Feb. 26 – Ontario, Canada – NDP seeking new law for toxic chemical labels on household products

Here’s a snippet from NDP seeking new law for toxic chemical labels on household products from today’s London Free Press (in London, Ontario, Canada where Nexreg is headquartered):

Toxic chemicals are in many everyday products, from household cleaners and laundry detergents to hair dyes and cosmetics, said NDP environment critic Peter Tabuns, who is pushing for a new law that would compel manufacturers to disclose dangerous ingredients in their products.

Consumers would demand changes if labels told them exactly what a product contains, Tabuns said.

“Right now, most people don’t know whether or not products that they buy have cancer-causing agents in them.”

Tabuns hopes to convince Ontario to follow the example of California, where community right-to-know legislation has helped get arsenic out of bottled water and lead removed from some candies. Manufacturers there opted to find alternatives rather than list carcinogens on their labels, he said.

“They are not going to want to have that label on their products. They know that consumers, especially parents, don’t want to subject themselves to exposure.”

We suspect this proposal is not going anywhere – the Liberal Party holds a majority in the Ontario legislature with 69 of 103 seats. The NDP, who are proposing this bill, are the third place party with only 10 seats (the Progressive Conservative Party holds the remaining 24). However, we will be following this proposal very closely since most consumer chemical companies operating in North America sell in the Ontario market of nearly 13 million people.