MONTREAL — After nearly three decades fighting Canada's tobacco giants, Lise Blais is close to getting compensation for the lung cancer her late husband developed from smoking cigarettes.
Under a newly proposed deal, JTI-Macdonald Corp., Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, and Imperial Tobacco Canada Ltd. would pay close to $25 billion to provinces and territories. More than $4 billion would go to tens of thousands of Quebec smokers and their loved ones, including Blais, who like other plaintiffs is eligible to receive up to $100,000.
The proposal is the result of a corporate restructuring process set off by a legal battle over the health effects of smoking.
"For sure we got discouraged but I've always said I'll go to the end," Blais, 81, said at a news conference in Montreal on Friday.
Blais and her son Martin both said they feel "proud," but they added that their fight was never about the money.
"It's been a long process, 26 years … something like that. Obviously our loved ones won't come back from the dead, but at least it gives us some kind of justice, some kind of closure, and the next step will be to wait for the agreement to take effect," said Martin Blais, speaking of his father who died in August 2012 at the age of 68.
After a prolonged five-year process, a proposed plan of arrangement developed through mediation was filed in an Ontario court on Thursday. The three tobacco companies had sought creditor protection in Ontario in early 2019 after they lost an appeal in a landmark court battle in Quebec.
Within the $32.5-billion deal, provinces and territories would get a combined $24.8 billion; members of the class action would get $4.24 billion; Canadian victims from provinces outside Quebec would get $2.5 billion; and the three tobacco companies would also pour more than $1 billion into a foundation to fight tobacco-related diseases — that amount includes $131 million taken from the money allocated to the Quebec plaintiffs.
"I feel relived but I wish my father was here .... It was his fight," Martin Blais said. "I'm proud also that my mom took the fight and that she's still involved."
Bruce W. Johnston, one of the lawyers for the Quebec plaintiffs, has been with the case since the start. After Friday's news conference, Johnston called the proposal "historic."
"When we took this case in 1998, as far as we knew, there had never been a single person who had received a single penny in compensation from a tobacco company," he said. "Every single attempt had failed, and no one has ever achieved what we've achieved. There’ll be tens of thousands of people who will receive compensation."
Johnston said there are potentially 100,000 Quebecers who are eligible to receive up to $100,000, but so far he said the legal team has been in contact with just under 30,000 people. More than $2.5 billion is set aside for smokers in other provinces and territories who were diagnosed with lung cancer, throat cancer or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease between March 2015 and March 2019. They would be eligible for up to $60,000 each.
The proposal must still go through several steps before it can be put into action, including a vote by creditors and approval by the court.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2024.
Joe Bongiorno, The Canadian Press
