{"id":111718,"date":"2018-03-05T19:30:14","date_gmt":"2018-03-06T00:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/?p=111718"},"modified":"2018-05-03T13:52:24","modified_gmt":"2018-05-03T17:52:24","slug":"quebec-the-last-province-in-canada-to-sell-a-cigarette-carton-for-less-than-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/quebec-the-last-province-in-canada-to-sell-a-cigarette-carton-for-less-than-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec: The Last Province In Canada To Sell A (Legal) Cigarette Carton For Less Than $100"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of the recent Federal budget, tobacco taxes have seen a huge surprise increase, to say the least.<\/p>\n<p>Indeed, Bill Morneau, the Federal Finance Minister, has chosen to accelerate the expected tobacco tax increase planned in 2019, which was supposed to price in the country&#8217;s inflation between 2014 and 2019.<\/p>\n<p>After estimating the inflation between 2014 and 2018, he decided for an additional $ 1.29 in duty taxes to a cigarette carton as of February 28, 2018, to which he also added another dollar for good measure, for a total of $ 2.29.<\/p>\n<p>Add to this increase that of most manufacturers and we find ourselves with a more expensive carton of about $ 2.75 and this, pretty much across the country.<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s 34 cents a pack over and above just in taxes, plus the GST in the end in most provinces.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s been a long time since we&#8217;ve seen such an increase from coast to coast &#8230; and of course, it&#8217;s far from over.<\/p>\n<h5>Who can afford $100 in taxes on a single carton?<\/h5>\n<p>With the latest Federal tax increase, the average price of a carton has risen dramatically, like shown by the following figures below extrapolated from <a href=\"https:\/\/nsra-adnf.ca\/\">NSRA<\/a>&#8216;s data (Non-Smokers&#8217; Rights Association &#8211; see document <a href=\"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/Cig-Prices-July-2017.pdf\">here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>CIGARETTE CARTONS AVERAGE PRICES &#8211; MARCH 2018<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Manitoba: <strong>$ 140.35<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Prince Edward Island: <strong>$ 134.04<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Nova Scotia: <strong>$ 133.00<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Saskatchewan: <strong>$ 131.86<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Newfoundland and Labrador: <strong>$ 125.63<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Alberta: <strong>$ 119.01<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>New Brunswick: <strong>$ 119.29<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>British Columbia: <strong>$ 111.15<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Ontario: <strong>$ 105.51<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Qu\u00e9bec: <strong>$ 96.84<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p>To illustrate just how much these prices are inflated by taxes, in Manitoba they represent $98.99 on a carton of $140.35, or 70.5% of the total price. Just in taxes!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So to purchase a single carton, one must pay $100 to the various governments in pure taxes. That&#8217;s a lot of money.<\/p>\n<h5>When is the $200 carton due, or how to prohibit a product by its price<\/h5>\n<p>Excessive increases in tobacco taxes are likely to continue until consumers stop buying these products: this is called price prohibition.<\/p>\n<p>This approach only yields gains for governments and politicians alike:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>It pleases the health group lobby which demands it loudly;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It brings more revenue to governments and also helps compensating for lower volumes;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Most voters don&#8217;t smoke and don&#8217;t care at all about tobacco taxes;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And as for smokers, they themselves often feel guilty of pursuing their ugly habit and some see these taxes as a necessary evil.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>However, in addition to contraband tobacco, which is significant in Quebec and endemic in Ontario, this policy causes many disadvantages for retailers.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>They need to devote more of their cash liquidities to maintain their inventory;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>It generates more risks of robberies because of its increased value;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>And tobacco remains a category of products on which hangs a sword of Damocles.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Now the question is: how much longer will this product category generate income and above all, by what to replace it with when its customer base vanishes?<\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s a darn good question!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the wake of the recent Federal budget, tobacco taxes have seen a huge surprise increase, to say the least.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":111723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[223,1737],"tags":[1591,310,1418,879],"class_list":["post-111718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsdep","category-tobacco-ecig","tag-prix-du-tabac-en","tag-tobacco","tag-tobacco-taxes-en","tag-tobacco-taxes"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/newrecord.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/depquebec.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}