Bill C-36 permits Health Canada to issue
secret recall orders…
by Shawn Buckley.
Published in Common Ground, October 2010.

Every time I hear the Minister of Health promoting the new Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (Bill C-36), I think of George Orwell’s book 1984 and the famous “Ministry of Truth,” which was responsible for deceiving the public. It’s not that the Minister or Health Canada are lying per se. Rather, the main justifications for the Bill are misleading to the average Canadian.

The two main justifications given for the Bill are as follows: 1) Health Canada does not currently have the power to order the recall of a dangerous product. 2) Our consumer product legislation needs to be updated. When the average person hears that Health Canada does not have any power to recall a dangerous product, they are misled into thinking that Health Canada does not have the power to protect us from dangerous products. This is false. Today, in the very rare event that a manufacturer will not recall a dangerous product, Health Canada can obtain a Court injunction, obtain a search warrant to seize the product and make a binding ministerial order under the Hazardous Products Act. All of these orders are binding and backed up by the police. The problem from Health Canada’s perspective is that they all involve independent supervision by an independent body (a Court or a Review Board). All the orders are also public.

In contrast, the recall power in Bill C-36 permits Health Canada to issue secret recall orders – they are specifically exempted from publication and review under the Statutory Instruments Act – that are not authorized or supervised by an independent body. This undermines the rule of law, which ensures the government cannot take control over your person or property without the authorization and supervision of independent Courts. To appreciate how important this is to a free society, imagine living in medieval times before the rule of law. If the state wanted your property, the soldiers simply came from the castle and took it. Hopefully, you were not killed in the process. The state was all. Political philosophers have constantly warned against ever undermining the rule of law.

Read complete article here.

Watch movie version of Orwell's "1984" here.