Does Canada need another cigarette tax hike?

Forget about increased taxes on cigarettes, they should put refundable deposits on cigarette butts. At least that way they could stop people from tossing them everywhere.

Great suggestion George! This could also be a great source of income for the homeless, just think of the clean streets and the money they would have to pay for another pack!

In all reality you can see this article is written by a non - smoker. Jason do you think they should tax junk science or would that be a sin ?

If the government werent wasting all that money on useless sh**, theyd have more money to fix there defecits, and deposit for butts thats a great idea,

Okay as a smoker I am getting tired of having to prop up the health care system. In the ten years I have been smoking I have only gone to the doctor once a year for my anual checkup, that's it. So why am I paying around 2500$/year in health taxes when fat lazy people and hypochondriacs are spending it all? Put a tax on fatting food and maybe a hypochondriac tax aswell. These people eat away at the public health care system faster then any smoker. Honestly, fat guy with heart problems, it's not genetic your lazy and eat too much junk food. hypochondriac, no you don't have a terminal illness, it's just the flu, it will pass, and if he does turn out to be terminal well no-one will miss you because you whined to much anyway.

maybe the politicans and civil servants should take a pay deducation and see how much money is extra? I recall a few MP's upon their elections take van's inlieu of flying.. But that was just show and tell.. He decied the plane was nicer ... Chit !

Heck yeah LGF...I couldnt agree more! :)
I too am a smoker who never sees a Doctor besides my yearly check up and I too am sick of paying for the fat, lazy & crazy. I watch what I eat & excercise & am told I look great for my age.
Being a smoker doesnt guarantee ill health but being a lazy overeater sure does!

The problem with 'sin' taxes is that it's always open season on the sinners according to unscrupulous governments. No more tax on cigarettes is needed or wanted. Writer Jason Buckland seems like just another left-wingnut who thinks it's better for governments to spend peoples money instead of letting people spend their own. With the massive HST tax rip-off people in Ontario and BC will face as of July 1 one thing has become crystal clear...governments need to get their spending under control instead of raising taxes. Tax increases hurt the mid and low wage earners and are why the underground economy is booming. Cigarettes aren't the problem, corrupt politicians are.

I'm with LGF & Jenn. I very seldom go to doctor, am 65 years old and have smoked since I was 11. I am sick of us paying all the taxes to support the health system. Who do they think kept it going all these years? And now that they are taking away our rights to have a smoke and stop people smoking how is the health care system working now? It is garbage!! Have you never walked past a hospital and seen nurses and doctors outside having a smoke. What a joke. Lay off the taxes and start putting it on the so called holier than thou people.

Yeah! I say tax tax tax! I say let's raise the the tax on a pack of smokes a buck a year. Soon everyone will quit. Even the rich won't be able to aford it forever. let's make Canada a non-smoking country.

Sure Bill. And when everyone quits smoking who do you think the government will get all that lost tax revenue from? That's right Bill.....YOU and the rest of the non smokers.

As for cig butts outside....the bulk of that was created by the anti-smokers when they said no smoking inside.

I too am tired of footing the bill. Does it bother anyone else that we as smokers are targeted yet constantly told where we can smoke? I have always been a considerate smoker but am losing my patience having to pay for something I'm barely allowed to do. Laws tell us ''no'' but the morons that make the laws need the income. Not to mention the same morons allow hydrogen cyanide to be sprayed on tobacco plants.Ridiculous! Doctors have in the past refused to treat people who smoke yet never mentioned to stop putting these chemicals in a product used to raise health care money.Hmmm...

taxing smokes is like screwing for virginity, fighting for peace, and a bunch of others. I smoke, no smoking related health problems, unless you count stains on my fingers. find something else to spend our hard earned tax dollars on. but the problem is, it would just be another tax to line the pockets of those greedy s.o.b.'s on the hill

How about a $10. tax on every case of beer and a $10. enviro levy tax an every package of disposable diapers? How about cig butt receptacles in the designated smoking areas all of us filthy smokers are confined to?

well having been a smoker for 40 yrs and paid my taxes personal,provincial and federal every year the sales tax the goods and services tax now im preparing to pay even more with the hst but that is life with incompetent governments,so do i have high blood pressure? you bet ya!! if i ask they say its smoking!nothing to do with living under the stress of paying my taxes , keeping a roof over my head and food on the table, yes we know smoking isn't good for us, but screw you!! we do smoke and we pay for it through the nose, so at the end of my day i'll sit and watch the sun go down with that last perfect cigarette in my hand............smoke em if you have em :)

After having just come back from the state of Idaho I noticed that THREE cartons of cigarettes down there cost $91.51 while in Canada one carton of cigarettes costs $99 plus change. People are still smoking and paying the highly increased tax rate on cigarettes regardless of provincial governments increasing the tax annually on cigarettes. I too am tired of the 10 metre rule, I am very considerate of non smokers, I even carry a small portable ashtray with me, but when people argue about second hand smoke and the dangers of smoking based on junk science it really makes one wonder!
Ex smokers are amongst the worst of the bunch and I refer to them as anti smoking Nazis trying to force their beliefs and opinions on all of us. The last I heard Canada was still a democracy and cigarettes are still a legal product for which we smokers pay dearly. Much of that money pays for Health care costs so how about taxing all that junk food and the people who frequent emergency rooms for any little cough or scrape and leave us alone. We are NOT social pariahs, we are actually people who enjoy a perfectly legal product even if the provincial governments made a stupid law requiring stores to "hide" that legal product behind curtains. More bureaucratic stupidity passed onto the consumer. Any little excuse will do. Enough is enough, how many drinkers die after getting behind the wheel after drinking too much and how many people do they kill besides themselves? A smoker may die eventually but they won't kill anyone else, a drinker will. tax them, tax the lazy obese people but leave the smokers alone for a change and balance your budget without looking at the little people!

With all of the insanity surrounding global warming, I wonder if anyone has ever done an accounting of the amount of CO2 pumped into the atmosphere every second via a smokers lungs. Surely smokers should have to pay a carbon offset shouldn't they? As for a tax on smokes, I figure smokers (along with those that want to ride motorcycles without helmets) should have to sign releases and if they get smokers tumors, they have to pay for their treatment out of their own pockets. As for smokers rights....my not smoking does not impact a smokers life in any way, can they say the same?

You've got to be kidding me. I'd like to take all the tax money from the sales of cigarette sales and shove iit right up their keisters. Maybe then they'd get the same feeling smokers have every time we purchase a pack of smokes. Leave us the $@#% alone !!!!!!!

i say we all quit smoking, then when the narbs in charge realise that holy crap smokers made us this much money? and then cigarette makers will go out of business and job loss will increase. then they can stop being dicks about it and leave me in peace.

@gayj stop being such a tree hugger, why not charge all the people who do physical activity a carbon tax? they breathe like a million times more than a smoker does, hogging all the air and spewing out gas. cyclists hogging roads causing traffic jams causing more pollutants. charge those non lazys they must have tons of money from speed walking everywhere.