On November 28th, James Moore, Minister of Industry, issued a Parliamentary Determination that the Federal Government considers any portion of Provincial law which contains CSA developed text as illegitimate and unenforceable as Provincial law.
Specifically, the Minister stated that CSA developed materials are merely “voluntary standards” whose character as independent of the law is unchanged by inclusion within the law. Or more simply, CSA standards are not enforceable as laws.
By stripping the CEC of its legal legitimacy, the Minister has invalidated all of Canada’s electrical laws with a single Parliamentary determination.
In response, on December 4th RestoreCSA sent letters to the Provincial Authorities to inquire if they will “accept and comply” with the Minister’s determination by “discontinuing enforcement of Provincial electrical law.”
A majority of Provinces have now responded. All of these Provincial Governments are in open defiance of Minister Moore and have clearly stated that they intend to continue defying the Industry Minister.
But, that’s not where the story ends.
My first thought is that the federal government has no control over building standards so maybe they might just want to STFU.
We need to start doing the same thing here in the States to all those “alphabet soup”, executive branch bureaucracies in D.C.
As a Brit I am left open-mouthed by these proceedings.
Is every politician involved utterly without shame or only some?
At what point will the judiciary get involved?
F.U.D.
Funny how a little intelligence and persistence blows up bureaucratic standard operating procedure .
Way too funny, the klepto’s have lied themselves into a corner.
Stupid arrogant minions.
Inside the bubble they are confident their deceit will stand, outside in the real world, they just look lame.
Exposed, now who do they throw to the wolves?
Yes Minister, we miss-informed you.
For your own good, of course.
We know all you need to know.
If Moore has leadership ambitions, he will become a trifle unhinged toward his “helpers”.
.
The point is that once a province uses the CSA developed CEC as the basis for their laws one should not have to pay the CSA for the CEC. Laws should be free for all to read/review/copy/publish. If a province takes the CSA’s work and copies it word for word into law, does CSA maintain copyright over it? Does one get sued for coping the law or coping the work the law copied? Shouldn’t the CSA have sued the provinces the day they passed the laws?
Now if the CSA creates a standard for some widget that is adopted by industry but not by law, then by all means they should charge for the material and enforce their copyright. This is common in industry, API and ASME being to examples. Now ASME gets tricky as well as provincial regulators like ABSA will mandate ASME standards be followed…
The provinces can hardly be in defiance if the federal government refuses to envoke disallowance through the GG. That is not something many would like to see as it would no doubt lead to a renewed round of constitutional wrangling in short order.
Beyond that, it’s a moot point. The GG cannot disallow provincial legislation whenever he damn well wants. Time limits apply (one year if memory serves).
I am a principal in a manufacturer that has been forced to get CSA standards and it is a sham. Delays lasting months even year because of incompetence, lost applications after spending 10s of 1,000s . Lost opportunity costs are enormous.
Complaining about service meant being pushed further down the ladder.
CSA is privately run but Government protected with a monopoly in Canada so you have the worst of both worlds.
We were forced to go to TUV standards which is far more expensive but reliable quick and competent.
There are 3 sides to every story….
When you are out trying to buy 100W incandescent light bulbs wonder if the feds lack the authority to regulate electrical devices.
I have been told by numerous lawyers with expertise in regulatory affairs that any regulation appended to an Act (Bill) of Parliament can not exceed the mandate prescribed by the Act…or violate any rights and freedoms granted under The Charter, Dief’s Bill of Rights, or any of the freedoms included in any of our legacy conventions, written, or implied. Another Bill, The Statutory Instruments Act, is, on plain reading, supposed ensure this does not happen by having all regulations and laws be vetted by a joint committee of the House and Senate and ruled on by their compliance to our “rights and freedoms, written and implied”…wonder how that is working out?
Freedom, like virginity, is an unambiguous state. If we really are concerned about “the nanny state”, perhaps it is time we critically examine some of our own “beliefs” about the law and our freedoms.
The wholesale importation of “global standards” and de facto “Nation state like” standard setting bodies into the language of our regulatory environment is a rot that is going to be hard to rout out. The Consumer Protection Act (aka C36 on passage I believe) is certainly worthy of some scrutiny if electrical codes are being put under the spotlight.
When I look at a set of plans for a simple electrical installation, and I see it must be approved by an engineer and then installed by a licensed electrician and inspected by the building department, all at great expense, I am impressed by the thorough nature of the proceedings and the care taken to prevent problems.
Then I look at common fixtures imported into Canada with a CSA sticker on them, for sale at a famous Northern European furniture store which shall remain nameless, and I am struck dumb by the appalling slackitude on display. No grommets on sheet metal holes. Aluminum wire. Undersized wire. No fuses. Fittings designed by a drunk and assembled by slaves in China. In short, an electrical fire looking for a place to happen.
Meaning I’m going to take my amazingly expensive electrical installation blessed by an engineer and an electrician AND an inspector, and I’m going to hang a light on the end which is virtually certain to have a dead short sometime during its service life, and may spontaneously burst into flames at any time.
That is what we are paying for at present. I find the situation disgraceful. Just one more straw to add to the pile currently threatening to break my back.
@PHANTOM
I couldn’t agree more!!
“100W incandescent light bulbs”
The ban on 100W Bulbs is a payoff to GE. Cronyism in its worst case. Incandescent bulbs can be manufactured @ a fraction of a penny by any low-tech country. GE had flat earning without the ability of a “value added” feature in the manufacture of Incandescent bulbs. The consumer is ripped off.. Simple corruption by Corporate America buying special favors eliminating competitive options
I suspect that Canada’s CSA “Laws” have a similar sinister intent. The NEC (National Electrical Code) is written such that manufacturing Companies are NOT favored over the interest of consumers. I have served on, in the past, Standards Committee of SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture & Television Engineers) and know that avoiding self-serving advantage to a favored Manufacture policy is always of concern. The Standards are written such that compliance is a best practice “NOT LAW” and engineering innovation is not stifled
IMHO Sask Power does not comply with Metering Standards. The Standards are dictated for Consumer protection. If an American Power Corp sells metered Electricity the meter must be compensated for the Electrical to Mechanical error (dampening load spikes) Sask Power over charges consumers. It is a small wonder that they want thier own LAWS
What NEW metering Standards are intended?
What are the CSA regulations that differ or are better than the NEC code?
The MOST important Standards in this Century are not simple Electrical Code but complex issues such as radiation standards. A sticker from the CSA won’t help
BTW: England does not have Electrical Plug Standards. You buy an Appliance with bare ends and then buy the plug that matches you home wiring. Just saying!
“What NEW metering Standards are intended?”
That is an excellent question. If you have been following the massive malinvestment in “green” energy” and taken note of little glitches in the plans like; it may be calm when you need power from your windmill, or cloudy when you are counting on solar, you must understand that “industry” (or government) is not prepared to sit idle due to something like a power shortage. What is needed is a meter than doesn’t just tell how much power you consume, but when. “Dynamic pricing” can then be imposed to ensure that “industry”, and all the tax dollars it directly and indirectly funnels to government at all levels (wages, earnings, property taxes, excise etc.) isn’t unduly inconvenienced. You see thanks to the new metering technology we citizens will be forced to pay higher rates when we actually consume power, after work and weekends for instance. Of course a cash strapped outfit like BC Hydro wouldn’t borrow a Billion dollars to re-meter the whole province just to satisfy a global-green agenda would they? Oh gee, maybe they would. Again, I will bet dollars to donuts it is to satisfy some CSAesqe regulatory “requirement” given “the colour of law” through some agreement or treaty our nation, or province has entered into…ably assisted by the “rent seekers” at the lobbyists trough.
“Of course a cash strapped outfit like BC Hydro wouldn’t borrow a Billion dollars to re-meter the whole province just to satisfy a global-green agenda would they?” Peter
The real world of BS theory hits the wall when “The Testing & Performance Proofing procedure” is evaluated. An Electrical Transmission line is one hell of an inductive load to be switching loads OFF or ON… Beware
No testing procedure = No real switching intended.
It won’t be the first time this type of nonsense has been used to intimidate users to reduce energy.
“Meaning I’m going to take my amazingly expensive electrical installation blessed by an engineer and an electrician AND an inspector”
good you feel “blessed” while being reamed up the bung-hole by some “supposed to be experts”. Butt I must say, having travelled to 3rd world countries our standards are some what better, but our “experts” not so much
So – Kate – That means the next time you are stopped on your bike by some nit picking cop, and he demands you show him your CSA approved helmet – you can now say – – –
the federal government has no control over building standards… Posted by: scar
oh really? those who believe that might want to check out the website of the National Building Code of Canada
http://www.nationalcodes.nrc.gc.ca/eng/nbc/
Those who have difficulty finding 100W incandescent bulbs are obviously not looking in the right places. The arrogance of the government regulators is not shared by the marketplace, who will continue to offer products which cleverly circumvent any bans and prohibitions, as they always have.
The only power over your life that the government has,
is what you choose to give them.
I was involved in power distribution and control design a while ago. We (Canadian Electrical Engineering Professionals, not a real organization, but that was who we were) used computer modelling programs known as “Load Flow” analyses to get an idea how electricity might behave when subjected to sudden switching. We were able to design transmission specifications for the dragline at FortMac before local generation facilities existed. A Calgary compatriot in system control went to Russia to evaluate their testing procedures. The Ruskies built a power plant, a tranmission line that went way over there, turned around, and came way back, to evaluate the inductive response issues. Both methods produced the same results, but ours was lots cheaper. This is in complete opposition to the models produced by the CAGW crowd, which are in the future questionable and in the present so very wrong.
Any computer models, like anything else are only as good as the people who write them.
The MSM, with the encouragement of the pseudo-science community has given the public a misunderstanding that computer models are somehow infallible. Anyone who works in science and engineering knows fully well that nothing is infallible. Every model system must be empirically tested with rigor before it can be used as an effective tool for making any valid predictions. Most so called ‘climate models’ failed that test.
Now if the Provinces were serious about enforcing Electrical Safety, they might hire a person or two who would determine that a quantity of imported goods bear counterfeit CSA imprints on the item and package. Last I checked, they could care less.
“modelling programs known as “Load Flow” analyses” Captain dave
I also consider Engineering simulators valid in that they use real numbers & don’t violate the laws of Physics. I would bet that you did lots of manual calculations and had reasonable expectations before you ran “Load Flow” analyses. I don’t question an engineering methodology of due diligence. I know that how you test systems is not easy or fool proof, sometimes very crude, but better than nothing.
The question that I would ask the meter folks is “How many meters must be turned off before the Grid is in load compliance” (The assumption is that they don’t exceed 80%
of rated capacity. Do they run @ 75% or 65%) IMHO 10,000 Household meters are flyshit in a brute force system. I would guess that Power companies already have procedures for shedding “Bulk Chunks” of load to protect the Grid. What is a reasonable increment? 50K household meters!
That is why I consider Smart meters as symbolic nonsense.
How come there has been no postings for 2 weeks?
How come nobody else asked the same question?
What sup?
Is Small Dead Animals dead in the water?
Or is it just me?