Evidence of meeting #32 for Health in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was c-36.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
Nicolas Dufour Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
The only recommendation I can make to the Liberal Party is that it recommend that its senators not obstruct the process and, as the witnesses said, that it ensure that the bill is passed as soon as possible. I know I'm stubborn and that I often harp on this. We've been talking about it for four years now. I believe the time has come to stop talking and to take action.
Consequently, Madam Chair, I have no questions. Thank you very much.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I do have a couple of questions. Can I take his time too?
12:25 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
All right. I thought that would be great; I'd have 14 minutes.
Anyway, Monsieur Arnold, you spoke about your involvement with the voluntary recall at Mattel. Maybe you could speak to any deficiencies that you would see in the current regulatory framework that were exposed by your involvement in the process.
12:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
Voluntary recalls are enormously complex. Consumers can't figure them out. We tried returning toys to various businesses and policies varied from one business to another: the toy had to be returned with the packaging or without the packaging; you had to have the invoice. Since this is a safety recall, you don't need proof that you purchased the item. All these kinds of things make consumers lose trust in the recall system because the rules aren't clearly established and aren't even the same for all merchants. That's really what we observed in 2007, when we worked on the Mattel recall, because that involved not only manufacturers, but also a number of merchants that also had to apply the recall.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Unfortunately, our country has been referred to as a dumping ground for unsafe consumer products. From your experience, would you say that this is correct, and in your opinion, do you believe that Bill C-36 will eliminate that?
12:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
Dr. Bose may perhaps be able to supplement what I'll tell you first of all. The danger of becoming what you so rightly call a dumping country is great because our neighbours have passed harsher statutes and regulations than ours. I hope the possibility of using monetary penalties under Bill C-36 will discourage delinquent companies. So I believe we have tools here that will prevent us from being exposed to this danger of becoming a dumping country.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Ms. Bose?
I'm sorry. Who else would like to make a comment? Okay, go ahead.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
One of the things I spoke to when the minister was here was regarding the important stakeholders in relation to consumer product safety, which all of you are. I'll direct this to you, sir, first: what do you see needing to happen to ensure that there's open dialogue, there's communication with stakeholders once this bill becomes law, because that will truly be an important piece?
12:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
What we think is really very important is creating the obligation to report products, to report what the products contain. Of course, it's important to establish inspection measures to ensure that manufacturers and merchants do exactly what they tell us they have done or have marketed in Canada. For us, it's very important to provide everyone with information, not just manufacturers and merchants, but also consumers. It's important that that information come from a single source so that the same information is disclosed to everyone.
12:30 p.m.
Head, Ottawa Office, Option consommateurs
Yes. I think it would be useful for the minister, and I think she will take a sectoral approach, to have a management advisory committee consisting of consumer groups, health and safety groups, standards people, and manufacturers to advise her on how to better proceed. We should get every kind of expertise that we can into the dialogue.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Glenn Thibeault NDP Sudbury, ON
Perfect.
Mr. Simonds, first of all, thank you for your service to the community and the great things that you do as a firefighter.
To be perfectly honest, I was kind of shocked to see a firefighter here, because it makes you wonder. What would the fire department's concern be with making sure that consumer products are safe? So I'll open that up to you and maybe you can help us with that.
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs
Most certainly.
What I would offer is that one of the responsibilities of fire services across the country is to determine the cause and origin of fires, and we also respond to medical first-responder calls and so forth. From that perspective, first of all, we provide that boots-on-the-ground analysis in terms of what's causing fires and whether there is some commonality we're observing in the field.
Now, we have challenges with respect to collating that data so that we can have national statistics, but we know, from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, that we have observations that come forth with respect to what the causes of fires happen to be. In that regard, we work with the fire marshals and fire commissioners in our respective provinces to try to alert our constituents so that they understand that there is an impending harm or a concern. That, from an operational perspective, is a given.
Second, the Canadian fire service is very significantly involved in emergency medical first-responder response. As a result of that, when we are responding along with our colleagues from EMS, we have occasion to bear witness to some of the injuries and the health implications for our citizens, because we are responding as first responders. So we have that information that is very evident to us as a result of our presence during those emergency responses.
I certainly understand your observations in terms of how the Canadian fire service fits into this equation, but we absolutely provide that value-added commentary to your discussions. As stewards of public safety, we believe that we're well positioned to speak to this issue.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Joy Smith
Thank you, Mr. Simonds. Those are very insightful comments.
We'll go to Dr. Carrie.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Before we get started, during the minister's remarks on mandatory reporting, committee members may have had the impression that consumers would be required to report incidents. She asked me to clarify for the record that industry would be subject to the requirements, not consumers. I'll put that on the record.
I want to thank all the witnesses for being here today. I'd like to get started with Mr. Simonds.
I actually had a meeting in Oshawa with local builders, and I'm not surprised that you're here. They told me about some of the challenges. You know, we have that CSA stamp of approval, but they are extremely concerned about counterfeits. I was going to ask you to what extent counterfeit labelling of consumer products, such as electrical cords and things like that, is a problem? Are you able to tell us how fires might be attributed to faulty, counterfeit, or uncertified consumer products?
October 21st, 2010 / 12:35 p.m.
President, Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs
Certainly. Thank you for your question. It's an excellent one.
First of all, as I indicated previously, one of our responsibilities is to determine the cause and origin of fires in the majority of jurisdictions across the country. By doing our analysis, quite often we're finding that the cause or the origin happens to be a particular electrical appliance or electrical cord and so forth.
One of the challenges we are having, however, is trying to quantitatively determine how significant that problem is across the country. If I can hearken back to a few years ago, we learned that there was a fluorescent bulb that was manufactured that was supposedly meeting standards, but there were elements of that manufacturer that were non-compliant. What happened was that the time horizon, from the time we started to make observations in the field to the time the general public was alerted, was a very long, extended one.
We would offer that we would see that the introduction of this bill would absolutely shorten the timelines. We'd be able to have a more robust system for alerting our citizens and having information go to the powers that be in a much more timely fashion.
12:35 p.m.
Conservative
Colin Carrie Conservative Oshawa, ON
Excellent. Thank you very much.
My next question is for Options consommateurs. We've heard about an issue in regard to personal information, and I think everyone around this table takes that extremely seriously. Why, in your view, is it necessary for Health Canada to have authorities share information with its partners? Why is being able to do that important?
12:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Option consommateurs
In fact, as I said earlier, it's important that the information come from a single source and that it be shared so that it's the same for everyone, hence the importance of having this power. The Privacy Commission itself said that the bill did not raise any privacy issues.
As a consumer association, we also heard from certain individuals who had reservations concerning privacy in relation to this bill. In that connection, nothing will be done without a mandate regarding the privacy of merchants, of the people who have small businesses and so on. So we can be assured that privacy will be protected.