Lawsuit against big tobacco drags on and on for 14 years

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website devoted to covering provincial politics at Queen’s Park.

After a dozen six-month stays and more than 14 years, it's still not at all clear how close or far Ontario is to getting any part of the $330-odd billion compensation it's claiming for tobacco-related costs to the health care system. 

On March 25, a Toronto judge granted Canada's large tobacco companies a stay of proceedings until late September. The six-month stays have been granted regularly since the spring of 2019. 

Ontario's lawsuit against the three major tobacco companies began in 2009. It seeks to recover the costs of medical care related to tobacco use in the past, and anticipated use in the future. When it was first filed, it sought $50 billion, but that amount has since increased to $330 billion. That's more than one and a half times the provincial budget. 

All provinces filed similar lawsuits in the first decade of the century. Between them, the provinces are seeking about $500 billion. 

"We're now into the sixth year of negotiations," said Rob Cunningham, a lawyer at the Canadian Cancer Society. "We don't know what's going on in negotiations, or what Ontario should be doing differently. I don't know what health measures they are advocating for or not advocating for."

The Canadian Cancer Society would like a settlement to include significant funds for reducing tobacco use, but it's impossible to know whether the province is discussing that or not. 

"If this doesn't happen, where the tobacco industry is negotiating with governments and health organizations are not present, that's a huge problem."

The three large tobacco companies, JTI-Macdonald, Imperial Tobacco and Rothmans, Benson and Hedges, sought creditor protection in March of 2019 after a court in Quebec ordered them to compensate Quebec smokers. 

In April 2019, a judge dismissed a motion by Ontario to lift the stay and take the case to trial, and the stays have been renewed every six months ever since. 

Ontario's Ministry of the Attorney General did not respond to questions about progress in negotiations. 

Canadian tobacco companies only have a small fraction of the amount of money the provinces are seeking, insolvency documents show, but their global parent companies have much larger assets, Cunningham says. 

"Those companies have very deep pockets, and have a much bigger capacity to pay than just the Canadian subsidiaries."

In 2012, an Ontario court rejected a claim from seven international tobacco companies which argued that it had no jurisdiction over them. 

The tobacco companies, of course, are not going to want to do that," Cunningham says. "They're going to do everything to not pay and to delay, delay, delay. They don't want to pay, and so they're going to do everything they can to pay as little as possible."

"These secret negotiations among provincial governments and tobacco companies have now dragged on for more than five years," Cynthia Callard of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada said in a release. 

"How is it our governments are engaged in a process that prioritizes the financial health of cigarette manufacturers at the expense of the health and well-being of the public and the right to justice of victims?"