A representative from Physicians for a Smoke Free Canada stated that the chemicals used in flavourings are not tested for their safety for inhalation. However, according to one EU report: “To date, there is no specific data that specific flavourings used in the EU pose health risks for electronic cigarette users following repeated exposure.” One thing we definitely know for a fact is that smoking hurts the human body, and allowing smokers to inhale vapes that are at least 95% less harmful than traditional cigarettes, and that will help them eventually to quit tobacco and nicotine products altogether, should be obviously a good idea.
A representative from the group Actions on Smoking and Health rounded off the comments by first stating that vapes are part of the tobacco industry’s “addiction trap” and accused the government of conspiratorial corruption by saying, “Who is the government working for, the vaping industry?”
That last quote is rich, as it is being stated in front of organizations that get their own funding from the government and use it in a circular lobbying scheme that sees taxpayers paying the government to lobby itself. The problematic practice of taking money from the government in order to lobby the government puts actual civil society organizations in a bad light. Over 84% of the money that the Physicians for Smoke Free Canada used in 2023 to operate and lobby the government came from the government itself. As for the Action on Smoking and Health, a quick charity search shows the majority of their money in 2025 is coming from abroad, and in 2023, a whopping 94% of their funding was from the government. Who exactly are they working for, then? It does not seem that the answer is Canadian consumers who are desperate for a way to stop smoking cigarettes.
The scourge of misrepresenting data in a way that might make adults have to continue to smoke or turn to the black market, where things are not regulated (and which helps fuel organized crime), is the real rapidly evolving challenge, not flavours. It is undeniably good news that these choices exist for smokers and are products that the government should be promoting. Youth numbers are down, and what youth really need is to have their parents alive to raise them. Continuing to call for regulations on flavours and tobacco harm reduction will result in the real tragedy that youth will have to face as they lose their families to smoking, while the government implements regulations based on the undemocratic practice of circular lobbying.
Sabine Benoit is the Canadian Policy Associate at the Consumer Choice Center.