I thought you might be interested in this letter which I sent by messenger yesterday morning to Hon. Leona Aglukkaq, P.C., M.P.  This followed her appearance last Thursday on Power & Politics.  I am pleased to see that the Government finally brought Bill C-36 forward in the House for Second Reading yesterday afternoon.

 

 

October 6, 2010

 

The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq, P.C., M.P.
Health Canada
Brooke Claxton Building, Tunney's Pasture
Postal Locator: 0906C
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0K9

Dear Minister Aglukkaq,

I am writing concerning several comments that you made on Thursday, September 30, during an interview with Evan Solomon on the CBC Newsworld program, Power & Politics. 

That interview concerned the cross-border recall of more than 10 million Fisher-Price toys.  Mr. Solomon asked why your Government has not moved faster with legislation to protect Canadians.  You replied:

“As it is right now, we don't have the right tools to do massive recalls of this nature, which is what we've been saying for the last year, two years, that we need the tools to respond…. This has been an issue for us in terms of recalls of cribs even last year. That was held up at the Senate. And so in this -- in this sitting I am working with the House Leader to move this legislation forward.” (emphasis added)

I was surprised to hear you blame the Senate for your Government’s slow action to protect Canadians, and especially Canadian children, from dangerous consumer products.

In fact, Bill C-6, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, was not “held up” at the Senate.  It was studied in each of the House of Commons and the Senate for almost exactly the same amount of time: six months.  It was amended and received third reading in the Senate on December 15, 2009.  There has been ample time between December 15 and today for those amendments to have been dealt with and the legislation brought into force.  However on December 30, 2009, Prime Minister Harper chose to prorogue Parliament, killing the bill.

Bill C-6 was highly controversial legislation.  As you are well aware, a number of Canadians were deeply concerned about certain provisions contained in the bill as passed by the House of Commons.  They considered that the bill went too far, for example in granting relatively low-level government officials the power to enter any private home where a consumer product is “stored” (which covers all Canadian homes) in order to “verify compliance” with the Act or regulations – which could include verifying compliance with labelling requirements.  There was concern that the bill allowed inspectors to enter or pass over private property without any liability for damage they negligently caused. 

These provisions seem particularly strange in view of your Government’s recent position on the supposedly intrusive nature of the mandatory long-form census.  I suspect most Canadians would consider an inspector demanding the right to enter their home more intrusive than completing a census form.

The Senate did its constitutionally-mandated job.  We closely scrutinized the provisions of the bill, listened to the views of those experts and other interested Canadians who took the time to come before our Committee to testify about the bill, and considered various amendments to address the concerns and improve the bill.  In the end, the Senate voted to pass the bill with several amendments.

The amendments were serious, honest efforts to make the bill the best it could be for Canadians.  Under our parliamentary system, the bill was returned to the House of Commons with a message about our amendments.  We fully expected the House to consider our amendments on their merits, and then accept or reject them, in whole or in part. 

It was well within the Government’s power to recall the House of Commons for this – in the past, these kind of messages have even been addressed in one day.  The bill could have been passed by both Houses and brought into force well before Christmas.

The imminent holiday season was an issue you yourself had raised.  When the bill was still before the Senate, you told Canadians in a press conference that the bill was needed before Christmas if Canadian children were to be protected against potentially dangerous toys.  You said, “Canadian mothers and parents should be worried.  They should be worried that this legislation is not there to protect them.”  Yet your Government did not recall the House of Commons to consider the Senate’s amendments before Christmas.  As a result, nothing further happened, and Canadians remained without the added protections of the bill.

As we all know, Prime Minister Harper chose to prorogue Parliament on December 30, 2009, causing this bill – along with many others – to die on the Order Paper.   Evidently the Prime Minister did not see the need to protect Canadian children as the priority issue that you had expressed in your press conferences.

I was then completely surprised when you failed to move promptly upon Parliament’s return to reintroduce any bill to address this serious issue.  Indeed, you waited until June 9, 2010 even to table new Bill C-36 in Parliament – and that is where this matter has sat, at first reading.  To date, you have not even brought the bill forward for debate. 

As a result of these actions by your Government, it has now been almost ten months since the Senate passed Bill C-6, and the bill remains at first reading in the House of Commons.  Let us be clear and honest:  your Government’s inaction has delayed the bill longer than the study in either the House of Commons or the Senate.  Yet you continue to tell Canadians that it is the Senate that held up this legislation. 

Such false assertions are surely beneath the dignity of your high office.   Once again your Government has sought to avoid responsibility for its actions – in this case, the serious failure to position the Government to be able to protect Canadians from threats to the safety of Canadian children.

In the interview with Evan Solomon, you even tried to avoid responsibility for your department’s failure to adequately inform Canadians about the recalled toys.  Mr. Solomon told you of the problems he encountered when trying to find the necessary information on the Health Canada website.  He contrasted the United States Government’s website, which listed the recall as breaking news in a banner headline.  He asked you why, when you know about recalls of consumer products like the children’s toys, your Government does not get the information right out to consumers.  You replied:

“We have an outdated legislation. We have difficulty getting the information to investigate when incidents do happen. But, you know, we're hoping with the passing of this legislation that we'll be able to make -- implement the new legislation to make the necessary improvements to protect the health and safety of Canadians.”

In fact, the poor quality of information alerts on the Health Canada website relating to this recall had nothing to do with Bill C-36.  Indeed, when my office checked the website on Monday, several days after the Solomon interview, the website had been changed. The recall notice was now prominently displayed on a banner headline, on the home page, with ready access provided to more information.  Legislatively, nothing had changed since your interview; the outdated legislation proved no constraint on more effective use of the internet.  Why, then, did you tell Canadians that the fault lay with the outdated legislation (whose timely amendment had been “held up” by the Senate)?

I should perhaps not be surprised.  In a press conference on December 3, 2009, you said that under the amendments that had been passed by the Senate Committee that studied the bill, “a child, a baby has to die before we can do a recall”.  Minister, this too was a false statement.  No amendment passed by the Senate Committee required any Canadian – baby or adult – to die before there could be a recall.  I suspect that this was little more than fear-mongering, designed solely to pressure the Senate.  Yet you were prepared to strike fear in the hearts of Canadians with a false allegation of this magnitude.  As a Parliamentarian and as a parent, I must tell you that I was shocked by what I consider to be a flagrantly inappropriate use of your office.

As Minister of Health, you have a heavy burden of responsibility.  Canadians have entrusted you with powers and duties to safeguard their health and safety.  Partisan politics and gamesmanship have no place when speaking to Canadians about potential threats to their infants and children.

I noted with interest that your new bill, Bill C-36, in fact incorporates several of the changes that were the subject of Senate amendments in December.  I was happy to see that despite your voracious attacks on our amendments, upon reflection you agreed that the concerns we raised indeed had merit, and changed your bill accordingly.

However, I was surprised that your new bill did not incorporate any of the so-called “technical” amendments to the bill that were passed by the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.  These amendments corrected a number of errors that Committee members found in the bill. 

For example, the bill contained a number of provisions that required the Minister to table documents in both the House of Commons and the Senate.  This is a technical impossibility, as no Minister is simultaneously a member of both Houses.  The Senate Committee corrected this mistake.  To my surprise, your new bill, Bill C-36, contains the same error.  I assume that amendments will be required once again to correct this mistake which unfortunately will no doubt further delay the legislation.

Canadians need a new Consumer Product Safety Act.  This legislation has been in preparation for a number of years, beginning under Liberal governments.  This should not be a partisan issue, but rather, a matter of parliamentarians of all political parties and both Houses working together constructively to ensure the best law for Canadians.  This is the best of our Canadian parliamentary tradition.  We in the Senate sought to do our part, working to improve your proposed legislation for the benefit of all Canadians.  Evidently you agreed with some of the flaws we discovered, and your latest bill incorporates changes to address them.

I look forward to your correcting the record, and finally accepting responsibility, as a senior Cabinet Minister in the Harper Government, for your actions.  The real reason Canadians still have outdated legislation on consumer product safety is not because your Government’s bill was “held up” by the Senate.  Rather, it is because your Government has failed to place the necessary priority on this bill.

I hope that with the recent massive recall of children’s toys, your Government will realize the importance of this issue, and bring Bill C-36 forward for second reading debate and scrutiny.  If amendments are proposed, whether in the House of Commons or the Senate, I hope you will now consider them seriously and on their merits.  The best interests of Canadians is the goal we all share.  The health and safety of Canadian children is surely too important to use as a pawn in a political chess game.

Yours very truly,

 

 

James S. Cowan

 

Cc:       The Right Honourable Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Cc:       The Honourable Marjory LeBreton, Leader of the Government in the Senate

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