We have read the May responses from the AACV Coalition, the CFAA, and the AB Choice Vaping Alliance. They are calmer than the earlier rounds, and we will say so. We agree with a few things. We still disagree on the main thing. This note tries to set that out clearly without raising voices.
Where you describe us, please describe us correctly
The AB Choice response is titled with the phrase amendments, not slogans. The CFAA response talks about responsible retailers being treated as compliance partners. The AACV response asks for a more careful frame. We have no objection to any of those framings as descriptions of your own work.
We do have a quiet objection to the suggestion, present in all three responses to varying degrees, that parents on this file are working from slogans. We are not. We are working from school district incident reports, school nurse notes, vape detector procurement budgets, and the conversations we have at the kitchen table. None of those are slogans.
What we are actually asking for
Three things, written down already in our letter to MLAs and worth repeating:
- Pass Bill 208. The bill is short. It targets product features the public health record links to youth uptake. It does not ban adult vaping.
- Fund the inspection work under the existing rules and enforcement framework. The Government of Alberta's own Tobacco and Vaping Reduction Strategy already says the inspection capacity matters.
- Build in a short, public three-year review so the Assembly can see what worked. Not a press release. A short report.
None of those three are slogans. The third one is borrowed almost word for word from one of the AB Choice amendment suggestions, and we said so when we first wrote it.
On the amendments framing
If your position is that some of the implementation should sit in regulations rather than in the statute, that is a legitimate drafting question. Several of those amendment ideas are reasonable. The Canadian Paediatric Society position does not turn on which layer of law names which flavour, and neither does ours.
If your position is that the product feature layer should not be touched at all, we disagree, and so does the Health Canada prevention guidance and the CDC youth page. The product feature layer is part of what Bill 208 actually changes.
On the school hallway
We asked, in our first reply, that adult-access materials address the school hallway directly. The May responses do address it, more than the earlier ones did. Thank you. We notice that the answer, in three responses across three sites, lands on the same point: do not blame licensed Alberta retailers for what is arriving in school backpacks.
We agree. We never blamed the licensed Alberta retail counter. Our concern, repeated across every piece we have published, is online sellers shipping into Alberta, social supply, and the product features that make a sweet disposable easier to hide in a sleeve. Bill 208 is aimed at that third part.
Tone, again
We will keep writing in plain language. We are not asking for slogans. We are asking for a bill, an inspection budget, and a review. We will keep saying so until the Assembly votes.