Toothpaste contaminated with anti-freeze. Toys laced with toxic lead and cadmium paint. Clothing infected with mould. Games discovered to be a high risk for choking in children. There was a time when the Canadian government couldn’t demand retailers remove such dangerous products, which could do damage to people’s health or even cause death. That is no longer the case.
The Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) that came into force on June 20, 2011, allows the government to order product recalls and also makes all Canadian companies responsible for monitoring dangerous accidents involving products they retail, wholesale or distribute. Many of these goods come from Asia.
“The act requires importers, distributors, manufacturers and others to have a system in place so that they can trace and recall serious incidents with consumer products that can lead to serious injury or death,” said Daniel Kiselbach, a partner with the law firm Miller Thomson and an expert on trade law.
“That’s probably the most important message – that companies in the business of selling goods in Canada, or into Canada, should have someone in the front line to seek information concerning their products or similar products that may be dangerous and report that to the government within a few days of learning of a product incident. Within 10 days, they also have to put in a written report as to what happened, and whether or not any remedial action needs to be taken.”
But what is a reportable incident? Kiselbach said this is where adhering to the new rules is not exactly straightforward.
“It’s going to be tricky in at least one respect – determining what is a ‘product incident.’ For example, with a hockey puck, we know that it can cause an injury. Do you want to report every time a hockey puck hits somebody?”
Companies like Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC), which already had good product warranty systems in place, are becoming more vigilant.
“The main change is that we’re obligated to judge whether returns we’ve received fall into the mandatory reporting category and then report if we feel it is,” said Mike Whittaker, MEC’s manager of warranty and returns.
“Our store warranty staff are now considering all returns even more carefully than before and alerting me to products that might need to be reported. They are, in most such cases, sending items of concern from stores to me here at head office via courier, and then from time to time we forward these onto our vendors via courier for their expert feedback.
“An example might be a stove that has caught fire and been returned to us – I need to examine the return and very often would then send it to the vendor for their comments. From experience, I know stove failures are almost always due to poor maintenance [O rings that are old and should have been replaced, a grain of sand in an O ring, the user didn’t leak-test the stove before igniting it], and the vendors have become expert in telling what went wrong.”
MEC has developed a simple form that their staff can use to ensure information about customers returning a product is captured along with more details about the product failure.
“The form also asks if the [customer] is okay with a Health Canada agent contacting them for more information. In addition, my team here in Vancouver keeps the new legislation in mind when handling physical returns,” said Whittaker.
Since the legislation was enacted, MEC has reported the following:
•Portec hammock strap failures, June 2011, made in Indonesia. About 230 of these items were recalled and another 370 stock items pulled;
•MEC Bambini Onesie (infant clothing), October 27, 2011, made in Canada. Of the 4,760 units sold, one was returned for snap failure. Reported under CCPSA, but no further action taken; and
•MEC Rolling Duffel bag made in Vietnam. After mould was found on two duffels, MEC contacted Health Canada, developed an inspection and cleaning protocol for the rest of the items in stock and proceeded with that protocol.
Canadian companies will likely develop closer ties with their suppliers, including overseas manufacturers in places like Asia, a big exporter of consumer products.
“Now if you are importing, you should have an agreement with your supplier as to what happens if there is an incident or recall,” advised Kiselbach. “Who has the obligation to determine what lots or batches are the bad ones? How are you going to determine the bad ones from the good ones? Otherwise you are going to have to recall everything and that would be costly.”
That means the new consumer product safety rules, while providing better safety measures for buyers, also require closer relationships between Canadian wholesalers and retailers and their manufacturers, often originating in Asia. •
