From CBC news:
The Alberta government is banning the sale of some flavoured tobacco products in a bid to curb youth smoking -- but is still allowing the sale of menthol cigarettes.
Health Minister Stephen Mandel defended the exclusion, saying that Alberta needs to "deal with the realities of the world."
“It is a legal product," he said. "People who smoke menthol who are older people need to be consulted and we’ll make sure we do that in the next little while and then we’ll bring it back to see how we can deal with these issues.”
A ban on all flavored cigarettes except menthol: Haven't we had this case before?
But this case is a little different, in an interesting way. It's the province of Alberta, rather than the Canadian federal government, taking action here, which brings us into the realm of TBT Agreement Article 3:
Article 3: Preparation, Adoption and Application of Technical Regulations by Local Government Bodies and Non-Governmental Bodies
With respect to their local government and non-governmental bodies within their territories:
3.1 Members shall take such reasonable measures as may be available to them to ensure compliance by such bodies with the provisions of Article 2, with the exception of the obligation to notify as referred to in paragraphs 9.2 and 10.1 of Article 2.
..
3.5 Members are fully responsible under this Agreement for the observance of all provisions of Article 2. Members shall formulate and implement positive measures and mechanisms in support of the observance of the provisions of Article 2 by other than central government bodies.
The issue of local government measures under the TBT Agreement came up in the comments the other day. There's still some uncertainty as to how exactly a claim against a non-central government would go. If Indonesia decides the issue is worth pursuing in another WTO dispute, we may find out a bit more.
