Nova Scotia·NewA representative of the Canadian Cancer Society is calling on the Nova Scotia government to dedicate a sizable amount of a historic legal settlement toward efforts to help reduce smoking rates in the province.Province received a 1st payment of $200M last monthMichael Gorman · CBC News · Posted: Sep 25, 2025 5:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 30 minutes agoThe cancer society is calling on the Nova Scotia government to dedicate a significant portion of the money it will receive from a legal settlement with tobacco companies toward efforts to reduce smoking. (CBC)A representative of the Canadian Cancer Society is calling on the Nova Scotia government to dedicate a sizable amount of a historic legal settlement with tobacco companies toward efforts to help reduce smoking rates in the province.”The origin of Nova Scotia’s lawsuit was the devastating health effects and health-care costs because of smoking and tobacco companies,” Rob Cunningham, a policy analyst with the society, said in an interview.”So it makes sense that a significant proportion of the funds received from the settlement should go to reduce smoking.”Nova Scotia was part of a settlement that saw provinces and territories awarded more than $24 billion.The province received its first payment of about $200 million last month and will continue to receive payments each July for 15 to 20 years until it collects a total of about $800 million.Michelle Thompson is Nova Scotia’s health minister. (CBC)The government announced Monday that it put its first payment into general revenue and Health Minister Michelle Thompson said during an interview Wednesday that she expects that will continue to be the practice.But Thompson said she also expects the money will find its way to her department to help address smoking-related illnesses including cancer, heart failure and emphysema.”To me it’s six and half a dozen — that money has to come out of general revenues to come to us in a budget line and so it does enhance our ability to do that,” she said.Cunningham said he’s less concerned about where governments are depositing their payments — Nova Scotia is following an approach similar to other provinces — but he said it’s important that the money is earmarked for issues related to smoking.Although Thompson highlighted major efforts by her government to enhance cancer screening and oncology programs, investments she said would continue, Cunningham called for more work with respect to tobacco control.”It’s a historic opportunity to reduce smoking, the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the province, and to reduce youth vaping, which is a very significant emerging issue,” he said.”If the government does that, not only will the health of the population improve but it will reduce health-care costs in the short term and in the long term. It will be a win-win.”‘We’ve lost a lot of people’Thompson said there are ongoing conversations with public health officials about how to reduce smoking rates and there also needs to be more attention given to vaping.She said smoking has created a huge cost to the health-care system in service delivery and to families with respect to the human toll.”We’ve lost a lot of people.”ABOUT THE AUTHORMichael Gorman covers the Nova Scotia legislature for CBC, with additional focuses on health care and rural communities. Contact him with story ideas at michael.gorman@cbc.ca
Cancer society calls for N.S. tobacco settlement money to go toward prevention
