A Field Guide to the Open Data Files

Each file is a flat table you can open in a spreadsheet or load into a script. This guide goes through every column, states the unit, and says where the numbers come from. The files themselves are listed on the open data page, and the browsable version of the city file is the rules-by-city database.

What are the three files?

File	Rows	One row is	Updated
tobacco-tax-per-carton.csv	13	one province or territory	tax rates as of 27 October 2026
provincial-rules.csv	95	one rule topic in one jurisdiction	all rows retrieved 2026-10-27
city-rules.csv	19	one bylaw topic in one city	all rows retrieved 2026-10-27

All three carry a header row, so the first line of each is column names. If a spreadsheet shows odd characters in the first header, import as UTF-8.

tobacco-tax-per-carton.csv: columns and units

Column	Unit and format	Source
jurisdiction	text	not applicable
provincial_tax_per_cigarette_cad	Canadian dollars per cigarette, three to five decimals (0.325, 0.18475)	provincial finance or tax page named in source_url
provincial_tax_per_carton_200_cad	Canadian dollars per 200 cigarettes	provincial rate multiplied by 200
in_effect_since	date, YYYY-MM-DD	the date the provincial source gives; blank when the source does not
federal_excise_per_carton_200_cad	Canadian dollars per 200 stamped cigarettes	Canada Revenue Agency
combined_per_carton_200_cad	Canadian dollars	provincial plus federal
status	verified or unverified	our check
source_url	link	the provincial page

The federal figure is the same in every row: $38.92. The Canada Revenue Agency publishes federal excise duty on stamped cigarettes as $0.97299 per 5 cigarettes or fraction from 1 April 2026, and 40 units of 5 make a carton of 200, which gives $38.92. Because it is derived this way, the cent-level figure is a calculation from the agency’s rate.

Ten of the 13 rows are verified. New Brunswick, Yukon and Nunavut are unverified, and their price columns are empty. Prince Edward Island is verified but has no in_effect_since date because its source does not give one. The combined figure leaves out sales tax and the retailer’s margin, so it is not a shelf price; read tobacco tax rates in Canada for that.

provincial-rules.csv: columns and topic codes

Column	Meaning
jurisdiction	province or territory; 10 of 13 are present (Quebec, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are not yet in this file)
topic	a code, see below
statement	our plain-English summary of what the source says
source_url	the law, regulation or government page
retrieved	date we read it, YYYY-MM-DD

Topic codes in use: min_age_tobacco, min_age_vape, main_acts, indoor_public_places, vaping_in_smoke_free_places, playgrounds_sportsfields_schools, vehicles_with_minors, vape_flavour_rules, retail_rules, tenancy, patios, door_distance and quit_line. Ages are in years: the Ontario row, for example, records that selling or supplying tobacco to anyone younger than 19 is prohibited, citing the Ontario government page on selling tobacco and vapour products. Distances are not standardized across rows. They sit inside statement text, so search the statement rather than expecting a numeric column.

Counts differ by topic because jurisdictions publish different things: min_age_vape has 10 rows, door_distance only 5. A missing topic means we have not confirmed it, not that no rule exists.

city-rules.csv: columns

Column	Meaning
city, province	municipality and two-letter code
topic	one of Parks and beaches, Doorways, Fines, Patios, Transit, Hookah
statement	what the bylaw requires; distances are in metres in the text
bylaw	chapter or by-law number
source_url	the city page or by-law
retrieved	date read

Toronto’s parks row, for instance, says smoking and vaping are prohibited within 20 metres of sports fields, playgrounds and other listed park facilities, and cites the City of Toronto’s parks bylaw enforcement page. Cities that appear are Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Saskatoon; other municipalities are not yet in the file.

How should I handle blanks, dates and verification?

• A blank is not zero. Drop or flag blanks before you average or rank anything.
• Treat retrieved as the date of the check, and in_effect_since as the date the rate began. Neither is a promise the figure still holds today.
• Filter status to verified before you publish a ranking of provinces.
• Quote the source page, not our file, when a figure drives a decision. The methodology page explains how each fact is checked before it is published.

How do I cite the files?

Use the wording on how to cite us: credit Smoke Atlas, link to this page or the page the figure comes from, and say if you changed the data. For survey-based figures, which are not in these files, see smoking statistics in Canada.