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FORUM: A lurking health crisis is right in front of us (Feb. 2026)

March 11th, 2026 · No Comments

Did you know that 20% of grade 10 teenagers vape?

By Jessica Bell

What is happening to health care? 

In January I was alarmed when Hillary Buchan-Terrell from the Canadian Cancer Society told politicians at the pre-budget hearings in Niagara that 20 per cent of Grade 10 teenagers vape.

I expected to hear about health-care deficits, school budget cuts, and growing homelessness during these pre-budget hearings—and I did—but I didn’t expect vaping to also be a hot-button issue.

Vaping first came up in Pembroke, Ontario, when Kory McDonald from Rothmans, Benson and Hedges came to committee.  

McDonald called for Ontario to do more to crack down on illegal tobacco sales, but I was more interested in the company’s explicit “commitment to a smoke-free future.”  Wouldn’t this new mission statement harm its profits? It turns out, no. 

A quick Google search taught me that some global tobacco companies have quietly evolved into the world’s largest vaping companies. Once tasked with the job of getting people hooked on cigarettes, now these companies profit from getting people hooked on vaping, including teenagers.

In Ontario, vapes are addictive, alluring, and easy to get.  Vapes come in flavours like mango, berry, apple, vanilla custard, and coffee. Shops sell vape products right near schools because there is no rule banning stores from being close to schools, as there is with cannabis stores. Undercover investigations reveal some stores are selling to minors. Vape products are bought online with no age verification and delivered to the door via Canada Post.  

Vaping is bad for your health. It causes lung damage and impairs concentration, memory, and brain development in youth. It increases the likelihood of someone taking up smoking, even though it’s marketed as a smoking cessation product. 

It’s too early to know the long-term effects of vaping, but we do know that vaping involves burning and inhaling products that are known to cause cancer, such as nickel, tin, lead, and formaldehyde. I don’t want these chemicals in my Grade 8 daughter’s lungs. 

It took decades of lawsuits, public education, high taxes, and legislation (like banning smoking in restaurants and bars) to reduce smoking rates to about 10 per cent. Even with that reduction, smoking contributes to up to 17 per cent of all deaths and costs the health-care system $7 billion a year. 

Most of the people who testified at committee savvily couched their “ask” using the classic river metaphor: a prudent upstream investment stops an expensive downtown problem.  Prevention is cheaper than treatment.  

Treatment is expensive. Ontario’s 140 hospitals cost about $30 billion a year to run, making up about a third of Ontario’s health-care budget.  Even this large investment is not enough to cover escalating health-care costs and the rising needs of our growing and aging population. In committee, we had three hospital CEOs tell us their hospitals are operating at well over capacity and that they need building upgrades and more staff. 

Wise policy makers must focus on keeping people healthy and out of hospital. That’s the job of public health departments. They came to committee too. 

In London, Emily Williams from the London-Middlesex Public Health Unit said that Ontario government funding cuts to their public health department has resulted in a “complete retreat from public health nurse presence in schools, except for immunization, oral health screening, and tobacco enforcement.”   

A public health department’s mission is to prevent illness, not make money off illness. With consistent and sustained funding, public health departments would be able to address growing pressures like increased cannabis use and vaping among youth. Health experts are also recommending Ontario raise the legal vaping age from 19 to 21, get tough on shops that sell vapes to teenagers, ban flavours, and raise the price—all measures that cost Ontario next to nothing.  

As the NDP finance critic, I want Ontario to spend its money wisely and prevent public health tragedies from taking hold.  As a parent, I want every child in Ontario to grow into a healthy and well-educated adult. That’s why getting tough on vaping is the right thing to do. 

 Jessica Bell is the MPP for University-Rosedale and the Shadow Minister for Finance and the Treasury Board. You can reach her office at jbell-co@ndp.on.ca or 416-535-7206.

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Tags: Annex · Columns · Opinion

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