Copyright 2010, Blake, Cassels & Graydon LLP

Originally published in Blakes Bulletin on Life Sciences, January 2010

Two bills that would substantially change Canadian federal consumer protection legislation died when Prime Minister Harper "prorogued" Parliament until after the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. Among the bills affected are Bill C-6, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA), and Bill C-27, the Electronic Commerce Protection Act (ECPA, commonly referred to as the "Anti-Spam" Act), both of which have the potential to significantly alter the regulatory landscape in Canada. What is striking about this is how close the bills were to being enacted.

For the CCPSA, this would be the third time this legislation has been introduced in Parliament. It was first introduced by the Harper government in April 2008 (as Bill C-52), but died in the fall of 2008 when an election was called. It was then reintroduced in January 2009 (as Bill C-6) and was passed by both the House of Commons and the Senate before Parliament was prorogued in December 2009. Because the Senate made amendments to the bill, however, the amended bill was sent back to the House for consideration.

The ECPA had passed the House of Commons and second reading in the Senate and had been sent to committee.

Prorogation (as distinct from an adjournment) means that bills that were not enacted prior to prorogation will need to be reintroduced in the House of Commons when the next session of Parliament begins after the Olympics in March 2010. They may also be reinstated if the House agrees to this via a parliamentary procedure that allows bills to be reinstated at the same stage as they were in when Parliament prorogued.

It is probably safe to assume that both the CCPSA and the ECPA will be reintroduced or reinstated when Parliament reconvenes in March, but the overall impact of the prorogation in terms of further delays and amendments to the legislation remains unknown.

For more information about the CCPSA, see our February 2009 Blakes Bulletin on Life Sciences: Sweeping "New" Proposed Consumer Product Safety Legislation (http://tinyurl.com/yzojrkp ).

For more information about the ECPA, see our May 2009 Blakes Bulletin on Communications/Information Technology: Spammers Beware: Proposed E-Commerce Protection Act Prohibits Unsolicited Commercial Electronic Messages (http://tinyurl.com/ylc2r9u).

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