Grocery Stores

[tomh009]

And it did happen in the context of a governmental anti-tobacco strategy.

But tobacco is about the same price it was 25 or so years ago. I don't know if you're old enough to remember (no offense intended), but tobacco prices were brought back down quite severely after black market tobacco really boomed. So much so that the mayor of one of the eastern Ontario border towns (I cannot remember which town) went into hiding for several days due to criminal groups fighting over smuggling tobacco back into Canada.
I ran a variety store at the time, and cigarettes went down over $3/pack, and the price for a pack today is perhaps only 10-15% more than they were in the early 90's.

It seems that cigarettes cost around $10/pack in Ontario (I had to check as I don't smoke):
https://nsra-adnf.ca/wp-content/uploads/..._table.pdf

And $63 of that is taxes -- a far high proportion than for gasoline, for example.  We're not the highest on the global scale but still near the top:
https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/co...?itemId=17