The complaints against the tobacco companies that led to the process were made as early as 1998 by smokers who had contracted lung cancer, cancer of the larynx or throat, and emphysema.

The court decided that all cases should be included in a single process that was approved in 2005. After that, a number of preparatory procedures followed. The tobacco companies have managed to have the process postponed several times. The form for it is a so-called class action, where a small number of people represent a large group. However, all cases must be reported and this means that the process is expected to take at least a year.

The accusations against the tobacco companies are that they manufactured and sold products whose harmfulness they had long known, after their own research, but had kept quiet about.

When the health risks began to be recognized, the tobacco industry responded with coordinated actions, including conflicting research reports, to create uncertainty and doubt.

The industry's argument in the proceedings is that the health risks were widely known when the complainants started smoking and were therefore able to abstain from tobacco.

Rob Cunningham, a policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, tells the Montreal Gazette that the upcoming process opens up opportunities to uncover what the industry knew about the health risks, when they learned about it, and how they used the information.

– For decades, tobacco companies denied that tobacco is harmful to health. They have conducted secret research and destroyed documents with negative research results for them.

Another accusation concerns the companies' marketing to children and young people to recruit new smokers, something the three companies deny.

"They have certainly very consciously targeted marketing to children and women. And they only started using warnings when they were forced to do so," says Cunningham.

The three companies are Imperial Tobacco Canada (owned by British American Tobacco, JTI – Macdonald (Japan Tobacco International) and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges, RBH (Philip Morris).

Two of these, JTI-Macdonald and RBH, still dispute today that there is a causal link between smoking and lung cancer.

Source: The Montreal Gazette, March 8 and 9, 2012.