This Hallowe'en, Quebec kids get better protection from candy-flavoured nicotine.

Flavoured and Toy-shaped
vapes are now illegal in Quebec,
although they remain offered
for sale on e-stores.

On October 31, 2023 new measures to restrict e-cigarette sales come into effect in Quebec. On this day the revisions to the province's Regulation under the Tobacco Control Act come into force - ninety days after they were published in the province's Gazette.  

From this day on, e-cigarettes are included under the law's prohibition on the sale (s. 29.2) of "a tobacco product that has a flavour or aroma other than that of tobacco, including a menthol, fruit, chocolate, vanilla, honey, candy or cocoa flavour or aroma, or whose packaging suggests it is such a product." (The Quebec law includes e-cigarettes in the definition of tobacco product, but had exempted them from this provision until the regulatory change this year).

Quebec's new regulation also sets new labelling requirements for e-cigarette packaging and:

• prohibits the sale of disposable or capsule products with more than 2 ml of liquid (30 ml for refill containers)
• prohibits the sale of devices that resemble toys or for which the use can be concealed.

This post looks at the challenges for Quebec and other provinces to protect young people from flavours and other youth-oriented marketing without the support from the federal government.

In the absence of federal measures, six Canadian provinces have banned vaping flavours 

As of today, six eastern Canadian jurisdictions have banned all flavours in e-cigarettes. In order of implementation, they are Nova Scotia (April 2020), Prince Edward Island (March 2021), New Brunswick (Sept 2021), Northwest Territories (March 2022), Nunavut (May 2023) and Quebec (October 2023). 

These provinces join six other countries (Finland, Hungary, Netherlands, Ukraine, Lithuania, China) and five U.S. states (Massachussets, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and California) which have also banned all flavours other than tobacco. Australia has banned flavourings in its prescription-based system for e-cigarettes and many other countries (shown in black in the figure below) ban all e-cigarettes.

Three other Canadian provinces have adopted regulations to restrict the sale of flavoured vaping liquids to specialty vape shops where children are not permitted to enter. British Columbia (September 2021), Ontario (July 2020) and Saskatchewan (September 2021). Ontario and Saskatchewan also allow menthol and mint to be sold outside of these specialty shops.

But the federal government has stalled at the starting gate.

Federal regulation currently prohibits the use of some non-flavouring ingredients in vaping liquids, and does not allow for labels to suggest that the aerosols taste like confectionary, deserts, soft drinks, energy drinks or cannabis. 

In May 2021, Health Canada initiated regulations to restrict vaping flavours, but has not moved forward on these since then. The government will neither confirm nor deny that the proposal has been suspended. 

Questions raised in parliament this fall received the same non-response that had been given in the spring. When Senator Judith Seidman asked earlier this month "When does the federal government plan to ban flavours in vaping products?" - the response from the government representative was a telling "I do not know, and I am not in a position to predict what the government’s plan is." 

The Prime Ministers' office has not endorsed the measure.

In 2019, Prime Minister Trudeau directed incoming Health Minister Patty Hajdu to "address the rapid rise in youth vaping. This should start with regulations to reduce the promotion and appeal of vaping products to young people and public education to create awareness of health risks. You are encouraged to explore additional measures." It was under Minister Hajdu that draft regulations to restrict flavours were formally published in June 2021.

This minister was not reappointed to the  health portfolio after the 2021 general election. A new cabinet position was created, under which tobacco regulation was placed. In his instructions to the inaugural Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, the Prime Minister's mandate letter contained no reference to the flavour restrictions that had been proposed only six months earlier.

New mandate letters have not been issued since the July 2023 cabinet shuffle. The newly-appointed Minister of Addictions and Mental Health (Ya'ara Saks) has not said anything about flavours in her new role. There are indications that she has not yet discussed this topic with departmental staff.

A national approach is needed to make provincial laws enforceable.

Provincial governments which have banned flavours are limited in their ability to control the import of products from web-sites which operate from other provinces, and are not able to lay charges against businesses which ship flavoured products across provincial borders. (Some vape stores located in these provinces also continue to offer illegal flavours, without apparent provincial capacity to shut these sales down).

Without effective enforcement, provincial governments have not been able to fully protect children from these products being available. This is reflected in the results of the 2021-2022 Canadian Student Tobacco, Alcohol and Drug Survey (currently pulled off of Health Canada's website), which show continued use of flavours by youth in the  three provinces where flavour bans were in place at the time of the survey. 

Tobacco companies are assisting the informal market and social sources through which young people acquire flavoured vaping products. They offer deep discounts for volume sales, allowing an individual to purchase products at a wholesale price. Philip Morris on-line stores sells the disposable Veev-Now for $11 each, but cuts the price to only $6 per unit when purchased in quantities of 9 or more, and occasionally offers even deeper discounts. This rewards re-sellers who wish to import products into markets where flavoured products are not legal for sale.

By reducing the price of VEEV-NOW to $6 from $11,
PMI creates an incentive for re-sellers.

National health recommendations are being ignored.

Almost four years have elapsed since Canada's provincial and federal chief medical officers of health recommended that governments "Ban all flavoured vaping products and then provide regulatory exemptions or market authorizations for a minimum set of flavours to support smokers who choose to use vaping to end or reduce their use of nicotine-containing products."

Canada's major health organizations have all called for a ban on flavours - as have their international counterparts. (A list or such organizations is available here). 

Six of Canada's fourteen jurisdictions have taken steps towards implementing that recommendation -- but their efforts are being undermined by the failure of other governments to do so. National action -- preferably headed by the federal government -- is needed.