After two years of regulatory overlap and double reporting to both provincial and federal regulatory bodies, the Ontario government has addressed industry concerns and eliminated the need to report safety incidents involving consumer electrical products to the Electrical Safety Authority (the "ESA") under the Electricity Act, 1998.
In 2011, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (the "CCPSA") introduced sweeping changes to the Canadian consumer product regulatory regime by imposing mandatory incident reporting obligations on manufacturers, importers and sellers of consumer products in Canada. While the goal was to introduce a comprehensive and modern regime, these new reporting obligations also resulted in concurrent reporting obligations to both Health Canada under the CCPSA and to the ESA under previously-existing provincial legislation. While Health Canada stated at the time that it would work with other regulatory bodies to address this duplication, double reporting has been required for the last two years.
On June 26, 2013, the Ontario government addressed this overlap and eliminated the need for parallel reporting in the context of consumer electrical products. Specifically, Ontario Regulation 438/07 (the "Product Safety Regulation") was amended, removing industry's obligation to report serious electrical incidents to the ESA. While the ESA will continue to maintain responsibility for market oversight of industrial products and for pre-market approval requirements for all electrical products offered for sale in Ontario (including consumer electrical products), all reports of consumer electrical product safety incidents should now be submitted solely to Health Canada pursuant to the CCPSA.
The Product Safety Regulation was also amended to: (a) introduce a definition of "consumer product" that is consistent with the one found in the CCPSA; and (b) remove ESA's authority to order notification to the public and require corrective action in respect of consumer electrical products (unless it relates to the approval of an electrical product), which is now solely vested in Health Canada.
These changes harmonize the federal and provincial product safety regimes for consumer electrical products in Ontario and will come as welcome clarification to manufacturers, importers and sellers of these products.
The foregoing provides only an overview. Readers are cautioned against making any decisions based on this material alone. Rather, a qualified lawyer should be consulted.
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