In 2017, the overall prevalence of smoking in Canada was 15.1%, equivalent to approximately 4.6 million Canadians. This represents a significant increase from the 2015 estimate of 13.0%.1
Approximately 10.8% of Canadians (3.3 million) were daily smokers, while 4.3% (1.3 million) were non-daily smokers (Figure 1.2). Neither daily nor non-daily smoking changed significantly from the 2015 estimates of 9.4% and 3.7%, respectively.2,3
As shown in Figure 1.3, overall smoking prevalence has decreased significantly over time since 1999.4
Reduction in daily smoking appears to be responsible for most of the observed decline in smoking rates during this time period, since non-daily smoking has remained relatively constant at around 4%.
Despite the overall prevalence increase in the most recent survey year, from 1999 to 2017, the overall trend was an average annual decrease in prevalence of 3.2% of the previous year’s value.5
