How much did Imperial Tobacco spend last year to promote its vaping products in Canada?
Which Ontario cities have the greatest concentrations of tobacco or vaping retailers?
Did plain packaging reduce the number of tobacco brands sold in Canada?
How do companies measure the taste of their products?
What proportion of vaping liquids sold in B.C. are flavoured?
The answers to these questions currently lie on computer servers in government offices across Canada. This post (and an accompanying fact sheet) review the reporting requirements of tobacco suppliers and the systems in place to apply this information to public use.
Information gathering by Health Canada
One of the lesser-sung accomplishments of Canadian health authorities is their willingness to force force tobacco companies to be open about the additives and ingredients they used in their products. The governments of British Columbia and Canada collaborated to pioneer requirements for companies to share ingredients and to measure the quantities of several dozen toxins in cigarette smoke. B.C.'s 1998 Testing and Disclosure Regulations were superceded by the 2000 federal Tobacco Reporting Regulations (TRR) which also require disclosure on sales and prices, promotional activities, of production and packaging and other important information.
The federal regulations were recently revised, with even more reporting obligations imposed on the companies. Now they must also provide Health Canada officials with "a full copy of every research report" -- including consumer research, taste tests, and research into ingredients and reducing toxicity.
Similar obligations are not yet in place for vaping manufacturers, although Health Canada has made doing so one of its regulatory priorities and has indicated that it will simultaneously be updating its Tobacco Reporting Regulations. Nonetheless, at least two of the major vaping manufacturers are already required to provide information on sales and promotional expenses in each province because the TRR requires tobacco companies to file reports on their marketing activities for any other product they sell, even if no tobacco is involved. Imperial Tobacco must therefore submit annual reports on its promotions and sales of VUSE, JTI-Macdonald on its sales of Logic products and likely Imperial Brands on its past sales of Blu.
The TVPA also authorizes the department to establish regulations regarding the disclosure of this information to the public (s. 6.2, 7, 7.6, 7.8 ). Health Canada has indicated that it intends to develop regulations regarding public disclosure this fall.Information gathering by provincial governments
Although health ministries in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec are authorized to require reports from tobacco suppliers, none have yet done so. Tobacco wholesalers are licensed in all provinces and territories, and retailers are licensed by all but two provinces (Saskatchewan and Alberta). The finance ministries which manage this licensing system have the authority to require reports related to tax returns, and receive monthly reports on sales value, volume or both. As a result of these obligations, lists exist of all tobacco license holders, although some may no longer be selling tobacco. Provincial tax authorities have monthly data on tobacco sales.
In 2020, three provinces (B.C., Newfoundland and Nova Scotia) created obligations for vaping product suppliers to register or provide information. Ontario requires that specialty vaping stores benefitting from exemptions to marketing restrictions be registered with local public health units. The B.C. E-Substances Regulation (which is a regulation under the province's Public Health Act, and not its Tobacco and Vapour Products Control Act) requires business owners to provide detailed information on the vaping products sold. Information on the quantity of sales must be provided by January 15 for the first 3 quarters of the preceding year. Nova Scotia requires vaping wholesalers to provide monthly information on the quantity of vaping products sold.
Information gathering by commercial firms
A number of commercial enterprises monitor tobacco and vaping product sales and promotion. Nielsen has made arrangements with retailers across the country to gather information from cash registers. Those who purchase this data receive information on the quantity and price of products sold. Numerator has made arrangements with advertising firms to collect data on promotions in measured and new (digital) media, including estimated expenditures and advertising content. Euromonitor has arrangement with producers and other stakeholders to monitor market and brand developments.
Information gathering by tobacco companies
Tobacco companies are active in a number of research areas, including health-relevant research on their products (eg. emissions), on consumers (product testing, polling), on their competitors (market monitoring).
By selling directly to retailers (instead of using wholesale distributors), the companies have detailed knowledge of shipments and sales for each retail outlet. Generally, retailers can only purchase tobacco products if they are under contract to the manufacturers. Imperial Tobacco mandates contracted retailers to provide information on local prices. (Clause 5(viii)) The companies are not (yet) obliged to disclose to government the data they collect in this way.
Some information-sharing and examples of how more could be done
To date, some of the data collected by governments, industry and commercial organizations has been shared and used for public health purposes.
- Health Canada shares some of the sales data provided, in presentations to interested parties and on its web-site. It has provided some researchers with access to data. In previous decades, the department released sales data on a brand-level, and also shared data it purchased from commercial agencies.
- Health Canada provides some of the information it purchases from commercial agencies.
- British Columbia (and possibly other provincial governments) make available the identity of retail license holders. Most provinces make available the list of wholesale licensees.
- Federal and provincial governments host open-data portals, facilitating the public release of data.
There is currently no data-sharing agreement among Canadian tobacco regulators, and no structure or system in place to facilitate public or government access to data related to tobacco industry activities and no structures for proactive disclosure of industry reports. It is possible that these are anticipated as part of Health Canada's new data strategy.
Examples can be drawn from data-sharing systems for other products or in other jurisdictions:
- France maintains an observatory on tobacco sales, providing monthly updates on sales of tobacco and stop smoking medication.
- Data hubs for cannabis sales and use are maintained by Statistics Canada and by Health Canada.
- Although data-sharing challenges are an identified impediment to addressing COVID-19, daily updates on key indicators are available on a local and global basis.
