Warnings on cigarette packages to cover 75 per cent of space, up from 50 per cent
February 10, 2026 3:33 PM
In Canada, cigarette smoking ranks as the third highest cause of death. Health Canada is trying to step up its anti-smoking campaigns in an effort to reduce those statistics.
Protest groups are urging Health Minister Lenoa Aglukkaq to stick with the department’s plans to increase the size of the warning labels on cigarette packages. Currently, the warning picture takes up about 50 per cent of the cigarette package; anti-smoking groups however are lobbying Health Canada to implement a label to cover a minimum of 75 per cent of the package.
Health Canada has spent over six years and $3.6 million on consultations aimed at refreshing the decade old labels that are currently on cigarette packages. The labels and warnings themselves have lost much of their impact, critics say.
Using the input from the consultations, Health Canada has devised prototypes in which the warnings would be increased in size to cover three-quarters of the pack.
But the tobacco companies objected to the plan. And, at a Commons Health Committee, Conservative MPs voted against a Liberal motion that would have required the larger warnings.
The health minister is set to release a new tobacco strategy, and it is assumed the strategy will include updated labels. Health Canada had been considering a number of larger and more gut-wrenching labels, including one of Canadian anti-tobacco crusader Barb Tarbox lying helpless, dying of lung cancer in her hospital bed. The same image is also being considered for updated packages in the U.S.
“Size does matter in the case of health warnings and Health Canada’s own research shows that,” she said. “They’ve spent well over $3 million in the development of new warnings, including a close examination of the size of those warnings and even looking at what other jurisdictions have done, and several [countries] now have warnings that are over 50 per cent in size.”
Tim Vail, a spokesman for Ms. Aglukkaq, told the Globe and Mail that no decision about an announcement had been made, except that it would be coming shortly.
Deaths related to smoking are responsible for 22 per cent of the Canadian mortality rate. It’s predicted that large numbers of aging “baby-boomers” will continue to die in the short term from smoking-related illnesses, reflecting the growth and age of the Canadian population as well as past smoking behavior.
It is hoped that tobacco control efforts currently in the works will reverse this trend. Anti-smoking campaigns initiated by both government organizations and non-governmental support groups seek to drastically reduce the number of individuals afflicted with smoking-related diseases, and in the long run, reduce the number of smoking-related deaths.
