A Canadian Consumer Advocate
Consumers Council of Canada has recommended the Government of Canada act swiftly to keep its commitment to create a new agency to rebuild consumer confidence and protect consumers – the Canadian Consumer Advocate.
Governments Must Re-focus on Protecting People
Canadians are quickly learning how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed shopping, working, health care and their economic prospects. A safe marketplace has never been more important. Consumer confidence and fair market practices are critical to Canada’s economic recovery. Canada needs a plan – and fast – to restore both.
A National Agency for Consumers
Canadian consumers deserve a national agency that has the sole objective to argue for consumers, advance their needs, and stress the relationship of those needs to the decision-making processes within agencies of government.
The economy is for consumers, not just producers. The federal government should expand its current plan for the Canadian Consumer Advocate to ensure it is an independent agency answerable to Parliament through the Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. The Advocate should be capable of promoting meaningful engagement with and on behalf of consumers.
Constant, Capable Advocacy Needed to Protect Consumer Protections
Canada needs its government to keep the promise it made in 2019 and hold ministers accountable for the mandate given to them to establish the Canadian Consumer Advocate and ensure it can capably protect consumers’ interests.
Related Publications
Time For A Real Federal Consumer Advocate – This report by the Consumers Council of Canada highlights the reasons and benefits for expanding the role of the Government of Canada’s proposed Canadian Consumer Advocate beyond receiving complaints. It argues the government needs to address the present patchwork and isolated responses to consumer needs and vulnerabilities, which will not meet the challenges consumers face in a post COVID-19 economic recovery, and beyond.
Consumers Council of Canada Parliamentary Submission: Federal Budget 2021 – A submission to the Standing Committee on Finance of the Parliament of Canada by the Consumers Council of Canada in response to its pre-budget consultations concerning the 2021 federal budget.
Super Complainers: Greater Public Inclusiveness in Government Consumer Complaint Handling – This research reveals consumer views on third-party consumer complaint management systems (consumer complaint handling systems operated by entities other than private-sector businesses) and their receptivity to alternative systems where greater transparency, and consumer advocacy group participation is encouraged.
A ‘Sustained Institutional Role’ for Consumer Organizations in ‘Internal Trade’ Harmonization – This research found the Canadian public expects well-resourced consumer groups to be part of any stakeholder process attached to negotiations among the federal and provincial governments concerning internal trade.
News About Consumer Representation
New Trade Pact Skirts Consumer Protection Issues
Provisions of the new tri-party North American trade agreement – now CUSMA, replacing NAFTA – continue to race ahead to meet a July 1 target implementation with scant attention paid to the consumer protection implications of the agreement. Consumers Council of Canada...
Canadian Consumer Groups Seriously Underfunded: Former OECD Policy Head
Canadian consumer groups are “small, lack profile and are seriously underfunded for the task at hand” compared to their counterparts in other advanced industrial countries, according to the former chairman of the OECD consumer policy group. Michael Jenkin served as...
Opt-in Consent Required in Canadian Open Banking Initiative
Canadians should be required to “opt-in” to open banking if they choose, an advisory committee studying the issue for the federal government has recommended. The Advisory Committee on Open Banking released the first findings of its study, and proposed that any rules...
Report Critical of Banks’ Ability to Choose Dispute Resolution Firms
Canadian consumers are not well served by the ability of banks to choose their own dispute resolution firms, according to a report from the Government of Canada's Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC). FCAC released its review of bank complaint handling and the...
Canada To Get a New Consumer Advocate
Following through on a campaign promise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has charged Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains with creating a new Canadian Consumer Advocate. The pledge was included in the mandate letters released December 13. Trudeau’s...
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