Key Elements of the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

Harper Government's Canada Consumer Product Safety Act Comes into Force

June 2011

The purpose of the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act is to protect the health and safety of Canadians by addressing or preventing dangers posed by consumer products. 

The Canada Consumer Product Safety Act heightens industry's responsibility to ensure that they are not marketing potentially dangerous consumer products.

The Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, which came into force on June 20, 2011, replaces Part I of the Hazardous Products Act and introduces a new regulatory regime in Canada.

The Act will help reduce the number of unsafe or potentially unsafe consumer products on the Canadian market by:

• prohibiting the manufacture, importation, advertisement or sale of any consumer products that pose an unreasonable danger to human health or safety;
• requiring industry to report when they know about a serious incident, or death, related to their product to provide government with timely information about important product safety issues;
• requiring manufacturers or importers to provide test/study results on products when asked;
• authorizing Health Canada to order the recall of unreasonably dangerous consumer products;
• making it an offence to package or label consumer products that make false or deceptive health or safety claims;
• requiring companies to retain documents to help trace products throughout the supply chain; and
• raising fines and penalties for non-compliance from one million dollars to up to five million dollars for serious offences.