Playing the Product Safety Field

2010-10-14

Health Canada’s website contains a list of products recalled or deemed to be unsafe for Canadian consumers—a list that is constantly getting longer. Toys with unsafe amounts of lead, injury-prone drop-side cribs, dangerous garden torches and an array of other household consumer products are being added every day.

Unfortunately it’s not until a toy breaks, a light-bulb malfunctions or products cause harm that Canadians realize how important standardization really is to safety. Safeguarding against potential dangers associated with products is an important aspect of standards and their application (i.e., product certification). Reference to standards in regulation is one way for governments to help ensure that consumer health and safety is consistently being protected.

Standardization ensures accountability, instills trust, and contributes to building consumer confidence in products. Many products on Canadian shelves currently do not adhere to any sort of safety standards; that lack of public awareness is putting Canadians at even greater risk.

“The problem in this country is that most people think that everything they buy is being protected by our government,” says Mel Fruitman, vice-president of the Consumers’ Association of Canada, adding that productwide standards protection is an illusion in today’s marketplace.

In Canada, current product certification practices are somewhat fragmented, addressing each of the various components of any given product individually. Any sort of electrical component in a toy, for example, needs to be tested and certified against the specific standards corresponding to each of that toy’s electrical parts.

Traditionally, Canada’s approach to product safety has been different from that of other countries, some of which have adopted a more holistic hazard-based approach to addressing product safety.

To address lead poisoning, sharp corners, skin irritants or electrical-based dangers, some countries adopt standards for each potential hazard.Whether they are using their own national standards or adopting/adapting international standards, one approach seems to be to develop a certification scheme that outlines all of the applicable standards relating to an industry e.g. toys, and to then certify products as safe for use, based on that certification scheme.

For this very reason, Health Canada is revisiting its approach to consumer product safety and looking to Canada’s National Standards System to help address the gaps. Proposed legislation, in the form of the Canadian Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) or Bill C-36, is intended to address out-of-date product safety laws and to enable the federal government to better protect Canadians from unsafe consumer products.

“Without standards, we don’t know what we’re getting,” says Fruitman, adding that Canada’s Bill C-36, when/if passed into law, will be beneficial for Canadians and manufacturers in making voluntary standards for consumer products mandatory. “Canadians would ultimately be better protected in the marketplace.”

Fruitman agrees that standards are the backbone of consumer product safety, but recognizes the importance of Canadian legislation in helping to ensure that standards are effectively applied. “A standard is useless, if you have no means of enforcing it,” he adds.

If Bill C-36 becomes law, consumers may take comfort in knowing that a mechanism for the enforcement of voluntary standards relating to product safety is finally available. An important step towards establishing the required certification schemes to address the safety of specific industry products.

“When the Act goes through, it’s going to make very significant the fact that these voluntary standards exist and whether or not a manufacturer has used them,” says Dr. Elizabeth Nielsen, member of the Standards Council of Canada’s Consumer and Public Interest Committee. She adds that one of the ways that a supplier can demonstrate that they have taken all the reasonable steps to ensure that a product is safe, is by complying with existing voluntary standards.

Nielsen says legislation will level the playing field and reward those Canadian manufacturers who do take the time and apply the necessary resources to ensure that their products adhere to the correct standardization processes.

Making it mandatory for product manufacturers and suppliers to use specific standards and certification schemes could help reduce the amount of unsafe, counterfeited, lowquality, un-certified products available for purchase, according to Nielsen.

“There is potential for a greater dependence on the certification by manufacturers because then they have proof that they have taken all these simple steps to produce a safe product,” says Nielsen.

“The problem in this country is that most people think that everything they buy is being protected by our government,” says Mel Fruitman, vicepresident of the Consumers’ Association of Canada.

The Standards Council of Canada (SCC) plays a significant role in the accreditation of organizations that conduct the testing and certification of a range of products. To become accredited and maintain their accreditation status, SCC accredited certification bodies must demonstrate that they have the right people, expertise and evaluation procedures to ensure that products bearing their certification marks are performing according to the applicable standards.

According to Nielson, products that are not subject to such thorough verification could be potentially dangerous for consumers.

Despite the current gaps in product safety, Canada is not leaving consumer protection to chance. Through the incorporation of standardization into various government initiatives, Canada’s network of standardization experts is working to establish a more safeguarded product environment that reduces the dangers of playing in the product safety field.

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This article first appeared in Volume 37 of CONSENSUS Magazine, 2010. The information it contains was accurate at the time of publication but has not been updated or revised since, and may not reflect the latest updates on the topic. If you have specific questions or concerns about the content, please contact the Standards Council of Canada.

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