CanWest News Service; Vancouver Sun
VANCOUVER -- Chinese-made consumer goods have been subject to more safety recalls in Canada than products from any other country, according to Health Canada data.
In all, 431 Chinese-made products -- including 150 toys, 73 household goods and 53 baby products -- have been recalled in just the past three years alone. That's four times more than the second-place United States, which had just 97 products recalled in Canada during that same period.
The recalled Chinese products included barbecue lighters that leaked fuel, toys coated with lead paint and pacifiers with nipples that could fall off and cause a baby to choke.
In response to a request from The Vancouver Sun, Health Canada provided a list identifying the country of origin for all 1,281 consumer products recalled in Canada since 2005. In almost half of those recalls -- 45 per cent -- the agency was unable to determine what country manufactured the product.
But of those cases where Health Canada knew where the product came from, a strong majority -- 61.2 per cent -- were from China.
Mark Veitch, who co-ordinates product recalls for Health Canada, wouldn't say whether he thinks products from China are more dangerous. "We haven't compared countries to see which is worse or better than the others," he said. "I wouldn't know off hand if Chinese products are specifically inferior in quality."
Veitch would only say that, in his experience, low-cost products generally have more safety problems than expensive ones.
"If you're buying the cheapest thing you can out there, whether it's made in China or somewhere else, you're probably bringing more risk into your household," he said.
Veitch said Health Canada realizes it needs to do a better job of keeping track of where unsafe products come from -- especially given recent concerns over tainted Chinese toothpaste and pet food in Canada.
"When we were collecting that data, (country of origin) was not the most important concern. ... The primary concern was to stop sales," he said. "It's not as good as we would like, in hindsight. But we didn't anticipate this situation."
Yet while Health Canada only knows the country of origin for half the recalled products, Veitch said it's safe to assume the figures give an accurate picture of where all recalled products come from.
Chinese-made consumer goods have become increasingly popular in recent years. But that alone doesn't explain the high number of recalls.
For example, while 59 per cent of toys imported into Canada come from China, 87 per cent of all toy recalls in this country are for Chinese-made goods.
And while 25 per cent of imported lighters and matches come from China, the country accounts for 79 per cent of all the recalls in that category.
Wenran Jiang, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta, said the fundamental problem is that China's government is simply unable to monitor safety standards in the way richer countries do.
"This government is really having a hard time controlling a runaway market which is extremely competitive," he said. "Overall the (safety) regulations in China ... are probably a lot more lax compared with Canada."
Messages left for the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa have not been returned.
Health Canada does not conduct routine inspections of consumer products at the border. Instead, it follows the lead of recalls ordered in the U.S. and Europe and relies on 40 of its own inspectors to conduct spot checks at warehouses and retail outlets.
Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers Association of Canada, said that's not enough inspectors to do the job properly.
"It's nowhere near the kind of protection Canadians would want," he said. "This is a catastrophe waiting to happen."
Veitch acknowledged that 40 inspectors is "not a large number." But he said he thinks the agency does a good job, in part by targeting what it considers the highest-risk products.
In recent years, that has included cheap children's jewelry - which often contains high levels of lead.
And, according to Veitch, "the vast majority of it does come from China."
Lead poisoning is extremely dangerous to children and can cause brain damage.
And while lead in jewelry cannot be absorbed through skin contact alone, it can be toxic if a child sucks on it or swallows it.
"Kids have actually become severely ill or died from acute lead poisoning," said Sally Greenberg, an expert on product safety with the Consumers Union, the independent research institute that publishes Consumer Reports magazine.
Greenberg said lead is a popular raw material for jewelry in China because it is cheap but heavy.
Last year alone, Health Canada recalled 34 types of jewelry made in China - most as a result of high concentrations of lead.
Veitch said Health Canada notifies the public about only a small fraction of the products it recalls - because most are stopped at the warehouse before they reach store shelves.
Jiang said concerns over fake and tainted products from China are nothing new.
He said such scandals have been plaguing China's domestic market for at least a decade.
"This has been a problem for some time inside China," he said. "What we are seeing is the externalization of China's domestic problems of food quality, drug quality and product quality."
And while the Chinese government has done little so far to address the problem, Jiang said he's hopeful increased foreign attention may finally push China to act.
"Hundreds of billions of dollars of trade is at stake," he said.
Vancouver Sun
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