Quote:Business raids
Zeb Landon, Financial Post
Thursday, Nov. 18, 2010

The Consumer Product Safety Act (Bill C-36) is a new law disgracefully passed with hardly a word in the House of Commons, and now it is before Canada's Senate. The government seems to have made a deal with the NDP, Liberals and Bloc to keep this issue dumbed down and out of the spotlight.

No controversy in Parliament means passing this law gets no attention in the media. Will the Senate be silent, too? How many Canadians know that Health Canada will now be allowed to trespass on business premises and seize product without a judge's warrant? And that being charged under the new law means you are guilty until proven innocent? Why is the government removing accountability from Health Canada bureaucrats?

With no court or judge keeping an eye on Health Canada, it is only a matter of time before it raids an innocent business that will not be able to defend itself, since Health Canada is prosecutor, judge and jury. Goodbye to a life's work building up a business, and the lost investment. Too bad also for the employees to be laid off.

Many Canadians are also alarmed by a part of this bill that enables the governments of Canada's trading partners to impose basically foreign regulations onto Canadian businesses. Under the new law, Health Canada will be mandated to adopt any regulatory changes that trading partners may be pressing for, without debate or vote from our parliament.

While one could agree there are instances where Canadians' health and safety need protection by a law, why not simply update the Hazardous Products Act? In contrast, the new law removes our normal protection of individuals and businesses through a court of law, undermining our constitutional rights and pushing us centuries backwards.

Zeb Landon, Simcoe, Ont.

Quote:A Canadian View of Bill C-36





One man's view of the dangers of Bill C-36 before the Senate of Canada

Quote:** NO WITNESSES ARE SCHEDULED TO SPEAK ON BEHALF OF THE PEOPLE **

November 24th Health Canada is scheduled to champion their own work.

November 25th no one has been invited, as of this posting, to speak for the tens of thousands of Canadians who have been working tirelessly to communicate with government to draw attention to the dangers of the legislation.

Quote:RE: Bill C-36 an act respecting consumer product safety in committee already!
FROM: Delaney, Mike / Office of Senator Day

On behalf of Senator Day, let me assure you that he shares your concerns regarding Bill C-36, and the process under which it was studied.

On Wednesday November 24th, Senator Day attempted to pass two motions at the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, which was tasked with the study of this bill. The first was to have Shawn Buckley appear as a witness; the second was to extend the committee hearings so as to further reflect on recent testimony, which the committee heard last week on Bill C-36. Both of these motions were voted down by the Conservative members on the committee.

Rest assured that Senator Day will do all he can to ensure that Bill C-36 is not passed in this seemingly haphazard manner. He strongly believes that the committee should give proper consideration to the bill, which entails hearings from all Canadians who wish to express their views on this bill. Your continued support in this endeavour would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Mike Delaney

Administrative Assistant, Office of Senator Joseph A. Day
Room 801, Victoria Building
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0A4
(613) 992 – 0833 office
(613) 992 – 1175 fax

Quote:Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Bill C-36, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products.

Appearing
(4:30 pm-5:30 pm)

The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, P.C., M.P, Minister of Health

Witness(es)
(4:15 pm-6:15 pm)
Health Canada
Paul Glover, Assistant Deputy Minister, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch
Athana Mentzelopoulos, Director General, Consumer Product Safety Directorate
Diane Labelle, General Counsel, Legal Services
Robert Ianiro, Director, Consumer Product Safety Bureau

Quote:Wednesday, November 25, 2010
Bill C-36, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products.
*
Witness(es)
(10:30 am)
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner
Patricia Kosseim, General Counsel, Policy and Parliamentary Affairs Branch
Melanie Millar-Chapman, Manager, Strategic Research
(11:15 am)
As an individual
Cyndee Todgham Cherniak*, Counsel, Lang Michener LLP
Safe Kids Canada
Pamela Fuselli, Executive Director
Option Consommateurs
Anu Bose, Ottawa Office Head
Michael Janigan, Legal Counsel
Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters
Carol Osmond, Vice President Policy

Quote:Canada Consumer Product Safety Bill

Second Reading

On the Order:

Resuming debate on the motion of the Honourable Senator Martin, seconded by the Honourable Senator Braley, for the second reading of Bill C-36, An Act respecting the safety of consumer products.

Hon. Joseph A. Day: Honourable senators, it has taken a long time for Bill C-36 to reach second reading.

Several bills to update the legislation governing consumer product safety have been introduced. Unfortunately, however, they all died on the Order Paper when Parliament was repeatedly prorogued.

The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology carried out a serious study of one of those bills and some amendments were adopted at committee. Honourable senators, I would like to point out that, despite the inflammatory remarks that the minister herself unfortunately made regarding those amendments, I believe that the situation has finally improved somewhat.

As I will explain in greater detail, the government proposed a few amendments that have been incorporated into the bill that is currently before us. Honourable senators, there can be no doubt that the bill has been improved considerably thanks to the Senate's contributions.

[English]

Honourable senators, in joining the debate with respect to Bill C-36, I would like first to congratulate Senator Martin on her sponsorship of this particular bill, a sister of Bill C-6 which Senator Martin, as one of her very first obligations in this chamber, sponsored. I can recall having gone to committee where a good number of the senators on the committee that studied Bill C-6, the precursor of this bill, were also performing a function that they had not previously had occasion to do.

Honourable senators, it is important to set the stage for what we are talking about here in Bill C-36. I will go through some of the history in a moment, but in broad terms we are talking about a piece of legislation to protect the public against defective consumer products — toys, for example, bicycles, other consumer products that, if not manufactured properly or even if manufactured properly but that happen to have a defect, could cause very serious harm or death to consumers.

That legislation federally is based on the criminal law jurisdiction of the federal government, but the criminal law jurisdiction that we are familiar with and we take comfort in as having one of the best systems in the world with respect to criminal law process and procedure is felt to be too cumbersome to deal with this type of consumer product protection. Therefore, the government is asking for an alternative administrative type process. In order to define that administrative process, it is necessary to outline in detail all of the steps that will happen and will be followed — who will do the inspections, what will happen if there is a suspected problem, what type of fine or penalty process is in place, and how will these things be rectified. All of that is outlined in this legislation because it is not in existence now. We are moving from criminal law jurisdiction and criminal procedure, which is in existence, to an administrative procedure.

Honourable senators, when we look at what the government is asking in terms of giving more powers to the government, our role is to balance that against individual rights and freedoms. That, in essence, is what this legislation is about. Is the government going too far in the power that it is asking for to protect the public? Is it going too far such that it is unnecessarily taking away individual rights and freedoms?

Honourable senators, that should be the theme of our review of this legislation. That was the theme of our review previously in the last legislation, and we looked at warrants, private and public information, and confidential corporate information being made available to the public. We are saying that the very backbone of what employs men and women are our small- and medium-sized businesses, and the backbone of their businesses is that confidential private information. Therefore, we cannot just give the power to someone called "an inspector" to release that information without some checks, and that is what we looked at in the last legislation.

Honourable senators, some of the concerns that we had — and I will not go through them all at second reading — were accepted by the government, but it took a long tedious time and role to get there because the role that we have to play here in the Senate, with all due respect, was not the role that was followed and not the role that we saw reflected in the way the amendments were presented and the amendments were defeated. The minister spoke out strongly in inflammatory language, quite frankly, about the Senate playing any role to try to make this legislation better.

(1440)

However, because of the way things have happened, we have another chance. If things had not happened in this particular manner, we would not have this chance to make it even better.

Perhaps I should go over a little bit of the history of this bill so I am not alluding to something that, even though most of us are aware of, is important to put on the record.

Senator Martin spoke at length about a number of provisions of the bill, and she alluded to its long history, in particular the close familiarity a number of us have with the provisions. That is correct. I think it is important, honourable senators, that we all have this history in context, so I will take a few minutes to set out for the record a little bit of what happened and how we arrived where we are today with respect to this legislation, Bill C-36.

The principle of the bill, to update and strengthen consumer product safety for Canadians, is not a matter of controversy. There is no argument anywhere in this chamber with respect to the basic principle of this bill. I think all of us wholeheartedly support the principle.

Federal officials have been working to develop a new legislative framework for consumer product safety for over a decade, under both Liberal and Conservative governments. I underscore strongly that this framework is not and never has been a partisan issue. It should not be a partisan issue. To the contrary, this bill is an example of Parliament, and the Senate in particular, working as it should, albeit with a few bumps along the road, which I will refer to.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government has tried to pass this bill in one form or another several times. The first time it was Bill C-52, tabled in the other place on April 8, 2008. It had companion legislation, Bill C-51, which dealt with food products. All the consultation that went on before dealt with both those subjects — safety for consumer products and food products — and two pieces of legislation were introduced.

The legislation with respect to food products, as honourable senators might guess, fell under the Food and Drugs Act. Amendments to the bill were controversial and, as far as I am aware, that particular piece of the consultation and the legislation has not been re-introduced. Honourable senators will recall that I asked Senator Martin about the status of this companion legislation, and she could not provide any enlightenment as to when, or whether, that bill will be re-introduced.

The reason it is important for us to know about that companion legislation is because they were together at one time and because the scheme of an administrative way of handling the challenges that come up are similar in both pieces of legislation. We will want to know if we are dealing with a one-off type of problem here or if it is likely to be duplicated. That is the reason for pursuing that particular point.

Bill C-52, honourable senators, the precursor of this legislation before us today, was referred to committee in the other place and then died on the Order Paper in September of 2008 when Prime Minister Harper prorogued Parliament to call an election. Honourable senators will remember that election was called notwithstanding Mr. Harper's fixed election date that was passed in this chamber. The stated reason for that election, as I recall, was that Parliament was dysfunctional, an interesting argument since Parliament had not sat for several months due to summer recess.

I digress, honourable senators. Some honourable senators may be interested in that piece of history, but I want to concentrate on Bill C-52.

Bill C-52, the precursor of this legislation, died on the Order Paper as a result of that.

The government did not reintroduce the bill on this subject in the first session of the new Parliament. Honourable senators will recall that session was short and ended when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament to avoid a non-confidence motion. The bill died twice in three months, honourable senators.

On January 29, 2009, the government finally re-introduced the bill as Bill C-6. However, evidently it was not of high priority for the government, as the government let the bill sit on the Order Paper in the other place for four months before bringing it forward for second reading. Nevertheless, eventually it did move through all the stages in the other place and came here before this chamber on June 16, 2009, shortly before we adjourned for the summer.

In the fall of 2009, Bill C-6 was debated, passed second reading and was referred for study to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. Under the able chairmanship of Senator Eggleton and vice-chair, Senator Keon, the committee worked long and hard listening to witnesses and scrutinizing the drafting of the particular provisions of the bill.

In the end, we on our side proposed 16 amendments. Most, but not all, were passed at committee, honourable senators.

These amendments were carefully thought-out, honest attempts to improve the legislation. They ranged from technical amendments to cleaning up inappropriate language — like the minister should come to the Senate, which we knew was not possible — and to others that were substantive ones to try to ensure certain fundamental civil liberties would be upheld.

I regret to tell honourable senators that the votes on the amendments divided along partisan lines in large part. This is the point I am trying to make; we can do our job here if we look at proposed amendments and then, rather than determining they must be bad because they are being proposed by the other side, instead determine they are interesting but perhaps can be improved upon by doing certain things. That, honourable senators, would have been a helpful process.

I proposed 16 amendments at that time on behalf of my colleagues. I do not have a magic wand on the best wording. I can highlight the problems as I see them, and then we can deal with them.

To my surprise and disappointment, the Conservative committee members voted almost unwaveringly against each and every one of the amendments. Even the technical ones passed, at best, on division. I say "almost unwaveringly" because some honourable senators from the other side at least did not vote on a particular matter; abstaining allowed the matter to pass.

Honourable senators, throughout this time, the government has been actively engaging publicly in the media and quietly behind the scenes, pushing us to pass the bill without amendment immediately. I regret to tell you that sometimes emotions are permitted to overtake, and indeed oust, reasonable discourse.

The Minister of Health told Canadians that under our amendment — and she said it twice, once in an interview and once with Evan Solomon — the Minister of Health said that with respect to the amendments I proposed, a child would have to die before the government could act. She stoked fear among Canadian parents saying Canadian mothers and parents should be worried if the legislation was not passed in time to protect children before the Christmas holiday, and that was last year. She conveniently did not mention how many months the government had delayed the bill, including the repeated prorogations.

(1450)

Honourable senators, let me state absolutely and without equivocation that there is no amendment that I would propose to this chamber for legislation to apply to the people of Canada that would require a child to die before the government acts. I am a parent and, as a legislator who takes my responsibility to Canadian families extremely seriously, I would never support any such amendment.

Not surprisingly in the circumstances, the committee's report and people in this chamber were influenced by those statements. When those 16 amendments were reported back here, they were defeated at report stage in this chamber. However, some time was allowed to pass and, at third reading, honourable senators had a chance to reflect on some of these matters. Senators Furey and Banks put forward amendments at third reading which were, in fact, passed.

The amended bill passed third reading here on December 15, 2009, ten days before Christmas last year. The other place had adjourned for the Christmas holiday, but of course it was well within the power of the government to recall the House of Commons to consider our amendments. There were only two of them.

The government chose not to do so. In fact, on December 30, the Prime Minister proceeded to prorogue Parliament once again. This time, the pundits and others suggested the reason was to avoid uncomfortable questions with respect to Afghan detainees.

The bottom line, from the point of view of this discussion today, honourable senators, is that the bill died another death. The Minister of Health's repeated protestations of concern for imminent threats to the health and safety of Canadians and Canadian children apparently were not shared by others in her cabinet.

Following that unfortunate episode, the bill, now numbered C-36, was reintroduced on June 9, 2010, but the government did not bring it forward for second reading until October 7, 2010, almost ten months after the other bill died and fully seven months after Parliament returned from prorogation. Evidently, the bill was not as pressing a concern for the government as Canadians were led to believe in the previous statements by the minister.

I also must express my personal dismay that the government chose to wait so long, especially given, as we now know, that months earlier — possibly even before the Prime Minister chose to prorogue Parliament — Health Canada had discovered dangerously high levels of cadmium in children's jewellery. When the minister finally acted, just a few weeks ago, she said that her powers were limited because the bill was not in force. However, honourable senators, why did she not at least take the step of developing a voluntary recall of products that were clearly causing a problem or potentially causing a problem for our youth? Given that Health Canada knew of the serious danger to Canadian children, why did the government wait so many months to bring in Bill C-36?

Those are a few of the bumps and a few of the disappointments that I referred to. Honourable senators, we did a lot of work on Bill C-6, the previous legislation to this.

Notwithstanding the many protestations last December that amendments gutted the previous bill, Bill C-36, as it was tabled by the government in the other place, actually adopted a good number of the major points we had made during the debate on its predecessor, Bill C-6.

An Hon. Senator: So we were right.

An Hon. Senator: Thank you.

Senator Day: I will take the "thank you," senator. I am sorry that we had to have a prorogation in order to achieve the results that we have achieved, but the most important amendment of all that is reflected in this legislation is one that was rejected by this chamber and that is that the minister, the one who is accountable to Parliament, is the one who will order recalls. That was our most important amendment that we asked for last year, which was said to be gutting the legislation.

The legislation said that an inspector, who is one of the people working within the Ministry of Health and whom the minister appoints — we do not know with what qualifications, because none are outlined — is the one who could order recalls and who could put thousands and thousands of people out of work. We said the minister should do this, and that is in the legislation.

Honourable senators, a number of us were very concerned that Bill C-6 would authorize inspectors to do a number of things, such as entering private property and not be responsible for any damage that they did. We said that wording is not acceptable. If they act reasonably and under authority, then that is fine, but they would never get authority to be reckless and cause damage negligently or recklessly. There would never be that kind of authority under any criminal law legislation, so why is the government asking for it under this administrative law? That was rejected by this chamber, but the minister has seen fit to pick up that amendment and it is now no longer in this legislation. Honourable senators will be pleased to know that.

Senator Furey pointed out at third reading of Bill C-6 that inspectors could enter private homes simply by saying that they wanted to verify that some activity might be going on in there, in this home, where a consumer product is stored. Senator Furey said he wanted to see the amendment read "stored for sale," because everyone has teddy bears or kid's toys stored in the basement. It was far too broad wording. The government has accepted that particular suggestion of making an amendment saying that the word "stored" does not include "stored for personal use." That is a logical amendment that solves a potential problem and we are very pleased that the government saw fit to respond to that concern.

I am pleased to tell honourable senators that the government also put forward amendments in committee in the other place specifically to address some of the technical problems. This was after they introduced Bill C-36 in the other place. They actually proposed technical amendments that are reflective of what we raised here a year and a half ago. However, in the end, honourable senators, the amendments have been adopted.

That, more than anything else, is the important point.

The technical amendments are so difficult to go through. They are difficult to go through here and they are difficult to go through in committee. However, they relate to items, such as I mentioned earlier, of the minister having to "establish" — which makes the minister both the inspector and the judge — as opposed to the normal legal wording, where the minister must be "satisfied." That kind of wording has now been adopted, based on our proposals.

(1500)

There are many others like that that have been picked up, and that will make it easier for us at committee. However, many others have not been picked up, honourable senators, and we will have to deal with those in committee. We will have to determine which ones are important: private information being made public; what are the checks and balances there; private, confidential corporate information that will be made public; due diligence defences — okay if you are going the criminal route, not okay if you are going the other route; and voluntary recall.

I wanted to see some explanation of voluntary recall. If senators look at the recall of any product, virtually every one is a voluntary recall. That means the government inspectors or the minister's department and the company importing, manufacturing or selling the product have gotten together and issued a voluntary recall on this product, as opposed to bringing down the big hammer. That, unfortunately, was not accepted along the way.

Honourable senators, on balance I believe that the bill has been improved upon substantially and Senator Martin will be pleased to know that we on this side believe there have been substantial improvements to this bill. This is a review of the bill in principle so the bill can go to committee and be studied so we can study those other points that are still outstanding, and I know there are some. Now, of course, once again we will be asked to bring in various people who will be impacted by this legislation.

I want to hear from the Privacy Commissioner on the changes that have been introduced to meet one of our concerns. One change is that this bill is subject to the Privacy Act and they felt that wording would satisfy the concerns we have with respect to private personal information being made available to foreign government officials, with no obligation on their part to not divulge that information to anyone else. What possible ramifications can there be to that provision?

Personally, I plan to support second reading of this bill, honourable senators, based on principle and then to do my job, once again: listen to witnesses; study the provisions; and work to ensure that this legislation, like all that comes before us, is the best that it can be for all Canadians.

Hon. Tommy Banks: Honourable senators, I concur with everything Senator Day has said. I too plan on voting for this bill at second reading to send it to committee because second reading —

Senator St. Germain: You should not make a mistake this time; get it right.

Senator Banks: We are telling you up front. This is notice because I agree with Senator Day. We support this bill on principle. No one could argue with the principle of this bill. The questions that still obtain to it have been referred to by Senator Day, some of which have been fixed, and we are grateful. This is how it is supposed to work. We are the quality control department of Parliament. We take out the dents and scratches, and it is gratifying to know that sometimes the government, now, pays attention to that.

Honourable senators, that does not mean to say, however, that the bill before us has been fixed perfectly. While we are grateful for those changes that have been made, because I am not a member of the committee to which the bill will be sent, I want to call the committee's attention to a couple of things to which Senator Day has referred.

I will only call the attention of honourable senators to only one thing. I want to call this particularly to the attention of those senators who would style themselves as being Conservative, because Conservatives, as a general rule, are taken to be interested in matters of personal rights of Canadians. Some things that had to do with that issue that were introduced, as Senator Day has said by amendments in the last iteration of this bill, have been taken care of. There is one fundamental one that has not.

I have had the pleasure and privilege of having a letter from the minister, addressed to me, in respect of one of my concerns, and the pleasure and privilege of having met with officials of her department yesterday, about some of my concerns. Some of them have been allayed but one has not, and it has to do with personal rights. I refer to clause 15 of the bill.

Clause 15 of the bill is the part that deals with the disclosure by the minister, by the government, of confidential information about Canadians and about Canadian corporations to foreign governments. We are assured by the officials that the governments to whom this information will most likely be made known and disclosed are our close friends: the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia perhaps, and some members of the European Union perhaps.

However, when working here as senators, we must deal not with what policy is, and not with what this government, this minister or these officials might do with respect to the application of this act because we are making a law here or not. The governments, the ministers and the officials who will apply this law will not be here. This government will not be here. It will be a different government. It may be the same stripe but it will be a different government. One hopes not. It will be a different minister and different officials, and different circumstances will obtain than we can now contemplate. We are making a law that will survive all those things so we have to pay attention to what the law says.

While we have assurances sometimes from officials that, "Oh well, we wouldn't do that," we have to look at what the law says. The law says the places to which the government can disclose private, confidential information about Canadians and Canadian corporations are described in clause 2 of the bill as:

. . . a government of a foreign state or of a subdivision of a foreign state; or

(f) an international organization of states.

Well, when we are disclosing confidential information about Canadians and about their corporations to those people that I have just described, we want to take certain precautions. With respect to the disclosure of confidential business information by the government to those places, a protection is built in. It is in clause 16 of the act, which says that when the minister discloses confidential business information the minister may do so:

. . . if the person to whom or government to which the information may be disclosed agrees in writing to maintain the confidentiality of the information and to use it only for the purpose of carrying out those functions.

That is good; we need to be able to do that. The minister needs to be able to do that to protect the interests of Canadians.

(1510)

However, clause 15 talks about the disclosure of personal, private information. It contains no such circumscription, no such guarantee no such obtaining an undertaking in writing that the information will only be used for those purposes. The answer is: "Well, that is taken care of by the Privacy Act."

Is it? Let us look at the Privacy Act. The act says its purpose is to protect the privacy of individuals and to provide individuals with right of access to information that the government may hold on them. Subsection 8(1) of the Privacy Act then says that:

Personal information under the control of a government institution shall not, without the consent of the individual to whom it relates, be disclosed by the institution except in accordance with this section.

Subsection 8(2) states:

Subject to any other Act of Parliament, personal information . . . may be disclosed . . .

Subsection 8(2)(b) states:

for any purpose in accordance with any Act of Parliament or any regulation made thereunder that authorizes its disclosure;

Therefore, the Privacy Act does not constrain the capacity of the government to provide private and personal information to other governments or institutions of other governments. In fact, it permits it.

The suggestion that we are protected by the Privacy Act is a great big circle: We look at the Privacy Act; the Privacy Act says the government can do this if an act of Parliament says so; this act of Parliament says so. There is no protection of private information.

Honourable senators, I will be pursuing that matter, among others, when this issue goes before committee for study and, if necessary, at third reading. I thank honourable senators for their kind attention and I hope others will join with us in voting that this bill be sent to committee for further consideration.

Hon. Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis (The Hon. the Acting Speaker): Are honourable senators ready for the question?

Hon. Senators: Question.

The Hon. the Acting Speaker: Is it your pleasure, honourable senators, to adopt the motion?

(Motion agreed to and bill read the second time.)

Referred to Committee

The Hon. the Acting Speaker: Honourable senators, when shall this bill be read the third time?

(On motion of Senator Martin, bill referred to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.)

Quote:Is it any use for a US citizen to get involved?

Quote:Senate: The New Silent Zone?
By Senator Elaine McCoy
Nov 29 2010 10:13AM (before 2nd reading).

Hundreds of Canadians are clamouring to be heard, but the committee's Conservative majority voted against holding its hearings open for more testimony, and point blank refused to allow Shawn Buckley (who still has serious concerns about several sections of the Bill) to speak.

This disdain for dissent makes a travesty of our parliamentary process. Conservative senators are displaying all the hallmarks of intolerance enforced by a single-minded majority. Worse, they are denying Canadians the right to speak, although the Senate was designed to achieve exactly the opposite outcome. The result is, as the National Post has declared, bad law.

Quote:Another provision of the bill that has been cause for question is the ability to share information. As part
of the overall provisions for active prevention, this legislation allows for information‐sharing under certain
prescribed conditions. These provisions are found in clauses 15, 16 and 17. I would like to underline that the
provisions in these three sections deal with different kinds of information under different circumstances and
with different pre‐existing legal requirements. For each circumstance, this legislation sets a test the
government must meet in order to allow for certain information to be shared.
The provisions in clauses 15, 16 and 17 do not create the ability to share information. In the case of
personal information, that ability exists by virtue of the Privacy Act and, in the case of confidential business
information, by virtue of common law. The provisions in clauses 15, 16 and 17 constrain the scope of
possible information sharing by setting tests related to the mandate of the bill.

Quote:Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 11:50 PM

I would like to contribute some thoughts on C-36 that were not addressed to my satisfaction as of yet. Please clarify and/or explain the reasoning behind the Act in regards to the concerns of my family and I to the best of your ability or refer me to someone who can.

To all Senators that have a final opportunity on the behalf of Canadians to amend the Bill or vote against its passage through 3rd Reading. Heed the words of Tommy Banks as he stated during caucus in reference to Bill C-36.

"... when working here as senators, we must deal not with what policy is, and not with what this government, this minister or these officials might do with respect to the application of this act because we are making a law here or not. The governments, the ministers and the officials who will apply this law will not be here. This government will not be here. It will be a different government. It may be the same stripe but it will be a different government. One hopes not. It will be a different minister and different officials, and different circumstances will obtain than we can now contemplate. We are making a law that will survive all those things so we have to pay attention to what the law says.
While we have assurances sometimes from officials that, "Oh well, we wouldn't do that," we have to look at what the law says."


The recall procedures are not outlined and I presume the means of recall are to be chosen by the sole power of the Minister of Health, Health Canada and the Governor in Council.

Any interim changes to the bill including adding or removing groups or specific consumer products to a schedule or adding exceptions to people (including corporations) to be exempt from the Act.

The jurisdiction of prosecution of confidential material or information used by foreign agencies, corporations and governments may not fall under Canadian law and thus are exempt to the terms of distribution and use of that information. As brought up by Senator Day and Senator Banks - thank you for that.

Health products are excluded but can they be added by amendment or interim order? What of the other exceptions?

Reviewers can keep possession of property under their discretion as long as notice has been served and it is "reasonable" to conduct testing and other provisions of investigation. Is reasonable defined or can this be perpetual confiscation of private property?

Every consumer product needs to file documentation regarding the product and keep them on hand for six years, including documentation of who it is sold to and who received it from. This implies that proof of identification by the person receiving the goods is required or some sort of tracking system is to be implemented either at the cost of the business or the government to accommodate this monitoring of nearly every transaction by a Canadian.

It repeals large sections of the Hazardous Products Act that allow those products to be reclassified or under no safety protocols and may endanger the products' user, which is against the spirit of the Act.

PREAMBLE: No scientific proof is required:

Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes that a lack of full scientific certainty is not to be used as a reason for postponing measures that prevent adverse effects on human health if those effects could be serious or irreversible;

Another bill is slipped in to the agreement to create another regulatory system to protect the environment from consumer products. It commits to this and effectively binds Parliament to an oath.

PREAMBLE: Whereas the Parliament of Canada recognizes that, given the impact activities with respect to consumer products may have on the environment,there is a need to create a regulatory system regarding consumer products that is complementary to the regulatory system regarding the environment;

Sets up Canada to fall under cooperative law with other governments and international organizations by law. Define "cooperation" please.

PREAMBLE: Whereas the Parliament of Canada wishes to foster cooperation within the Government of Canada, between the governments in this country and with foreign governments and international organizations, in particular by sharing information, in order to effectively address those dangers;

Are Garage Sales, Gifts and Barter items also subject to the Act as they are bound to the definition of "sell"?

INTERPERTATION: “sell” includes offer for sale, expose for sale or have in possession for sale — or distribute to one or more persons, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration — and includes lease, offer for lease, expose for lease or have in possession for lease.