Canadian Governments Seek Huge Sums from Tobacco Industry

Various liability claims by Canadian governments against tobacco companies could total nearly $200 billion, Bloomberg reported Oct. 21.

Provincial governments from British Columbia to Quebec and New Brunswick have either filed suit or plan to sue tobacco firms in hopes of recovering the costs of treating tobacco-related illnesses and tax revenues lost because of cigarette smuggling.

The healthcare-liability claims are similar to those pursued successfully in the U.S. during the 1990s; the smuggling claims arise from companies’ allegedly excessive exports of Canadian cigarettes into the U.S., which provinces maintain was done with the knowledge that the cigarettes would later be smuggled back into Canada and sold on the black market.