With the threat of tariffs continuing to hang over the heads of Canadian business and consumers and emerging turmoil within U.S. government departments and agencies, Consumers Council of Canada is urging the federal and provincial governments to strengthen their capacity to apply consumer protections.

Tariffs can not only lead to inflation, supply chain disruptions, and shortages of essential goods and services, they can also lead to price gouging, an influx of counterfeit goods, scams and fraud that can exacerbate the pain for consumers. Greater vigilance will also be required to monitor the quality of imported U.S. goods and services due to the current massive restructuring of the U.S. civil service and potential revocation of some consumer protection laws impacting food, health and financial services.

“We are increasingly concerned about the state of consumer protection in Canada, and with the effectiveness and public awareness of existing mechanisms for consumer redress,” said Jay Jackson, Director, Policy for Consumers Council of Canada. “If ever there was a time for governments to bolster measures to protect consumers, it’s now.”

The Council, Canada’s only national consumer voice operating across multiple sectors, is calling on governments to immediately:

• Invest in public awareness campaigns so consumers understand where and how their issues can be addressed;
• Increase capacity to provide greater marketplace surveillance and targeted enforcement of consumer protection laws; and
• Provide adequate funding for consumer and civil society representatives to participate in trade and tariff stakeholder consultations – especially internal trade discussions.

Prior to the announcement that punitive tariffs would be imposed on Canada, a large majority of respondents from the Council’s Public Interest Network surveys indicated that consumer trust in government and the marketplace has been eroding.

“We witnessed regulatory failures during the Covid crisis, where governments and the private sector didn’t adequately protect our seniors in long term care facilities, and there were significant increases in scams and price gouging brought on by shortages of essential healthcare items and groceries”, Jackson explained. “Let’s not fail our consumers again if a tariff war becomes our next major crisis.”