those gaps, but only one measure, a 20 mg/mL cap on nicotine strength, has actually taken effect.
“The previous government’s preference for a poorly regulated vaping market has facilitated the tobacco industry pivoting to other harmful products and launching a new epidemic of nicotine addiction,” said Hagen.
Imperial Tobacco, whose Vuse brand leads Canada’s retail vape sales, argues that a narrower range of flavours will still help adult smokers quit cigarettes.
“We agree that more must be done to restrict youth access to vaping products, and that there are too many flavoured products on the market,” said Eric Gagnon, Vice-President of Corporate and Regulatory Affairs of Imperial Tobacco.
“We support the proposed federal vaping regulations to restrict flavours to tobacco, menthol, and mint, and we believe these flavours are sufficient for adult smokers looking to quit.”
Imperial Tobacco also wants Ottawa to police the marketplace more aggressively.
Imperial Tobacco pointed out that Quebec’s recent flavour ban shows that without collaboration and sufficient policing of illegal products, legislating tougher rules just pushes products into the black market.
Gagnon called for a national enforcement plan to clear non-compliant devices from store shelves and to crack down on unregulated illegal online sales.
Imperial Tobacco’s wish list goes further.
It suggests limiting the size and puff capacity of high-volume devices that sell at a discount many teenagers can afford, and it warns that the draft federal regulation still permits some ingredients “shown to be carcinogenic in vapour products.”
At the same time, the company wants Health Canada to let manufacturers give adult smokers clearer information about the relative risks of vaping compared with cigarettes, citing evidence that many smokers wrongly believe the two products are equally harmful.
That request sets up a clash with public health groups, which argue that tobacco firms use “harm reduction” messaging as a smokescreen to delay meaningful controls.
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada Executive Director Cynthia Callard said there has been “no increase in quit attempts or in successful quitting among smokers” since vapes hit store shelves.
However, Callard provided no data to back up her claim.
Health Canada’s 2023 Canadian Substance Use Survey backs up some of those concerns.
It found that one-in-three who tried a device even once was now a daily user.
Separate academic studies suggest young vapers become more hooked on nicotine than their peers who start with cigarettes and are more likely to move on to tobacco.
Critics also highlight potential long term health effects.
While e-cigarette aerosol contains fewer toxins than cigarette smoke, the Heart and Stroke Foundation and other groups say it still carries risks for lung injury and cardiovascular disease, especially when flavoured liquids use chemicals that can break down into dangerous compounds when heated.
Michel, appointed to the cabinet after the May 13 election, has not yet laid out a detailed timeline for meeting her party’s pledge to finish the flavour rules.
The Liberals promised graphic health warnings, plain packaging, and a ban on interprovincial mail order sales.
All measures that would align vaping regulations with tobacco control.
For now, both the industry and its fiercest opponents are pressing the new minister to act fast.
“Imperial is eager to work with public health groups as well as the new federal Health Minister Marjorie Michel to take a balanced, evidence-based approach: one that protects youth, supports adults seeking alternatives to smoking, and enforces the rules already in place,” said Gagnon.
Health organizations say the time for consultation has passed and only decisive regulations backed by strong enforcement can stop a new generation from becoming hooked on nicotine.
Whether Michel can bridge that divide may define her first months on the job.
Each side agrees on one thing.
Without tougher federal action soon, Canada’s next school year could open with even more teenagers unable to put down their vapes and another chance to curb the youth vaping will have slipped away.
