It all comes down to money. To some that matters more than human life. That is the root of the problem,plain and simple.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/01/toy....ap/index.html

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNew...1027?hub=WFive

http://www.usatoday.com/money/indust...od-china_N.htm

I often wonder in the case of lead tainted toys if it is not the fault of the Chinese mfg, but the big companies who turn a blind eye to the design specs they impose.

Build it is as cheap as possible and we won't ask questions. How does the engineering dept at Mattell for example place a contract overseas for products and not monitor the quality control of the finished product upon delivery.

Good point, Bryan. As I pondered your post last night, Deb, I considered that we are partly (largely?) to blame for these problems. We are a culture that demands a mass quantity of mass variety at very cheap prices. That is the bottom line. But somehow, when something like this occurs, it's all China's fault.

Is that the same one I had lunch at almost daily, in the early 70,s. :smile:


Seems to be getting harder to do.

Sort of with Bryan on this in that my frustration is not with the Chinese but on this side of the Pacific.

We have whole government departments and agencies that suck away our tax dollars to prevent this but from a policy level it seems lets not do anything to upset the Chinese and kept business going. The agencies that are to protect the border and consumers are hand tied by the policy makers and even if they weren't directly, indirectly as there's no staff and funding anyways.

Then there's us here who buy it with a deliberate blind eye.

North American companies ask China to make products as cheep as possible. Then when something bad happens its all Chinas fault.
China is actually doing what they were asked to do, and the North American companies don't inspect the products until someone gets sick or their pets start dieing and then there is a big recall and China gets all the bad publicity.

Bottom line is, we're looking for products as cheap & fast as possible from a country with little or no standards. Until OUR government decides to impliment and enforce the standards we expect on OUR end, nothing will change. As voters, our best chance would be to make noise to our MP's. I think an MP is more likely to do something if the complaints are coming directly from their constituents. So my advise to you EmilyB, is to e-mail your MP cc yor MLA, the Minister or health, the Prime Minister ect... and ask your friends to do the same. You can get these e-mail addresses by surfing around on the Government of Canada's web site. Your MLA's will obviously be on your privincial site. I think this will get you much further than a personal boycot.

In the early 90s Wal Mart went before the US government to lobby to have great allowances for Chinese manufactured goods to enter the country. They succeeded. Then forced many US manufacturing companies to lower their costs by moving their manufacturing plants over seas. the lower cost goods forced entire industries to move 'off shore' to remain competitive. If you want to blame someone for lower quality and possibly dangerous products blame the consumer.
Watch out next is the Car industry. Chinese car companies are poised to launch into N.America

I still blame government. If we wern't taxed through the roof, more consumers would pay attention to what they buy and not just buy what's cheapest. As the cost of living continues to rise faster than wages, consumers will become more and more dependant on cheaper goods just to get by.
Here's some links to contact government;
Canada:http://www.canada.gc.ca/depts/major/depind_e.html
B.C.:http://www.gov.bc.ca/feedback/
Alberta:http://www.assembly.ab.ca/net/index.aspx?p=mla_home
Sask:http://gtds.gov.sk.ca/gtds.cgi?show=...LEGMLA#OUFOCUS
Manitoba:http://www.gov.mb.ca/legislature/mem...habetical.html
ect.....