Some alarming highlights from the Senate reading of Bill C-6 yesterday..
September 16, 2009
Canada Consumer Product Safety Bill
http://www.parl.gc.ca/40/2/parlbus/c...rl=40&Ses=2#38
Senator Day:
There is also the issue of recall, to which I just referred. This proposed legislation provides the federal government with a new broad authority to order many new things to be done. The bill includes a wide array of new offences.
The fundamental point is that this new scheme is much more invasive and intrusive than previous legislation and its ideology is vastly different. Perhaps that is good. Perhaps this is the way in which government should operate within society. Perhaps this is what the public expects these days. However, we must understand that there is a change in the scheme.
---
Clause 20 and subsequent clauses address the authority proposed for inspectors and honourable senators will want to look at those. This will be a broad authority to order an owner to hold a product, to give it up or to restrict its movement. The inspector will have authority to use a computer or photocopy machine at the business establishment and to seize and detain for any time any article, including the consumer product and all the related items.
Inspectors will be able to enter a business without reasonable and probable grounds to suspect a violation, which would be the norm for an inspection to take place. When there are reasonable and probable grounds to suspect a possible violation, it is usual to obtain a warrant from a third party, such as a justice of the peace or a judge, before the inspection takes place. That is the procedure in criminal matters. Under Bill C-6, reasonable and probable grounds for entry by an inspector would be a belief that a consumer product is manufactured or sold on the particular property. There is no need to believe that the product is dangerous or problematic. I would think that those clauses should be reviewed more closely.
---
Clause 16 addresses confidential business information and states:
The Minister may disclose confidential business information to a person or a government . . .
This raises some concerns because the definition of "government" includes foreign institutions. Thus, one is left wondering what controls will be in place when confidential information is to be disclosed to a foreign institution. Honourable senators, that area will have to scrutinized closely. The definition of "government" includes:
(a) the federal government;
(b) a corporation named in Schedule III to the Financial Administration Act;
(c) a provincial government or a public body established under an Act of the legislature of a province;
(d) an aboriginal government as defined in subsection 13(3) of the Access to Information Act;
(e) a government of a foreign state or of a subdivision of a foreign state; or
(f) an international organization of states.
Why is that definition of government important? It is because, under Bill C-6, the Minister of Health and all the people who work for her will have the right to disclose personal information and confidential corporate information to all of the aforementioned entities.
----
Let us look at subclause 20(4):
. . . or any person accompanying them may enter on or pass through or over private property, and they are not liable for doing so.
Inspectors do not need a warrant, or reasonable or probably grounds that something is happening. They can go over private property willy-nilly and they will not be responsible for any problems that they cause.
---
One must think of this legislation in terms of due process for, for instance, the small-business person or the small manufacturer who imports something. How will they put up with all these rules, all the inspectors, all the analysts and all the review officers that the minister has the power to appoint? We do not know who these appointment are. We barely know what authority they have, and we do not know what powers they have.
Honourable senators, the rules provide for two ways to go. If an offence is committed under this act, then the minister can decide to go one way or the other. If the minister decides to go via prosecution before a court, that is fine: We understand that. However, if the minister decides to go the administrative route, the other route, and issue a notice of a violation, then a whole lot of other rules begin applying and there is no court involved. Fines can be $5 million per incident, and another section says that if an incident continues more than one day, each day is an incident. Another clause of the bill provides for that situation.
Senator McCoy:
This is a case of legislation that will be very intrusive in corporate and individual lives in this country. I would have thought there would be no question ? particularly among our Conservative colleagues ? that we are extending government's reach way beyond anything we should be comfortable with.
On the other hand, yes, we believe in consumer product safety. However, what on earth are we imposing on the people of Canada with this kind of totalitarian tactic that is being endorsed and spread through this legislation into the tiniest corners of our lives? It even gives the minister and his or her officials the ability to take the word of a foreign government on which to base our decisions in Canada.
If China says a product is safe that could be the basis of our minister's decision. Is this the kind of country we want?