Manitoba is joining British Columbia's court fight to recover health-care costs from tobacco companies.

Manitoba Healthy Living Minister Theresa Oswald says her province's health-care system wants to recoup the costs of treating smoking-related diseases.

"We believe the taxpayer-funded public health care system should be allowed to recoup the costs of treating disease caused by tobacco use induced by the marketing practices of companies which manufacture tobacco," she said in a statement Friday.

Oswald says Manitoba Health has filed a notice with the Supreme Court of Canada to intervene an existing case in B.C.

B.C. wants to recover $10 billion in health-care costs from a number of North American and foreign-based tobacco companies.

Oswald won't say how much Manitoba would seek.

The B.C. suit alleges that the tobacco companies: failed to warn consumers of the dangers of smoking; targeted children in their advertising and marketing; conspired to suppress research on the risks of smoking; are responsible for health care costs associated with smoking.

The Canadian Tobacco Manufacturers' Council says the suit is almost pointless because if B.C. won and all other provinces followed, the industry would never be able to afford the astronomical bill.

The Supreme Court said last November that it would hear an appeal of B.C. legislation allowing the province to sue, known as the Tobacco Damages and Health Care Costs Recovery Act.

Tobacco companies took their challenge of the legislation to the country's highest court after the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled last May that the legislation was constitutionally valid.

The legislation, first introduced in 1998, is the only one of its kind in Canada. It's modeled on cases filed in the 1990s by more than 40 U.S. states, which resulted in an out-of-court settlement totaling more than $240 billion.