The P.E.I. government is taking the first steps toward potentially joining a class-action lawsuit against tobacco companies for past health-care costs related to tobacco use.
The Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act was tabled Wednesday in the P.E.I. legislature. It allows the Island to sue for recovery of costs incurred while treating citizens who suffer from tobacco-related illnesses, namely cancer.
A Supreme Court of Canada decision in 2005 allowing British Columbia to move forward with a lawsuit to recover billions in tobacco-related health-care costs paved the way for a class-action case to go forward.
Since then five provinces have passed legislation allowing them to sign on to the suit, including Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Quebec. Other provinces have introduced legislation that has not yet been proclaimed to also allow them to join.
The suit seeks to sue Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc. and JTI-Macdonald Corp. Other tobacco companies could also be added to this list.
P.E.I.’s Attorney General Gerard Greenan said Wednesday once P.E.I.’s new law has passed, the province plans to go through all its health records and determine how much P.E.I. could potentially gain if a suit against the big tobacco companies were successful.
He conceded that launching of such a case would be costly, but the province would likely have more to gain than to lose.
“There is a cost to the province to put all this case together, but then the costs associated with what’s been impacted because of tobacco products has also been great and tobacco companies have an onus to give back to the provinces, to the health system.”
Tobacco companies spent years promoting their products to consumers without warning of the potential health impacts — a fact that makes them liable for at least some of the major costs to governments in treating patients who have since suffered from tobacco-related illnesses, Greenan said.
“We know what’s been associated with tobacco and tobacco-related products … over time there were groups that were saying, ‘There’s something wrong here’, but tobacco companies did things deliberately to enhance their product sales and dismissed those groups as naysayers,” Greenan said.
“They have an onus to share in the health-care costs. We as taxpayers have taken that cost on and if they were promoting the product then they should be at the table paying for the consequences of that promotion.”
Once the bill is proclaimed, the province will have two years to bring action against manufacturers and promoters of tobacco products. The bill sets no time limit on how far back damages can be claimed.
Greenan says the act won’t be proclaimed until a final decision is made on whether the province will proceed with an action.