Compliance Verification Project 2022-2023: Mandatory Incident Reporting

Consumer Product Enforcement Summary Report

Fiscal Year 2022-2023

Summary

The Consumer Product Safety Program (CPSP) administers and enforces the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act (CCPSA) and its regulations.

The purpose of this Compliance Verification (CV) project was to verify industry's compliance with the mandatory incident reporting requirements of the CCPSA.

Under section 14 of the CCPSA, industry must report to Health Canada after becoming aware of a health or safety incident involving a consumer product that they manufacture, import, distribute or sell. If applicable, they must also inform the person from whom they received the product. Subsections 14(2) and 14(3) of the CCPSA outline the timelines for reporting an incident.

For this project, compliance of select establishments with section 14 of the CCPSA was determined through an inspection process by which Health Canada inspectors conducted inspections with establishments (physically or virtually), reviewed their incident management process, and assessed complaints and events related to their products. Inspectors determined if any complaints or events received by the company met the definition of an incident under section 14 of the CCPSA, and subsequently, should have been reported to Health Canada. Compliance with the requirements listed in section 14 of the CCPSA was verified through document review.

Over the course of the 2022-2023 fiscal year, 9 inspections were carried out whereby a total of 446 documents were reviewed. The inspections resulted in 1 commitment to address non-compliance. There were 8 instances in which no corrective action was required.

Results

Readers are invited to consult the recalls and safety alerts in question for details on which products, if any, are subject to enforcement action.

Disclaimer: Inspectors apply a systematic bias during the selection of establishments for inspection. Inspectors do not select establishments randomly; instead, they select the ones that are more likely not to meet the requirements of the legislation. Due to this biased nature of the establishment selection and the fact that the number of inspections conducted within CV projects are very small, Health Canada does not consider the findings of CV projects to reflect overall market compliance, unless otherwise stated. Note that these summary reports relate only to the establishments actually inspected and the specific criteria evaluated in this project. Evaluation by Health Canada does not represent approval or endorsement of the establishments.

For More Information

• Report Incidents
• Subscribe to Consumer Product Safety News
• Monitor Consumer Product Safety Recalls
• Contact the Consumer Product Safety Program