In early April, we received a “Third Party Consult” request from Health Canada.

You can read the request below for yourself:

“Health Canada has received a request under the Access to Information Act (the Act) that has produced records which originated from and/or may be of interest to your organization, Rights 4 Vapers. The request is for:

All correspondence to and from the Minister of mental health and addictions, and the Minister of Health regarding Vaping, flavoured vapour products, a ban or restrictions on flavoured vapour products, including but not limited to: communication between the ministers and their staff, correspondence from non-government organizations, private businesses, constituents, or other departments of the government, or foreign government. From Sep 1, 2024 to Oct 23, 2024.”

So, what is this?
It appears that someone submitted a request to track our communications with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions, and anyone working for them, specifically based on certain keywords.

You might be wondering, “Who made this request?” Well, I asked the same question, and the requesters information is protected. I appreciate that as Canadians, we have access to this type of information and that our privacy is protected when making such requests.

I have my suspicions about who made the request. I will keep that to myself. I just hope they enjoy reading our emails. They’re honest and authentic.

This is the first time we’ve been involved in something like this. Personally, I think it’s amazing to live in a country where communication with government is accessible to the public. We’ve recently seen this with all the letters published by the City of Hamilton regarding the discussion on spending time and resources to research the viability of implementing a vape tax. If you haven’t already, you can read all those written delegations here, and ours is available on our blog.

We decided to publish the letter that was part of this package, because why not? If someone wanted to see it, then I guess the world should see it too.

Enjoy the read. And remember when you email the government, it is public.