TORONTO

Six years after e-cigarettes were effectively banned in Canada, a booming industry and thousands of users across this country remain in a nicotine-laced fog.

Are they legal?

Are they safe?

And what’s taking so long to sort things out?

Federal foot dragging, says the opposition NDP health critic and vice-chairman of a Commons committee that recommended regulations this past spring.

“It’s like the Wild West,” Victoria New Democrat MP Murray Rankin told the Toronto Sun last week. “All over the country, they call for some sort of serious regulatory action.”

Meanwhile, Canadians’ growing use of e-cigarettes and related products continues to fuel concerns about the potential health risks associated with unregulated nicotine “juice” used in the products, and the possibility that e-cigarettes, particularly those flavoured to appeal to kids, will hook more young people on smoking.

“We’re talking bubblegum-flavoured tobacco,” Rankin said. “This is such an unregulated industry.”

National regulations would create standards and a level playing field, something the industry itself wants.

Instead, in the absence of federal leadership, standards are relegated to manufacturers — many from out of country — and regulation is proceeding in a patchwork manner, province by province, city by city and even by local board, agency and commission.

In March 2009, Health Canada issued an advisory making it illegal to sell or advertise “electronic cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and pipes, as well as cartridges of nicotine solutions and related products.”

Despite the ban, online and local retailers including variety stores and “vape” shops openly sold those same products and the Canadian market is worth an estimated $140 million.

Since 2009, there has been virtually no enforcement of the ban — some 300 responses to complaints regarding the unauthorized sale of e-cigarettes but few charges or warnings — and little movement on regulation until 2014, when Federal Health Minister Rona Ambrose had the Commons health committee study the risks and benefits of e-cigarettes and advise on the need for regulation.

The committee released 14 recommendations in the spring, including a call for further research and a national regulatory framework.

But there’s been no apparent movement on the report.

“The Conservatives are doing nothing,” Rankin said. “They’re not acting on this. The report hasn’t led, to my knowledge, additional action on the part of the federal Conservatives whereas the provinces have been forced to act in that vacuum created by federal inaction.”

For her part, Ambrose’s office released a boilerplate non-response on government plans.

“Minister Ambrose asked the health committee to study the potential risks and benefits of e-cigarettes and to seek the advice of a variety of health stakeholders,” said Michael Bolkenius, the minister’s press secretary. “We thank the committee for their study on this issue. We will review the findings of the report and respond in due course.”

Ben Lobb, who chaired the Commons committee, suggests the “way forward” on e-cigarettes is through the Tobacco Act.

“What most Canadians will want to see is companies manufacturing e-cigarettes are not targeting youth,” Lobb said. “That’s why we’re looking at the Tobacco Act for a lot of that.”

“I think when we’re talking the mid-to-near future, we’re talking 18 months would be a good time frame (to implement the regulations).”

Meanwhile, cities and provinces are independently preparing for e-cigarette regulations of their own and by next year, there will be a patchwork system of regulations across the country.

“We’ve seen the explosion of e-cigarettes in Canada and I think that is appalling,” Rankin said.

“That the provinces have had to get involved shows its testimony to the federal government not doing its job,” he said. “The Conservatives have not stepped up to address this health challenge.”

“We think it’s time to act, there’s been enough studies on this.”