Consumer Policy in the Canadian Federal State

Kenneth M. Glazier was Chief Librarian Emeritus at the University of Calgary, Alberta.

The Institute, part of Queen’s University, is the only organization in Canada whose mandate is solely to promote research and communication on the challenges facing the federal system. In this publication, Nicholas Sidor offers a concise study of the effects of Canada’s federal system on the development of national consumer protection policy, and he highlights policies intended to regulate consumer credit. Contrary to the view that federal systems benefit vested interests, in this case the impact of the federal system was to the advantage of neither the consumer nor the business interests. Although Sidor acknowledges that the federal system has benefited consumer policy in some ways, and in some provinces, his analysis suggests that consumer interests are not well advanced under the federal system.

Sidor, now with the Government of Canada Office for the 1988 Olympic Games, was until recently with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunication Commission (CRTC) as special assistant to the then chairman, John Meisel. The paper was originally undertaken in 1979 as a Master’s thesis at Queen’s University.

This is a thoughtful and scholarly treatise on a subject of continued interests to consumers — and that includes all of us.