Quebec, following the lead of several other North American jurisdictions, plans to sue big tobacco companies for $30 billion to offset the cost of tobacco-related illnesses.

A spokesman for Justice Minister Kathleen Weil tells CTV News that government lawyers are working on a lawsuit but that there's no timetable for filing it.

The Charest government passed a law earlier this year that cleared the way for the lawsuit.

Several other provinces already have similar laws.

Quebec says that smoking costs taxpayers in the province $1 billion a year in direct and indirect costs. Tobacco also kills thousands of Quebecers every year.

Francois Damphousse of the Non-Smokers' Rights Association says the lawsuit makes sense given the link between cigarettes and a variety of illnesses.

"The tobacco manufacturers, they have a duty to warn the public about the harm caused by their products, the addiction caused by nicotine and they never did that," Damphousse told CTV's Derek Conlon.

"They claim that the public knew about that for many years but those were mostly the health agencies informing the public."

Ontario

Late last month Ontario announced it's suing the major cigarette makers for $50 billion for tobacco-related damages.

Ontario says that's how much smoking has cost the health care system, since 1955.

Montreal-based Imperial Tobacco says the lawsuit is hypocritical because governments have collected billions of dollars in taxes on a legal product.