CANADA House of Commons Debates VOLUME 144 Ï NUMBER 074 Ï 2nd SESSION Ï 40th PARLIAMENT OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD) Friday, June 12, 2009 Speaker: The Honourable Peter Milliken CONTENTS (Table of Contents appears at back of this issue.) Also available on the Parliament of Canada Web Site at the following address: http://www.parl.gc.ca 4539 HOUSE OF COMMONS Friday, June 12, 2009 The House met at 10 a.m. 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 Prayers consumer products. GOVERNMENT ORDERS Let us look back to the period of 1969 when the original legislation was brought in. This was at a time when consumer Ï (1005) products and so on were coming on the market in large numbers. [English] CANADA CONSUMER PRODUCT SAFETY ACT Ralph Nader was essentially the father of consumer protection in North America. Most of us were around in the 1960s. Some here The House resumed from June 10 consideration of the motion probably were not, but most of us were. Most of us actually grew up that Bill C-6, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products, be with Ralph Nader and we know that he challenged the North read the third time and passed. American auto industry on the basis that consumer products, when Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood—Transcona, NDP): Mr. Speaker, they are produced and sold to the public, should be as safe as I am pleased to speak to Bill C-6 this morning, An Act respecting the possible, and that the onus should be on the company producing the safety of consumer products. I think this is a very important bill. product to be liable if its product is defective. 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 Our thinking in Canada has always been the opposite, that we can make this chamber work and I think that bodes well. If the somehow it is the purchaser and end user's responsibility and fault if parties continue to cooperate a little more than they have in the past, something goes wrong with a product. Over the years, through we can get some good legislation out of this minority Parliament and people like Ralph Nader driving this envelope, we have seen perhaps extend the minority Parliament for some time into the future. consumer protection rise greatly. The man has done a terrific service for all consumers in North America by his actions. 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 We remember the Ford Pintos. I believe he called them rolling lot of very good pieces of legislation. Molotov cocktails. These were cars built in the sixties that had gas As a matter of fact, I am a very big fan of minority governments. tank problems and were subject to catching on fire in accidents. When we look back to 1972-74, that was a very productive period in There was a statistically large number of these. Any time something our politics, and as well when Mike Pearson was the Prime Minister like this happened, the car companies blamed the driver. It was never in the sixties. We had several minority Parliaments and they worked the car company's responsibility; it was always the driver's very well too. That is when we got the flag. We had a number of responsibility. Ralph Nader collected statistics to show that these issues that were resolved in a very good way. accidents were happening in large numbers and only with that particular type of car, the Ford Pinto. 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 He took action against the companies and was able to get the Manitoba Legislature March 18, 1986. I have had a lot of compensation for many Americans. He later went on to deal with the experience watching her over the years in various capacities, and she rusty Ford issue and a number of other different areas. When he did takes a very aggressive and very thorough approach to her duties. get settlements for people, at the end of the day, the settlements were When she makes a recommendation, we know that it is well- always done on the basis that the settlement had to be private researched, well thought out and there is really nothing given to because the car company would always want to keep it out of the chance. public view. 4540 COMMONS DEBATES June 12, 2009 Government Orders The reality is that the public view of how dangerous these source is so far away and the competition is so extremely fierce, for consumers products were was enhanced by Ralph Nader's actions. quick solutions and shortcuts becoming the order of the day. However, that was only the tip of the iceberg. When people did have problems and took action against the car companies, in this case, That is what has happened. Children's toys have been manufac- there was always a settlement, but the people receiving the tured inappropriately, and we are paying the price. We have to deal settlement had to sign a release that they would not talk about it. with this essentially because of multinational corporations and their The public is literally totally unaware that there were probably free trade deals that have led to a race to the bottom for the lowest hundreds of thousands of settlements made that people could not talk possible cost of production. We see that as a positive thing in society, about by virtue of the fact that they had signed confidentiality but we do not tend to look at the negatives. The long-term liabilities agreements in order to get their settlement. and responsibilities come back to bite us at the end of the day. That is the beginning of how and why legislation such as this was For example, 90 consumer products were recalled last year, and developed. In the 1950s there were not a lot of consumer products to there were 37 more in this year already. Many of these products were begin with. In those days, people never thought that their children not made in Canada; China was identified as the frequent country of were going to be poisoned by toys. It was something that was never origin. The original act, as has been pointed out, has not been even contemplated. In those days, people were not dealing with effective in identifying or removing these dangerous products, consumer products like cellphones, which some people feel are leaving Canadians dependent on product alerts and recalls by the linked to brain cancer. I do not know if there is a link or not, but it is U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission instead of Health certainly being studied. Canada. 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 We see the same thing in the financial services area. Legislation was cancerous. He evidently spends a lot of time on a cellphone. The and enforcement in the United States are tougher. There are almost family is certainly questioning as to whether or not there is a no convictions in Canada under securities violations, for example, connection. Over time, I think that we will have to do studies to with the Ontario Securities Commission, whereas there are a couple show whether or not cancers are in any way connected to cellphone of thousand in the United States. I have mentioned before that use. Conrad Black committed his white-collar crimes in Canada, and he was not touched by any Canadian authorities at all. It was under However, these were issues that we never had to deal with in the American laws that he was picked up; it was the American system 1960s because we did not have products like this. In the 1960s the that cornered him, eventually convicted him and put him where he wiring in houses was probably 60 amp and one was lucky to have a belongs and where he is now, in jail, at least for the next few months. 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 Clearly, Canada is not in a very strong position relative to other room in a house, I am sure we all agree that the whole room lights up countries. This bill will help deal with that to a certain extent. at night. There are all kinds of consumer items plugged into the wall. However, once again we have left out some very important areas that should have been dealt with. People have suggested that these products are generating electromagnetic radiation and they provide concerns in some cases. One of the areas that was left out, and it is certainly an issue that is I know that we have had some studies done on people who live near and dear to me, is the issue of smoking.