With a new year comes new taxes.

In its 2024-25 budget, the Alberta government unveiled two new taxes that will be imposed on some Albertans in 2025 — a vape tax and a registration fee for electric vehicles.

The vape tax will come into effect on Wednesday, which is intended “to discourage the use of vaping products, particularly by young Albertans” — one-third of Albertans between the ages of 15 and 19 now vape.

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The vape tax will charge $1.12 per two millilitres (mL) of vape product for the first 10 mL and an additional $1.12 per 10 mL for products over 10 mL.

For example, a 30 mL vape juice refill will cost $5.60 in tax for the first 10 mL and $2.24 for the last 20 mL.

The Alberta government said the tax is consistent with the existing federal tax.

Amer Obeidet, who co-owns Central Vape and Smoke with his brother Adhem Obeidet, said the new tax is just yet another hurdle that their vape business has to face.

“Business owners want a break,” said Obeidet.

“Every year, something to do with the industry. You don’t see (the government) going after the alcohol industry, the cannabis industry, where there’s definitely people underage going to do that.”

Obeidet said he expects the new tax will eat away at the profit margins of his business, which he said were already slim to begin with.

Michael Chaiton is an associate professor at the University of Toronto with the School of Public Health and the director of research at the Ontario Tobacco Research Centre. He said the Alberta vape tax is similar to what’s being rolled out across Canada in a battle for the lungs of Canadians that public health is fighting.

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“We’re struggling with our vaping policy,” said Chaiton.

Chaiton studies policies from around the world that aim to reduce the use of tobacco, including a recent United Kingdom initiative that would progressively raise the legal age for tobacco sales to create a smoke-free generation. Chaiton said vapes, or e-cigarettes, provide a real opportunity to reduce tobacco usage, but it means fighting two battles at once.

“Canada is kind of trying to do two things at once, and what we’ve done is a really good job at getting e-cigarettes into the hands of youth and young adults, and they’re relatively higher rates of vaping, and not a very good job of getting them into the hands of people who smoke or used to smoke,” he said.

As such, he said Canada must now work to get vapes out of the hands of youth and into the hands of people trying to stop smoking cigarettes.

Chaiton said as long as taxes on cigarettes are higher than on vapes, users should move toward e-cigarettes, but he said the process could be expedited with higher taxes on cigarettes. In the meantime, he said the tax should achieve its goal.

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“Having higher taxes is a very effective way at reducing youth use.”

Obeidet expressed concern that due to the higher prices for vapes, customers who started vaping to quit smoking cigarettes could revert to them.

“A lot of people have quit cigarettes from vaping over the past 10 years, and you’re talking about in the millions, so that’s a huge number, and that’s not something you want to take back,” said Obeidet.

Chaiton acknowledged that cigarette smoking can increase in areas where vape taxes are introduced, but only in the absence of an accompanying cigarette tax, which Alberta has done.

Comparing the cost of smoking cigarettes to vaping isn’t simple because of how many variations of vape products there are — different volumes, nicotine concentrations, and flavours. As such, the price of vaping can vary depending on the configuration, but it is still roughly half the cost of cigarettes on average.

Also expected in early 2025 is a yearly registration fee of $200 for electric vehicle users. The exact timeline of when the fee will be rolled out is unclear, and when Postmedia contacted Edmonton registries, they had no information on when the levy would begin.

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