New food and product safety legislation necessary but fails to address root cause of toxic imports - Steelworkers

TORONTO - United Steelworkers' (USW) National Director Ken Neumann said Tuesday that proposed federal legislation to protect consumers contains necessary steps to address recalls, fines and inspections but fails to adequately address the need to stop dangerous products before they get close to the Canadian marketplace.

"The USW campaign to Stop Toxic Imports made headlines during the fall when thousands of recalls happened," said Neumann. "The key word is 'imports'. Recalls and fines all happen after the fact. Canada needs a strategy that repairs the kind of trade deals that have led to toxic imports crossing our border in the first place."

Neumann added that neither the amendments to the Food and Drugs Act nor the new Canada Consumer Product Safety Act carry an outright ban on carcinogens or other toxic chemicals in consumer products. Nor do the changes create a mandatory testing or labelling scheme.

"We believe that in Canada there needs to be a specific toxic import protection act, which includes mandatory testing funded by a 'service charge' at the border, before products are marketed in this country."

The USW conducted a North America campaign last fall, holding in-home lead-testing sessions and offering lead-testing kits on a special website, www.stoptoxicimports.org.

"Exporting Canadian manufacturing jobs overseas has reaped a dangerous harvest of everything from children's products containing lead to toxic pet food and food for humans that has misleading labelling about country of origin and content," Neumann said. "For years, we have been told unregulated trade solves all problems. But with hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs gone and millions of items recalled, it is clear we have only added more problems that need to be solved now."

Neumann urged all political parties to take the next step and support banning toxic imports outright.

The USW is Canada's most diverse union, representing more than 280,000 men and women working in every sector of Canada's economy.