Over the past five years, health groups, pediatricians, teachers and medical experts have been calling on the federal government to ban flavours in commercially sold vaping products to stop the youth vaping crisis.
Flavour restrictions are crucial to preventing the vaping industry from inducing youth and young adults to start vaping through tempting, exotic and fun flavours. Health Canada responded by tabling draft regulations in June 2021, but the Liberal government dithered and delayed for more than three and a half years, up until the election was called, without ever adopting them.
This is a clear victory for the vaping and tobacco industries, as they can continue to use flavours to attract new generations of kids, teens and other “never smokers” into the debilitating nicotine addiction trap.
It was the Trudeau government that in 2018 legalized vaping products with abysmally minimal restrictions that allowed the industry to promote e-cigarettes. Unsurprisingly, youth vaping rates skyrocketed soon thereafter. And while some regulatory progress has been made since, it’s been wholly insufficient to curtail the youth vaping crisis.
The Canadian youth vaping problem is real, prolonged and sustained, with rates in Canada among the highest in the world. In 2023, a third (31 per cent) of teenagers (15 to 19 year olds) vaped in the last month. Vaping flavours, including sweet, fruit and mint/menthols, remain the main attraction for youth.
By inhaling the “nitrosamines, carbonyl compounds, heavy metals, free radicals, reactive oxygen species, particulate matter, and emerging chemicals of concern” that are present in the heated chemical aerosol, kids are also being exposed to serious health risks like asthma, COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), oral disease and heart failure.
Like smokers, young vapers quickly become addicted to nicotine, a substance harmful in and of itself as it can seriously effect developing brains and cognitive abilities. Being addicted also means young people are forced to use their meagre allowance or income from summer jobs to pay predatory for-profit companies to prevent painful withdrawal symptoms.
Not only is the industry raking in profits, but the federal government collects an astonishing $75 million a year from vaping tax revenues — twice as much as Health Canada spends on all activities to reduce smoking or vaping.
The Trudeau government said it would address the problem of flavoured products, but foot-dragging by three ministers suggests its intention was only to look like it was doing something.
Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks was the latest politician to hold out false promise, repeatedly claiming regulations would be finalized “soon.” Meanwhile, her office continued to meet with vaping industry representatives, who apparently convinced her that restricting flavours would create a contraband market. Once again, the government fell for the old Big Tobacco trick of using illicit trade to ward off effective measures.
In addition, the federal government continues to allow Canadian distributors and retailers to ship uncompliant fruit-flavoured products to provinces like Quebec and New Brunswick, where such products are banned.
The current problem of non-compliance is not the result of the illegal market but is primarily generated by “legal” businesses benefitting from the federal government’s weak regulatory framework and poor enforcement efforts.
Four provinces and two territories ban flavours, but this health measure is undermined because the federal government allows interprovincial sales. A federal ban would protect all Canadian kids by eliminating — in all provinces — premixed, prefilled and disposable fruit-flavoured vaping products that are so popular with youth.
The industry that claims flavoured vaping products help smokers quit has let more than a decade pass without applying to Health Canada to authorize their products as smoking cessation therapies (exempt from flavour restrictions on recreational nicotine). That this billion-dollar industry has failed to restrict itself to the therapeutic market speaks volumes about its true motives.
That is why we are eager to see a commitment to immediately ban flavours in commercially sold vaping products in each political party’s platform. It is imperative for the next government to not capitulate to manufacturers whose business model is based on addiction.
Canada’s youth deserve better than to have our government turn its back while their health, well-being and freedom from addiction is sacrificed to such an unscrupulous and rogue industry.