A federal Department of Health report is proposing an expansion of its authority via a consumer safety program that will require foreign internet vendors to have a “domestic presence” in the country before they can sell their products to Canadians.
In an internal report last June, Health Canada said the Consumer Product Safety Program (CPSP), which gets its regulatory authority from the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) and the Food and Drugs Act (FDA), was facing increasing challenges to enforce safety requirements on consumer products and cosmetics with the growth of e-commerce.
“While online shopping is certainly not a new phenomenon, the recent and significant increase in consumer preference for online purchases will likely pose new challenges in the future, as this trend continues to grow,” said the report, titled “Evaluation of the Consumer Product Safety Program,” published by the federal department five months later in November 2022, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter….