Canada Proposing Major Restrictions On Vapes

Canada is known as a land of regulations and restrictive policies. Just look at the Canadian betting laws as an example.

On this side of the border, the best online sportsbooks for US players are very open about what they provide in terms of bonus and promotional offers. In Ontario, Canada, however, the laws prohibit online betting sites from making public any offers via advertising or marketing means.

Now, the Canadian government is setting its sights on the vape industry and it’s not going to be good news for Canadians who vape.

In a twofold assault on the vaping public, Canada’s ruling Liberal federal government is planning to first of all significantly increase the tax on vapes. Secondly, Canadian lawmakers are also looking into putting a prohibition on certain flavored vapes.

Canadian Vape Tax Hike Slated For July 1

July 1 is Canada Day, officially Canada’s birthday. However, it’s going to feel more like D Day to the Canadian vaping public.

According to a report from Canadian media outlet Global News, Canadians will be paying much more to vape come July. The Canadian government is planning to increase the price of a vape pod between 12 and 24 cents, depending on where Canadians live.

In mid-June, the Canadian Department of Finance released draft regulations to enable Canadian provinces and territories Alberta, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Yukon, and Prince Edward Island to participate in Canada’s coordinated vaping taxation framework as of January 1, 2025. Canadian provinces Ontario and Quebec, as well as territories the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are already parties to this framework.

As well, as of July 1, 2024, any vaping product manufactured in, or imported into, Canada and destined for the duty-paid market of a participating jurisdiction (Ontario, Quebec, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) must bear an excise stamp specific to that province or territory. Dutiable vaping products must bear an excise stamp indicating that duty has been paid.

These changes were implemented as part of the 2024 Canadian federal budget. Expectations are that these new taxes will generate approximately $310 million in additional revenue per year. Under the framework, total revenues are to be split between federal and provincial and territorial governments on a 50/50 basis.

According to data compiled by Statistics Canada, these additional taxes will be impacting a significant number of Canadians, especially younger Canadians. In 2022, 30 percent of youth aged 15 to 19 (631,000 youth), and 47.5 per cent of those aged 20 to 24 (1.1 million young adults) reported ever vaping, compared to just 14.7 per cent (4 million adults) for Canadians aged 25 and older.

Industry Experts Predicting Dire Unintended Consequences

Canada’s government is planning to halt the sale of many flavored vapes (Photo by Cloudjpk. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license).

Several experts in the vaping industry and even some whose input might surprise you, are suggesting that upping the price on vapes could lead to unintended consequences that figure to hold the potential to harm many Canadians.

Numerous industry experts are projecting that increasing the price of vapes will only succeed in driving young Canadians back to smoking traditional cigarettes.

Rahi Abouk, a professor at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., saw a similar effect taking place when e-cigarette prices were increased in US states. In fact, he co-authored a study about the impact of e-cigarette taxation in the United States. Their research unearthed that with every $1 increase in e-cigarette taxes, the result was approximately a 12 per cent decline in e-cigarette use.

That decrease was because those departing e-cigarette users were choosing to go back to kicking it old school.

“We noticed that the use of conventional cigarettes goes up after states adopt electronic cigarette taxes,” Abouk told Global News.

Even people you might suspect would be delighted with this move by the Canadian government are expressing concern that it will result in the same endgame. A senior policy analyst with the Canadian Cancer Society, Rob Cunningham also fears that increased cigarette smoking will be the effect created by this Canadian tax hike on vapes.

“It’s really frustrating, having had such difficult years step by step working to reduce smoking, that we’re having to learn those lessons and repeat those lessons all over again,” Cunningham told Global News.

“A 12 percent increase, that’s really close to inflation over the last few years. So it’s not really much of an increase at all. We could go much higher.”

Flavored Vapes On Canada’s Endangered List?

For a few years now, Canada has had in place the paperwork to ban many varieties of flavored vapes. On June 19, 2021, Health Canada published plans to implement a ban on certain flavored vapes within six months. However, for some unexplained reason, the government never followed through on this policy change.

Lately, though, it’s come back to the front burner under Mark Holland, Canada’s new Minister of Health.

Holland previously worked with Heart and Stroke Canada. He explained during a recent media conference why the vape flavor ban was originally put on hold.

“I was with Heart and Stroke when we dealt with the issue of vaping, and there were many voices at that time, when information was uncertain, who said, ‘Let this exist as a cessation tool (to cigarette smoking). Don’t take action,’” Holland explained.

Those on the side of the pro vape lobby fear that this vape flavor ban has become a personal pet project for Holland.

“This appears to be a personal legacy project for the Minister of Health, supported strongly by his former peers at the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Canadian Cancer Society, the Canadian Lung Association, and some smaller anti-smoking NGOs,” Vaping Industry Trade Association (VITA) Managing Director Thomas Kirsop said in a statement.

The 1.8 million Canadians who vape do have the opportunity to fight back. The advocacy group Rights4Vapers is helping those who vape in Canada to construct letters of protest regarding the proposed vape flavor ban.

Once the letter is completed, Rights4Vapers are mailing copies to each vaper’s Member of Parliament, as well as to Health Canada, Health Minister Holland, and Associate Health Minister (and Minister of Mental Health and Addictions) Ya’ara Saks.

To date, more than 12,000 letters of protest have been delivered.