Introduction

Public policy is an effort in changing the status quo. In Canada, population health goals are addressed by public health and health promotion theory and models. Both public health and health promotion consider healthy public policy as an important tool for achieving population health goals. While attempting to do this, governments usually have several options to consider including education, economic incentives, punishments, appeals to core beliefs (such as patriotism or morality), and legislation. Sometimes these tools are at least partly interchangeable.

Authorship

The contents of this section were written for CCTC by Eric LeGresley in 2010.

If you would like to read the entire section at once, it is available in PDF format.

Limitations

This site does not contain tax rates and anti-smuggling provisions. To obtain tobacco tax rates for each province, visit Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada.

This site does not include every piece of federal, provincial or territorial legislation that has provisions dealing with tobacco or tobacco use. This site contains laws that are specific to tobacco and smoking, or significant tobacco-related provisions that are contained within legislation that is not tobacco-specific (e.g., occupational health laws). For a full listing of Canadian laws that include tobacco-related provisions, visit the Canadian Legal Information Institute to search a more comprehensive collection of Canadian legislation.

Municipal smoking bylaws are not included in this site. However, provincial enabling legislation granting municipal authority to pass smoking bylaws is. A full listing of Albertan smoking bylaws can be found at http://www.ash.ca/bylaws. You may also wish to search the Non-Smokers' Right Association website for their various publications on bylaws.

Disclaimers

The statutes and regulations contained on this site are not official versions. Although every attempt has been made to maintain the accuracy of the source documents, we cannot provide complete assurance that the documents are current and precise.

Clearance to publish unofficial versions of these statutes and regulations was requested from the responsible officials in each jurisdiction. This clearance was generally provided upon the condition of communicating to users that these statutes and regulations are not official government documents and are therefore vulnerable to inaccurate reproduction. Official copies of statutes and regulations must be obtained from the Queen’s Printer (or equivalent authority) in each jurisdiction.