Why does CSA think it owns the law? Well, the CSA coordinates the drafting of a wide range of legislation, including electrical laws. The CSA thinks they own the law on the basis that they drafted its text and lobbied for its passage into law, therefore they own those portions of law that contain their contributions.
The trouble of course, is that CSA isn’t alone in lobbying governments. There are an awful lot of contributors to public law and, should CSA win, then by precedent all of these contributors would own their portions of the law.
Does that sound chaotic? It should.
Right now, CSA is restricting public access to public law, the only way anyone can see some of these laws is by paying CSA for that privilege. But it gets worse. As presumed owner of these laws, CSA is also charging for the enforcement of law. That is, they charge a use rate for each instance of compliance with what they call their laws.
If you don’t like it, then start sending emails to the Minister of Industry. Either that or accept an extra government fiefdom without government oversight like the EPA in the States.
I have been reading these updates on CSA for quite some time and they appear to be a wholly corrupt entity, however, it is not really unusual for the organization to “own” the law. This happens regularly with building codes be it the IBCC or others. They write the code, local legislatures codify a particular version, and the IBCC or other code organization sells copies of the code (usually for a nominal price). Demanding royalties for viewing when such viewing is a legislated requirement is another thing entirely. More corruption.
It may not be an unusual practice, but it surely isn’t a practice that is compatible with freedom. Every time lazy bureaucrats include proprietary documents into regulations, they take more of your freedoms away.
This is unjust regardless of what legislation it occurs in. It just happens that the PS Knight guys are one of the few groups not willing to take the abuse.
I don’t disagree with anything you said. I was just saying other organizations “own” the law also, however we have not experienced the type of corruption being experienced with the CSA. I also agree that from what I have seen here, CSA should be put out of business.
In the US each state should incorporate the entire code into the law instead of incorporating by reference and make it the South Carolina Building Code or whatever jurisdiction it may be. Many large cities do this as well as several states but the majority of states do not. Here, most federal regulations (DOT, Agriculture, etc) are incorporated by reference into the law and the local officials have no idea what they are supposed to enforce and the regulations are updated on a weekly if not daily basis. As an example it has gotten so bad that an SUV pulling a trailer is supposed to have the same emergency equipment, warning lights, and follow the same rules as a commercial semi rig. Is it enforced? No. Can you be sued by someone else for not doing those things? Yes. It is nuts.
Thank you Kate for keeping P.S. Knight’s fight with CSA on the radar screen. As an electrician I am personally very appreciative.
What I can’t understand is why the current government has done absolutely nothing to deal with this blatant abuse of the legal system. The fact that they haven’t done anything suggests that there may be some lucrative payoffs (secret of course) for politicians who find it personally advantageous to allow such a miscarriage of justice to continue. This is crony capitalism at its best and the only type of capitalism that statists and their relatives are in favor of.