Canada SUES Tobacco Companies!

Source

"Ontario is taking the next step towards recovering taxpayer dollars spent fighting tobacco-related illnesses. We are joining British Columbia and New Brunswick in initiating a lawsuit to recover health-care costs from tobacco companies," said Attorney General Chris Bentley.

The $50-billion figure represents the cost the province says it has footed for providing health care to smokers for more than half a century.


Has this happened in the US? The government has been taxing the hell out of tobacco (Around $5 a pack) for the past ten years, now they are actually going to sue them?

There is so many things wrong with this on a lot of levels.

How much is it going to cost the Ontario tax payer if the province is not successful in achieving a judgment against the tobacco companies?

Don't worry, I'm sure they will compensate by hiking the tobacco tax again

I have to laugh at the "providing health care" line. I'm a non-smoking Ontarian who sure never got health care when I needed it (ended up going States side on my own nickel) just as I'm sure the smokers didn't either. Where did the tobacco tax money go anyway? Was it dedicated for a specific purpose? I despise smoking and would love nothing more than to see the tobacco companies get their due, but somehow I think that this will end up costing all of us taxpayers ultimately.

reply to post by GoneGrey

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If they lose the case it will immediately affect us. We are paying for their legal costs. If they win, they will get used to spending that kind of money and look for new ways to procure it.

The government is like a blackhole when it comes to money, it gets bigger with everything it consumes and will never reduce in size, regardless of the requirements.

And were do they draw the line saying it is tobaco related?
heart attack?
cancer?
the rest all died due to 2nd hand smoke?
They can't prove that smoking killed %90 of these ppl!!!!!!!
Its just they are a smoker soooo thats got to be what killed them.....c-mon ppl wake up!!
This is a joke........always has been .....always will be......
Its just like arguing whether seat belts save lives, its a choice ppl!
Don't let them take the choices away from you or anyone else!

If you agree with this its no different than letting them tell you what you can eat!!!!
Thats not healthy, fat content killed this person,, so next thing to outlaw will be fat content?

Its really sad ppl That they will take an issue that is borderline "ppresciption" and use it to get the ball rollin because they know that the non-smokers will back this up, the non-smokers just don't realize that next time it won't be the ciggies they are out to take away from them it will be any # of things from fossil fuel burning engines to food.

Thanks for letting me rant

reply to post by Doc Holiday

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The future lawsuit will be against soda and snack industry for the cost the government has incurred treating obesity.

It's all a sham. They made money off tobacco stocks over the last 50 years. They made money off the taxes they have collected over the last 50 years.
Now they want to act like the victims.

They will no doubt make money off of this. Sad part is that most of any money won will go to the lawyers and and the rest will be wasted faster than you can light a cigarette.

How can a government who profited off it, then sue?
Unless they can prove that EVERY DOLLAR they collected in tobacco tax was spent on smoking related diseases and not put into consolidated revenue, then they will lose this.

reply to post by Flighty

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Doesn't that depend on the justification they had of taxing it in the first place?

If they say they simply taxed it to discourage it's use then they never taxed it for health care purposes, leaving them to pay out the bill on the cost there of.

I'm not arguing in their favor but there lawyers will be sure to make them look like the 'victims'.

Even the idea of this seems ridiculous but then again the country is a corporation so it should be normal I guess.

Ridiculous. First they tax tobacco making the priced rise extremely high, then ban tobacco commercials so they cannot advertise their products, and now try to sue tobacco companies which have provided them with so much money from taxes. Way to stab tobacco companies in the back.

What kind of court is this heard in? And who are the appointed judges, if they work for the government that seems completely unfair.

The idea of a government suing a corporation is wrong, unless the corporation was contracted by the government for a specific task/job.

Update

I've done some quick research using stats from news articles to break down the governments position on smoking, costs and revenues related.

Link

The province claims tobacco-related costs total more than $1.6 billion a year in Ontario and that smoking accounts for the deaths of about 13,000 Ontario residents a year.

Link

In 2005, 22 per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older, about 5.9 million people, were smokers, a slight drop from 23 per cent in 2003.

Canadian smokers puff on an average of 12.7 cigarettes per day, down from 13.1 in 2003 and 14.5 in 2001.

Link

Ontario collects about $1.1 billion in tobacco taxes out of a total of more than $7 billion levied by all governments in Canada.


Link

According to Imperial Tobacco's own figures (in a November 2003 submission about reduced ignition propensity cigarettes), the price of a carton of cigarette breaks down as follows: $56.66 = Total wholesale price, of which $42.89 is taxes.

If you take the both, the Ontario government say's it collect 1.1 billion in taxes and in total around 7 billion. The tobacco company claims taxes collected are around 5.30 a pack. (Mind you, this was when packs were $8 not $10.

The numbers roughly work out. The problem I have with this (as Doc Holiday) mentioned is how did the government attribute the 1.6 billion cost of health care relating to smoking?.

And, most importantly, is 500 million an outrageous amount to health care? Lets look at some more things that cost around the same or more. Lets remember the original numbers I believe were for Ontario only so even if we multiply and assume the nation wide cost is about roughly 10 times that we end up with 5 billion.

Alcohol

Link

Alcohol abuse costs every Canadian $463 (14 billion) a year, a new study finds, but could be cut if Ottawa lowered consumption by increasing liquor taxes and lowering blood-alcohol limits, among other policy changes.

Obesity

Link

RESULTS: The total direct cost of obesity in Canada in 1997 was estimated to be over $1.8 billion.

The sensitivity analysis revealed that the total cost could be as high as $3.5 billion or as low as $829.4 million

Accidents

Link

Huge Cost of Accidents Injury Bill Hits $19.8 Billion a Year in Canada Read more: generalmedicine.suite101.com...

I can't find a link but I've read about 10 billion of that is related to traffic accidents.

So, the point of this is that if we let the government sue the tobacco companies we are letting them shed responsibility from profiting from it.

We go further towards a more regulated and stricter controlled society. What's next in their playbook, an outright ban? Or like alcohol and gambling... "It's only okay if we're the ones selling it."

This is an important issue to smokers and non-smokers alike. Why not tackle alcohol and obesity or accidents the same as they are doing here? I for one don't want them to, but if this lawsuit happens it pushes back the boundaries of the governments next move.

Nanny State & Big Government: 1
Citizenry Personal Responsibility: 0