Nunavut gets $97M in a Canada-wide tobacco settlement
Court approves $32.5-billion settlement involving tobacco distributors, provinces and territories
Nunavut will get a $97-million share of the $32.5-billion settlement of a lawsuit launched by the provinces and territories against three major Canadian tobacco providers. (File photos)
Nunavut will receive $97 million as part of a multibillion-dollar settlement between three major tobacco companies and Canada’s provinces and territories.
“I feel some sense of justice about it in terms of the tobacco companies being held accountable for the wrongs and the harm that they caused to people,” Health Minister John Main said in an interview at the legislative assembly on Friday.
The Ontario Superior Court approved a $32.5-billion settlement in a ruling released Thursday.
It’s part of a decades-long legal battle the provinces and territories launched in 1998 against Canada’s three largest tobacco distributors: Imperial Tobacco Ltd.; Rothmans, Benson & Hedges; and JTI-Macdonald Corp.
As part of the settlement, Nunavut will receive $23 million up front while the remaining $74 million is expected to come over five years, Main said.
The money will help strengthen health-care services, support research into smoking-related diseases, and hold tobacco companies accountable for their past actions, the Nunavut government said in a news release.
As well, Nunavummiut will be able to apply for compensation for the harm they suffered from smoking. Considering the territory’s high smoking rates, there could be a lot of applicants, Main said.
“We continue to battle the high smoking rates here in the territory. It’s much too high. Nowadays we know about the harms, we know about the tools that we can use to quit smoking,” Main said.
In 2018, 70 per cent of Nunavummiut aged 16 and older smoked tobacco, with some communities reaching 84 per cent.
By comparison, that year the average smoking rate across the provinces was 16 per cent for people age 12 and older, according to the Canadian Community Health Survey.
The compensation will be provided through a court-monitored third-party organization, likely a law firm, Main said, adding the details are still being worked out.
Smoking causes an increased risk for cancers, damages the heart and blood vessels, and causes lung and respiratory problems, according to the federal government.
“If this news is something that makes Nunavummiut think about ways to quit smoking, we have all that information available. We want to be their partners,” Main said.
Tobacco abuse in the north has to be the single biggest epidemic in territory that people just seem to ignore. National average of smokers is under 10% but nunavut is almost 80%. Can’t imagine how many millions are wasted on this terrible addiction, how many kids go hungry because mom and dad wasted their last food dollars on couple packs. Also never seen so many pregnant people smoke. This can cause serious birth defects. Hope this money goes to good use.
I saw that a company in Japan now offers extra week of paid leave to non-smokers to account for the amount of time not spent wasted outside having smoke breaks. This might be a good incentive to help people quit.
Pregnant ‘women’ ?
A liberal told me u can’t say pregnant women anymore 😅
INCUBATE ????
Pregnant people – ha.
Very sad but true….no laughing matter.
Indeed, the number of people who have that sort of mental disturbance is distressing.
Tobacco companies are held accountable for harm that’s self inflicted? The demand is there.
Choices are made by each individual and education is available.
Stop blaming others for our own bad choices and chill.
(Roll another, Brother)🤘✌️
Tell me you know nothing about addiction without telling me you know nothing about addiction.
“The money will help strengthen health-care services, support research into smoking-related diseases, and hold tobacco companies accountable for their past actions, the Nunavik government said in a news release”
How will the money be used in Nunavut to “strengthen health-care services, John?”
What “research into smoking-related diseases” will be done in NU, John?
How will the GN use the money to “hold tobacco companies accountable for their past actions”, John?
Governments should also be accountable. They are the ones that taxed the hell out of tabaco companies and put it into general revenues. To them it was a cash cow. Now they have their hands out again. You can see that government’s never had the population’s health in mind, just their own.
Make cigarettes illegal. Stop selling them to people. No reason to smoke. It’s only poison.
I buy ”NATIVE cigarettes ” online , i don t support big tobacco.
Me no smoky smoke🤑 Me only tokie toke😮💨
me love you all night
Roll another.
Pass to the left.
No. The other left.🤣🥳🤘✌️
And tonight the tax on cigarettes goes up 10 cents a stick.
Sounds a lot like something our neighbour to the south would do to raise money from the poor without the ledge voting on it.