Bill C-52 (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. The enactment makes consequential amendments to certain Acts.

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe we as legislators have a duty to not just believe in the principle of do no harm but to actually enact whatever legislations are necessary to that principle and to make it a reality.

Bill C-52, which is the Canada consumer product safety act, is something I believe all of us in this House should support. It is about protecting our citizens before these toxins get into people's hands.

I believe there is a willingness on the part of the government to introduce the legislation, which is laudable and supported. However, does my hon. colleague believe there is a willingness on the part of the government to commit the necessary resources to make this a reality? That is also equally important. If we are to be clear about our intent, we need to ensure that the resources are in place.

The member made some very articulate remarks about her concerns specifically around the issue of the principle of do no harm and ensuring that our citizens are protected and that we have laws that, as we say every day in our prayers, are just laws but also protect the citizens and health of our country.

Does my hon. colleague feel that the government would provide the necessary resources to implement this legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to start off by questioning the member when he states that this bill is, by virtue of the paper it is written on or the words in it, do no harm.

What I am saying today is that we are not sure this is a do no harm approach. It talks tough and has the appearance of following the precautionary principle but I think it has many flaws and weaknesses, one of which is the question of resources. All the tough talk in the world without actual inspection resources will make it meaningless, which is one area of concern. I do not believe that what the government announced in the budget will be sufficient for the task at hand, both in terms of the consumer product legislation and in terms of food and drugs.

I want to mention a couple of other concerns. There is concern around the fact that this bill only allows us to react to problems, as opposed to being proactive and doing something in a concrete way ahead of the exposure. The use of counterfeited approval labels, also primarily associated with offshore products, has not been dealt with in this bill. In fact, the United Steelworkers has suggested that we have an explicit ban on products containing toxic substances, enforced through a pre-entry testing system and financed through a service fee applied at the border. That is an option that we should look at that is not part of this bill.

The bill is wide open in terms of discretion. Much of it is based on the fact that the minister and the government may intervene or may act. There is no explicit requirement for the government to act. The government is not required to inform consumers of safety issues that have been identified, and that certainly needs to be tightened up through amendments.

We have a lot of work to do on this bill before it actually meets the standards and expectations of Canadians.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I guess the question that average Canadians are asking themselves anytime a story hits the news about toxic toys or toxic products is the fact that we have system set up whereby our factories are shut down in Canada, factories that have good paying jobs and have for years provided these corporations with excellent profits. They have good safety standards and yet these same companies move overseas and set up under jobber firms where we have all kinds of toxic products. We do not know what is in them. The products are then re-imported back to Canada where they pose a threat to our own citizens and we are supposed to, after the fact, run across and put up band-aids.

Since it has been a deliberate strategy by the corporate sector to move to sweat shop, third world conditions where there are no standards, should we not hold them accountable? I am saying that we should hold them accountable for the damage they do to ensure that any time any of these products come into our country that the giant companies that have been allowing these shenanigans to take place will actually be held accountable.

We have workers in this country, standards in this country and we can produce these products in this country. It is just this perpetual race to the bottom that this government and the former government have been allowing.

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

Mr. Speaker, my colleague has identified the nub of the issue and a central theme throughout all of this health protection talk by the government, a government that fails to address the issue of globalization and deregulation in the face of trade deals that know no parameters, that puts aside the questions of human health and safety in the interests of creating a level playing field for corporate entities around the world and without regard for the environment, human health and job protections.

The best way to summarize that is to repeat what my colleague, the member for Parkdale—High Park, said in the House recently. He said that years of poorly drafted trade deals have caused a rush to deregulation. It now threatens Canada's economy and the safety of Canadians. We have exported good, family supporting manufacturing jobs and imported products that put our families at risk. The long term solution is joining contemporary debate in the Americas and asking why trade deals are so imbalanced and why they do not protect workers, our health or the environment that we share.

In that context, some of the critiques of this bill to date coming from the labour movement suggest that we need to get much tougher when it comes to--

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

We will need to move on with resuming debate. The hon. member for Malpeque.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-52, the Canada consumer product safety act.

I was here earlier and I listened closely to the minister's remarks. He did go to some considerable length to make it sound like the government was taking strong action where maybe previous governments had not taken the kind of action necessary. I do think it is important that I set the record straight in that regard. It was several times that we recognized in the previous government that greater consumer protection was necessary and that there needed to be new authorities implemented in terms of the protection for consumers and consumer products and, in particular, in the area of food.

In the previous Parliament, there was the introduction of Bill C-27 which would have moved forward in a lot of those areas, taking strong measures, especially in the area of labelling, of bringing up to date quite a number of bills that required modernization and giving greater authorities for CFIA and other agencies to deal with imported product, hoaxes and threats of putting foreign products into food or threatening that on the grocery store shelves. It was really the Conservative opposition of the day that prevented that from happening.

I am glad the Conservatives have now seen the light and are bringing forward a bill that we very much believe is a step in the right direction.

I agree with many colleagues who have previously spoken that this does need to go to committee. We need to look at the details to ensure there is nothing in the fine print that we should be concerned about. As a party we will be moving this forward to committee. We see it at this stage as a step in the right direction. It is an issue that exploded after, basically, the lead scare on toys from one nation that exports those products to Canada.

In reality, we have to look at both bills. We are here to speak to Bill C-52, but we have to look at both Bills C-51 and C-52 because they are intertwined and both have to move forward to committee.

As I indicated, we are committed as a party to improving the safety and health of Canadians. We believe this debate should occur at committee. We believe it is important to strengthen the regulatory process to ensure that Canadians have access to the safest consumer products that can be made available and to ensure that the products are labelled properly so that consumers do in fact know what they are buying.

As I indicated, we also think it is necessary for these bills to have a proper review and also necessary to ensure that witnesses on both sides of the question, people with the technical and the legislative expertise, be invited to committee to go through the bill in detail.

Currently a lot of the information about consumer products is done on a voluntary basis. I think we know that this is just not as adequate as it should be.

This new bill, then, will prohibit the sale, import, manufacture, packaging, labelling and advertising of consumer products that may pose a risk to consumers. While voluntary recalls will continue to happen, inspectors named under the act or by the minister will now be able to order the recall of a consumer product.

In the past, I have expressed in the House some concerns about the way some of the ministers in the government use their authority. I have just a note of caution. These authorities are there for a purpose, not for an ideological agenda. They are there to protect consumers and to ensure that consumers have the safest products available. They are not there for purposes other than that. I want to point that out at the beginning.

On the area of labelling, we read about it in the press almost daily now, and it relates mainly to food products. With the intertwining of the bills, I think it is important to mention this. I did have the opportunity in December and January, with a colleague, to meet consumers and the farm community on the whole issue of our regulatory system in Canada as it applies to, yes, consumer products, but certainly and mainly to food products that are on grocery store shelves.

One area that Canadian farmers are really concerned about is that a double standard applies to them. They face a tougher regulatory regime than do their competitors, yet their competitors' products end up on Canadian grocery store shelves in competition to those of our farmers, who face that tougher regulatory regime.

Canadian farmers face double standards from their own government regulations by taking on costs to meet high food safety and environmental standards only to watch imports that do not meet the same standards price them out of the supermarkets. There are a lot of examples in that regard.

We have to ensure that with this bill coming in, and with tougher regulations and more inspections, Canadians who are meeting these standards are not disadvantaged. We cannot allow that to happen. I will use a couple of examples that I know well from the agricultural arena.

For the health of Canadians, Canada has established rules to eliminate feeds using specified risk materials from cattle in order to eradicate BSE, yet the United States has not imposed those same rules, and Canadians continue to import and consume those beef products from the United States. We cannot allow that situation to continue.

Gencor, a plant in western Ontario, closed about five or six weeks ago. It was killing 700 older cows a week. The reason it closed was that its cost regime for removing specified risk materials put it at a disadvantage with U.S. plants. It went out of business, with the loss of 120 jobs and a processing plant for Canadian product.

With these new regulations on consumer protection and under Bill C-51 on food protection and labelling, et cetera, we have to ensure that at the end of the day our industry is not put at a disadvantage. We have to be on a level playing field with the United States.

As well in the farm sector, although this bill does not specifically relate to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the bill does relate to Health Canada. It has authority over the PMRA, which is responsible for pesticides in this country. Some pesticides are banned in Canada because they are deemed unsafe for the health of farm workers applying the product, yet Canada allows imports using these pesticides because they meet Canadian food residue limits.

Here is what we have. We do not allow the use of this pesticide or herbicide because it may have an impact on workers. Therefore, even though it may be a cheaper product, a producer is not allowed to use it in this country because of its impact, as I say, on workers. Yet we will allow the product produced with that herbicide and by foreign workers onto our grocery store shelves, and again our farmers are not competitive.

I make this point. As Canadians consume these imported products, Canada is no longer protecting the safety of farm workers. We are simply exporting the problem to foreign workers in exchange for cheaper foods and undermining the potential of Canadian farmers. It is another example of how Canadians are disadvantaged. They are important measures, yes, and they are measures that need to be taken in terms of workers. We should not be exporting--we can, I guess, but we should not be--our moral responsibility to other countries and disadvantaging our own in the process.

What I am saying is that Canada cannot have it both ways. Imported products that do not meet or do not even have to meet Canada's domestic production standards undermine Canada's high domestic standards for food safety. Canadian farmers are not only competing in a regulatory system that impedes them in the international markets, but they are operating in a regulatory environment that gives their international competitors the advantage in domestic markets.

I have to make that point, because with these new bills and these new regulatory authorities, with greater authority for the minister, all of which are important, we have to ensure consumer product safety but we also have to ensure that Canadian producers and, indeed, Canadian importers are not disadvantaged as a result.

The last point I would make is one that we have heard a lot about recently. In fact, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food is holding hearings in this area. The Prime Minister, along with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture, mentioned this issue when they announced the introduction of these bills. It is the whole issue of product of Canada labelling.

I raised this question earlier with the Minister of Health. The fact of the matter is that one can buy product of Canada olives in Canada. One can buy product of Canada grapefruit juice. One can buy product of Canada orange juice. I do not know of anywhere in this country where we grow olives. I do not know of too many grapefruits or oranges being grown in Canada, so why would such a package on a grocery store shelf read “product of Canada” when those products are being sold here?

The fact is that the definition is wrong. When Canadian consumers go to the grocery store shelf, they should feel confident that what they are buying is indeed a product of Canada. Under the current definition, that is not the case. The current definition is that 51% of the total package costs occurred in Canada. It really has nothing to do with what is in the package.

That has to change. As the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, we are looking at it. It has to change and relate to the product that is in the package itself, because I firmly believe that if Canadians are given the choice, they will veer toward buying the product that is indeed produced by Canadians, knowing the kind of regulatory and environmental regime we are under and knowing that it is supporting other Canadians in their economic activities.

Certainly I want to emphasize to the minister and to the government as a whole the absolute urgency of dealing with product of Canada labelling. It is a very serious matter. It has to be dealt with in a comprehensive way.

There has been some suggestion that we could go to voluntary labelling as well and that may be a possibility. The bottom line is that Canadians need a strong regime to define what indeed is a product of Canada and what is not.

We do see Bill C-51 and Bill C-52 as important in that they modernize our regulatory regime for consumer products in Canada. The government has to go further than what is currently stated in these bills. We must get a definition of product of Canada. The bottom line is that there has to be truth in labelling. That is what consumers want and it does not matter whether it is a widget, a computer, an apple, an orange or a piece of steak. People want absolute certainty that there is truth in the labelling on what they are buying. There has to be a regulatory and enforcement regime around that to make it stick.

Our party is committed to improving the safety and health of Canadians. We have attempted to do that in the past. As I mentioned earlier, there was some opposition from members in the Conservative government. We support measures which strengthen the regulatory process to ensure that Canadians do have access to the safest consumer products.

We look forward to reviewing the details in the legislation at committee to ensure that it is as accountable, transparent and effective as possible for Canadians. We do see this as a step forward. We look forward to the discussions in committee, some of the technical briefings, and some of the witnesses who will come forward with information that will be useful to all of us in the House to ensure that at the end of the day this is the best legislation possible for the interests of Canadians and for Canada as a whole.

[Vic Toews, Conservative, President of the Treasury Board]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the member will be supporting the legislation.

One of the statements he made has me quite concerned and it deals with the issue of labelling. While I support product safety and assurance that we meet all safety standards, the issue that is devastating for western Canadian hog producers is country of origin labelling. As we in western Canada see it, that is basically a non-tariff barrier for our products going into the United States. I hear from hog producers in my riding and across western Canada that this is devastating.

I hope that the member's comments are not to be interpreted as support for the kind of country of origin labelling that the Americans are utilizing in order to keep Canadian products out of the United States. If we insist on similar types of country of origin labelling, what would that do in terms of the argument that we are making that the Americans are imposing a non-tariff trade barrier?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am glad the minister raised the question. Country of origin labelling, COOL, in the United States is indeed a very serious matter, and no, I am not proposing anything similar in any shape or form.

What I am saying is that labelling that is currently on food products in this country that states it is a product of Canada when it is not should not be labelled as such. The definition has to be changed, so that consumers know. If the minister is in a store and, as I said, picked up a bottle of olives and it said product of Canada on it, then it would be his assumption in his head that it is indeed a product of Canada. It is not. It means that 51% of the cost of that packaging, labour, et cetera. went into the process to get that product in the bottle and on the grocery store shelf. That is misleading and we cannot allow that to occur.

I do want to point out and say that I agree with the minister that the country of origin Labelling in the United States is, I believe, certainly a non-tariff barrier. Many of us from all parties on the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group have been to the United States. I know most of the ministers have been arguing with the American administration and indeed with Congress and Senate members that this is a non-tariff barrier.

I would hope that the government challenges it under NAFTA or under the free trade agreement, either one, as such, because it is creating a barrier for our products going down there. Sadly, in the minister's province, and I have talked to Manitoba hog producers several times over the last six weeks, they are seeing their market for weaner pigs dry up. Good contractual arrangements have been broken because American producers who buy weaners from Canada are worried that the product cannot be stated as grown in the United States or as a product of the United States under this new legislation. As a result, they have broken those contracts, violated contracts, and have a legislative policy that, I think, is a non-tariff barrier.

For those producers in Manitoba, they now have thousands of small pigs that they have no facilities to feed them in and they have no feed to feed them. What is going to happen to these producers? It is a financial difficulty and, I think, a legal difficulty. The Americans have to be challenged on it.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Malpeque for his speech. We sit together on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. The hon. member mentioned the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Like me, he meets the representatives of the agency quite regularly in committee.

I was wondering about something—and I would like the opinion of the hon. member for Malpeque, who was once the parliamentary secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. In Bill C-52 specifically—and Bill C-51 as well—it is a matter of having more power for inspections. When representatives of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency come to committee—and the hon. member for Malpeque can certainly confirm this—we always ask them whether they have the means to conduct enough inspections.

The hon. member spoke of the reciprocity problems the beef producers were experiencing in terms of specified risk material. There was also talk of the problems related to the pesticides and insecticides used on imported fruit and vegetables. Those products are banned here. However, we end up with fruit and vegetables from countries where those products are still being used. I have always felt that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not have enough inspectors or resources to do its work properly.

Does the hon. member see any improvement to that problem in this bill? Having greater power of inspection is one thing, but we probably need to provide more inspectors and more money to the agency for it to do its work properly.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. We do meet with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency many times at committee. The minister earlier, in response to my similar question, said there are resources in the budget to cover added personnel for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

That is a positive thing if the added personnel are there to be able to do the job adequately. But as my colleague notes, it is not just a matter of having more personnel to do the inspections, it is a matter of the extra cost burden that Canadian farmers have in order to pay some of the cost recovery fees for these inspectors that our fellow farmers in the United States do not have. They cover their costs for food, health and safety for their farm community. We put a cost recovery fee on Canadian farmers that puts them at an unfair disadvantage.

We tabled an all party committee report in December and we asked the government, in terms of the beef and hog crisis, to take on some of these costs and to take them on seriously. It failed to respond in that regard. I would put on the record that we believe we need to re-align Canada's regulatory inspection fees and cost recovery rates such as those applied to border measures, to traceability, to food inspections, but to be competitive and on a par with our major trading partners, including the United States.

We also need to work with the CFIA and other industry groups to improve approvals for new medications, et cetera. We cannot have a higher cost regime in Canada than elsewhere for our primary producers because they put on grocery store shelves the best food that can be found in the world. They should not have to pay a burden of cost that is different from other competing farmers in other countries in order to do that.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am happy to have the opportunity to speak to Bill C-52, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products. My colleague from the Bloc Québécois who is our critic for health issues made a speech earlier today. She confirmed that the Bloc Québécois approved the principle of the bill since the Bloc had already asked the government to make its safety rules concerning dangerous products more stringent to prohibit the fabrication, promotion and marketing of any product that present an unacceptable risk to health. I will come back to that.

Unfortunately, we know that some people succeed in selling toys, food and other products containing dangerous substances. They end up in Canadian markets, on our grocery shelves, and in our children's hands. That should not happen in 2008. One can understand that a few, rare cases may happen, but it seems that the problem has now reached alarming proportions.

The Bloc also called on the government to require manufacturers to inspect their products and show they do not pose a danger to consumers. This burden of proof did not exist—and still does not exist, because the bill has not yet been passed—but it is change we called for some time ago.

I should point out that consumer groups reacted fairly positively to the announcement of this bill, but remain cautious. We always say that no government should be given a blank cheque, especially not this one. We do not know what is going on behind the scenes, and it is always disturbing when we do not know all the ins and outs of a bill. One thing is certain: we can give the government the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Consumers remain cautious, as I said, just as we do.

That is why we will refer this bill to the committee, so that we can hear testimony and examine everything this bill encompasses, just like the related bill, Bill C-51. We will look at the regulations to see how serious the government is in its approach.

Geneviève Reid of the consumer group Option consommateurs stated that it is a step in the right direction, provided there are resources to back it up, the regulations are solid and there is good communication with the public. She was quoted in La Presse on April 9, 2008, after the government announced that it was going to introduce these bills.

As for the obligation for companies to declare any major incident involving one of their products, Ms. Reid says that there will also need to be an incident register where consumers can report incidents. It makes a difference if there is such a mechanism for consumers who have bought items containing dangerous substances or foods unfit for human consumption that have made those consumers ill. People need an easily accessible way to let the government know that there was a problem with a product.

Clearly, this information will not necessarily be released immediately. The necessary checks will be made to determine whether this product did in fact pose a problem. If consumers are involved in the process, the result could be even more information about certain incidents that might happen.

I do not question the relevancy of the bill. With all those recalls in recent months and years, whether they involve toys or food, there is reason to be concerned. It was time the government did something about this issue.

Earlier, I had a discussion with the hon. member for Malpeque, because we both sit on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. We are very concerned about food recalls. These recalls always target food that comes from other countries. This was the case with spinach, cantaloupe, carrot juice, pear juice, and pork that came from abroad and contained melamine.

It was not intended for human consumption, at least I hope, but animal feed was contaminated. As regards this specific issue, there is still a void in the legislation. No one is responsible for ensuring that we feed safe food to our pets.

The result is that some pets have died. And we know how people are attached to their animals. Personally, I have always lived with a cat. I have always had a cat since I was born. I still have a female cat that is almost 15 years old now. I feed her well and she weighs 17 pounds. She is a little overweight.

All this to say that pet owners expressed their concerns when that happened. I would like the government to take note of it, so that we can fill this void in the legislation when we have the opportunity to examine these things in committee, whether it is through this bill, or another one.

Food safety has been seriously challenged in recent years. In a few moments, I will share some numbers with those who are listening. As I was saying earlier, during questions and comments, whenever officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency appear before the committee, we always ask them questions about food inspection, not only once it is in Canada, but also at the border, and even abroad.

Earlier, the reciprocity in standards was mentioned. That is important. Some pesticides, insecticides and other chemicals used in producing the fruits and vegetables we eat are forbidden for use in Canada. In some cases, it is a good thing. There are too many products that have been used without their safety being truly established. Measures are being taken to make sure that some products are used under surveillance and some products are prohibited.

Unfortunately, some products come from China, India and even the United States. I do not want to single out only developing countries. The United States also made the political and social choice to authorize the use of some pesticides and some chemical products. That is their decision.

In Canada, we do not allow these products. Unfortunately, foods grown in those countries can get through all testing and end up in our stores. That is an issue we raise every time the Canadian Food Inspection Agency appears before us. We are told that the issue is under scrutiny and that the products sold here are up to our standards and that inspections are done.

However, we know that there is a lack of inspectors. The hon. member for Malpeque was right when he said earlier that every time there are talks about increasing the number of inspections and inspectors and raising the budget the agency has to do the job, we must not make the farm producers pay for it. It is the government's responsibility to make sure that all food and other products entering Canada are safe.

We too often see that foods produced using pesticides that are forbidden in Canada can find their way into our grocery stores.

Earlier, I spoke about the lack of inspectors. I wonder if Bill C-51 solves this problem. They say they want to increase the number of inspectors or improve the chances of having an inspection. However, upon reading the bill, I have serious doubts about the government's willingness to actually conduct more inspections.

Knowing that we import goods from China, India or even the United States—they come from all over—and the source of a product, why do the inspectors not go there to see what is happening? In terms of the environment, you do not need to watch TV for long or read about what is happening to know that in China, for example, environmental standards are quite lax. Personally, I would not even drink the water used to grow these products, these fruits and vegetables. Some concerns expressed by consumers are certainly understandable. We could do an on-site check of what is used to grow crops. It would be an advantage to have more inspectors to do that.

Therefore, it is not the relevance of the bill that concerns me, but the lack of resources allocated to the front lines. It is one thing to increase fines for guilty parties, but the priority should be given to inspections and reciprocity of health standards. We spoke about reciprocity earlier. It goes without saying that our beef producers, for example, have to deal with unfair competition. We know that, in the United States, beef producers are not required to dispose of specified risk materials, as are our beef producers, who presently absorb the costs. That is a serious problem.

Earlier today we debated Bill C-33 on biofuels. We think there may be an interesting opportunity for biodiesel, but nothing is officially in place yet. It is not yet possible for our producers to make money with specified risk materials. Right now these represent an additional expense for them. Consequently there is unfair competition from American producers. We need to examine reciprocity.

I also wonder about the Conservatives' lack of judgment with respect to the safety of toys and foods.

[Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Conservative, Jonquière—Alma, QC]

Oh, oh!

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

The Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec reacted and that is understandable. I will explain to him why I said there was a lack of judgment. The government has known since 2006 that the act did not adequately protect Canadians. When the new government took power in 2006—it was brand new for almost two years—it knew from the Auditor General's report that the act was lax. We have had all of these recalls and all of these products have entered the country under this act. All the government did was react. It took a long time. As for calling it a lack of judgment, the Minister of Labour and Minister of the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec can take a look at his dictionary, but he cannot deny what I am saying.

The Auditor General pointed out that Health Canada was short on inspectors. How can the Conservative government justify its lax attitude since 2006, when this is a matter of health and safety for Canadians, and particularly for children, when we are talking about contaminated toys? This government likes to use its announcements as a marketing tool, targeting very specific audiences.

We saw the Prime Minister visiting the Salvation Army surrounded by gifts during the holidays to say that the government would now be focusing on toys. For more than a year, the Auditor General had been sounding the alarm. It makes for a good photo op, but perhaps the government should stop bragging about solving the problem, when it took far too long to do so. Clearly the problem is still not solved, but a step has been made in the right direction. The fact that it took so long was one of the problems. The Prime Minister announced that he intended to amend the legislation in September 2007. Why did he wait so long? That question remains unanswered. And because of this, consumers now feel much more insecure.

Bill C-52 was tabled one and a half years after the Auditor General's warning in November 2006. The report notes:

8.21 Product safety program managers considered many of their regulatory activities to be insufficient to meet their regulatory responsibilities. We found these opinions were confirmed in an internal study of the program's resource needs, documents relating to resource allocation, and in interviews conducted as part of our audit.

The report also notes:

8.22 The product safety program has requested additional funding, but it received very little funds for special initiatives in 2005–06 to address the shortfalls presented above. Program managers indicated that their inability to carry out these responsibilities could have consequences for the health and safety of Canadians and Quebeckers, of course, [the member's emphasis] such as exposure by consumers to non-compliant hazardous products. There is also a risk of liability to the Crown.

Thus, it took the government over a year to announce even its intention to do something, and a year and a half to introduce the bill we are discussing here today in the House.

How can the government justify this laxity? It was probably too worried about its four or five priorities with a quick election in mind. Everyone knows what the government did. As the Bloc Québécois agriculture critic, I can say that agriculture was not one of its priorities. It set a few priorities and really laid the groundwork for a very quick election, and when there was no election, it did not know what to do and no longer had any priorities. I do not understand why this was not a priority. I mentioned agriculture earlier, but there are many others. That was obviously one of them. Public health and safety should be one of this government's priorities, just as they should be a priority for Parliament as a whole.

And it is not as if there were no warnings. I was talking to the Minister of Labour earlier about a lack of judgment. It goes without saying that the government needed to take action when so many toys were recalled. Why the government did not act more quickly is totally beyond me. There were recalls by Fisher-Price and Mattel. In August 2007, Mattel recalled 18.6 million toys made in China. Members certainly remember that saga. The most deplorable thing in this case was that, in order to maintain a good relationship with its Chinese supplier, Mattel apologized to that company for the prejudice this may have caused. Had I been in Mattel's shoes, I would have apologized to the consumers who ended up buying toys contaminated with lead paint. There was too much lead in the paint used on these toys.

What do children do with these toys? They handle them and put them in their mouths. When that happens, it can obviously become a problem if the paint used on the toy contained a dangerous substance. There is no problem with a child putting a toy in his or her mouth if that toy is safe. However, a danger was discovered and I think Mattel should have shown more compassion toward its customers by apologizing to them. I can certainly say that if it turns out that diseases are linked to the use of these toys, the company will not only have to apologize, it will also have to pay. So, as I was saying, the most frequent problem is the presence of too much lead in the paint.

Although I have criticized the fact that the government took a lot of time before introducing this bill in the House of Commons and although the Bloc Québécois had to make repeated requests before the government finally took action, Bill C-52 is a step in the right direction. We will see what the government's intentions are in committee.

One of the positive points that I wish to emphasize is the obligation to document the product's history. The traceability of the product, if you will. In Quebec, Agri-Traçabilité Québec allows us to track our meat from the farm to the table. Thanks to that agency, Quebec is far more advanced than the rest of Canada. We should follow Quebec's example in these things, because it is important for the safety of consumers. I spoke earlier of the pork products imported from abroad in which melamine was found. Thanks to Agri-Traçabilité Quebec, that would not happen in Quebec.

Previously, the hon. member for Malpeque spoke of country of origin labelling. Some products we can find on the shelves that are marked “Product of Canada” are not made in Canada at all, like olives. He spoke of grapefruit juice and we could also mention orange juice. There are many similar products. There are even some pickles, which could have originated in Canada, but the only Canadian parts are the jar, the lid and the vinegar; the pickles themselves come from India. We should not be able to put a “Product of Canada” label on such products.

I would like to end on some positive points. The manufacturer or importer will have to inform the government of any incident that should arise, in Canada or elsewhere. As I mentioned previously, inspectors will have greater powers to intervene. We will also need to adequately fund those measures and ensure we have the necessary staff to carry out the inspections properly.

[Louise Thibault, Independent, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I listened carefully to my colleague from Richmond—Arthabaska and I appreciated his speech. My question is very simple. He painted a complete picture. I understand why he talked more specifically about inspection needs. It was really necessary to talk about contaminated food not only for dogs, but also for other animals, and about the issue of toys that do not even come close to meeting our standards.

My question is entirely related to agriculture and to the fact that we have here, in Quebec particularly and in the rest of Canada, very strict standards as far as production is concerned. In Quebec, we have mechanisms, including traceability and others, to ensure that the food that appears on our plates and goes into our bodies will be totally safe.

My question is very simple. Why are the Government of Canada and the parliamentarians in this House not imposing standards as binding, as strict and as safe for our people? For imported foods and ingredients to be used in food products, why do not we require at the source the same quality and the same standards that we apply here? Obviously, there would be quality controls and inspections. Why do we accept less than what we demand here, at the price it costs here? We would have a good quality, absolutely safe food basket at a reasonable price.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her excellent question. I would send it right across the aisle because it is the same thing we have been asking this government and even the previous one. When I arrived here in the House of Commons, the Liberals were in power and we were already asking these kinds of questions.

To answer the hon. member’s question more specifically, I think that consumers are entitled to know exactly where the products they buy come from and how they were produced. There is a lack of information here. The reason is very simple. It is for purely commercial reasons. The government allows this because it wants to continue trading with other countries.

The idea has never been to forbid trade with other countries, unless their products are unhealthy. There are some foods that cannot be sourced anywhere else. Bananas, oranges, grapefruit and olives just do not grow around here. Some products will always have to come from abroad.

The great problem, as we have long known, is in the area of reciprocity and what we demand of our own products but not of those that land on our shelves from abroad. I have never been able to understand why we do not have the same requirements for these products, other than the big bucks involved.

We are told that these requirements exist. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will come and say that products cannot enter the country if they fail to meet the safety standards. However, we regularly find products right beside our own good stuff that consumers might be tempted to buy because things are put on them to make them last longer and make the fruit and vegetables look better.

I can say, though, that increasingly consumers are not necessarily looking at the colour and beauty of a product, one that has been waxed or produced with pesticides. They are looking more and more for what seems most natural and comes from somewhere close by. At some point, we will have to give our own farmers the space they deserve. When products are not up to scratch, they will have to be stopped at the border. They simply cannot enter. That is what we should do.