by Doris Foster
The Harper Government has been attempting to pass the provisions of this Act Respecting the Safety of Consumer Products for several years. In promoting Bills C-51/52, C-6, and now Bill C-36, we are told that the Ministry of Health and its officers need extraordinary powers, such as freedom from the constraints of due process and judicial oversight, to protect us from dangerous consumer products.
Most of the dangerous products that threaten Canadians’ well-being come from foreign countries, where we have no ability to monitor their production. Within Canada, health risks are often directly associated with the scale of huge operations. These are designed primarily to maximise profits, rather than the quality of the product. They are not designed to reduce risks to the consumer. In Canadian enterprises, encouraging more numerous small-scale projects with local supervision, would make it possible for consumers to choose products that provide quality and safety, as well as protecting the quality of life for the humans or animals involved. General and long-term benefits to the community and the environment could also be more effectively ensured.
In every regard, increasing Canadian production to meet our own needs is the best policy to pursue to achieve safety. Instead of proposing Bill C-36, the government should facilitate Canadians’ own control and expansion of our domestic, local production of items we would otherwise import. Recognising the need for every community to have local control of and responsibility for its own resources is a good place to start. Perhaps new farming and other enterprises could be coordinated by the members of each community, to support each other’s efforts. By developing a structure in which resources and opportunities are available to everyone, the whole community would benefit.
For projects requiring financial investment, we must use our own Bank of Canada to support Canadian initiatives. The growing and processing of foods and manufacturing of other consumer items should be done domestically whenever feasible. Then we can know exactly what conditions, processes, and components or ingredients are being used. The safety of production and use can be known and guaranteed right here in Canada.
This would also solve the unemployment problem by allowing Canadians to employ themselves in businesses rooted in Canada. The whole economy would improve because the wealth generated by these businesses would stay in Canadian communities. Much of our Canadian production and jobs have been exported to wherever the work can be done most cheaply, with the least regulation, and the least accountability for the quality and safety of the products or the working conditions of the employees. We don’t need to adapt to the damaging effects of the global economy through legislation such as Bill C-36, further sacrificing our sovereignty and civil liberties to protect ourselves from dangerous or inferior products from other countries. Instead we should build a healthy Canadian economy and produce safe, quality products ourselves.
A close look at Bill C-36 shows us the daunting consequences imposed, such as enormous fines and the destruction of products, labels, informational materials, etc., whenever anything is determined by the officers of the Ministry to be in violation of its regulations. These are often referred to, but are not present in the Act. For persons deemed by an officer to be responsible for a violation, the Act provides not only fines, confiscation of property, equipment, and records, but also indefinite detention, all without judge, jury, or even the examination of evidence in a court of law.
Where would these missing regulations come from, to be added at a later date, at the Minister’s discretion, and imposed on Canadians without Parliamentary involvement? The regulations would come from decisions made by foreign governments and bodies set up by them, such as the World Health Organisation, or any such international institution. These regulations would be the final authority on what we may or may not do, sell, purchase, and use, and they can be expanded without limits and without input from Canadians or our elected representatives. This is a complete infringement of Canadian sovereignty. The global pharmaceutical industry has more influence on the decisions of the World Health Organisation than Canadians do. Why would our Parliament want to pass legislation that extinguishes our sovereignty over the most essential health and safety decisions? We must reject this idea and demand that our MPs reject it too.
Our representatives in the House of Commons, supposedly accountable to the Canadian people for their decisions, voted in favour of this as Bill C-6 last year ~ all parties unanimously. A message from the Green Party, dated August 10, 2010, from Paul Kompass, Green Party InfoServices Ottawa, confirms that the Green Party also called for the passage of this bill, as Bill C-6, in November 2009, when it was being hotly contested in the Senate.
Senator Elaine McCoy worked hard for Canadians to remove some of the bill’s most serious opportunities for abuse of Canadian civil liberties. She gained the support of enough of her colleagues to bring significant amendments to the bill. Stephen Harper’s failure to push the bill through the Senate in its original form was one of the many reasons he chose to prorogue the Parliament last December, so that all of the work of those Senators would be lost. He subsequently has been able to appoint half a dozen additional, compliantly Conservative Senators. Now the margin by which the amendments were passed will be impossible to achieve again. Bill C-36 mustn’t get to the Senate at all.
To prevent it, Canadians must contact their MPs and let them know that the provisions of this bill are not the way they want to protect themselves from potentially harmful products. We need our MPs to listen to us and respect our right to make decisions about our health and safety without interference from international agencies. We must be allowed to use Canadian resources to provide employment for Canadians. We can safely produce the food and other essential products Canadians need. Tell your MP the global economy is not working for Canadians. Such extreme measures as Bill C-36, which sacrifices the sovereignty and civil liberties of Canadians, supposedly to protect us from products we can produce with greater benefit for ourselves right here in Canada, must be rejected by them, as they are by us.
About the writer:
Doris Foster works actively to oppose Bill C-36, as she opposed its previous forms. As a member of the Canadian Action Party, she helps the party spread awareness of the insidious provisions in this bill. She promotes new ways of organising our communities so that we can both use and protect our resources, locally, where they can best be understood and developed wisely. Healthy local economies depend on this approach, not further globalising the decisions that control our lives, as Bill C-36 would do. For more information on this and other sovereignty issues visit www.canadianactionparty.ca or contact the Canadian Action Party directly: info@canadianactionparty.ca.
