A two-decade staple of Canadian consumer awareness has come to an end.

The Canadian Consumer Handbook, which provided basic information about a suite of consumer issues as a book and more recently as an online resource as consumerhandbook.ca, now redirects to the Office of Consumer Affairs (OCA) consumer site, under Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (now recast as Innovation, Science and Industry Canada).

According to provincial consumer protection officials, the OCA stopped supporting it November 29, 2019. They informed the provinces in advance that they would “redirect visitors to more up-to-date pages managed by either OCA or other government departments.”

The Handbook was a federal-provincial initiative of the Consumer Measures Committee, and was first published in 1999, and updated periodically through 2016. Its publication was part of a larger CMC initiative that brought numerous provincial consumer protection rules closer together.

Much of the Handbook materials appears to be now incorporated in the OCA site. However, there are many, many hyperlinks at other sites that now likely direct consumers incorrectly.