Public memo to Alberta MLAs: a two-track voice on Bill 208.

To

All Members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, regardless of caucus, and the staff supporting the legislative review of Bill 208.

From

The AB Choice Vaping Alliance — an Alberta-based, non-partisan alliance of adult consumers and small licensed retailers.

Re

Bill 208, Tobacco, Smoking and Vaping Reduction Amendment Act, 2026 — making space for a two-track adult voice.

The request

Bill 208 will be heard, debated, and amended through the Legislature. We are not writing to ask any MLA to vote a particular way. We are writing to ask that, throughout that process, two voices be invited and given a fair hearing alongside the voices already at the table:

1. Adult Alberta consumers who legally use vaping products and who will live with the rules the Legislature passes.
2. Small Alberta retailers — independent shops and Alberta-headquartered chains — who will operationalise the rules at the till.

Why two tracks, and why now

Adult consumers and retailers are routinely missing from this file. Manufacturer associations, public-health bodies, and youth advocacy groups are well represented in formal consultations, and rightly so. The two groups whose day-to-day life will change — adults using lawful products and the licensed Alberta businesses serving them — are the two groups who appear least often in the official record.

The alliance argues that licensed Alberta retailers are best understood as part of the enforcement story rather than apart from it. Age verification, staff training, point-of-sale compliance, and cooperation with inspectors are how the regulated channel keeps youth out of legal stores. Restriction without funded enforcement risks pushing demand into channels with no such safeguards. That argument deserves a hearing alongside the other voices in the room.

We do not want to displace any other voice. We want to be added, briefly and respectfully, to the room.

What a two-track voice looks like in practice

• An invitation for written submissions during committee study, with explicit reference to adult consumers and to licensed Alberta retailers as desired correspondents.
• A modest portion of any oral hearing time given to one adult-consumer and one licensed-retailer speaker, on the same day, so the two perspectives are heard in dialogue rather than in opposition.
• Where MLAs hold constituency-level conversations on the bill, an openness to inviting adult consumers and licensed retailers from that constituency by name.

None of this requires changes to procedure. It requires only that adult-consumer and small-retailer voices not be assumed to be already covered by other participants.

The tone we are committing to

The alliance has set its own bar for participation:

• We cite primary Government of Alberta and Government of Canada material first, and label our own perspective as such.
• We do not make medical claims and do not interpret legal text on behalf of others.
• We treat youth protection and adult choice as parallel concerns rather than competing slogans.
• We publish what we send, so the public record is the same as the private record.

Closing

The Legislature will decide what Bill 208 becomes. We ask only that two of the affected voices be in the room while it does. We are happy to coordinate participation, suggest speakers, or assist with constituency-level engagement on a volunteer basis.

AB Choice Vaping Alliance
hello@abchoicevapingalliance.ca