The Canadian Standards Association ... Cont.
Standards for Sale
Excerpts from Restore CSA:
To recap, companies have to pay CSA to get in the door, then they pay CSA for influence at committees, then they pay CSA to develop standards to their liking, then these firms can leverage the new standards to their commercial benefit.
... In opening the meeting, CSA officials reminded the members present that any standard that they wanted could be developed for them and that CSA would sign off on it, provided that they paid money to CSA. Specifically, the CSA will sell standards for “$120,000 to $250,000” each. And standards of course, are included in hundreds of Canadian laws. RestoreCSA readers will recall that CSA also sells votes at legislative committees. So not only is influence for sale, but whole standards also.
The CSA official continued; “If companies that are part of CSA offer funding, it becomes possible to go to the government and get more.” This partly explains CSA’s aggressive lobbying. A question was then asked about using already existent safety standards from the US. According to the witness, the CSA official advised that even if safety standards already existed, “every time a foreign standard is sold, the funds go to the foreign organization.” Safety is secondary at CSA or, to re-quote the CSA official, “the bottom line is revenue generation.”
OMMAG
Excerpts from Restore CSA:
To recap, companies have to pay CSA to get in the door, then they pay CSA for influence at committees, then they pay CSA to develop standards to their liking, then these firms can leverage the new standards to their commercial benefit.
... In opening the meeting, CSA officials reminded the members present that any standard that they wanted could be developed for them and that CSA would sign off on it, provided that they paid money to CSA. Specifically, the CSA will sell standards for “$120,000 to $250,000” each. And standards of course, are included in hundreds of Canadian laws. RestoreCSA readers will recall that CSA also sells votes at legislative committees. So not only is influence for sale, but whole standards also.
The CSA official continued; “If companies that are part of CSA offer funding, it becomes possible to go to the government and get more.” This partly explains CSA’s aggressive lobbying. A question was then asked about using already existent safety standards from the US. According to the witness, the CSA official advised that even if safety standards already existed, “every time a foreign standard is sold, the funds go to the foreign organization.” Safety is secondary at CSA or, to re-quote the CSA official, “the bottom line is revenue generation.”
OMMAG
posted by OMMAG at 11:49 a.m.
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