Bill C-6 (Historical)

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

An Act respecting the safety of consumer products

This enactment modernizes the regulatory regime for consumer products in Canada. It creates prohibitions with respect to the manufacturing, importing, selling, advertising, packaging and labelling of consumer products, including those that are a danger to human health or safety. In addition, it establishes certain measures that will make it easier to identify whether a consumer product is a danger to human health or safety and, if so, to more effectively prevent or address the danger. It also creates application and enforcement mechanisms. This enactment also makes consequential amendments to the Hazardous Products Act.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Madam Chair, after having studied the matter, the way in which this committee has gone about expressing its desire that Bill C-6 be passed with all due speed is through the work that has been done in the House itself. If my colleague considers the Senate to be an obstacle to the way in which Parliament should work, he should actually be talking about abolishing it.

At the moment, the Senate is there, and senators are studying the bill. They already know that we want the bill passed for the benefit of our fellow citizens because of all the discussions that we have had in the House of Commons.

So, for those reasons, Madam Chair, I will vote against my colleague's motion.

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

First, I'd like to put on record that no Liberal Senator is delaying Bill C-6. The Senators are dealing with Bill C-6 in a responsible manner. They, like the Liberals on this committee, support the safety of consumer products for Canadians.

I consider this motion not only extraneous, but insulting. This bill was in the House for 70 sitting days and it has been in the Senate for only 28 sitting days. I think the member opposite will agree that there were some complex issues that needed to be addressed and witnesses to be heard from in order to understand this bill. This has been expedited.

The government first spoke to Bill C-6 in the Senate on June 23, which was the day before the House adjourned. Liberal Senator Day spoke to the bill two sitting days later, on September 16. This bill was referred to committee on October 7, but it didn't even get heard in committee until October 21. So this is a bill that will end up spending half the number of sitting days in the Senate that it did in the House, and on clause-by-clause, so a vote will be taking place next week. The senators have all been responsibly passing this in an expeditious fashion, so the Liberals will be abstaining on this extraneous vote.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Consumer Product Safety

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, we introduced Bill C-6 to protect the health and safety of Canadians. We recognize that the current legislation is over 40 years old. It is outdated. That is why we are encouraging the Liberal senators to stop delaying the passage of that legislation, so that we can protect the health and safety of Canadians.

I found out about this yesterday, and yesterday we issued the release to protect the health and safety of Canadians. Current legislation does not give us a mandatory recall. It only gives us a voluntary recall. We have to work with the industry on any recalls. Also, we will continue to push the senators of the Liberal Party to pass--

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House also want to see Bill C-6 passed and we want mandatory recalls. However, that does not explain the fact that the government could have issued voluntary recalls, at least going back to August, when the Americans informed it.

So, my question is, why is the government not exercising the authority it has right now? Where was the follow-up to the complaints? What products were tested? Why were public warnings not issued? Why was there no hint of concern given to parents? Why should Canadians trust the government to proactively protect them under a new law when it has failed so miserably to protect them under the old one?

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, the government does not currently have the authority to order a mandatory recall.

We introduced the Canada consumer product safety act, Bill C-6. When passed, it will give us the tools needed to protect Canadian children.

I am hearing that the Liberal senators want to further delay this bill review by postponing a clause-by-clause review scheduled for tomorrow morning. I would continue to urge the Liberal senators to stop delaying the passage of these important safety measures that will protect Canadians and their children.

Product Safety

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, again, to recall any products that are on the shelves of retail stores, we require the legislation that would allow us to do that.

Bill C-6 that is stuck in the Senate with the Liberals, once passed, would allow us to recall products that are unsafe for our children.

[Leona Aglukkaq, Conservative, Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the hon. member for raising this very important issue. I agree with the member.

There is a bill in the Senate, Bill C-6, the Consumer Product Safety Act, which would allow us to recall products that are unsafe. I would urge all members of this House to urge the Liberal senators to pass the bill so that we can protect the health and safety of our children.

Opposition Motion--Business of the House

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to the opposition day motion moved by the hon. member for Wascana, the Liberal House leader.

The motion recognizes the role of the House in ensuring government accountability. As we know, that is the primary function of Parliament in our Westminster system.

More specifically, the motion at hand calls for three things: first, that the Standing Orders of the House be changed with respect to the scheduling of allotted days this fall; second, that the House calendar be altered to accommodate the G20 meetings in September; and third, that the government table an additional report on the implementation of the 2009 budget.

I will touch on these three points very briefly, as it is the government's intention to support the motion. I will devote the remainder of my remarks to a more general discourse on the successful functioning of Parliament and my experiences of this past session.

The opposition day motion provides for a change to the rules of Parliament with regard to how the government may allocate opposition days this fall. Since coming to office in 2006, as a general rule our government has always tried to evenly distribute the opposition days in the parliamentary calendar. In certain circumstances we recognize that legislative priorities can force a deviation from this practice. However, we do support the idea of amending the Standing Orders to ensure that this usual practice becomes a rule.

The second provision of today's opposition day motion provides for a change to the House calendar for the fall of 2009. Under this provision the House would open a week earlier than currently scheduled and it would then adjourn for the week of September 21. This will enable the government to focus on the G20 meetings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on September 24 and 25.

The G20 is the chief forum for the world leaders, as a group, to address issues resulting from the global economic crisis, and Canada has played an active and important role in these discussions. At the fall G20 meetings, the Prime Minister and other world leaders will discuss progress in promoting economic recovery and they will consider new ways to address global economic and financial challenges.

I think we can all agree that there is no more pressing issue before Parliament than dealing with the global economic downturn, which has caused personal hardship and job loss around the world. Unfortunately, as we all know, Canada has not been immune.

Our legislative program of this past session has reflected that the economy is the number one issue for Canadians. As such, I am pleased to support a motion that permits the Government of Canada to give its undivided attention to the critical economic discussions that will be taking place at the G20 summit in September.

The third provision of today's opposition motion requests that the government table an additional report on the implementation of the 2009 budget. In the face of global economic uncertainty, this government presented a budget in January with a comprehensive economic action plan to stimulate economic growth, restore confidence and support Canadians and their families during this global recession.

This economic recovery program is unprecedented in our history, and it is working. Canada was the last group of seven country to enter recession and the International Monetary Fund expects that we will have the strongest recovery coming out of it.

The government has also taken unprecedented steps in reporting on our economic action plan. We tabled an initial budget report in March. A week ago we tabled a second budget report, which outlines how 80% of the measures in our economic action plan are already being implemented. This government welcomes the opportunity provided by today's opposition day motion to table a third budget report in September. In fact, we committed to such a report in our budget presentation earlier this past winter.

The Minister of Finance announced at the time that he would be tabling an economic report in the fall. This being the case, I commend the official opposition for echoing the government's pre-existing intention and commitment to provide quarterly reports on the economy in and through the House to all Canadians. As we debate this today, I think it is important to remember that the government was already committed to providing that report in September.

As all members in the House know, the last few weeks have not been easy in this place. In fact they have not been easy on Canadians from coast to coast to coast. During this time of economic challenge, Canadians did not want to hear about the possibility of an election. Canadians want us to continue to work to achieve results for them. They know we cannot afford an election, which would put Canada's economic recovery at risk, halt stimulus investment across the country and limit our ability to continue to implement our economic action plan for Canadians.

By avoiding an election, we have enabled the government to continue its course of doing everything possible to turn this global recession around on our own soil. The cooperation we have seen emerge over this week, spearheaded by our Prime Minister, has not only avoided a costly and unwanted election but has clearly demonstrated to Canadians that their Parliament can work for them.

Despite the partisan political drama played out during the daily 45 minutes of question period, Canadians may be surprised to know just how cooperative and productive this past session of Parliament has been. Since January, our government has worked with all opposition parties to advance many important bills that will help Canadian families. We have moved forward on our electoral commitments, and I am pleased that much more has been done.

Since January, the government has introduced a total of 54 bills. By the time the Senate adjourns for the summer next week, I expect we will have royal assent on 26 of those bills, including such important legislative initiatives as Bill C-33, which will restore war veterans' allowances to allied veterans and their families; Bill C-29, to guarantee an estimated $1 billion in loans over the next five years to Canadian farm families and co-operatives; Bill C-3, to promote the economic development of Canada's north; Bill C-28, to increase the governance capacity of first nations in Canada; and Bill C-14, a critically important justice bill to fight the scourge of organized crime.

Although much work has been accomplished, a good number of bills that continue to be priorities of our government remain on the order paper, including Bill C-6, to enact Canada's consumer product safety act to help protect the health and safety of all Canadians; Bill C-8, to provide first nations women on reserve with the same rights and protections enjoyed by all other Canadians; and Bill C-23, to open new doors for trade between Canada and Colombia.

Furthermore, our government has continued to demonstrate an unwavering commitment to fighting crime and violence in this country. Our justice minister, the hon. member for Niagara Falls, has been unrelenting in his determination to hold criminals accountable and protect victims and law-abiding Canadian citizens.

Over a dozen justice related bills have been introduced since the beginning of this parliamentary session, which include Bill C-15, Bill C-26 and Bill S-4, to help fight crimes related to criminal organizations, such as drug-related offences, identity theft and auto theft; Bill C-25, which will return truth in sentencing and eliminate the two for one credit; Bill C-36, which will repeal the faint hope clause, and Bill C-19, the new anti-terrorism bill.

Unfortunately none of these bills have completed the legislative process during this session of Parliament. Again, due to the leadership of our Prime Minister, thankfully our country will not be plunged into an election and these bills will remain on the order paper. We hope to pass them into law in the fall.

I look forward to continuing the spirit of cooperation in this place in September to accomplish this unfinished business for all Canadians. Five of these bills have already passed one chamber of Parliament and they are before the second House for consideration. On behalf of vulnerable Canadians in particular, we have to keep moving to get the job done on this important legislation.

In closing, I am pleased that the government has been able to develop today's opposition day motion in cooperation with the official opposition. This House of Commons should more often focus on what all of us have in common rather than what divides us. While I would have liked to have seen some debate on some of our newer bills that we have just introduced and passed more of our justice and safety bills, this parliamentary sitting is winding down in the age-old Canadian tradition of compromise.

We all know that this place is about debate, trade-offs, negotiations and compromise. This is how Parliament works. This is how our very country was born, has grown and continues to develop and flourish.

As I have already indicated, the government will be supporting today's motion. I again salute our Prime Minister for his leadership in staving off an election, which I think would be dreaded by the vast majority of Canadians.

Mr. Speaker, I wish you, and all colleagues in this House, a very happy summer.

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

[Joyce Murray, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-6, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act.

I support this legislation, but I would caution against any description of this as being the definitive approach to consumer product safety. The bill takes a relatively narrow slice of the challenge and addresses that in an acceptable way. For that reason, I see it as a step forward, but certainly a lot of terrain remains to be covered.

I want to comment on the co-operative approach taken by the Standing Committee on Health. Members from all parties essentially had the same objective, which was to increase protection for Canadian consumers in terms of both the design of and the elements in manufactured products.

Bill C-6 would modernize the regulatory framework. One witness at committee commented that this could have been done through an amendment to the Hazardous Products Act, but the government decided to provide new legislation in response to Canadians' concerns about the various recalls and unsafe products that were coming into the country and being sold over the last couple of years.

The bill operates on a premise that is considered to be a general prohibition. It takes more of the responsibility for ensuring product safety off the government's lap and places it on the private sector's lap. There is a general prohibition in terms of the manufacturing, import, advertisement and sale of consumer products that constitute a danger to human health or safety.

That is a different direction from having lists of dangerous compounds or dangers that the government identifies. This legislation primarily puts that responsibility on the private sector. There is a lot of debate about that, and there are some pros and cons to that approach.

While the bill would add more of the ongoing monitoring and safety assurance responsibilities to the private sector and reduce the burden on government, it increases the level of compliance and enforcement and creates a tracing mechanism so that government can ensure that the private sector is doing its job. It would allow the government to monitor that more easily.

The legislation also proposes to increase fines and penalties, which is part of the compliance and enforcement strengthening.

A key function of the legislation would be to enable government to have mandatory recall where there is a problem, rather than that being a voluntary act on the part of the private sector as it was in the past. Having this provision for a mandatory recall was supported by all witnesses at committee and is a strength of the bill.

The bill is not as comprehensive as some committee members, including myself, thought it could be. It addresses only a slice of the problem.

Schedule 2 talks about the kinds of things that have to be taken off the market, but it has only 14 products or product categories listed. For example, spectacle frames that, in whole or in part, are made of or contain cellulose nitrate would be prohibited. That is one of 14 prohibited categories. Under item 9, kite string made of a material that conducts electricity would be prohibited. That is a good thing to prohibit. However, I am giving these examples to show that the schedule is very narrow and specific.

Item 14 concerns law darts with elongated tips. Yes, it is good to ensure that these kinds of products are not in the marketplace where they could hurt people. However, when there are only 14 exclusions and they are that specific, that tells us there is a lot this bill does not address. That is more where I would like to direct my remarks.

It was very ably captured by the member for Etobicoke North earlier in the debate. She and I, as well as some of the other committee members, have grave concerns about the bill's failure to address toxins, carcinogens, the cumulative impacts of compounds that may not be harmful in small doses but build up in the body causing damage to health, chronic exposure, toxins in products affecting the environment when they are flushed down the drain or go into landfills and accumulate in the environment, and very worrisome hormone disrupters. These chemicals are not adequately removed from circulation in consumer products in this bill.

I am particularly concerned about the impact of consumer products containing chemicals and toxins that I have noted, such as pesticides, persistent organic pollutants, arsenic, lead, or mercury in products that children have access to, children's products such as toys and clothing. Other countries have done the job of removing access to these toxic and carcinogenic compounds from consumers. Canada has not done that yet. We still need to do that, and Bill C-6 does not do the job.

My concern about children's health and the environment goes back a number of years. I had the privilege in 2003 of being the president of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. During my term, I chose to put two things on the forward agenda of CCME so that they would be part of what the provincial and federal ministers would research, address and develop strategies for.

One of those two items was the issue of children's health and the environment. Children process these toxins differently. It is not just a matter of smaller bodies needing proportionately less of the chemicals to create harm. Children are actually in a developmental stage in their early years, so there can be a disruption of their neurological and metabolic development that is very harmful. Government needs to be addressing this. We need a stronger approach to eliminating these toxins, and Bill C-6 just does not do that.

Liberal members put forward a number of amendments to address this concern. For example, there was an amendment to clause 7 that would identify cumulative impacts, chronic exposure and release into the environment as areas of harm and danger to people that would be covered by this bill.

We crafted an amendment, a new clause 8.1, in which we would have had this bill list up to 700 chemicals, carcinogens, hormone disrupters, and toxins, drawn from the groups of agents provided by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as well as substances listed in schedule 1 of CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

We proposed that these compounds be covered under Bill C-6. We proposed that they be removed over time if the minister could not show reason that they were absolutely essential to stay in consumer products aimed at children. So our amendments squarely addressed the issue of access that children have to compounds that are harmful to them and not covered in the set of 14 categories in the schedule included in the bill.

We successfully brought forward an amendment to have an advisory committee, so that as the government goes forward with the regulations there can be proper consultation and a thoughtful approach to the regulations so that any concerns that may come forward based on the rather thin consultation that has happened so far on this bill can be addressed in the crafting of the regulations.

The government's view was that the improvements we were looking for can be covered under CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and its chemical management plan, and that those are vehicles for pulling those toxins out of the environment.

I accept that it is a possibility. My knowledge from previously dealing with CEPA when I was a provincial environment minister was that it was very slow to actually act on removing toxins from the environment. It had a huge list that it was not getting to, and it was causing great frustration for Canadians concerned about environmental issues and in provinces across the country.

We have been assured that CEPA has been fixed and is moving forward more quickly and that the chemical management plan is doing the job that we were looking for from Bill C-6. This has yet to be demonstrated to my satisfaction.

We have done a small segment with Bill C-6, but I am going to be calling on the advisory committee legislated by Bill C-6 to take a very thorough look at these issues of chronic toxic effects and cumulative effects of these toxins, carcinogens, hormone-disrupters, and persistent organic pollutants. I am going to challenge that advisory committee to put forward an approach to pulling those out of consumer products.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products, be read the third time and passed.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to speak to Bill C-6.

Hundreds of products have been recalled in the last couple of years, many of them from offshore. In fact, 65% of the products sold in this country are imported. Not many are made here.

I want to speak about children's products. When my children were little, I remember seeing labels on toys, blankets and so on, mainly children's products, that indicated they were made from 100% unknown fibres. I used to smile at that. I knew what it meant. They were probably clean and new fibres, but they were unknown fibres. Hopefully this bill will address that kind of label, as well as counterfeit labels.

Canada's Hazardous Products Act is 40 years old this year. It has not been very effective in identifying or removing dangerous products. It leaves Canadians at the mercy of product recalls which mainly originate in the United States. We take action later.

Bill C-6 will enable us to recall products in a timely fashion. It addresses some of the weaknesses. It will empower the government to order a recall of dangerous products. It will increase government authority to require information and action from manufacturers and importers. It will require mandatory reporting by manufacturers and importers of incidents involving death or injury from a product's use, and to inform Canadians of any potential harm. It also will apply heavy fines to violators.

There are some good parts in this bill and I am certainly supportive of it. Despite these changes, however, improvements are still needed if the bill is to be effective and supportable. I will talk about some of those proposed amendments in a moment.

Right now there is too much discretion for inspectors, and action is pretty well optional, even when it is believed that human health might be at risk. The government is not required to inform consumers of safety issues that have been identified. This area needs to be tightened up.

Sometimes it is just a question of language. Instead of stating that something “may” be done, the legislation should state that there is a responsibility to do something, or that something “must” be done. The bill must have a more proactive, aggressive approach to product safety.

With respect to consumer protection, the previous Liberal government had 12 years to do something and as of 2005-06 nothing had been done.

I would like to make a quick comment concerning a business in my riding, because it is relevant in this particular situation regarding consumer protection and harm to Canadians.

GRK Fasteners is an importer and exporter of fastening products. Ninety-six per cent of the products that GRK Fasteners produces and repackages in Canada are sent to the United States and only about 4% of the products are sold in Canada. It is very harmful to Canadians and harmful to this company, and the 40 or so people who work for GRK Fasteners, that the company has been hit with a 170% SIMA duty. That needs to be reconsidered and dealt with soon. This company is doing absolutely no harm to Canadians, as 96% of its products are exported to the United States.

It is very interesting that the government can overlook some things that harm Canadians, but it is really harming Canadians, small business and jobs such as those at GRK Fasteners in Thunder Bay. That company's only option may be to move its operations to the United States. We are talking about 40 manufacturing jobs in Thunder Bay. It is interesting to make that contrast.

Getting back to the bill at hand, the public is hungry for reliable product safety information. Companies in Canada manufacture high-quality safe products. Quite frankly, we expect others to do the same and to be able to prove it.

There are some proposed amendments to the bill for when it gets to committee.

The first is concerning health and the environment. The general “prohibition” in the bill should be expanded so that no consumer product can be imported or marketed if it is a danger to human health or safety either through direct exposure or via the environment.

A section should be added prohibiting substances on the list of toxic substances from consumer products, with a very few exceptions, for example, when the substance is not a hazard in the consumer product itself. I think we could be reasonable on that kind of amendment.

The legislation should include a duty for the government to act when the government is made aware of a risk regarding a consumer product. I think everybody in this House would agree that would be a reasonable amendment. There should be a duty for the minister to inform the public when he or she is made aware of a risk regarding a consumer product.

In deciding whether a danger to health or safety exists, the legislation should require the government to consider: the release of harmful substances from products during use or after disposal, including to house dust and indoor air; the potential harm from chronic exposure to the substance; the potential harm to vulnerable populations; the cumulative exposure to a substance Canadians receive from the products of concern and other environmental exposures; and the substitution principle, that is, whether safe substitutes exist.

The legislation should create a hot list similar to that for cosmetics, listing carcinogens, mutagens, reproductive toxins and neurotoxins. These substances should be prohibited in products with temporary exceptions granted only to the extent that the product is essential and only when alternatives do not exist. At a bare minimum, any product containing such chemicals should be required to carry a hazard label, as is required in a number of states, including California and Vermont, and in the European Union as well.

The legislation should establish a list of product classes at highest risk of containing or releasing hazardous substances. There should be explicit guidance prioritizing the routine inspection of these product classes. The legislation should require labelling of all ingredients, as is already the case with cosmetics and some other products.

I prefaced my remarks by saying that I certainly support sending this bill to committee. I have just outlined some of the amendments we would like to see to the bill. I am certainly open to any questions that may come from the floor.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

My colleague is saying that is not true, but in reading the bill, they were concerned that if natural health products were part of the drug act, many of them could not provide the same kind of proof of their safety.

For example, ginseng has been sold in various herbal stores for thousands of years. For many years in Canada, there was no problem with that. However, many of the herbal medicine folks were extremely worried that natural health products would be included in Bill C-6. However, for anyone who was worried about that, they are not included.

This is not to say that we still do not have to deal with natural health products. We need a natural health product act so they are regulated in a way that gives a special kind of consideration because of their tradition.

I am glad we finally have the bill in front of us. Hopefully, it can pass here, find support in the Senate and come back here to be made into law.

[Olivia Chow, NDP, Trinity—Spadina, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-6, an act respecting the safety of consumer products, which I support. This bill is long overdue. Last year and the year before I stood in the House and asked the minister a question about toxic toys. I mentioned how a lot of the toys available for children contained lead and other kinds of very dangerous chemicals in them. Therefore, it is a great pleasure to see a bill that begins to make consumer products safer.

I want to focus particularly on several of the chemicals. We note that the U.S. has tested some of the popular toys and have found that a third of them have medium to high levels of lead, cadmium, mercury and other dangerous chemicals. Why are these chemicals particularly hard on children? We know their brains and their bodies develop the most during that first six years. Children under the age of two tend to put whatever their hands can grab into their mouths. Imagine what would happen if the products they put in their mouths contained dangerous chemicals. The impact is hardest on kids are under six, especially children two years old or under.

Two or three years ago in the U.S., a four-year-old child swallowed a heart-shaped charm and subsequently died. That charm was made almost entirely out of lead. Therefore, last year the U.S. took action and passed a bill similar to this one, which takes effect this year.

When there are high levels of lead, it causes brain damage, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, behavioural problems, stunted growth, impaired hearing and kidney damage. Some of the symptoms could be vomiting and, if severe, as I said earlier, even death. Therefore, parents desperately want to know that the toys and the products around their children are safe.

We have seen that it is not just lead, it is also cadmium. Cadmium can have an impact on children and pregnant women. It can cause bone losses, increased blood pressure, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting and, if serious, even death. It could even cause lung and prostate cancer.

Another kind of chemical, phthalates, especially DIMP, which is most often found in rubber ducks and bath toys, has an impact on the kidneys, liver and blood. There are all kinds of chemicals. In fact, 80,000 of them are used in the products that surround us. The European Union has banned phthalates since 1999 because of their impact.

The United Steelworkers, for example, has been asking parents to go around and check products, especially toys, to see whether they are safe for children and household use. For a while last year and the year before, before this act was finally in front of us for approval, I told my constituents to go leadcheck.com where they could purchase a pen that they could use to test products.

I will be splitting my time, Mr. Speaker, with the member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River. I forgot to mention that earlier on.

The United Steelworkers have this campaign. If the government is not checking these things, it is encouraging ordinary Canadians to do it.

I am glad we are finally seeing some aggressive regulations. For regulations to be successful, they require three elements. They require legislation, enforcement and education. We need to carefully ensure there are enough funds in the budget for enforcement. We know that 65% of consumer products are imported into Canada. We need to ensure the products are safe and importers should be required to prove they are.

In the past everything has been voluntary. The checking, enforcement and recall were voluntary. We did not know if a product is off the shelf. The item could be recalled by Health Canada, yet some of the product could still be on the shelves. We need to have mandatory recall and the kind of enforcement to ensure the item is off the shelf if it is dangerous.

Finally, an element of the bill includes natural health products, which has caused us some concern. However, I am glad it has now clarified. Last year we had Bill C-51 and Bill C-52. Bill C-51 especially dealt with natural health products. At that time, there was a great deal of concern over that kind of legislation because natural health products were lumped into the Food and Drugs Act. I am glad the bill did not pass. People who sold natural health products were extremely concerned that if the bill had passed, they would have been thrown in jail.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-6 this morning, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products. I think this is a very important bill.

We certainly still have reservations about the bill, but by and large we are in support of it. This is evidence once again that collectively we can make this chamber work and I think that bodes well. If the parties continue to cooperate a little more than they have in the past, we can get some good legislation out of this minority Parliament and perhaps extend the minority Parliament for some time into the future.

I have had some experience with a minority government in Manitoba a number of years ago. We worked with the Gary Filmon government in Manitoba for a period of 18 months and got through a lot of very good pieces of legislation.

As a matter of fact, I am a very big fan of minority governments. When we look back to 1972-74, that was a very productive period in our politics, and as well when Mike Pearson was the Prime Minister in the sixties. We had several minority Parliaments and they worked very well too. That is when we got the flag. We had a number of issues that were resolved in a very good way.

I want to say at the beginning that our critic for this area did a tremendous job on the bill, as she does on pretty much everything she touches. She and I go back a long way. We were both elected to the Manitoba Legislature March 18, 1986. I have had a lot of experience watching her over the years in various capacities, and she takes a very aggressive and very thorough approach to her duties. When she makes a recommendation, we know that it is well-researched, well thought out and there is really nothing given to chance.

Bill C-6 follows a previous bill, Bill C-52, the original piece of legislation that was intended to strengthen the Hazardous Products Act of 1969, which is quite a long time ago. It has been proven increasingly ineffective in identifying and removing dangerous consumer products.

Let us look back to the period of 1969 when the original legislation was brought in. This was at a time when consumer products and so on were coming on the market in large numbers.

Ralph Nader was essentially the father of consumer protection in North America. Most of us were around in the 1960s. Some here probably were not, but most of us were. Most of us actually grew up with Ralph Nader and we know that he challenged the North American auto industry on the basis that consumer products, when they are produced and sold to the public, should be as safe as possible, and that the onus should be on the company producing the product to be liable if its product is defective.

Our thinking in Canada has always been the opposite, that somehow it is the purchaser and end user's responsibility and fault if something goes wrong with a product. Over the years, through people like Ralph Nader driving this envelope, we have seen consumer protection rise greatly. The man has done a terrific service for all consumers in North America by his actions.

We remember the Ford Pintos. I believe he called them rolling Molotov cocktails. These were cars built in the sixties that had gas tank problems and were subject to catching on fire in accidents. There was a statistically large number of these. Any time something like this happened, the car companies blamed the driver. It was never the car company's responsibility; it was always the driver's responsibility. Ralph Nader collected statistics to show that these accidents were happening in large numbers and only with that particular type of car, the Ford Pinto.

He took action against the companies and was able to get compensation for many Americans. He later went on to deal with the rusty Ford issue and a number of other different areas. When he did get settlements for people, at the end of the day, the settlements were always done on the basis that the settlement had to be private because the car company would always want to keep it out of the public view.

The reality is that the public view of how dangerous these consumers products were was enhanced by Ralph Nader's actions. However, that was only the tip of the iceberg. When people did have problems and took action against the car companies, in this case, there was always a settlement, but the people receiving the settlement had to sign a release that they would not talk about it. The public is literally totally unaware that there were probably hundreds of thousands of settlements made that people could not talk about by virtue of the fact that they had signed confidentiality agreements in order to get their settlement.

That is the beginning of how and why legislation such as this was developed. In the 1950s there were not a lot of consumer products to begin with. In those days, people never thought that their children were going to be poisoned by toys. It was something that was never even contemplated. In those days, people were not dealing with consumer products like cellphones, which some people feel are linked to brain cancer. I do not know if there is a link or not, but it is certainly being studied.

A member of my family was found to have a brain tumour just a few weeks ago. It was removed and it has been determined that it was cancerous. He evidently spends a lot of time on a cellphone. The family is certainly questioning as to whether or not there is a connection. Over time, I think that we will have to do studies to show whether or not cancers are in any way connected to cellphone use.

However, these were issues that we never had to deal with in the 1960s because we did not have products like this. In the 1960s the wiring in houses was probably 60 amp and one was lucky to have a refrigerator, a television and maybe a radio. That was all one would have in a house. Today, when we go into our bedroom or any other room in a house, I am sure we all agree that the whole room lights up at night. There are all kinds of consumer items plugged into the wall.

People have suggested that these products are generating electromagnetic radiation and they provide concerns in some cases. I know that we have had some studies done on people who live around power lines. There is a demonstrated suggestion that cancer rates are somehow increased for people who live around power lines. When we are looking at issues like that, it makes sense that we in this country have to come up with very strong consumer product legislation just to deal with the unknown and unforeseen health effects of consumer products.

We have another whole area of involvement here, with producers of products who are less than ethical in their manufacture. Years ago, products were manufactured in Canada. They were done under some sort of quality standards. When producers were in Winnipeg, Saskatoon or Ottawa, producing for the Canadian market, they would know that if they did not produce a good quality product, it would not be purchased any more. Eaton's would not buy it from them. They would be out of business and there would not be any other place to sell their product.

With a huge amount of consumer products today, it seems that almost everything is being outsourced and made in Mexico, China, Indonesia and other areas. I am sure that a lot of those products are of good quality, but there certainly is a temptation, when a supply source is so far away and the competition is so extremely fierce, for quick solutions and shortcuts becoming the order of the day.

That is what has happened. Children's toys have been manufactured inappropriately, and we are paying the price. We have to deal with this essentially because of multinational corporations and their free trade deals that have led to a race to the bottom for the lowest possible cost of production. We see that as a positive thing in society, but we do not tend to look at the negatives. The long-term liabilities and responsibilities come back to bite us at the end of the day.

For example, 90 consumer products were recalled last year, and there were 37 more in this year already. Many of these products were not made in Canada; China was identified as the frequent country of origin. The original act, as has been pointed out, has not been effective in identifying or removing these dangerous products, leaving Canadians dependent on product alerts and recalls by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission instead of Health Canada.

We see the same thing in the financial services area. Legislation and enforcement in the United States are tougher. There are almost no convictions in Canada under securities violations, for example, with the Ontario Securities Commission, whereas there are a couple of thousand in the United States. I have mentioned before that Conrad Black committed his white-collar crimes in Canada, and he was not touched by any Canadian authorities at all. It was under American laws that he was picked up; it was the American system that cornered him, eventually convicted him and put him where he belongs and where he is now, in jail, at least for the next few months.

Clearly, Canada is not in a very strong position relative to other countries. This bill will help deal with that to a certain extent. However, once again we have left out some very important areas that should have been dealt with.

One of the areas that was left out, and it is certainly an issue that is near and dear to me, is the issue of smoking. Presentations were made in committee. It was a very big disappointment to me and others that cigarettes were exempted from this bill. I cannot think of a better example of a product that should be covered by this type of legislation.

I want to read a letter from the Canadian Cancer Society, which was sent to the chair and members of the committee on April 21, 2009. I know there are people watching the debate today who would not be aware that this was the case. I think it is important for them to know that the Canadian Cancer Society wrote a letter to the members of the committee regarding Bill C-6.

While it says it strongly supports the bill and commends the Minister of Health and the government for bringing forward the legislation, at the same time it recommended “the removal of the permanent exclusion for tobacco products found in the bill. The proposed amendment is short and simple but very important. In particular, we recommend the exclusion of subsection 4(2) to be deleted and that tobacco products instead be listed in Schedule 1, along with pesticides, cosmetics, explosives and other indicated products.”

If the majority of the public were aware of this bill and that this exclusion was in the bill, I am sure MPs' phones would have been ringing off the hook. We would have received a lot of feedback from the public on this issue, from both sides, I am sure, because there are still avid smokers who would defend their right to smoke.

I know at least one colleague, who may or may not be close to me at the moment, is a smoker, but I do not know how tough she would be in defending her right to keep smoking.

I am an ex-smoker, so I guess we are the worst people to be talking about this issue, but even people who do smoke tend to take a different view today of that issue. Even 20 years ago, when a member of my original caucus had a party at his house and announced that people had to smoke outside, we all shook our heads and thought there was something wrong with him.

Today it would be the absolute opposite of that. Even the smokers walk out of their houses and smoke on the front steps. If they recognize it is doing damage to their houses, it makes me wonder why they keep smoking in the first place.

I recall that people years ago would not have had a problem purchasing a car that was owned by a smoker. Today it is very difficult to sell a car that was owned by a smoker, so smokers are smoking outside their cars.

Would anybody in this Parliament believe us if we told them that only a few years ago we could smoke on airplanes? It was very, very common, and now that is past history.

We are making progress. It has been reported that smoking rates have dropped, but it is still a big problem. We have legislation before the House right now dealing with the whole area of tobacco and trying to find ways to reduce the number of smokers in the country. I really believe we are going to have to go a step further at a certain point and offer some sort of financial inducement to people who embark on a non-smoking program supervised by a doctor.

I draw the analogy between that and what we did in Manitoba with the car immobilizer program four years ago. We offered it as a voluntary program, with a reduction on insurance if people put immobilizers in their cars. Even though it made imminent sense, very few people took the government up on the program. We made the immobilizers free, and as a reward we gave people the reduction on their insurance anyway. We made them free but we mandated that people had to install these immobilizers or they could not insure their cars anymore.

There was a bit of grumbling, but by and large people complied with the program. We had our auto theft rates drop to the point where we had one day last month when we had zero. We went from the number one car theft capital of Canada three years ago down to having one day with no thefts.

That is a perfect example of how providing a free product and making it mandatory actually has solved a lot of the problem. We may have to do the same thing with smoking to get those final smokers. I am looking at another smoker down the aisle here.

At the end of the day, if the advertising does not work, all the other prohibitions do not work and the social stigmas do not work, we may have to look at offering some sort of a program, administered by the Canadian Medical Association, where we offer financial incentives to people if they quit smoking. They already have financial incentives to stop smoking through their home and life insurance programs, and other programs. I am sure it works in a few cases, but not in all.

The letter goes on to say, “Tobacco products cause more damage to public health than any other consumer product, killing 37,000 Canadians a year. It makes no sense that Bill C-6 in section 4(2) would permanently exclude tobacco products under virtually all circumstances from any of the bill's provisions. The following rationale further supports the proposed amendment. Adopting the amendment would mean that in the future the government would have the flexibility to deal with the tobacco epidemic in a rapid manner should the need arise and the Tobacco Act be inadequate.”

There would be an escape valve available to protect the public interest if necessary—

The House resumed from June 10 consideration of the motion that Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products, be read the third time and passed.