Parliamentary Research Branch

PRB 98-8E

TOBACCO MANUFACTURERS (1)

Prepared by:
Mollie Dunsmuir
Law and Government Division
December 1998

Three companies control almost 100% of the Canadian tobacco manufacturing industry: Imperial Tobacco Limited; RJR-Macdonald Incorporated; and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Incorporated. These companies are in turn owned by international conglomerates that are involved in the tobacco markets of most countries.

Imperial Tobacco Limited(2) has approximately two-thirds of the domestic cigarette market. Imperial is owned by Montreal-based Imasco, which in turn is controlled by the British-based tobacco conglomerate B.A.T. Industries (BAT). Imasco also controls Shoppers Drug Mart/Pharmaprix, Canada Trust, Genstar Development, and Fast Food Merchandisers (FFM). Imperial products include Canada’s two largest-selling brands, du Maurier and Players. Brown and Williamson, one of the major tobacco companies in the United States, is also controlled by BAT.

Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Incorporated is the second largest tobacco firm in Canada, controlling about 20% of the market. Rothmans is mainly owned by Philip Morris, the largest tobacco firm in the United States, and by Rothmans International B.V., which is based in the Netherlands but controlled by the Rupert Family Trusts in South Africa. Rothmans produces Rothmans, Craven "A" and Benson and Hedges, among other brands.

RJR-Macdonald Incorporated controls about 12% of the Canadian market, and is owned by RJR-Nabisco. RJR-Nabisco is composed of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco, the second largest American tobacco firm, R.J. Reynolds International, and Nabisco, which controls such well known food products as Planters, Life Savers, Oreo, Ritz and Fleishmann’s. The firm’s most popular product by far is the Export A line.

(1) More information can be found at the British Columbia Ministry of Health Site, at http://www.tobaccofacts.org. See also Rob Cunningham, Smoke and Mirrors: the Canadian Tobacco War, International Development Research Centre, 1996, p. 18-26.