Imperial Tobacco: half the maximum now for accepted Quebec claims

The Quebec class action plaintiffs want Blais class members with accepted claims to start receiving money while the claims process is still running. Their motion, dated October 23, 2026 and presentable jointly before Justice Catherine Piché of the Superior Court of Québec and Justice Jessica Kimmel of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List), asks for an order authorizing and directing Epiq Class Action Services Canada Inc., the claims administrator, to make interim distributions to Blais class members whose tobacco-victim or succession claims have been accepted, "notwithstanding sections 52.1 and 54 of the Quebec Administration Plan." Each payment would equal 50% of the maximum compensation payment that section 41 of the plan applies to the claim. Epiq would pay every claim holding a notice of acceptance at the date of judgment within 30 days of it, then each month's newly accepted claims within 30 days, per the Notice of Motion, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. (a)–(d).

The Blais class action, begun in 1998, has had two designated class members, one after the other. The first died on August 3, 2012, shortly after the trial began. The second took on the role after that death, was told in December 2025 that Epiq had accepted that member's own claim, and died on September 23, 2026, per the Affidavit at Tab 3, Oct. 19, 2026, paras. 2–3, 6, 10–11. That member died "still waiting for her distribution from the Quebec Administration Plan," according to the affidavit of André Lespérance that supports the motion. Lespérance was one of the lead Quebec class counsel at the trial, retired from Trudel Johnston & Lespérance in December 2025 and still works with class counsel on the plan, per the Lespérance Affidavit, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. 3–4, 61. In an affidavit sworn October 19, the person who has agreed to take over the role and assist class counsel to the end of the claims process supports the motion "without reservation" and calls it "a necessary balm" to show class members "that the justice system is working for them, despite the delays" [translation], per the Affidavit at Tab 3, Oct. 19, 2026, paras. 14–16.

The motion is captioned in the Blais action's Québec file, No. 500-06-000076-980, and in the three Commercial List files of Imperial Tobacco Canada Limited and Imperial Tobacco Company Limited, JTI-Macdonald Corp. and Rothmans, Benson & Hedges Inc., whose plans settled affected claims against the companies, the Quebec class plaintiffs' among them, for a global settlement amount of $32.5 billion, and were implemented on August 29, 2025, per the QCAP Motion Record, Oct. 23, 2026, p. 1; Lespérance Affidavit, paras. 13, 15. Justice Kimmel's order of September 9, made at a joint hearing with the Superior Court of Québec, approved Epiq's first quarterly budget, per the Order (Budget Approval), Sept. 9, 2026, para. 3, a decision reported here on September 30.

The Blais action was brought for people in Quebec who developed lung cancer, throat cancer or emphysema from smoking the companies' cigarettes. Justice Riordan's judgment of May 27, 2015, rectified on June 9, 2015, ordered damages of approximately $15 billion paid to class members, in the affidavit's words "the first time any court in the world had issued a judgment on a mass tort basis against the tobacco industry." The Quebec Court of Appeal substantially upheld it on March 1, 2019, and within a few days each company filed under the CCAA, per the Lespérance Affidavit, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. 8–11.

One distribution, at the end

Section 52.1 of the Quebec Administration Plan provides that "[u]pon the completion of the processing" of the tobacco-victim and succession claims, the plan administrators, in consultation with Epiq, "shall determine the quantum of the Compensation Payments" on several factors, among them the timing of the companies' payment of the QCAP settlement amount and the numbers of claims accepted for each disease. Under section 54.1, Epiq pays once the plan administrators "have finally determined" those amounts. Section 41 sets the ceilings: $100,000 for lung cancer or throat cancer and $30,000 for emphysema/COPD (GOLD grade III or IV), or $80,000 and $24,000 for class members who started smoking on or after January 1, 1976, amounts that "may be reduced on a pro rata basis based upon the actual take-up rate and other factors." The notice Epiq issues on accepting a claim states the maximum that "may be payable" and advises that the actual amount will be determined pro rata on the number of claims approved and "the amount available for distribution to Blais Class Members after all claims have been received, reviewed and processed by the Claims Administrator," per the Fourth Amended & Restated CCAA Plan, Aug. 27, 2025, Sch. "K", ss. 26.7, 41.1–41.2, 52.1, 54.1. The affidavit puts it in one line: the plan "foresees one distribution upon the completion of the processing of the QCAP Filed Claims," per the Lespérance Affidavit, Oct. 23, 2026, para. 58.

The order sought would make each interim payment an advance on the compensation finally determined under sections 52 and 53, after which Epiq would pay any balance, "subject to a pro rata division" if what remains in the QCAP trust accounts cannot pay the total. Every payment, interim and final, would go by cheque, "notwithstanding sections 54.2 and 54.3," to the tobacco victim; to a deceased victim's estate, where a liquidator made the claim or where an heir did and Epiq cannot determine the apportionment among heirs; or directly to the heirs in their proportions, where Epiq has determined them. The courts would declare all of it "an appropriate modification" of the plan's administration under section 7.1, in force until compensation is finally determined, per the Notice of Motion, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. (e)–(h). Section 54.2 provides for payment by cheque or direct deposit as designated on the claim form, and section 7.1 bars any change to the plan without the joint approval of the two courts, naming the plan administrators, Epiq and Quebec class counsel as "the only persons who are entitled to apply" for one, per the Fourth Amended & Restated CCAA Plan, Aug. 27, 2025, Sch. "K", ss. 7.1, 54.2.

The arithmetic

Based on information from the plan administrators, the affidavit says, the QCAP trust accounts held approximately $2.953 billion at September 30, 2026. They earn interest, at a blended rate of approximately 2.54% a year in August 2026, and at that rate the September balance "would generate approximately $205,000 per day in interest income, an amount that exceeds the budgeted administration costs of the Claims Administrator." Another $250 million is still due to the accounts, it says, so that at least $3.203 billion, exclusive of interest, will be available to satisfy claims under the plan, per the Lespérance Affidavit, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. 52–53.

Against that the affidavit sets a ceiling built on what it calls an impossibility: every filed claim accepted at its maximum. According to Epiq's information, 85,273 tobacco-victim and succession claims were filed by the claims application deadline and have not been identified as having medium to high indicia of fraud. Accepted at the highest compensation their claimants could be entitled to, they would require $6,025,116,000 by the affidavit's table, prepared with information Epiq supplied: $1,234,420,000 for 24,598 tobacco-victim claims and $4,790,696,000 for 60,675 succession claims. By disease the table counts 43,430 lung cancer claims, 6,078 throat cancer claims and 35,765 emphysema/COPD claims, and it treats incomplete claims that name no diagnosis, or no date the victim began smoking, as cancer claims at the highest rate, "which would certainly not be the case," per the Lespérance Affidavit, Oct. 23, 2026, paras. 29, 54–55.