By Lisa Shuchman, From Corporate Counsel

Canada to Adopt Generic Cigarette Packaging

Plain packaging on tobacco products is headed to Canada. Newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has indicated that removing trademarks from tobacco products is a priority—part of his government’s healthcare agenda.

In a mandate letter to Canada’s new healthcare minister, Dr. Jane Philpott, Trudeau lists as a “top priority” a plan to “introduce plain packaging requirement for tobacco products, similar to those in Australia and the United Kingdom.”

The U.K. and Ireland passed plain packaging legislation earlier this year. Plain packaging there will be introduced in stages starting next year, with full implementation slated for 2017. Australia already requires plain packaging on all tobacco products sold in that country. Brand names and trademarks cannot be prominently displayed.

Canada has embraced tobacco marketing restrictions in the past, although it has not yet gone so far as to impose plain packaging. In 2001, it started displaying graphic health warnings on cigarette packages, making it one of the first countries to do so. Under the current law, graphic warning labels, which include a photograph of a woman dying of lung cancer and a picture of an actual diseased heart, take up 75 percent of cigarette packaging.

But the intent of the Trudeau government is to increase that warning label to 100 percent, so that all company logos, colors and brand designs on tobacco product packaging would be removed.

The tobacco industry has been trying to stop plain packaging from gaining momentum worldwide. It sued Australia, the first nation to implement plain packaging legislation, alleging the law violated the Australian constitution. The Australian courts disagreed. The tobacco companies also gave financial assistance to five tobacco-producing countries to challenge Australia’s law at the World Trade Organization in an attempt to stop the practice in Australia and discourage other nations from following suit. That case is still pending, and Canada is a third party in that case, having filed in support of Australia.

Philip Morris International (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT) have both sued the UK Government over its plan to introduce plain packaging for tobacco products, arguing that the law would deprive them of property in the form of trademarks, and that such laws violate European intellectual property laws. The companies are seeking compensation that could amount to billions of dollars.

But the threat of litigation does not appear to be deterring Canada’s liberal government. If the recently published Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty is approved and implemented, the tobacco industry might find it more difficult to file legal challenges against the policy in Canada, which is a member nation. The treaty contains a provision that would prevent private corporations from suing governments over anti-tobacco regulations.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), tobacco kills nearly six million people a year worldwide. More than five million of those deaths are the result of direct tobacco use, while more than 600,000 are the result of non-smokers being exposed to second-hand smoke, it says.

IMAGE: Credit: Fotolia

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