HUFFINGTON POST: Despite millions in proposed new spending for getting Canadians unhooked off tobacco, fewer are lighting up.
Just 17.7 percent of Canadians smoked daily or occasionally in 2015, according to the Canadian Community Health Survey released last week. That’s down from 18.1 per cent the previous year.
Those results were revealed at the same time the Trudeau government is looking to raise the excise duty rate on cigarettes to $21.56 per carton — up from $21.03, according to the last budget proposal, and wants to drastically increase regulation on tobacco across the board.
Looking at the numbers, it seems that even without a heavy handed government, fewer Canadians are using tobacco every year.
What changed? For one, e-cigarettes and the heat-not-burn technology of vaping is giving smokers a healthier alternative. And that’s an initiative of the marketplace, not government.
If anything, the government of Canada has been hostile to vaping and e-cigarettes.
