Manitoba was home to the highest cigarette prices in Canada as of March 2018. Consumers were paying 139.83 Canadian dollars for a pack of 200 cigarettes, almost 30 dollars more than the
national average cigarette price at 112.06 dollars in the same month. Consumers could find the cheapest cigarette cartons for just 96.36 Canadian dollars in Quebec. Cigarette prices in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, were the second lowest.
Why are cigarettes more expensive in some regions?
Smoking products are tightly regulated across Canada, with regulations and legal smoking ages varying between provinces.
Tobacco taxes can be used to dissuade consumers from purchasing cigarettes, in order to reduce smoking rates and related diseases. Canadian provinces have their own governmental budgets and, therefore, the power to implement their own tobacco taxes. This creates differences in prices across the country.
The e-cigarette market
May 2018 was a milestone month for the tobacco industry, with regulatory framework passing to legalize the manufacturing and sale of vaping products in Canada. Similar to cigarette retailing, tight regulations will apply to the sale of vaping products and will vary province to province.
Almost 60 percent of Canadian consumers were quite familiar with vaping in 2019. According to the same survey,
Canadians who had tried vaping were most likely to be aged between 18 and 34.