Mr. Speaker, as the member says, I am looking forward to the bill going to committee.
The health and safety of Canadians is very important for our government. The proposed Canada consumer product safety act would modernize and strengthen Canada's product safety legislation and would provide new ways to quickly and effectively protect the health and safety of Canadians. By modernizing our consumer product safety law, we are seeking to better protect the public by addressing or preventing dangers to human health or safety posed by consumer products.
In most cases, companies co-operate with the government and take voluntary action quickly to pull unsafe products from the shelves. However, there are exceptions when this does not happen. By collaborating with manufacturers, suppliers and retailers and backed by strong legislation, we will help improve the safety of consumer products in Canada.
As part of active prevention, the proposed act would institute a general prohibition against the manufacture, importation, advertisement or sale of consumer products that pose an unreasonable danger to human health or safety and packaging or labels on products which are false, misleading or deceptive as they relate to health and safety would be prohibited under the proposed legislation.
As part of improved targeted oversight, compliance and enforcement would be strengthened through maximum fines of up to $5 million for some offences. This change would put us in step with our major trading partners.
In the U.S. and EU, for example—