Percentage of Smokers

The latest data on tobacco usage in Canada is available for 2021. Rising prices of cigarettes, greater health awareness and the increasing popularity of tobacco alternatives, such as electronic cigarettes, have reduced the market for tobacco products in Canada in recent years.

The percentage of smokers has been declining steadily since 1999, when Health Canada began tracking it. According to Health Canada, the population aged 12 years and older in Canada increased 6.4 million individuals between 1999 and 2017. However, during the same period, the smoking rate of this demographic group declined from 22.6% to 14.5%. As a result, the number of individuals that identify themselves as current smokers has declined by 2.5 million, while the number of former smokers has increased 1.9 million.

Heightened public awareness of the effect of smoking on individuals’ health and the health of those around them continues to drive down the percentage of smokers. Moreover, the percentage of homes and workplaces enforcing smoke-free environments has also played a role in this trend. According to Statistics Canada, the number of households that have banned smoking from their homes has generally increased, including a rise from 57.0% of households in 2003 to 64.0% in 2005. Similarly, smoking bans at work increased to 68.0% in 2005 and has been rising ever since. In 2012, Canada also launched mandated warnings for cigarette packaging. These packages cover 75.0% of the cigarette packaging, spreading from the front to the back of the carton. These warnings are often in French and English and garner pictures of medical complications caused by smoking. This helped to further decrease the percentage of the smoking population in Canada over the past decade.

More recently, groundbreaking legislation was passed in 2018 that legalized the recreational use of cannabis. While it is still too early to gauge how or if consumer behavior will shift long-term, the percentage of smokers in 2019 declined rapidly in nearly two decades to 10.0%. Conditions changed significantly in 2020, as measures taken to curb the coronavirus pandemic resulted in the large-scale shutdown of the Canadian economy. As COVID-19 is both an airborne and respiratory virus, the appeal of smoking became less apparent significantly as mandates imposed at the time prevented many from being able to freely take off their masks while visiting many locations, which in turn made it harder for one to freely smoke as they please without having to violate these rules at the time. The percentage of smokers continued to incline in 2021, mainly as the continuation of pandemic-related concerns and the long-term trend of more people gradually shifting away from smoking only contributed to these numbers remaining lower in the year and onwards. Cancer risks of smoking tobacco have damaged their reputation too. Those choosing not to smoke or instead smoke weed or vape are trends also making it more difficult for smoking rates to gain any new ground as it has a weaker hold on the market today compared with back then.