The first class-action trial against Canada’s three largest tobacco companies will finally get under way Monday, reports Montreal Gazette.

In the lawsuit that is considered Canada's biggest lawsuit ever to make it to trial, two million Quebecers claim an unprecedented USD 27 billion in damages they suffered after taking up smoking.
The companies – JTI-Macdonald, Imperial Tobacco Canada and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges – are accused of conspiring to prevent information about the dangers of smoking from reaching the Quebec public, trivializing the risks of smoking, engaging in false marketing to fool the public about the dangers and risks of smoking, and deliberately violating the rights to life, security and integrity of Quebec citizens.
Millions of internal, once-secret documents were released by the companies to the plaintiffs. Should the tobacco companies lose the case, the judge will likely order the documents be made public, permanently, said Bruce Johnston, a lawyer for the plaintiffs.
Johnston said it was the 1998 agreement that made seven cigarette companies operating in the U.S. pay out USD 206 billion that helped lawyers formulate a case against the Canadian big three.
The federal government has been named as a defendant in warranty in the suit, meaning that if the tobacco companies lose, they will seek to recover damages from Ottawa. The federal government is denying any liability. In its statement of defence, it says, among other things, it did not endorse the marketing concepts of light and mild cigarettes.
The suit is a combination of two requests filed in 1998 involving people addicted to tobacco and people who have lung, larynx or throat cancer, or those with emphysema.
The court decided that because both actions were against the same tobacco companies for similar issues, both would be dealt with at one trial, although each would have a separate judgment.
The suit was approved in 2005, followed by numerous pre-trial procedures that resulted in more than 50 judgments from Quebec Superior Court. Ten of those went to the Court of Appeal.
The tobacco companies have sought and won several postponements to the trial. (pi)