Supporting community-based organizations who are helping address tobacco harms
Backgrounder
March 2025
To help support the response to tobacco related harms, the Government of Canada has announced more than $11.8 million in funding for 8 community-led projects through Health Canada's Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP). SUAP supports innovative and evidence-based initiatives across Canada for a broad range of substances.
With this funding, community organizations across Canada will launch tobacco and vaping cessation and harm reduction initiatives to help support Canadians in their efforts to quit smoking or vaping.
The backgrounder below provides a description for all projects receiving funding today through SUAP.
British Columbia ($3,659,119 for 2 project)
Liberation: Developing Virtual Social Support for Tobacco Cessation with Low-Income Women
Centre of Excellence for Women's Health Society – Vancouver, BC
$946,473 to create and test a virtual social support group to sustain and support women's recovery from tobacco use. This project will fill the gaps stemming from a lack of tailored programming, an under acknowledgement of social determinants of health, and the overlooking of sex and gender related factors affecting low-income women who smoke.
Quit Buddies: A national, virtual, peer-led 2SLGBTQIA+ adult smoking cessation intervention
Community-Based Research Centre Society – Vancouver, BC
$2,712,646 to deliver smoking cessation and harm reduction activities to 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals on a national level to stop smoking and/or adopt tobacco harm reduction behaviours. Activities will include the development of a website and delivery of a campaign, as well as providing peer-based motivational interviewing and counselling. The project will also establish a referral network of providers who can prescribe medications to assist with smoking cessation for interested participants, and a supplementary referral network for participants who wish to seek help with other substances like alcohol or drugs. Additionally the project will target professionals (e.g. healthcare providers, community-based organizations, policymakers, and researchers) with activities that will enhance the uptake of best practices and evidence-based interventions across Canada.
Ontario ($7,362,969 for 5 projects)
Connect - Improving Reach, Effectiveness and Continuity of Care through A Network of Clinical Nicotine Addiction Treatment Centres
Ottawa Heart Institute Research Corporation – Ottawa, ON
$2,894,425 to reach an additional 60,000 people per year in five provinces and territories (New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut) by creating regional hubs to support implementation of the Ottawa Model for Smoking Cessation (OMSC) program that provides evidence-based, clinical nicotine addiction support from healthcare providers.
ZeroTobaccoZeroAlcohol: A Pregnancy Health Initiative
Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (The) La Société des obstétriciens et gynécologues du Canada – Ottawa, ON
$744,631 to build the capacity of health care providers (HCPs) to deliver care to women of reproductive age, especially during pregnancy, and the postpartum period. Patient input will be included to ensure patient-relevant approaches. Project activities will focus on developing clinical guidance for screening, brief intervention, management and referral for HCPs. The project will target HCPs and the women who they provide care to who are of reproductive age with alcohol use disorder or who are using alcohol nicotine including during pregnancy, with special consideration for populations who are most at risk. The project will take place online and in-person at conferences, workshops and continuing medical education events.
Enhancing Surgical Care: A Novel Tobacco Cessation Program
University Health Network – Toronto, ON
$196,656 to use electronic health records to deliver a virtual smoking cessation program to adults who smoke tobacco and are scheduled for an elective surgical procedure at the University Health Network in Toronto. Surgical patients will be sent an automated messages including educational information, links to e-learning modules and online smoking treatment programming and nicotine replacement therapy. To ensure a continuum of care and aid in the transition from hospital to community, the patient's family physician will receive an automated notification of the patient's participation in the program through the surgical discharge summary.
Exploring alternative approaches to tobacco harm reduction and cessation among treatment resistant individuals who smoke
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health – Toronto, ON
$3,447,567 to explore alternative approaches to tobacco harm reduction and cessation among treatment resistant individuals by determining the effectiveness of offering a voucher for the purchase of either an e-cigarette or cytisine (a natural health product for smoking cessation) to individuals who received cessation treatment (nicotine replacement therapy plus behavioural counselling), but did not achieve abstinence at a six month follow-up. The project will be conducted virtually throughout Ontario and will be centrally run through the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto. It will be open to Ontario residents enrolled in the STOP (Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients) Program.
Vaping and electronic cigarette toxicity overview and recommendations (Project VECTOR): A mixed methods project
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) – Toronto, ON
$79,690 added to the $1,199,492 already provided by SUAP to develop greater understanding of the impacts of vaping on the health of people who smoke cigarettes or use other tobacco products, and people who do not. This information will help improve communication about the health hazards of vaping – particularly for youth and people who do not smoke – and potential benefits of vaping products for people who smoke.
New Brunswick (total of $783,818 for 1 project)
Integration of traditional knowledge to enhance smoking harm reduction in New Brunswick
The New Brunswick Lung Association – Fredericton, NB
$783,818 to create a Traditional Knowledge Smoking Harm Reduction Platform that integrates traditional Indigenous healing and harm reduction knowledge with Western smoking cessation programming to make a more complete and accessible smoking harm reduction platform for indigenous and non-indigenous individuals in New Brunswick. Through a coordinated education, awareness, and a train-the-trainer model, this project will demonstrate the benefits of integrating traditional knowledge into smoking harm reduction programming and build upon, but not duplicate, existing smoking harm reduction programs and activities.