Depends on who’s suing them: Is the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) a private not-for-profit corporation, or is it an agency of the Federal Government?
Minister of Industry, James Moore, claims that “the CSA is not government-mandated” and is “not a regulatory body,” that it “has no regulatory role in Canada,” and that the CSA “does not report to the Minister of Industry either directly or indirectly” and “does not report to the Standards Council of Canada.”
Likewise, the CSA claims that its a private, not-for-profit corporation founded in 1919.
So we did some digging.
When I practiced as a commercial interior designers doing hospitality projects, we had to use CSA approved light fixtures. A lot of custom work was done on large chandeliers for banquet halls by our source, Prince of Serendip Antiques in Toronto. He ALWAYS had to submit a mock-up of the design for CSA approval and had to have the stickers on the product before it could be installed. It was his and my understanding that this was a requirement of both the Canadian and Ontario government. To find out now that the CSA is a not-for-profit (Ha!)is sick-making. Prince of Serendip had to pay “a lot” of money to get the CSA approval stickers.
Fiefdoms within fiefdoms. I guess the old axiom is confirmed.
‘Governments may change but the civil service never’
The bureaucratic “explanation” is always as little as necessary to CYA.
CSA is an extortion racket, run entirely for the benefit of bureaucrats.
Safety? Shut up and give us the money.
Help me understand — if the CSA is a not-for-profit and does not own the law, how ca it sue for royalties and copyright infringement? Someone is lying either at CSA or in the minister’s office.
If the safety testing isn’t done correctly, then all of the equipment in operating rooms and everything used in Canadian hospitals could actually kill patients, rather than save their lives…I smell a lawsuit from Health Canada.