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Proposed safety rules lack preventative measures, critics say

CARLY WEEKS

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:04 AM EDT 20/02/08

Changes to regulations on toys, food and drugs coming into Canada under question ...Read the full article

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  1. S N from Toronto, Canada writes: It is a step in the right direction, but it is not clear if the government wants safety first and efficacy next or vice versa, and it is always important to bear in mind that there is nothing absolutely safe...And there are poisons out there to eliminate toxins within us. So I wonder how much of poison is OK, to get some good result! But there also oustanding elixirs of life, for e.g., mangosteen juice sold as xango (goxango.com/miraclefruitjuice) that could benefit from this new policy without much ado.
  2. Paul Bunyan from Northern forest, Canada writes: I'm glad this issue is getting attention, and I hope the discussion produces concrete action.

    How about using the fines from tainted products found in our system to fund screening of the next lot being imported. Or an import tax should be in place to keep the public safe - it would pay for screening.
  3. David K from Guelph, Canada writes: It would appear that "Caveat emptor" is still, and will continue to be the rule that consumers must follow. New rules and higher fines are all well and good but unless there is testing in advance that can be trusted then someone is going to have to find out the hard way that some product is dodgy or deadly. Is this further evidence of the "hands off" approach of government?
  4. bill williams from Guelph, Canada writes: -

    I would like to know that what I buy is safe.

    It is of little comfort to me to be assured that if something my family uses or consumes is later found to be unsafe, the purveyors of that product will be forced to pay a fine into the public coffers. I want to know that there won't be a problem in the first place. Expensive to inspect everything? Make the fines appropriate to the cost of ensuring safety; as safety improves, the amount of inspection can decrease ... not before. The size of the fine is irrelevent if the importers know that there is little chance of getting caught.

    This government does everything backward because theye are philosophically wed to the idea that government is a bad thing. "Let the market handle it; if people get sick they can sue, and we can fine". I don't WANT my family to get sick in the first place.

    Watch those videos of sick cattle being fed into the US industrial food system, and tell me we don't need to inspect anything!!! In fact, the more we globalize and scale up food and other industries, the less knowledge we have about where things come from, and consequently the more we need to inspect. This is a cost of globalizitation that doesn't fit the market advocates sales brochures. Let's be honest with ourselves.

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  5. bill williams from Guelph, Canada writes: -

    And "Preventative" is a waste of syllables; "preventive" will do niceley.

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  6. Likes Cleavage from seinesville, Canada writes: It quite clearly is Dion/Cretien/Martin/Trudeau/Wilfrid Laurier's fault
  7. Michele K from Ottawa, Canada writes: And further to Bill's comments, shouldn't the people doing the importing be responsible to ensuring that what they're selling is safe? They're the ones making money off bringing in this junk, so let them pay for proper inspections and the like - it's just a cost of doing business, and they can write it off their taxes, same as any other business would.
  8. Green Canada from Edmonton, Canada writes: ahhh, the "risk based" approach, i.e. we will guess and when people get sick or die we will act surprised and blame the manufacturer. Health Canada, CFIA and others have no idea what "prevention" means. They are far to scared of impinging on the GOD of today, trade.
  9. Ed Hahn from Atco, United States writes: I give you the US "normal person" outlook: If the big corporations (or their lobbyists) think this is a good regulation, it is no regulation at all. Scrap your legislators and find some with cojones. (As a clue - NOT Democrats. They chicken out every time.)
  10. Nassar Ben Houdja from Canada writes: Canada will do as it usually does, take someone elses rules, insert "Canada" as required, this time around it will be "China".
  11. Jennifer Menna from Canada writes: Hey I am all for ensureing our food etc is safe. However to those commenting about the costs of inspections being born by the importers. How much more are you willing to pay for your products?

    Testing costs money and so most do representative samples. You can still miss things. My company had a recall for Salmonella in one product. It was a result of contaminated Raw Material. However representative tests of the raw material by Us, our Supplier and Samples Taken by the CFIA were negative. You don't open every bag of the raw material to test. In our case it was one bag that was contaminated - one of the ones we didn't test.

    We could test every bag of material that comes in and everything we send out however the added costs get pasted on to the consumer. Given that people will switch products over a few cents - or buy products at Walmart that while cheap need to be replaced every few months. The evidence shows Canadians aren't willing to pay the extra costs.

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