Health Canada and the Vaping Industry Trade Association meeting: Vaping – August 10, 2020

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Subject:

Future regulatory environment for vaping

Date:

August 10, 2020

Participants:

Health Canada (HC)

Vaping Industry Trade Association (VITA)

Introduction:

A meeting was held at the request of VITA to present:

The Chair opened the meeting by doing roundtable introductions.

The Chair reminded participants that this meeting is subject to disclosure as per HC's Openness and Transparency policies. In the interest of transparency, the department stated that it would be making a record of the meeting publicly available. The handling of information and privacy notice was mentioned and acknowledged.

HC also referred to Article 5.3 of the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, its international obligation to protect tobacco control policies from the vested interests of the tobacco industry. It was acknowledged by the VITA representatives.

Subjects:

VITA and industry compliance efforts
VITA provided an overview of compliance efforts since January 2020. VITA developed a toolkit for stakeholders outlining new requirements under the Vaping Products Labelling and Packaging Regulations (VPLPR). VITA indicated that industry was on track for implementing changes prompted by the VPLPR; however, there were some concerns with regards to labels and tags on vaping products. VITA indicated that they will be delivering industry webinars in August 2020, outlining the restrictions set out in the Vaping Products Promotion Regulations. VITA also highlighted some areas of concern with the timelines set out in recent provincial restrictions on vaping products.

Child resistant container certification
VITA outlined some challenges that the industry is facing with parts of the VPLPR, which come into force in January 2021. There have been significant delays in developing ISO-compliant vaping products due to impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Regulatory proposals
This topic was not discussed.

Youth prevention
VITA is looking into new systems / technology for both the retail level and online age verification. They are hosting an online webinar in August 2020 to discuss new technologies with industry specifically for online age verification.

Roundtable
VITA provided a scenario regarding vaping product labels and tags and sought clarification on whether the lack of a secondary ingredient tag would be considered non-compliant. HC committed to providing a written response to VITA.

VITA requested a status update on the inspection request made by one of its industry members. HC indicated that they are working towards getting inspectors back out into the field safely now that COVID-19 restrictions are easing, and that the inspection request will be considered.

VITA asked if HC had considered a period of non-enforcement on child resistant containers following the coming into force of the regulations, which would focus on industry education of the requirements. HC invited VITA to provide additional information about the impact or challenges they have encountered due to COVID-19 measures, which could be reviewed and considered in decision-making concerning the coming-into-force of the child resistant container requirements of the regulations.

HC indicated that they are aware of age verification tools in retail stores and asked if VITA could elaborate on online age verification tools currently in use. VITA indicated that there is a program which uses a credit check as a means for online point-of-sale age verification but they are looking at all possible options. VITA also reiterated that they are hosting an online webinar in August to discuss all options regarding youth access.

Conclusion:

The meeting was then concluded.

Documents:

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