Cynthia Callard was taken aback last weekend when she heard Manitoba’s premier say the province is expecting a settlement soon from lawsuits filed by Canadian provinces against big tobacco companies.
A major part of her 30-year professional career as executive director of Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada — a national health organization focused on reducing tobacco-caused illness — has been focused on tracking the lawsuits, but the process has been shrouded in secrecy, she said.
“None of the governments have said anything about the lawsuits” for years, Callard said in an interview from Ottawa. “Over the last five years, when they’ve been negotiating with the tobacco companies, there’s been a complete cone of silence.”
At the Manitoba NDP convention in Winnipeg on Saturday, Premier Wab Kinew said an initial payment of hundreds of millions of dollars could arrive soon.
“These lawsuits have been in the works for many, many years and it just so happens that we now expect a settlement to be reached later this year, perhaps next year,” Kinew said on May 4.
Manitoba sued major tobacco companies to recover the costs of providing health-care services for tobacco-related illness in 2012. Lawsuits by all 10 provinces named Imperial Tobacco, Rothmans, Benson & Hedges and JTI-Macdonald.
The cases were stalled by a range of court battles, but in March 2019 a group of people in Quebec received $13.5 billion in damages in a class-action lawsuit against the companies. This forced the companies to seek creditor protection, putting a freeze on all other lawsuits against them.
That meant the provinces were pushed into the creditor process. Six provinces, including Manitoba, are working together with the same legal team.
The process is now in mediation, according to court documents.
Robert Thornton, a lawyer for JTI-Macdonald, told CBC in an email that “all aspects of the mediation are confidential and no comment is possible by virtue of a court order.”
Deborah Glendinning, a lawyer for Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited, said negotiations are being conducted via a court-ordered mediation, and public comment would be a violation of the court order.
“When and if a settlement is reached it will be publicly disclosed in court filings,” Glendinning said in an email to CBC News.
Secrecy ‘repugnant to policy-making’
Kinew told the NDP convention the money Manitoba is expecting from the settlement will go toward building a new CancerCare Manitoba headquarters and other prevention measures.
In a statement Wednesday to CBC News, CancerCare Manitoba said it appreciates “this commitment to build a much-needed facility.”
When asked for further comment about the premier’s remarks, Ryan Stelter, a press secretary for Kinew, told CBC the premier had enough information to make the statement “and felt confident to say it.”
Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada’s Callard said Kinew has “done us a real service.”
“The question of how you settle … or how you agree to resolve a dispute between government and industry should not have a zone of secrecy on it,” she said.
“I think that it’s something that needs to be talked about. I think the fact that it’s been in secret should be repugnant to policy-making in Canada.”
Transparency is needed, she said, because there are “huge policy implications for dealing with this industry that’s caused so much harm.”
But she has concerns about provincial governments receiving payments from any settlement rooted in continued tobacco sales.
“It suggests that we’re going to continue to have cancers and heart disease and lung disease in order to keep the companies in business, in order to pay the provincial governments,” Callard said.
Other provinces tight-lipped
Some other provinces have remained tight-lipped in the wake of Kinew’s comments.
A spokesperson for Saskatchewan’s Ministry of Justice declined to say whether a settlement is close.
“Saskatchewan is part of a national approach to tobacco litigation with other provinces,” with a lawsuit initiated in June 2012, the spokesperson said in an email, but the province won’t comment further as “this matter is the subject of ongoing litigation before the courts.”
A spokesperson for Nova Scotia’s government also said it has no comment “while that [legal] process unfolds.”
Jeffrey Leon, a lawyer representing six provinces — New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia — also declined comment, citing ongoing litigation.