Mr. Speaker, as the health critic for the Bloc Québécois, I am very interested in this bill on consumer product safety. The act has not been revised since 1969. The Bloc has been asking the government for a bill to clean up the old legislation, which is no longer adequate for today’s needs. There were gaps that needed to be filled and requirements that needed tightening and we needed to ban the manufacture, promotion and marketing of products that are a health hazard and sometimes even fatal to people who come into contact with them. There is currently no requirement for manufacturers to test their products. With this bill, the onus will be on them to prove that their products are safe.
The Bloc Québécois has repeatedly raised the issue of consumer safety over the last few years. Canadian standards cannot be different from those in other countries, for example, when unusual amounts of lead are found in certain products. There is good reason, therefore, to wonder about the effectiveness of the current legislation. Many products have been recalled over the last few months. There was the toothpaste from South Africa containing substances that were a danger to human health and the Fisher-Price products containing materials that were dangerous and toxic to children. Mattel, the American toy manufacturer, also recalled several million toys made in China in this case. There was too much lead in some toys that many children have, such as Barbie dolls or GeoTrax toys. Fortunately, all these products have been recalled because they were dangerous to children.
The Auditor General looked into this back in 2006. She pointed out all the problems with Health Canada and its ability to control dangerous products. She said that the managers of the product safety program were unable to fulfil their mandate because they lacked the tools. They did not have enough human resources. The resources they had were not used very well and the legislation was not very effective at protecting Canadians. The government has known about all this ever since 2006.
The bill is certainly a step in the right direction, but as my colleague, the Liberal health critic, said, we still do not know anything about the regulations. It is the regulations that will show how the bill will be fleshed out and implemented.
There are five measures in the bill to reverse the burden of proof when it comes to safety. The first concerns consumer product safety. The second extends the powers of the inspectors. The third gives the minister a new power to recall products. Fourth, the penalties will be quite onerous, and fifth, products will have to be traceable.
Let us take a look at what the first measure about burden of proof means. Currently, no constraints are imposed on manufacturers. They do not have to prove that their products are not dangerous and do not pose a threat to consumer safety. Bill C-52 would reverse the burden of proof and impose it on manufacturers. Even today, Health Canada itself must conduct tests to prove that a product is dangerous and poses a threat to consumer safety. Bill C-52 proposes forcing manufacturers and importers of consumer products to test the safety of their products regularly, and, most importantly, to disclose the test results. The bill would also require businesses to declare all measures taken or illnesses caused because of their products. This puts the onus on manufacturers and importers, because it forces them to prove that their products are safe, which is what the Bloc Québécois has been calling for since last September.
The second measure has to do with increasing inspectors' powers. As the Auditor General stated in a report, in order to ensure that this bill is implemented and effective, inspectors on the ground will have more powers when Bill C-52 comes into force.
For that to happen, consumer products will have to be subject to recall, relabelling or a licensing amendment. These inspectors will be the means to enforce this bill's most important provisions. As we will see later on, we are concerned about adding to duties and responsibilities, and we have a lot of questions about this.
The third measure is the minister's new recall power. Until now, health authorities did not have the power to recall consumer products found to be dangerous. Recalls were issued on a voluntary basis by manufacturers and importers themselves. Bill C-52 would give the minister the power to recall any products that are defective or endanger consumer safety. It is high time Health Canada took this kind of action. We will have to see whether the minister's discretionary power turns out to be effective or not. For the time being, we do not know how that power will be managed.
The fourth measure is intended to provide for real, deterrent penalties. Manufacturers could have be fined $5,000. For a manufacturer that imports or sells a lot of products, that figure was laughable and trivial. Now, the offence could lead to a fine up to $5 million, and the offender could be liable to imprisonment for two years.
Deterrents in the United States and the European Union are said to be much tougher. In the European Union, fines can be as high as 5% of the company’s annual revenue. The United States imposes fines that go as high as several million dollars. It is therefore plain that this will be one measure that could be effective in dealing with a company that failed to comply with hazardous products regulations and standards.
On the question of products being traceable, it is important to know where the product was made and the route it travelled before it arrived here. There will have to be safety reports regarding all supply sources and all components of a particular product. This system has all the features of a traceability system. We shall see what happens when the regulations are made. For the moment, we cannot see how this entire traceability process will be regulated.
This measure seems to us to be fine for now. However, the bill will be studied in committee where we can ask questions and hear from the industry and from organizations that work to ensure the quality and safety of the products that consumers buy.
The alarm was sounded by the Auditor General in 2006: there were not enough inspectors to enforce all of the regulations. There were 40 inspectors in Canada, 10 of whom were in Quebec. That is a very small number for this very big job. Because this bill will expand their responsibilities, the Minister is not yet in a position to tell us how many inspectors he will need, to ensure that the task to be assigned to them by this bill can be properly carried out. He is therefore not in a position to tell us what kind of support they will be given, how their responsibilities will be increased or the human resources that will be required to meet this need.
This was one of the criticisms levelled by the Auditor General in respect of all of the responsibilities assigned to officials.
It is therefore important that resources be increased, and that proper training be provided for these officials, who will see their duties grow. We are well aware that training was not adequate. For example, some of them did not even have training to do food inspection in agriculture. These were people who worked in plants, but who had no specific training to do the job right when it came to the quality of certain foods.
Will there be sufficient funds? Here again, no one has an answer. There was $113 million allocated for enforcing the law in the next two years, for new proceedings, but not for hiring and training new inspectors. So we have a lot of questions to ask the Minister and his officials when this bill is discussed in committee.
As I said, the bill appears worthwhile at this stage, in terms of the broad principles and the desire to have safer products. The public has been very concerned for some time now about the high number of recalls and about products that have affected public health.
We need to act quickly, but is the government prepared to make regulations to tell us how this legislation is going to operate? Will there be adequate funding? The Minister could not give us a satisfactory answer today. We hope that in committee someone will be able to tell us how this money will be allocated. Will it be allocated to training? How much money will be allocated, given the number of inspectors?
There are also two new structures. How much will they cost? Do we not expect most of the money to be allocated to them? We hope it will not be allocated solely to administration, and that it will also be spent to provide proper support for the officers who will be responsible for overseeing the food safety evaluation process.
We know that the government has been making mistakes for two years.