Dear Minister Michel,

We are writing to you not as advocates, not as Canadians with an agenda, but as human beings speaking to another human being. Because at the heart of this conversation, that’s what this is really about. Real Canadians.

You are one of the millions of Canadians who smoke. We and the others that use safer nicotine products, do not, and would never judge you for that.

We don’t see weakness. We don’t see failure. We don’t see something to shame or hide. We see a person. Someone navigating the same complexities, stresses, habits, and realities that millions of Canadians face every single day.

Somewhere along the way, smoking became more than a health issue. It became a moral one. People who smoke were no longer just people, they were labeled, stigmatized, quietly pushed to the margins. And with that stigma came an unspoken belief: that quitting should be hard. That struggle is somehow part of the punishment.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

Innovation has given us alternatives, safer nicotine products that exist not to trap people, but to give them a way out. A way forward. A way to reduce harm without shame, without barriers, without the impossible expectation of perfection overnight.

What gets lost in this judgement and bullying, is that these products, vapes, pouches were not created by big vape or big tobacco. They were created by people just like you and me. People who were looking for ways to stop smoking. As for me, and the over one million Canadians, we are thankful for these  innovators. They chose to find solutions, to make the switch and to share their success with others.

We need to keep these products available for the over 3.5 million Canadians who still smoke, for the Canadians that want to use nicotine in a safer way. Judgement and barrier free.

And yet, in Canada, we’ve made access harder. We have allowed a small but loud group of NGOs to use their government-funded initiatives to lobby, bully and shape policy as they see fit. Ignoring the Canadians that rely on pouches and flavours to stay smoke free.

Minister, you are in a position unlike any other.

You understand this, not as a statistic, but as lived experience. You know what it feels like to navigate it in a world that too often reduces people to headlines and talking points.

This is your opportunity to stand tall and stand up for innovation, and opportunities to help people quit combustibles.

To say: we are done with stigma.
To say: we trust adults with honest information and real options.
To say: quitting doesn’t have to be a battle, it can be a transition.

We are asking you to look again at the decisions that have made safer nicotine products harder to access. To question whether they are truly serving Canadians, or simply reinforcing a system that keeps people stuck. We are asking you to reverse the ministerial order unlock pouches and don’t touch flavours.

Because the goal isn’t to punish people into quitting.

The goal is to help them succeed.

Respectfully,

Maria Papaioannoy

Marion Burt

Dave Ball

Jackie Awrey

Moneca Delain

Wendy Farrow