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.

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

[Lawrence Cannon, Conservative, Pontiac, QC]

moved that Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products, be read the third time and passed.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to launch the debate at third reading of Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products.

We heard at second reading that there is strong support in this House for strengthening consumer product safety. This proposed consumer product safety legislation seeks to provide improved oversight of a broad range of products, including toys for our children, and it aims to fulfill a promise made by this government in last November's Speech from the Throne.

To begin, I would like to highlight the legislation's key points. The proposed act focuses on three areas: active prevention, targeted oversight and rapid response.

First, let us talk about active prevention. The act will introduce a general prohibition against the manufacture, importation, advertisement or sale of consumer products that pose an unreasonable danger to human health or safety.

The new legislation will allow Health Canada to address consumer products in Canada that pose an unreasonable danger to the health or safety of the public. Compliance and enforcement will be strengthened through maximum fines of up to $5 million for some of the worst offences. That is a big step up from the current maximum penalty of $1 million, and this change would put us in step with our major trading partners.

Our government plans to work closely with the industry to ensure changes are understood and properly implemented. Workshops and other information sharing opportunities will be used to promote awareness of the new legislation.

Second, Bill C-6 focuses on targeted oversight. This is especially important for products where the risks may not yet be fully understood or that pose the greatest potential hazard to the public.

The proposed act would give the Minister of Health the authority to order a supplier to conduct safety tests and submit results to the minister. It would also require suppliers to notify Health Canada and, in some cases, its partners through the supply chain of defects or serious product-related incidents, including near miss incidents where injury has been averted.

Finally, this proposed legislation also includes measures to allow for a speedy response to problems once they are identified.

Under the proposed new act, we want to be able to move quickly and decisively to protect the public when a problem occurs. To do so, we need the ability to order recalls of unsafe consumer products and require suppliers to maintain accurate records to enable quick tracking of products that need to be pulled.

To implement these prevention, surveillance and rapid response activities, more consumer product safety inspectors will be hired, creating a more complete safety net for all consumer products. Through Bill C-6, our government is demonstrating its commitment to consumer product safety by proposing action that Canadians want and need.

The amended Bill C-6 we have before us today reflects the extensive analysis of the members of the Standing Committee on Health. Over the past month, the committee heard from government witnesses and 33 other witnesses representing over 24 organizations.

In total there were five separate sessions devoted to review and discussion of Bill C-6, two of which were extended. In these sessions all voices were heard and all opinions were closely considered. The result of the committee's hard work is an amended bill that we think well reflects the underlying policy intent of the bill, as well as some other key aspects of concern to some witnesses.

There were thirteen amendments to the bill, of which six were put forth by the government and seven by the opposition. Government amendments included delivering on a commitment made by the Minister of Health to make it crystal clear that natural health products would not be regulated by this act.

The other government amendments were housekeeping in nature to clarify technical aspects of the bill. For instance, Bill C-6 was amended to specify that documents that a person must retain shall only be retained for six years.

The seven opposition amendments addressed two key areas: consultation and information sharing. The first group of amendments introduced provisions into Bill C-6 to ensure that the Standing Committee on Health would be consulted on foundational regulations that will be created under this new act.

The government remains committed to moving quickly with proposed regulations and believes that new regulations made under Bill C-6 will benefit from the analysis and advice from the Standing Committee on Health.

The second group of amendments demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that Canadians have the information they need. As such, the standing committee approved an amendment to Bill C-6 to explicitly state that the minister may disclose to the public information about a danger to human health or safety that a consumer product poses.

Finally, at report stage, the House agreed that Bill C-6 should be amended to include provisions for an advisory committee, which would support the implementation of the proposed Canada Consumer Products Safety Act. I thank the hon. member for St. Paul's for this suggestion.

The advisory committee will provide a forum for the exchange of informed views from the full range of experts, building on the skills and knowledge that already exist within the department, and it will provide valuable information on industry trends that may need to be addressed within the legislation or its supporting regulations.

As I conclude, I would like to remind my colleagues that Canada's consumer product legislation is 40 years and has fallen behind other jurisdictions and its update is overdue. By benefiting from a wide diversity of expert views, Canadians can be assured that this government is committed to building as strong and effective product safety regime as possible.

As a result, Bill C-6 will put in place modern safeguards and strong compliance enforcement mechanisms, and Canadian consumers deserve that. With Bill C-6, the government will have the tools it needs to act swiftly and decisively to help protect Canadians. We want there to be a greater incentive for companies to think safety first more than ever before.

We want to level the playing field for reputable companies by having a stronger hammer to bear against peddlers of unsafe goods.

I know all parties in the House support consumer product safety. I believe all members should therefore join me in supporting Bill C-6.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I have spoken with some of the members on the other side and I would like to again make the request to withdraw my private member's bill, Bill C-301. Could you seek the consent of the House for that.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The member for Yorkton—Melville is seeking unanimous consent to withdraw his private member's bill, Bill C-301. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member for Oshawa, the parliamentary secretary, is an individual whom I have learned to work very diligently with in the past. I know his deep commitment to this legislation. If he brings to the health committee his same ability to make the industry committee work as he did last year, I have no doubt there will be further results for that good member.

It is in that spirit that I want to ask the hon. member something he probably will not find all too different from my line of questioning on committee last week.

It seems to be that the intentions of the bill are certainly there, and many people support this. However, I question whether there is a need for a new bill at all. Could we have simply amended the Hazardous Products Act, which has helped Canadians for the past 40 years? It has certainly been responsible for the kind of changes that were necessary from time to time, particularly as we saw products from around the world that were dangerous in nature and that brought forth concerns about things like product safety, toys, food and so on.

What is in the bill that could not have been done by simply amending the Hazardous Products Act and cause, in effect, a year and half delay, while the government was doing a bit of its own window dressing to make it and package it under something that it could have been originally?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, as my colleague said, we have worked together quite well in the industry committee. I did enjoy his presence at the health committee and the questions he posed.

There are a couple of the things in the bill that we did not have in any other bill. The most important is probably the general prohibition, which is very important today. We have a changing economy, a globalized economy. This allows us to remove unsafe products immediately from the market. With the old bill, we were unable to do this.

We also have AMPs, these monetary penalties in the new bill. The size of the fines have increased. More Important, we have a new advisory council.

We heard from stakeholders during the debates in committee. As I said during my speech, the member for St. Paul's brought this very important amendment forward, which will make the legislation even better.

We had a great response during committee from the stakeholders. I am very proud of the legislation and I look forward to all members of the House supporting it.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, our party is pleased the bill has come forward, particularly with the number of amendments we put forward, as well as amendments by other parties, which we thought were useful and also supported.

I hold the concerns of my members on that committee with the delay in moving on a comprehensive system of labelling. Increasingly, day by day, we find that a lot of the products used by Canadians contain very harmful substances.

Could the member advise us on what the government is doing to expedite moving on this? Could he tell us who will be represented on the advisory panel that will be established to look into expediting a comprehensive system of labelling?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to inform my colleague that labelling was brought up and we found it was a very controversial issue. That is why we put forth the advisory council. With the advisory council, the department has the ability to put forward experts, who are not available within the government, to advise the minister on these very important issues.

I would like to advise her as well that during the consultations and during committee, we found that Canada was applauded for the things we had in place for hazardous substances and for Canada's chemical management plan. We have that in place with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I look forward to further results from the bill as it moves forward. The legislation is over 40 years old.

I want to also thank the NDP critic as well as the Bloc and Liberal critics for their co-operation in making this an even better bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, following the committee process, I know we are reasonably happy with the final result, although I want to ask the member to give me a better explanation of the whole issue of tobacco.

I understand we proposed removing the unique specific exemption within the Tobacco Act and including it along with the other laws listed in the bill's schedule of exempt legislation. This would have allowed the treatment of tobacco, like other dangerous products, to be changed if future circumstances dictated.

This amendment was voted down along with other proposed amendments to the schedule. One was the grandparenting of existing tobacco products, subject to any new products, to normal health requirements. The other was simply to add the Tobacco Act to the schedule.

Given our concern about the whole issue of smoking and tobacco issues in the House, what are the member's thoughts on this process and why it developed the way it did?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member brings forward a question that we heard several times during consultations in committee.

The bill works with ignition issues, as far as papers, with tobacco, but one of the things we learned in committee was that tobacco was governed under an entirely different act. It is a very unique product and because the government has a specific act for it, it was felt by the majority of committee members that it should be dealt with in this separate act.

The member may be aware of the co-operation we see in committee right now with An Act to amend the Tobacco Act, as far as banning tobacco products that are geared toward children. We had some great presentations yesterday. I think he would agree with me that we are moving forward in tobacco control. With the changes we are putting forward, this will again make Canada a leader in the world.

I look forward to the co-operation of the NDP, like the great co-operation of the critic in putting forth her ideas in improving the Tobacco Act.

[Dan McTeague, Liberal, Pickering—Scarborough East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know the member will want to continue and perhaps ask questions of those of us who will be speaking in a few moments, but I have one small question for him.

Why would the legislation now proposed not contain within it, at the very minimum, product certification by those who produce, distribute and sell within Canada, a certification which would ensure the authenticity as well as certify the safety of the products, rather than waiting for an accident to happen and then compelling the company, under penalty of law and possibly criminal sanctions, to come forward with that information? It ought to be the obligation of businesses to ensure this is in fact the case, which makes it a lot easier for our enforcement agents to do their jobs.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Mr. Speaker, we have different certifications in Canada, for example, the CSA, or the Canadian standards. However, what is really important in the bill is the general prohibition. It allows the government to act immediately to get any products brought into the market off the market regardless of certification. This would occur even before any certification.

As the member knows, when one goes through a certification process, it takes a bit of time. With the general prohibition in the legislation, it allows the Canadian government to act quickly and with certainty. By having it in the bill, it also brings us up to what our trading partners are doing in this regard.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, today I rise in the House to support Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products, on which our committee worked collegially for extended hours, having heard testimony from consumer products organizations, to environmental defence organizations, to toy manufacturers and struggled through challenging issues for both consumer health and well-being and for industry.

Reducing risk to human health has been a preoccupation of people, physicians and politicians for the last 5,000 years. Virtually every major advance in public health has involved the reduction or the elimination of risk, with the result being that the world is a safer place today. It is safer from accidents and deadly or incurable diseases and safer from hazardous consumer goods.

Therefore, it is the government's duty to do all it reasonably can to accurately assess and reduce risks, such as making sure that food, medicines and other products are safe. Although government can rarely hope to reduce risks to zero, it can aim to lower them to a more acceptable level and should openly and transparently communicate risk and risk-reduction strategies to the public.

The Canadian government introduced Bill C-6 in January 2009 to ensure through regulation that risk is reduced and that Canadians have access to safer consumer products. It is important for members to understand that natural health products will not be regulated under Bill C-6, but rather, under their own regulatory framework, the natural health products regulations under the Food and Drugs Act.

Bill C-6 focuses on three key areas: working to address problems before they happen, through building and improving safety throughout the supply chain; targeting the highest risks through conducting tests upon a minister's orders; and rapid response to protect the public when a problem occurs. The bill is needed as the laws overseeing consumer safety have not been thoroughly reviewed in over 40 years, and chemicals, technology and trade have all changed significantly.

For example, we live in an increasingly chemical society. Toxic chemicals are found in everyday consumer products, including art supplies, kitchenware, personal products, pet food, toys, water bottles and many products intended for babies. It is important for members to understand that over 100,000 chemicals were on the market before the 1980s and an additional 3,000 have been developed since that time. While some hazardous chemicals such as DDT and PCBs are banned, others are still widely used despite the fact that they cause cancer, mutation, or interfere with the body's reproductive function, take a long time to break down, accumulate in the body and are toxic, and have serious and irreversible effects on humans and the environment.

When researchers test the air in our homes, the average reading for volatile organic compounds increases in areas where cleaners are stored. CBC's Marketplace showed Pledge registered over 270 parts per billion; and Clorox wipes, over 1,000 parts per billion. Anything over 500 could be a problem for people with sensitivities. Lysol disinfectant spray, however, recorded 1,200 parts per million, a thousand times higher than Clorox.

Bill C-6 is important because it would fill many regulatory gaps and give government the power to issue recalls and raise fines. Companies and their directors, officers and employees may be held criminally liable for contravention and penalized up to $5 million. Specifically the bill would prohibit the manufacture, importation, advertising and sale of a consumer product that is a danger to human health or safety, is the subject of a recall, or does not meet the regulatory requirements that apply to the product.

The bill would require that all persons who manufacture, import or sell a consumer product for commercial purposes maintain documents identifying from whom they obtained the product and to whom they sold it and provide regulators with all related information once becoming aware of an incident. These mechanisms will help ensure that products can easily be removed from store shelves when a recall is made.

Bill C-6 would also give regulators the power to order manufacturers and importers to conduct tests on a product, provide documents related to those studies, and compile any information required to confirm compliance. The bill would also give inspectors new wide-ranging powers, including the power to order a recall if they believe, on reasonable grounds, that a consumer product is a danger to human health or safety. These powers may be invoked even when there is a lack of full scientific certainty.

This is a real strength of the bill, as scientific standards for demonstrating cause and effect are extremely rigorous and often time-consuming and substantial damage to humans may result during long testing. For example, many experts strongly suspected that smoking caused lung cancer long before overwhelming proof became available. Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of smokers died waiting for a definitive answer. Thousands of others, however, quit smoking because they suspected, as there were 7,000 articles by 1964, that tobacco probably caused lung cancer.

When a product raises threats of harm to human health, precautionary measures should be taken, even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.

The committee struggled through key questions such as should the bill phase out or ban known carcinogens and other toxic chemicals in consumer products? Science is continually evolving and experts might not always know how dangerous chemicals really are, particularly for children, who are not little adults.

In fact, children have special vulnerabilities to the toxic effects of chemicals, because they are constantly growing. They breathe more air, consume more food, and drink more water than adults in proportion to their weight. They virtually live on the floor. Everything goes into their mouths, and their basic body systems are still developing. Exposure to chemicals at critical stages in their physical and cognitive development may have severe long-term consequences for health.

Priority concerns for children include exposure to air pollutants, arsenic, lead, mercury, pesticides and persistent organic pollutants. Dr. Gideon Koren, a pediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children, asks:

How can we, as one of the most advanced countries in the world, allow these to enter our household for small children, without the appropriate testing to see that it's safe?

In October 2008, Canada became the first country in the world to ban the import and sale of polycarbonate baby bottles containing bisphenol A, or BPA, a chemical used in the lining of canned beverages and food. The chemical mimics estrogen in the body, and researchers have found links between BPA and numerous health problems, including cancer, diabetes, heart disease and metabolic disorders. A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found BPA in the urine of over 90% of Americans tested.

Committee members also explored whether the bill should include a mandatory testing and labelling scheme, whether the government will dedicate the necessary resources to enforce the bill, and whether the bill goes far enough to protect the health of Canadians from toxic imports.

The United Steelworkers remind us that recalls and fines happen after the fact. Canada needs a strategy that repairs trade deals that have led to toxic imports crossing our border in the first place, such as in 2007, when millions of Chinese-made toys were recalled by both the EU and the U.S. The European Commission subsequently identified over 1,600 products that were considered risky.

Other important questions addressed by the committee included what is a safe chemical and a safe threshold, and can cumulative and synergistic effects of exposure be addressed?

A May 2009 study suggests that chemicals, including BPA, pesticides and phthalates, found in many cleaning, cosmetic and food products pose a real and cumulative threat to male fertility, namely feminization of boys in the womb. Prior to this study, demasculinization effects due to chemical pollutants in the environment were reported in many species of wildlife.

While exposure to a single chemical may cause no harm, the cumulative effect could be at least partly to blame for sperm counts falling, by blocking the action of testosterone in the womb.

Richard Sharpe, the researcher, reported:

Because it is the summation of effect of hormone-disrupting chemicals that is critical, and the number of such chemicals that humans are exposed to is considerable, this provides the strongest possible incentive to minimise human exposure to all relevant hormone disruptors, especially women planning pregnancy, as it is obvious that the higher the exposure the greater the risk.

The committee also considered the possibility of a phase-out schedule, what chemicals should be considered, how might a carcinogen be identified, and according to what lists of hazardous chemicals. Will the Globally Harmonized System of the Classification and Labelling of Chemicals, or GHS, be available in the future? Would a labelling system make sense, and if so, what products should be labelled and how should they be labelled?

The discussions were fulsome and wide-ranging. Other important questions were, what guidance, if any, does the California Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986, otherwise known as Proposition 65, provide? This law requires companies to warn the public of potentially dangerous toxins in food. California has filed lawsuits seeking a range of warnings, including the mercury content of canned tuna and the presence of lead in Mexican candy.

A particular concern to industry is acrylamide, a chemical linked to cancer that forms in starchy foods cooked at high temperatures, such as french fries and potato chips.

The committee also explored what other approaches have been taken to eliminate toxic chemicals in the production process and whether substitution of safer alternatives is required. What do other jurisdictions, such as the European Union, Massachusetts, and now Ontario, have to offer?

A key commitment under the Ontario Toxics Reduction Act is to reduce Ontarians' exposures to toxic substances by requiring businesses that employ 10 or more people and involve 10,000 kilograms or more of specific substances to report and track harmful chemicals and develop pollution prevention plans. The implementation of these plans, like a successful law in Massachusetts, is voluntary.

Bill C-6 is an important step to protecting Canadians and was largely and widely supported by witnesses.

I would, however, like to stress that we cannot continue to repeat the key mistake of the past, namely responding late to early warnings as we did with benzene and PCBs.

Ever since anemia was diagnosed among young women engaged in the manufacture of bicycle tires in the 19th century, benzene was known to be a powerful bone marrow poison. Recommendations made in the U.K. and the U.S. in the 1920s for substitution of benzene with less toxic solvents went unheeded. Benzene-related diseases of the bone marrow continued to increase dramatically through the first half of the 20th century. Benzene was not withdrawn from consumer products in the U.S. until 1978, and this was done by manufacturers on a voluntary basis.

A chief medical inspector of factories wrote in 1934, “Looking back in the light of present knowledge, it is impossible not to feel that opportunities for discovery and prevention of disease were badly missed.”

Bill C-6 would significantly improve the product safety regime in Canada, which would translate into improved health and safety for Canadians. Product safety is in everyone's best interest and everyone has a role to play, Canadians, government and industry.

A relevant lesson from history is that animal slaughterhouse wastes were recycled into animal feed since the beginning of the 20th century. In the mid-1970s the U.S. department of agriculture decided that carcasses of sheep afflicted with the disease scrapie should not be used in animal or human foods. Tragically, the U.K. government decided that its industry should be left to decide how its equipment should be operated. It was not until 1996 that processing standards were introduced.

In the United States government oversight and relatively inexpensive restrictions may have prevented the mad cow epidemic. In the United Kingdom industry self-policing provided ideal conditions for the development of the progressive fatal disease that affects the brain.

How many chemicals are therefore currently on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act's environmental registry? How many of these have been comprehensively tested for any risks to ecosystems and people? What is the projected timeline for testing untested chemicals?

Members should think about what chemicals they are exposed to each and every day, from washing their hands to brushing their teeth to shampooing their hair to eating their breakfast cereal. What timeline for testing for toxicity, longevity in the environment and bio-accumulation in our bodies is acceptable?

Going forward, the question that begs to be asked is this. What world do we want 25 years from now, in 2034? It is my fervent hope that Bill C-6 is the beginning of a dialogue with Canadians with regard to what chemicals we are exposed.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to congratulate my colleague from Etobicoke North on her excellent speech and on the wonderful work she did in committee on Bill C-6.

During the entire process of the committee's examination of the bill, I had questions about the number of inspectors that will be on the ground to conduct verifications. As we have seen in many other areas under federal jurisdiction, the serious shortage of inspectors has drawn attention to the many gaps and shortfalls in the verifications carried out by those inspectors.

I would therefore like to know how my colleague, and the entire Liberal Party, sees this adjustment in the number of inspectors.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my hon. colleague and friend who has worked very hard in committee, asking very probing questions.

Inspection is very important. It is a tremendous part of enforcement. Part of what the bill would do is ask that industry self-identify so if there were a problem, industry would come forward. That will be part of the enforcement.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her very thoughtful presentation on what is a very critical bill. I may have missed it, but she may have specifically spoken to the precautionary principle, which is supposed to be the underlying principle of all our environmental health laws in Canada. It is a principle that we have signed on to through the United Nations.

It is incumbent upon the government to take intervening action and not wait. As an environmental lawyer, after waiting many years and giving the power to recall, I would like the member comment on two things.

First, should the government perhaps give more attention to asserting its powers to intervene and preclude the sale or use of certain products in Canada to prevent the introduction?

Second, as I understand with a lot of these products, while a lot of them can harm humans who are intended to use them, there is a sidebar further impact when these substances enter into the environment and previously unthought of or perhaps not assessed impacts occur to our ecosystems.

Could she comment on those two issues and does she think the bill has adequately addressed those matters?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I absolutely agree that the precautionary principle has to be front and centre in the legislation, and it does occur in the preamble.

The example I used was that there were 7,000 articles on tobacco by 1964. Some people did show precaution and they stopped smoking. Therefore, the precautionary principle does have to be front and centre.

Regarding the banning of chemicals, it was something at which the committee looked very carefully. There were a lot of questions regarding carcinogens, neurotoxins and hormone interruption. I come back to what I talked about in my speech, that we were the first country to ban BPA.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member has made a very interesting speech once again in the House, but I see one of the big deficiencies of Bill C-6. The labelling of consumer products containing hazardous materials has been more or less left out of the bill.

That, in addition to the whole area of enforcement, which I have a lot of suspicions the government will not be overly strong on the enforcement side of the bill, caused me to have great concerns about the bill, regardless of the fact that we plan to vote for it and support it.

Does the member share those concerns about the whole issue of labelling and how might we look to the future to ensure the bill gets enforced properly so we catch problems before they become huge problems?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I believe the hon. member brought up two issues. One was labelling and the other was enforcement.

Labelling was a key discussion throughout the committee hearings. We have to decide which chemicals are important. There was tremendous discussion around carcinogens, neurotoxins and other chemicals. What lists would we use? Would we use IARC? There was difficulty coming to agreement on this. What is important is we have started those conversations and I think those conversations will continue.

On the hon. member's second point, enforcement is key in any bill. Part of this enforcement is requiring that business self-identify. The government has increased the penalties to up to $5 million.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to touch on labelling as well. I understand that it was discussed extensively at committee. In fact, the member for Winnipeg North had proposed some amendments that would deal with a comprehensive system of labelling consumer products. It was defeated at the committee, but the government did indicate that labelling would be the priority of the new advisory panel expected to be set up through a government amendment.

Could the member comment specifically on whether this advisory panel will do the work for which Canadians have asked?

Canadians want appropriate consumer labelling on consumer products. They want to know what they are purchasing. They want to know what the impact will be to their families. I know in this case we are talking about hazardous products, but when I was on the health committee in the past, we were also talked about labelling genetically modified organisms, for example.

Could the member comment on what she thinks is critical for this advisory panel and whether she thinks this is a good first step?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is very encouraging that we have an advisory panel for the bill. We recently passed Bill C-11, which is around biosafety and biosecurity. At that time, we also called for a scientific advisory group, experts in the field who would have the best judgment to suggest which viruses and bacteria belonged in what schedules. Having the advisory panel go forward on this bill will allow the experts to continue this good work.

On her second point, yes, Canadians are very interested in labelling. Recent studies suggested 90% to 95% would like to see labelling and right to know.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleague a question with regard to children's products. A couple of amendments that would have provided more consumer choice were brought forward in committee, but they were defeated.

As a parent, I have discovered that some of the toys I have purchased for my children were made with inappropriate chemicals and substances, which were supposed to be banned in the first place. Would specific amendments have been more appropriate?

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Mr. Speaker, child safety has to be paramount. Children cannot buy their own products, so we have to provide safe consumer products for them. As an example, Canada was the first country to remove BPA.

Recently we had problems with 1,600 products from China. Child safety was certainly a key point of discussion in committee. There was strong support from children's safety organizations. It is important we continue to push to do better. Chemicals need to be banned from children's products.

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation; the hon. member for Winnipeg South Centre, Aboriginal Affairs; the hon. member for Random—Burin—St. George's, Employment Insurance.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank and congratulate all members of the Standing Committee on Health, on which I sit, for all their work on this bill.

I believe this is proof that, when we have a good bill, one that is well drafted and one we can work on, when the amendments proposed by the opposition are adopted by the majority, and when the committee operates under good discipline, all of these elements move things along even more quickly and solid common sense always prevails. That is what has led to the bill we have before us which will have the support of the Bloc Québécois, the NDP, the Liberal Party and the government, or so I understand. That same solid common sense is what makes me a sovereignist.

Getting back to Bill C-6, according to an Auditor General's report, the government had known since at least 2006 that the current legislation, the legislation amended by Bill C-6, did not protect the public properly.

It was not until the incident in the summer of 2007, when toys containing lead were recalled, that the government indicated its intention to amend this legislation. Three months later, it made the official announcement of its action plan to ensure food and consumer product safety.

At that time, the Bloc Québécois had called on the minister to tighten up safety requirements for dangerous products so the manufacturing, promotion and marketing of any product that might present an unacceptable risk or be harmful to health could be banned.

We also called upon Ottawa to put the burden on manufacturers to inspect their products and prove that they are not hazardous to consumer health and safety. This is included in the amended Bill C-6.

We also insisted that the approach taken by the government should not put the industry wholly in charge of the safety of consumer products, thereby leaving the public's health in their hands.

One of the amendments I proposed called for beefed-up financial and human resources in order to ensure there would be enough inspectors to enforce the law that Bill C-6 will eventually become.

This bill is a good one and is based on fine principles. We all agree with this bill in principle. However, the problem we come up against every time is the number of inspectors. The Bloc Québécois often raised this issue in committee, because if we implement this bill without having the necessary inspectors or the financial and human resources that are needed, it could quickly become useless.

The Bloc Québécois succeeded in getting an amendment through calling for beefed-up human and financial resources so that the law is properly enforced.

We cannot leave it up to the industry to regulate and manage itself. That could create problems. It is not that we assume that any industry is acting in bad faith, but a company could unfortunately make a mistake in its data or in its research on toys, food or something else.

We want to ensure that the government makes good on a promise it has made many times but unfortunately never kept. It was to ensure that it had enough inspectors.

In committee, we heard from Mr. Burns, vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. He told us essentially the same thing: if we do not have enough inspectors to enforce the law, the bill will do absolutely nothing.

The Auditor General had also pointed out that Health Canada did not have enough inspectors to do the work properly. Her findings were consistent with what Mr. Burns said and the questions I repeatedly asked in committee.

Even though the bill requires that companies ensure that products are harmless, the government will have to ensure that there are enough inspectors, as I said.

We support Bill C-6 as amended. I would like to provide some background. This bill is the old Bill C-52, which was tabled on April 8, 2008, and passed at second reading in May 2008. It is part of the food and consumer safety action plan, which the Conservative government announced on December 17, 2007. Budget 2008 allocated $113 million over two years to implement the plan. We have yet to see what kind of structure will be put in place and whether more people will be hired to ensure consumer product safety.

Currently, the federal government's primary legislative instrument regulating consumer product safety is the Hazardous Products Act, which was enacted in 1969. Over the past 40 years, technology and inspection systems have advanced tremendously in the industry, Health Canada and the federal government. The new Bill C-6 has come not a moment too soon and may in fact be a little too late. The government could have done a course correction a long time ago. Unfortunately, frequent elections have killed various bills, including Bill C-52, which was at second reading.

Part I of the Hazardous Products Act deals with regulated consumer products or those prohibited from being advertised, sold or imported into Canada. Some 30 products and categories of products are regulated, including toys, chemical products and about 25 other prohibited products, such as baby walkers, lawn darts with elongated tips, and products containing toxic materials, such as jequirity beans, which contain a resin-like toxin. The manufacture, import and sale of these products may also be regulated and restricted by other laws.

Bill C-6 repeals Part I of the Hazardous Products Act and replaces it with:

At present, in the event that a consumer product that is not regulated or prohibited poses a health or safety risk, it is up to industry to voluntarily issue and manage a product recall. The federal government’s authority in this regard is limited to issuing a public warning and, in the event that it is deemed necessary, subsequently taking steps to regulate or prohibit the product under the HPA.

Bill C-6 appears to tighten up the safety requirements for hazardous products. 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 safety. It also makes manufacturers and importers accountable, and requires them to ensure that their product is not a danger to human health and safety.

However, although clauses 7 and 8 are more strict concerning the responsibilities of manufacturers, importers and anyone selling similar consumer products, clause 6 refers to requirements set out in the regulations. Clause 6 states:

No person shall manufacture, import, advertise or sell a consumer product that does not meet the requirements set out in the regulations.

So, just how some of the requirements for consumer products will be tightened up will be stipulated in the regulations, but the committee will not have any details.

Still, we believe that the government is acting in good faith, and as proof we have the creation of an advisory committee on labelling, for example. It is now in the hands of the government, which plans on discussing with the opposition parties how the issues of labelling and potentially hazardous products will be referred to the committee. We are putting our faith in the government on this. It is very rare, but in the case of the advisory committee on Bill C-6, we are going to give them a chance.

The bill defines an “article” as a consumer product, which is a product, including its components, parts or accessories that may reasonably be expected to be used for non-commercial purposes, including for domestic, recreational and sports purposes. This definition naturally also includes its packaging, any object used to manufacture, import, package, sell, label, test or transport a consumer product or advertise it, or the documents pertaining to these activities or any consumer product.

The bill contains five measures to reverse the burden of proof regarding safety. First, let us examine the safety of consumer products. At present, there is no constraint whatsoever imposed upon manufacturers or importers. They do not have to demonstrate that their products pose no danger or threat to consumer safety. Bill C-6 proposes to reverse this burden of proof and to impose it on manufacturers in future, under the supervision of federal inspectors from Health Canada and other departments.

The bill suggests that manufacturers and importers of consumer products will be required to test their products for safety on a regular basis and, significantly, to disclose the results of these tests. As I mentioned earlier, we cannot allow only the manufacturers to examine these tests. Far be it from me to doubt their good faith, but independent government inspectors should conduct surprise tests from time to time. It is extremely important to me that we ensure that the studies are conducted properly and that there are no irregularities in these reports. I would have to say that, in the committee proceedings, based on what I heard and the questions I asked of Option consommateurs representatives—who were very well received and kindly answered our questions—and businesses or groups of businesses, having surprise inspections did not pose a problem. Many companies encouraged us to do so and to have enough inspectors, as did Mr. Burns, the vice-president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

Inspectors need to be given greater authority. As I have already indicated, the Auditor General stated in a report that in order to ensure that this bill is implemented and effective, inspectors on the ground will have more powers when Bill C-6 comes into force. For that to happen, consumer products will have to be subject to recall or a licensing amendment. These inspectors will be the means to enforce this bill's most important provisions. However, such an increase of duties and responsibilities can raise a certain number of concerns and questions, which is why we hope to pass an amendment to ensure more human and financial resources

Bill C-6 also gives the minister new powers concerning recalls. At this time, health authorities do not have the power to recall consumer products found to be dangerous. Recalls are issued on a voluntary basis by manufacturers and importers themselves. Bill C-6 corrects the inadequacy in the current legislation. That is why we want this bill to pass quickly, since at this time, industries recall products on a voluntary basis, and that goes for toys and all other consumer products. We must ensure that the minister has the means to recall products herself, instead of simply leaving it in the hands of the companies.

Bill C-6 would give the minister the power to recall any products that are defective or endanger consumer safety. However, the regulations will stipulate the requirements and the conditions under which the minister can act.

Stricter punitive measures will also provide a greater deterrence. The fines imposed on manufacturers were usually around $5,000. Now, with Bill C-6, an offence could lead to a fine of up to $5 million and the guilty party could face up to two years in prison.

Issuing a $5,000 fine to a company that might make millions or billions of dollars a year is rather laughable, especially when we are talking about safety, and we could jeopardize the safety or even the lives of the youngest members of society: our children.

We have already seen extremely hazardous products with lead toys. A simple $5,000 fine means nothing to these large and multinational companies. I think that it is an excellent idea to make the fines higher.

With a fine of $5 million and the possibility of imprisonment, at least companies will pay much more attention during their research, to ensure that products will not cause problems, as well as during recalls.

Bill C-6 proposes the creation of a system for preparing and maintaining documents, similar to a product traceability system. The bill states:

13. (1) Any person who manufactures, imports, advertises, sells or tests a consumer product for commercial purposes shall prepare and maintain

(a) documents that indicate

(i) in the case of a retailer, the name and address of the person from whom they obtained the product and the location where and the period during which they sold the product, and

ii) in the case of any other person, the name and address of the person from whom they obtained the product or to whom they sold it, or both, as applicable.

(b) the prescribed documents.

(2) The person shall keep the documents at their place of business in Canada or at any prescribed place and shall, on written request, provide the Minister with them.

(3) The Minister may, subject to any terms and conditions that he or she may specify, exempt a person from the requirement to keep documents in Canada if the Minister considers it unnecessary or impractical for the person to keep them in Canada.

This requirement to keep the product provenance documents for a set period as determined by our studies in committee will make it possible to quickly trace merchants who are in possession of the product, as well as its origin. What is more, should an incident arise concerning this product, in Canada or anywhere else in the world, the manufacturer or importer has an obligation to notify the minister.

Returning to the text of the bill:

14(2) A person who manufactures, imports or sells a consumer product for commercial purposes shall provide the Minister and, if applicable, the person from whom they received the consumer product with all the information in their control regarding any incident related to the product within two days after the day on which they become aware of the incident.

I am getting the two minute signal, but I could have gone on for hours. I will just say quickly that we examined similar legislation on the international level. We checked with companies in committee. So we did a good job.

I would like to congratulate the chair of our committee for her extraordinary job of keeping us on track. Not that the members of the Liberal Party, the Bloc Québécois and the NDP are an unruly lot, far from it. She did, however, do an excellent job of making sure everything moved quickly and in an orderly manner. Once again, my congratulations to her on that.

I also wanted to point out that we have worked extremely hard, we listened to both consumers and businesses, and I believe we have here an excellent bill, which, as amended, will receive the assent of the entire House.

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank all the members of the committee and certainly the member for Repentigny. He contributed in a major way to the success of this bill, and I want to thank him for that.

Clearly, by raising the strength of our product safety system up to the level of our major trading partners, we are safeguarding the marketplace against the risk of becoming a dumping ground for substandard products.

In his speech, the member for Repentigny pointed out some very important aspects of the bill that strengthened what the committee was trying to find out.

I believe that we have created an ideal package of consumer protection by combining measures to improve prevention, monitor high-risk products, and act swiftly if a dangerous product enters the country.

Would the member for Repentigny please outline some of the very important aspects of the bill that would very greatly improve the safety of our products here on Canadian soil?

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier in the debate, this bill is extremely important, in that it puts us on an equal footing with our trading partners, to prevent dumping in Canada. Before I conclude, I looked at the regulations in other countries, including European Union countries that had laws similar to Bill C-6, although it is one of the most advanced pieces of consumer product safety legislation in the world, and we are proud of that.

It is therefore extremely important, as my Conservative colleague said, that we be on a more or less equal footing and that our regulations be consistent with international regulations so that Canada is not used as a dumping ground.

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

Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that we are simply deluding ourselves if we think that the free market is going to self-regulate. Clearly, voluntary measures do not work. The banks in the United States could not regulate themselves. The financial services sector in the United States went through a whole deregulation process and we saw what happened when regulations are stripped away and supposedly have a free market operate to the benefit of the public.

Just two years ago the government, for example, passed legislation requiring all-inclusive pricing by the airlines in Canada, meaning that rather than advertising a price of $99 for a flight from Vancouver to Montreal, the full cost had to be provided. Parliament passed that legislation over two years ago and still the Conservative government has not implemented that legislation.

Last September the airlines agreed in Canada to the flights rights proposals of the former minister of transport. They voluntarily limited tarmac delays to 90 minutes. Guess what? Only three months later, they were holding passengers hostage for eight hours on the tarmac.

Why does the member think that without proper labelling legislation in this bill and other tough requirements--

[The Acting Speaker, Barry Devolin]

The hon. member for Repentigny.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am surprised that my colleague still feels so strongly about the bill on air travel that he introduced in this House during the session. I can honestly say that I agree completely with what my NDP colleague said. As I mentioned several times during my speech, we cannot let companies regulate themselves. Even with no bad faith or ill will on the part of the companies, having independent government inspectors would ensure that the studies conducted by these companies are valid.

That is the main reason I fought in committee to ask questions of the Professional Institute of the Public Service, companies, Option consommateurs, lobbies and consumer advocacy groups, so that the government understood the message that we have a serious shortage of inspectors. That is why we succeeded in getting through an amendment to the bill, with the government's support, calling for beefed up financial and human resources. I hope that the government will comply with this act and not do as it has done in the case of most of its legislation, which is fail to comply with it.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague from Repentigny for sharing his knowledge of Bill C-6 and for his hard work on this file. I have a question for him.

Other countries have similar laws, but inspectors from other countries go to countries of origin to inspect products before they are exported. Does Bill C-6 provide for the same kind of inspection before consumer goods leave the countries in which they were made? After all, if products are found to be unacceptable and polluting after they arrive here, they will end up in our landfills, where they will continue to pollute our water tables, among other things. Is there some way to conduct inspections before these products are exported, before foods leave their countries of origin?

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague from Brome—Missisquoi. It is clear that he cares about the environment, like all other Bloc Québécois members. I would like to thank him for all the good work he has done on this file over the years.

Unfortunately, I have to say that there is no mechanism to institute inspections in countries where products are made. My colleague's concern is absolutely justified. I completely agree with him. It will now be up to the government and the advisory committee to take aggressive action to ensure that we will not be importing troublesome products that will pollute our water tables and harm our wildlife.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, one of the issues over disclosure by the minister was reintroduced. There was an NDP and a Bloc motion that brought that back. Perhaps the member could briefly discuss the issue of ministerial disclosure and why it is important. It was part of Bill C-52, the precursor to this bill, and is now part of this bill.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, I had not yet been elected when Bill C-52 was before the House. However, I have to say that we worked very hard with the NDP to ensure that some of the clauses in Bill C-52 were included in Bill C-6, and most of the amendments were passed.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have this opportunity to speak at third reading on a very important bill that has seen a very thorough process throughout the House.

I would like to thank my colleagues from the Bloc Québécois for their work on the amendments. I would also like to point out that all the parties were able to work together on this very important bill. It has truly been a process of cooperation and we have made many important changes to this bill.

Bill C-6 has been identified as a key concern over a number of parliamentary sessions and a number of governments. Promises were made to change the Hazardous Products Act and other related legislation to bring them up to the 21st century, so that we would be truly in line with consumers' thinking about what is appropriate when it comes to consumer safety and health protection. This legislation has been a long time coming.

This legislation is not perfect. We wish it had much more in terms of teeth and much more emphasis on the precautionary principle. We in the NDP believe that the most significant thing government can do in this day and age is to bring in legislation that follows the do no harm principle, that ensures that all products, whether children's toys or household cleaners or consumer gadgets, are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.

That is quite different than the risk management model which says consumers should be warned that a product is not necessarily safe, and if they run into problems and that information is brought forward to government, it might deal with it.

The bill moves a bit toward the precautionary principle but only with baby steps. It could have gone a lot further. The precautionary principle stops in the whereas' of the bill.

I am not going to dismiss this legislation because we in the NDP are going to support it. We are going to support it because we think it is important, it is long overdue, and we have made some changes to make it better. Unfortunately, we did not get all of our changes.

Many of the groups that worked so hard on the bill were disappointed. I am thinking in particular of the Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation, and the Canadian Cancer Society, three groups that worked tirelessly on the bill and worked with all members of health committee. These groups informed us, taught us, proposed amendments, made suggestions, and educated us. We learned a great deal from them. I am very grateful for the major role that they played throughout the legislative process.

In the end we were forced to concede to changes that were fairly small in nature, but significant at least in terms of finding some way down the road to protect Canadians, even if they do no harm principle was not firmly entrenched in every aspect of the bill.

We did that by ensuring, and this is where I want to take some credit on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus, an amendment in the bill that requires the bill, once it is passed, to come back to both the House of Commons and the Senate for scrutiny in terms of regulations.

There will be a chance to provide some kind of oversight once the government begins to find ways to implement a legislative initiative that is so vital and so important in terms of the health and well-being of Canadians.

We are also pleased to support an amendment proposed by the Liberals which would add an advisory committee to the gambit of tools available to the government. With the assistance of the government, members of the committee, and the whole House, we saw that the amendment was included with a royal recommendation and is now part of the bill. That was another indication of co-operative work on the part of all of us.

That means there will be a body of experts who will devote themselves to furthering the broad principles of the bill and will try to apply the precautionary principle, the do no harm principle, in more ways than is apparent at present.

The bill has certainly been noted for many significant reasons. It has very substantive recall provisions with significant punishments attached. I do not want to underestimate the significance of those provisions.

Over the last number of years we on this side of the House have raised numerous concerns with the present government and the Liberal government before it about unsafe products on the market.

For years we have been dealing with lead in children's toys and phyllates in plastics that are put in the mouths of babies and children, which are toxic, dangerous and cause very serious life-threatening debilitating problems.

We are pleased that the government has provided for a way to ensure that once we have identified serious problems, action can be taken. I think we will all agree that the problem with this bill is that it is not readily apparent how action will be taken and products that are problematic in the first place are identified.

We did not get an amendment in this legislation that lists hazardous products. We did not get, as the Environmental Defence, the David Suzuki Foundation and the Canadian Cancer Society wanted, a provision in this bill that would ensure that all products with hazardous substances would be listed in this legislation, and they would be labelled accordingly.

In that way there would be some certainty for all Canadians that even if the government did not take steps to ban a product, remove a product, or recall a product, at least consumers would know what substances were in that particular product. If they believed that there was enough science to be of concern for usage of that product, then they could at least take personal responsibility.

That was a very important contribution to the process throughout this bill. All of the organizations I have mentioned, time and time again, pointed out just how important it would be for us to take those lists of carcinogens and hormone-disrupting and endocrine-disrupting substances, toxins and chemicals and list them, and have them denoted and labelled, including the labelling of all products.

We did not get those amendments, and there was certainly major disappointment. Now, our job is to ensure that the government lives up to its commitment to say that if we can prove that something is a problem in terms of health and safety then the government will take action. Well, we will hold it to that, and we will try every step of the way to remind it of those obligations.

I hope that through the advisory committee and through the reporting back to this House, we will have some extra checks in place.

Suffice it to say, this bill falls short of where some of the international community is at with respect to very dangerous chemicals and substances. The European Union has in fact taken the steps of listing all such carcinogens, hormone disrupters, and dangerous chemicals and toxins, and is moving toward a phased-in process of labelling.

That is something this country cannot avoid. In the long run we will have to do the same. It is too bad because this bill should have been the ultimate, having waited for 40 or 50 or 60 years, in improving the Hazardous Products Act. This should have been the moment when we actually did a perfect job and produced legislation that was the best in the world. We fall short of that objective and we will now have to play some catch up.

I want members to know that I believe the obligation will be on this House and all members of Parliament to push that envelope, to advance that agenda. We have to make sure that in the end we have in fact delineated all such toxic substances and provided consumers with the information that they need to make responsible decisions.

We have to follow the right to know principle. There is no way around it in this complex world with so many dangerous substances and so much technological development. With such rapid change all around us, at the bare minimum we have to at least ensure that consumers are made aware of the necessary information.

It came as a shock to us to have some witnesses come before our committee and say that this would be too complicated, too much, that consumers would be overloaded, not able to choose, and would end up making the wrong decisions and would be too confused.

As we said back to those witnesses, consumers are on top of the ball. They are certainly advanced in terms of understanding and are looking to government to provide them with the information so they can make responsible decisions.

Consumers are looking for safe food, drugs, water, products, toys, pharmaceuticals and medical interventions. They expect the government to ensure that all of the products we have to take and need for our health and well-being are safe beyond a reasonable doubt.

I must say that we did accomplish something that was important in terms of the natural health community. Early on, the forces in this community, those people who produce, manufacture or use natural health products, rose up and said that they felt that there was no place in this legislation for those products. They said that we had to differentiate between consumer products and natural health products. The government listened and we certainly pressured it to do so. It agreed to amend the bill so that nothing about the bill would have any bearing on natural health products.

However, it did raise an interesting dilemma for the government. It showed that we have a third regulatory mechanism by which we deal with natural health products in this country that is failing. Small businesses that produce and sell these natural health products are coming to the government on a constant basis, demanding some action to improve the process and reduce the backlog.

The government itself has suggested that there is a deadline of 2010 by which all consumer and natural health products must be through the process, receive their DIN number, and be licensed or else sent back for further research. As things now stand, there are something like 36,000 applications before the government and no sign of that diminishing. Never mind the backlog. With the number of applications that have come in on a daily basis, a significant number have not been dealt with and have been added to the backlog.

The problem is only getting worse. Many of the groups, including the Canadian Health Food Association, have called on the government to start to get a handle on this and live up to its promise to end the backlog and to say whether or not this 2010 deadline means anything. If the government is not anywhere close to meeting its obligations to deal with all products by that time, they would prefer that the deadline be changed.

They would prefer more cooperative work to be done between the natural health food industry, retailers, consumers and the government to ensure that proper regulatory measures are taken to approve products and not simply to deal with the backlog by getting rid of and denying applications, which seems to be the pattern.

The government seems to be saying that it is going to deal with the backlog and it is doing it by denying more applications than not. It thereby reduces the backlog in a most unfortunate way, without the science, evidence of effectiveness or the true test of whether or not any of these products are falsified or not accurate in terms of their description and identification.

That is a problem that emerged from these discussions. It must be dealt with and it must be dealt with before the government even begins to think about reintroducing Bill C-51, which had amendments to the Food and Drug Act. We know the uproar that happened last year and the year before about natural health products. We know that there were hundreds and thousands of letters, emails, meetings, faxes, individuals speaking up, rallies and demonstrations about the government's inappropriate approach with respect to natural health products.

The message for the government is to get its act together on this because it is only going to come back and be haunted if it does not. We have to find a way to treat natural health products as a separate category, not as a food, drug or consumer product, but as a unique product that is important for Canadians and contributes a great deal to the health and well-being of Canadians.

I have said enough on that. Let me now go to the question of a government that introduces legislation that says it is concerned about consumer products and safety and yet, at the same time, cuts back in its latest budget a heck of a lot of money that is supposed to ensure a national office for workplace hazardous materials information systems, otherwise known as WHMIS.

This is an important office, which ensures there is a centre in government, a focal point for assessing and providing information around health and safety in terms of materials that are dealt with in the workplace and ensuring that all workers are given the benefit of information about hazardous materials they work with, that there is active international right-to-know legislation before them, that there is a global classification system that includes all the previously identified dangerous chemicals, not leaving some out because of pressure from the industry.

This cutback amounts to about $2.6 million over two years. The Canadian Labour Congress and other national labour organizations have clearly indicated that this cutback will eliminate the national office. It will totally cut back the focal point within Health Canada to ensure that WHMIS has an active national office. It is a serious cutback and it flies in the face of all the government's talk about wanting the best possible legislation for ensuring consumer safety and protection for all Canadians, no matter where they work or what kinds of jobs they are doing for our economy.

I urge the government to reconsider that cutback and to sit down with some of the trade unions and labour movements and talk about what is needed to ensure workplace health and safety and to ensure that there is active right-to-know legislation and a regulatory process in this country. Otherwise, we will have done a great disservice to workers. We will have denied their right to work in safe conditions and ensure the risks they take are minimized as much as possible.

In response to a question I asked in the House, the government announced last week that it was finally going to eliminate all lead and phthalate products beyond certain trace levels from the market. We applaud that move, but that has come about 12 years after we started raising this issue.

In almost the first year that I was elected as a member of Parliament to this place, we started raising the question of phthalates. I remember holding press conferences with samples of baby toys, teething rings, rubber ducks, plastic knapsacks and umbrellas, which kids put in their mouths, that are made of phthalates and that were then demonstrated to be dangerous in terms of the health and well-being of babies and children.

Some 12 years later, we finally have a government that is acting. Good for it for finally doing so, but what the heck took so long? Why did it take so long with lead as well? I raise these issues because if that is the pattern, it does not bode well for the application of Bill C-6, the very legislation we are dealing with at this moment. It very much depends on the will of government, the intentions of politicians and the acceptance of scientific data.

The government continues to drag its feet and ignore the science, as it is doing right now with bisphenol A. It bans bisphenol A when it comes to baby bottles but not other products. A lot more must be done to ensure that substances are identified so that products can be banned if they are dangerous beyond a reasonable doubt, so that Canadians can live with the notion that everything on the market is safe beyond a reasonable doubt.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by recognizing the efforts of the member for Winnipeg North, who has done a very thorough job. She is very tenacious in her efforts to improve the lives of all Canadians.

She is correct in pointing out the shortcomings of this bill, one of which is the lack of labelling on products containing hazardous materials. It is obvious that we should be putting that in any type of bill. Can anyone imagine not having a labelling process that points out what hazardous materials are in products? It seems to me to be a basic starting point.

We will have to watch the government carefully to make sure it does not ignore the enforcement of its own legislation. I would like to ask the member whether she trusts the government to follow through on the aspects of this particular bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague, the member for Elmwood—Transcona, for his work on consumer products and advocacy for consumer rights.

In fact, we had numerous amendments proposed by many of the informed experts in this field, and we tried to advance those amendments through the legislative process.

I again want to thank members of those organizations for their diligence on this front. I think about Aaron Freeman of Environmental Defence, Lisa Gue with the David Suzuki Foundation, Rob Cunningham and Claire Checkland with Canadian Cancer Society, Anu Bose with Option consommateurs, Cynthia Callard with Physicians for a Smoke-Free Canada, Ondina Love with the Canadian Association of Speech-Language Pathologists, Ken Neumann with the United Steelworkers, Richard Kinar with the Brain Injury Association of Canada and many others who worked hard getting information to us and who proposed amendments.

We tried to convince the government to do some sort of labelling requirement in this bill, and it was rejected.

We tried to get substances within products listed so we are looking at this in terms of the chronic issues that emerge from dangerous substances, not just whole products like a poisonous bottle of whatever, but those substances within a product that could over a period of time hurt one's health and well-being and contaminate the environment.

The question of bisphenol A comes to mind. We can get rid of the number 7 plastics and the bisphenol A in terms of water bottles, but when they go into the garbage dumps and then break down and leach into the environment and back into our water system, we have a big problem.

We tried that. We did not get it.

All I can say is that the government knows it is going to have to move on right-to-know legislation, that it is going to have to move on full disclosure, that it is going to have to move on full labelling. We are going to count on the expert advisory committee to make those recommendations. We are going to monitor every one of the regulations, and we are going to ensure that the government lives up to this wish and concern on the part of all Canadians.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for her long-term efforts at protecting consumers. They are very much appreciated.

I have had the opportunity of working in the environmental field for some time, and part of that was with the Commission for Environmental Cooperation. One of the issues we were looking at was the ability of the enforcement officers in the field to actually detect problems, everything from the illegal trade in endangered species to the detection of hazardous products.

When I was the chief of enforcement, we faced a serious issue of importation into Canada of contaminated fuels. There are a lot of issues where we have hazardous substances we may not have presumed in products and that may not be easily regulated.

One of the things we did while we were at the commission is to run training programs for customs officials. Customs officials are overwhelmed with checking a myriad of laws at the federal level. Unfortunately, with the preoccupation with 9/11, I think we have probably backed off in giving attention to things like training and attention to the detection of contaminated products.

I wonder whether how we are actually going to enforce this act was looked at in committee. Where are we going to put our resources to actually prevent these contaminated substances from coming into the country?

I am glad the member raised the issue about disposal. Even with the preoccupation of these better light bulbs, people do not realize they are full of mercury and we have simply passed the problem of disposing them to the municipalities.

I thank the member for her comments, and I look forward to her reply.

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

Mr. Speaker, in fact enforcement provisions, inspection capabilities and surveillance were raised by the committee over and over again. We know that this bill, no matter how good it sounds on paper, is only as good as the active resources in the field monitoring and doing surveillance.

We were shocked that there is no real plan to ensure appropriate inspection staff or enforcement officers are in place. The government's budget allows for some increase in inspection officers, but only about 40 over the next 5 years. That is hardly commensurate with the general direction offered by this bill and the requirements of Bill C-6. It is based on the notion that we need to check things at the border, that we have to be able to do spot checks in manufacturing outlets in this country, that we have inspectors going into toy stores and other retail outlets. Yet, we do not have the capacity to do so.

This legislation could offer very little protection to Canadians, unless we can convince the government to add resources to it.

We tried very hard to get changes on a couple of issues, and we just could not. Before I get to that, let me say that with respect to workplace inspectors and surveillance, we had great presentations from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada. We also had important representations from the United Food and Commercial Workers, in particular, Larry Stoffman, who brought us information, as well as the steelworkers. We will continue to be vigilant on that front.

There are two other issues of importance. One is with respect to tobacco.

Although we have other legislation coming forward that deals with flavoured tobacco products, which is good, we could not convince the government to include an amendment in this bill to ensure that it is also listed as an area where consumer safety and health protection laws would apply.

Although the officials were very helpful on many fronts, and I appreciate their help on this bill with the amendments and their explanations, we could not convince them or the government to include tobacco as a precautionary measure, to ensure that it has the double protection of our tobacco laws and our consumer protection laws. Why they could not do that, I do not know.

Finally, with respect to noisy toys, I want to give the government credit. It is an issue of mine. I have a private member's bill to ensure that we lower the decibel levels of toys allowed on the market. It did not get accepted as part of this bill, but the officials and the government made a clear commitment that they will be bringing in regulations to bring our standards up to the highest level anywhere in the world, to ensure that children are protected from very noisy toys and that their hearing is not hurt because of unacceptable levels of noise and unsafe toys.

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.

[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 Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Order, order. I will have to stop the hon. member there, as his time has expired.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my question for the member has to do with the prohibitions.

Starting with clause 5, which deals with the prohibitions, it states:

No person shall manufacture, import, advertise or sell a consumer product listed in Schedule 2.

If we look at schedule 2, and this is my concern, schedule 2 includes a fairly specific list, such as glasses that contain cellulose nitrate, baby walkers with wheels, et cetera. There are 14 items, the last one being lawn darts with elongated tips. This seems like a very small list relative to the range of consumer products out there.

Clause 6 then goes on to state:

No person shall manufacture, import, advertise or sell a consumer product that does not meet the requirements set out in the regulations.

This is the problem. I am concerned about the way we craft these things. We have schedule 2, which purports to be a comprehensive list of the key items or types of items, but then there is this catch-all, the regulations, which parliamentarians in either House will not see until after the bill has passed all stages in both Houses and received royal assent.

This causes me some concern. On occasion we have required that the regulations proposed by order in council, by the government, must go through committee for comment prior to being promulgated. I wonder if the member would agree that because of the importance of this legislation in terms of consumer protection that Parliament should be engaged in ensuring that the regulations are appropriate?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct in his assessment. Not only will we not see the regulations, but we may not see the enforcement of the act by the government.

We have some concerns that there may not be enough money being put aside for the enforcement of the act. There may not be enough inspectors being hired. My colleague, the critic, pointed that out in her speech yesterday.

We have to see this as a work in progress. It is something that we will take as far as we can right now. We are a minority government. We can only go as far as the components here will allow. Unless the three opposition parties want to get together and make tougher amendments and so on, we will be stuck with what we have right now.

That is no reason that we cannot look forward to working with members in this Parliament who want to develop stronger legislation in the future. I see this as an overall movement, a sort of war, which takes many years. We are not going to solve all these problems overnight, but we have to keep focused. We have to keep working forward to accomplish the things that the member, and I, and other people in this Chamber want to accomplish in the whole area of consumer protection.

It is not just dealing with consumer products. There are also some other areas. On the whole issue with the air passenger bill of rights, we can take that concept and take that further, if we like, to other areas of the economy as well.

[Chris Charlton, NDP, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I know it is really tough in the 20 minutes we have in the House to address an issue such as consumer protection in a comprehensive way.

I want to focus on a particular part of the legislation. For me one of the biggest concerns is the fact that 65% of the consumer goods sold in Canada are imported. We know from experience last year that we had to recall 90 products. This year we already have recalled 37 of them. While I think the act as a whole makes some significant progress with respect to protecting Canadian consumers, it does fall short in this aspect.

The way the act is written right now there really is no front-end approval of products coming into Canada. There is an opportunity to do a risk assessment when we suspect there is a high degree of non-compliance, but as a whole the government will only act once a product has been found to have harmed a Canadian, an after the fact process.

Could the member comment on whether he thinks the provisions of this act are strong enough with respect to the protection of consumer goods that are imported right now and can we beef up those sections? I think he will know from his constituents that the United Steelworkers, for example, have a very aggressive campaign, particularly with respect to lead in toys.

Could I have some feedback from him about how we might strengthen that part of the legislation, if not right now, then perhaps in subsequent legislation?

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

Mr. Speaker, the member has made some valid points. Another disappointment in the legislation is the fact that we had hoped to have labelling provided to disclose hazardous elements in consumer products. That has not been done with this legislation. The government promises to keep an eye open on this and look to the future to work out a system. This is on the basis that labelling would be too expensive.

We also are concerned about the whole issue of counterfeit products. That is a huge area of abuse. The black market and the whole area of counterfeit products has not been dealt with in the legislation at all.

As I said before, we are in a minority Parliament and we can deal with only what we have in front of us. Our critic and our party did as good a job as they could under the circumstances, although I would have liked to have seen a lot more done with the bill. I am prepared to support the bill and move on to look to a future where we can make amendments next year or come up with a new approach and deal with those issues that have been left out of the process up to this point.

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

Mr. Speaker, most often there are several chemicals found in toys. Whether it is lead, phthalates, cadmium, these do tremendous damage to children and pregnant women. Could the member talk about how the bill will impact on the toy industry as it relates to imports, especially the 65% of the imports? Many of these toys and products connected to children have these chemicals in them, which are very dangerous.

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

Mr. Speaker, at the end of day, we have seen a bit of a shock rippling through the industry with regard to the whole issue of toys. The well-known manufacturers of North American toy brand names, which were manufactured domestically, have now taken their manufacturing offshore. I think they were stunned and shocked by what hit them. The loss of business, income and profits have probably smartened them up a little to the point now where before they bring products in under their brand names, they will send inspectors out to the plants to do first-hand inspections to ensure that no bad chemicals are put into toy products, at least I would like to think that is the case.

That would deal with the whole issue of the name brand products, but we have a lot of non-name brand products, where unscrupulous and low cost sellers will produce these products and sell them to regular stores. This will be an ongoing problem. We want the government to test these products and label them so people know nothing hazardous is in the product.

[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.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

That is not true.

[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.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is no doubt aware that the government was actually opposed to a comprehensive system of labelling consumer products containing hazardous materials. It seems to be a no-brainer that if products contain hazardous materials, there should be a label indicating that. The government, nevertheless, said no, that it would be too expensive and cumbersome to try to implement it. There was no consensus developed for an alternative.

Does the member agree that labelling is a very important area which the government did not deal with?

Another area that was left out was counterfeit products. That is a huge area that was not dealt with. Yet another one was cigarettes. The Canadian Cancer Society made presentations, but cigarettes were left out.

Does the member think that the bill is as good as it should be given that the government has left out three very important product areas?

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

Mr. Speaker, the European Union, California and Vermont mandate that there be labelling telling consumers what products are hazardous. There is absolutely no reason for Canadian products not to be labelled. It is unfortunate that in this round, corporations came first before the health of children and ordinary Canadians.

Yes, we are supporting the bill, but it is incomplete. It is not perfect. Aside from labelling, counterfeit products absolutely should have been dealt with. Cigarettes should have been dealt with as well. That element is missing. Those three areas and the whole area of labelling cause a great deal of concern.

There are carcinogens and neurotoxic substances in some of the chemicals in consumer products. When parents are buying toys, they have the right to know. Unfortunately, this part is not in the bill. I would hope that in a future bill this element would be added because consumers deserve to know what kinds of chemicals they are dealing with in their households.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the member a question following on the question asked by my hon. colleague from the Liberal Party. He said that we will not see the regulations on this bill for some time. Of course, the regulations are a very important part of the bill. I want to add that we may not see the enforcement.

The NDP critic for this area, the member for Winnipeg North, pointed out yesterday that the government is not planning to resource the enforcement of this bill to the levels that it should. Not much money is being put toward enforcement and it is a huge area to enforce.

It is great to have legislation, but if the government does not follow through with proper enforcement and fund proper enforcement procedures, the legislation is going to be nothing more than window dressing at the end of the day.

I would ask the member if she would like to comment on those observations.

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

Mr. Speaker, there has to be transparency so that consumers know what is in products. They are not labelled, which is the problem. If consumers do not know what is in front of them, it is hard for them to report. This is why it is important for the government to do the kind of enforcement that is necessary. The government needs to make sure the regulations and the law are being followed.

The government talks about being soft on crime. We do not want to see the government being soft on corporate crime, soft on crimes that are committed on our children when they put things in their mouths that contain lead, for example. The sum of $113 million over two years is not--

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Thunder Bay--Rainy River.

[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.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I think we will conduct the questions and comments portion after question period. We will move on to statements by members.

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.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Before question period started, the hon. member for Thunder Bay—Rainy River had just concluded his remarks. So, if there are any questions and comments, we will do those now.

The hon. member for Elmwood—Transcona.

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the member for making a very well-informed speech today regarding this bill. He dealt with some of the amendments that were not included in the bill that I personally feel we really should have made an extra effort to get included; one being the area of labelling. I think it is only reasonable for Canadians to expect that products with hazardous materials should be labelled as such. That is certainly one big area that the government has avoided by leaving it out of this bill.

Another big area that is not being dealt with here is counterfeit products. And another big area of course is tobacco. The Canadian Cancer Society made a presentation to the committee on the whole area of tobacco and the issue as to whether or not it should be excluded. It, of course, does not want it excluded from this bill. It seems to me that this is certainly a product that should be included on anybody's list of bad products.

I would like to know what the member thinks of the exclusions and the contribution these amendments could have made to the overall success of the bill had they been accepted by the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, it would have been nice to have those amendments in there, absolutely. I think the member is correct in saying that they were not considered perhaps carefully enough, particularly the tobacco-related ones.

He began his question by talking about labelling. I have always found it humorous when I see a label on a children's toy that says “100% unknown fibres”. That does not seem to make a whole lot of sense to me.

However, there are things that we can still fix. Part of our job here in this House is to ensure that we can come forward with the best bill possible. As we strive for that, we will be looking at this again, probably some years down the road, to make improvements once it has been in place for a while.

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

Mr. Speaker, one of the big concerns that we had in the NDP caucus regarding the bill was the enforcement of the bill. We see that as being not really adequate. Because of the immensity and the enormity of the job, we are not going to be able to hire the number of people that we should to enforce this act.

In addition, one of the Liberal members mentioned this morning that we will not see the regulations, which are going to be a very important part of this process, for some time to come.

So, when we look at a combination of the regulation and the regulation development, and the whole issue of enforcement and the fact that we are talking about a government that really has never been very strong on consumer issues, we have to be concerned and very vigilant regarding this legislation and this government, in terms of the future.

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

Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely right. Enforcement has always been a problem. I have always thought that there is no sense having a law or a regulation if it is not going to be enforced. This bill, as it comes back, is lacking somewhat in that regard. However, I believe that if there is a government will to ensure that consumer products remain safe for everyone, in particular for children, the government will do the right thing and ensure that there are enough people to police them.

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

Mr. Speaker, on enforcement, the first offence would be a fine of not more than $250,000 or an imprisonment term of no more than six months; the second one could be a fine of more than $5 million or imprisonment of not more than two years. These kinds of fines are good. However, without--

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I am going to stop the hon. member there.

The hon. member for Thunder Bay--Rainy River has 15 seconds to respond.

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

Mr. Speaker, more than half of the goods that we import into this country are from offshore, and that certainly is a serious problem in that we need to ensure there are enough people enforcing the rules and the laws of this land.

[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 Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Deputy Speaker, Andrew Scheer]

I declare the motion carried.

(Bill read the third time and passed)