Toronto, Ontario – April 30, 2025 – Rights4Vapers, Canada’s largest vaping and safer nicotine advocacy movement, congratulates the Liberal Party on forming the next federal government and calls on Prime Minister Mark Carney and the incoming Ministers of Health and Mental Health and Addictions to take bold steps toward a modern, evidence-based nicotine policy that prioritizes harm reduction and the health of Canadians.

“We offer our sincere congratulations to Prime Minister Carney and the Liberal Party on their election victory,” said Maria Papaioannoy, spokesperson for Rights4Vapers. “This new mandate presents a crucial opportunity to reframe Canada’s approach to tobacco harm reduction by embracing safer nicotine products like vapour devices and nicotine pouches as powerful tools to help adult smokers quit.”

Rights4Vapers urges the government to establish a Safer Nicotine Act. This is a legislative framework that distinguishes non-combustible nicotine products from traditional cigarettes. Currently, these innovative products are regulated under a number of different regulatory frameworks. They should all come together as consumer product.

“Vapour products and nicotine pouches are not cigarettes,” said Ms. Papaioannoy. “They are smoke-free alternatives that offer a lifeline to people who smoke who want to transition away from combustible tobacco. Canada must stop treating them the same as the very products they are meant to replace.”

Rights4Vapers is also calling on the new government to immediately reverse the Ministerial Order implemented in August 2024 by the former Minister of Health that restricted the sale of nicotine pouches to pharmacies only. This move, made without public consultation, was an egregious overreach that blocks adult consumers from accessing a safer alternative to cigarettes and undermines efforts to support smoking cessation.

“It is deeply concerning when public health policy is driven by ideology rather than science,” added Ms. Papaioannoy. “We urge this new government to put Canadians’ health first and fix this misguided decision. Every Canadian adult deserves access to safer choices.”

With more than four million Canadians still smoking, Rights4Vapers believes the federal government must adopt a pragmatic approach rooted in harm reduction, an approach that has seen success in countries like the UK, Sweden and New Zealand.

“We are ready to work with this government to craft sensible, science-based regulations that protect youth while supporting adults who are trying to quit smoking,” said Ms. Papaioannoy. “Let’s make Canada a global leader in tobacco harm reduction.”

Safer nicotine products including vapour products and nicotine pouches are the best hope for hundreds of thousands of Canadians who smoke and are looking for an alternative to cigarettes. In 2021, Public Health England released its latest review of vapour studies. It found that “the best thing that a smoker can do is to stop smoking completely and the evidence shows that vaping is one of the most effective quit aids available, helping around 50,000 smokers quit a year.”