The minister of mental health and addictions says the federal government will ban most vape flavours across Canada soon — more than three years after Ottawa first promised to bring in the regulations.
“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.” She did not specify a timeline.
Saks’ promise comes after a coalition of anti-tobacco health groups held a press conference in Ottawa earlier this month to call on Saks to introduce the ban swiftly or resign.
They accused her of bowing to vaping industry pressure by failing to finalize the regulations this spring, as the federal government had planned.
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks speaks to CBC News’ Marina von Stackelberg about how Ottawa wants to learn from Quebec’s experience in banning flavoured vaping products before bringing in national restrictions. The federal government promised the ban more than three years ago.
Back in June 2021, citing a “rapid increase in youth vaping in Canada,” Health Canada vowed to restrict vaping flavours to mint, menthol and tobacco.
“The availability of a variety of desirable flavours is believed to have contributed to the rise in youth vaping,” Health Canada said at the time, pointing to research that shows young people are more likely to start vaping with fruity and sweet flavours.
Three years after that warning, Canada now has one of the highest teen vaping rates in the world; Statistics Canada reports nearly half of all young adults have tried vaping. Most new vape users — 86 per cent — were never cigarette smokers, according to the most recent Canadian Tobacco and Nicotine Survey.
“We know that young people are being exposed to vaping first now,” Saks said.
While Ottawa has spent the last three years consulting on regulations, six provinces and territories have brought in their own flavour bans: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, P.E.I., Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Quebec.
Saks said the delay in national regulations is due to the fact that Health Canada wants to learn from Quebec’s experience. That province banned flavours a year ago.
“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.”
The federal government wants to make sure the regulations will be enforceable and won’t inadvertently encourage underground flavoured vape sales, she said.
“Just to be clear, there is no slow-walking of this,” Saks said. “It’s a matter of what are the lessons that we can learn right now?”
National anti-tobacco and health groups are calling on the minister of mental health and addictions to resign after failing to regulate vaping flavours that appeal to kids, after three years of promises to do so.
But Flory Doucas, co-director of Quebec Coalition for Tobacco Control, said the emerging illicit market in Quebec is the very reason why there needs to be a national flavour ban now.
Right now, customers in Quebec can easily order flavoured vaping products approved by Health Canada from a retailer operating out of a province that doesn’t have a ban.
“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,” Doucas said.
Doucas said the nicotine and vaping industry moves quickly to find loopholes in new restrictions, but that shouldn’t be a reason for the federal government to wait this long.
“We’ve been dealing with an industry that has been successful in delaying and delaying these regulations,” Doucas said.
The vaping industry held its own press conference in Ottawa last week to call on Saks not to ban flavours.
Adult smokers rely on vaping as a less-harmful option to cigarettes and appealing flavours make switching easier for them, said Sam Tam, president of the Canadian Vaping Association.
“A blanket flavour ban will do absolutely nothing to protect Canadians, especially our youth,” he said.
Saks has been relatively silent up to now on Ottawa’s plans to bring in a flavour ban. Health Minister Mark Holland, meanwhile, has been an outspoken critic of nicotine pouches and banned the sale of pouches with fruity flavours within a year of them hitting shelves.
Saks said the fact that vaping has been around for much longer makes regulating it harder.
“The [nicotine pouch] market is a newer marketplace that Minister Holland was able to nip at before it had proliferated,” Saks said. “Vaping products have been around for quite a long time. And we’ve also seen shifts and changes in the marketplace.
“I am seized with this. We do want to get this out as quickly as possible.”
Minister of Mental Health and Addictions Ya’ara Saks speaks to CBC News’ Marina von Stackelberg about why the federal government is still trying to ban vaping flavours more than three years after it promised to do so — but managed to ban nicotine pouch flavours in less than a year.