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Top court set to weigh in on smoking’s cost Canada’s top court will hear critical cases this winter on whether the federal government should be on the hook for the vast cost of treating tobacco-related disease. In appeals next month, the Supreme Court of Canada will have to make calls on some key questions connected to the cost to society of smoking. Is the federal government liable to tobacco companies that are being sued by a provincial government which foots the bills for smokers who become sick? How about smokers who want a refund because it turns out light cigarettes are bad for you too? Those questions are central to legal claims valued at millions and possibly billions of dollars that the Supreme Court of Canada will hear over the next three months as the winter session gets under way next week. Both appeals result from the tobacco companies’ attempts to have the federal government share any potential responsibility for damages in the cases. Other issues being examined in the wide-ranging session, which features 24 appeals, include: protecting the identity of police informants outside the courtroom; historical environmental degradation; the role of “artistic merit” in possessing child pornography; and an Internet libel suit involving former media baron Conrad Black. Then there is the matter of a Quebec lawyer who was found guilty of misconduct after he used some choice words in a letter — to a judge. The tobacco cases centre on the role of the federal government in owing a “duty of care,” or responsibility, to both tobacco companies and consumers in British Columbia. In the first case, the federal government is appealing a decision of the B.C. Court of Appeal that allows a claim of “negligent misrepresentation” brought by the tobacco companies against the federal government to proceed to trial court in B.C. The claim could result in the government being held liable for misrepresenting the hazards of light tobacco. Several tobacco companies are trying to implicate the federal government in a case brought against them by the B.C. government, related to costs associated with tobacco-related illnesses under the Health Care Costs Recovery Act. The tobacco companies are also cross-appealing, and would like to revive other claims that implicate the federal government further. In the second case, the federal government is taking Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited to court because the company wants the government to share some of the potential responsibility — and costs — associated with a class-action suit brought against Imperial by a group of consumers who smoked light cigarettes. The smokers essentially want a “refund” from the company because
they claim light cigarettes are just as harmful to their health as regular
cigarettes. Imperial Tobacco says the government also should be held responsible
because it designed the light strain of tobacco. The appeals are both
scheduled for Feb. 24.
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