The federal government has introduced legislation to regulate vaping and e-cigarettes.

The bill, S-5, introduced Tuesday in the Senate, will update the Tobacco Act to make it the “Tobacco and Vaping Products Act” and will regulate vaping products as a separate class of products.

The legislation would restrict vaping products to people under the age of 18, and includes regulations on advertising, labeling, product standards and ingredients.

Health Minister Jane Philpott said the vaping law will “strike a balance” between protecting young people and helping adults move away from smoking tobacco.

“We know that there is some evidence to suggest the use of vaping products can be used as a harm reduction tool for people who are current smokers and use it as a tool to decrease their smoking,” she said Tuesday. “But at the same time they’ve shown to be an enticement for young people to take up smoking and become addicted to nicotine, so we’re going to find that balance and introduce regulations associated.”

Philpott said the legislation will address flavours — such as bubblegum and cotton candy — that appeal specifically to young people, and regulations will be made around product promotion so e-cigarettes can’t be associated with a “particular appealing lifestyle that would appeal to young people.”

The government’s 2015 Canadian Tobacco, Alcohol and Drugs Survey suggests that 26 per cent of youth 15 to 19 have tried an e-cigarette – an increase of 20 per cent since 2013.

But David Sweanor, an associate professor at the Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics at University of Ottawa, said the minister over-reached by saying they’re an “enticement” that lead youth to become addicted to nicotine.

He said there isn’t “any credible evidence” e-cigarettes are being used as a gateway, but there’s “a whole lot of fearmongering about it.”

Sweanor said Philpott is “downplaying the benefits of vaping” by using language that one “would expect from really risk-averse civil servants.”

David Hammond, an associate professor of public health at University of Waterloo, said that there is a strong association between vaping and smoking, particularly with youth, but the jury is still out on whether there’s a true “gateway effect.”

“Youth who vape are more likely to smoke, and youth vape are more likely to initiate smoking in the future,” he said.

“It is certainly possible that early vaping of nicotine products increases the risks of smoking, but much of the association will simply reflect the fact that kids who are likely to vape are also likely to use other tobacco products, and may have smoked regardless of whether they tried e-cigarettes first.”

Hammond said the government’s efforts to discourage youth from using e-cigarettes and give adult smokers equal access to nicotine vaping – which is potentially harmful but “substantially” less so than cigarettes – is a “reasonable strategy from a public health perspective.”

“The measures proposed today at least remove the nonsensical situation in which consumers had less access to vapourized nicotine products than conventional cigarettes.”

The legislation comes in response to a health committee report under the previous government that recommended federal legislation on vaping.

Rob Cunningham, senior policy analyst at the Canadian Cancer Society, said the bill has been anticipated since the committee report came out, and there’s merit in a cautious approach given how new the products are.

“What’s going to be the full impact of youth use? We’re not going to know for ten years,” he said.

“Clearly, we don’t want youth using e-cigarettes, and we don’t want to see the kind of marketing from the United States used by the tobacco industry.”

Cunningham still wants to see new the government bring in new regulations on other devices such as water pipes, and restored funding for the Tobacco Control Strategy.

Bill S-5 will also “lay the groundwork for future work on plain packaging” for cigarettes, according to a government release. Details of plain packaging measures, though, will come out through regulations.

Independent Senator Chantal Petitclerc will sponsor the bill as it moves through the Senate.