“Open Letter to CSA’s new CEO”

Restore CSA;

The Canadian Standards Association (CSA) is about to announce their new CEO. This new hire replaces Ash Sahi, the former CEO that RestoreCSA managed to chase out the door late last year. Since Sahi’s firing, the CSA has been run by a committee of executives and, as everyone knows, the best way to efficiently and decisively run any organization is through an unwieldy, bureaucratic committee.

Restore CSA;

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.

Restore CSA;

Manufacturers understand CSA. That is, they know that CSA testing isn’t real, certifications mean nothing, etc. But they treat CSA’s staged processes as just part of the cost of doing business in Canada. It’s like a tax, you pay if you want to play.
Manufacturers start talking when CSA induced expenses begin to outstrip their revenues. One manufacturer recently complained to us about CSA’s money grubbing. Apparently the CSA hits them up for money at every possible stage of their business operations. The CSA even charges just to update a file.
“When [certain] components became obsolete they were changed” to other already approved components. Just to register that change “in CSA’s paperwork or computer, their MINIMUM charge is $825.00 PER CHANGE.  This is $2,475.00 for [these] three changes.  Along with this, there is[an] annual CSA maintenance charge of $1123.50.”  And on top of that, CSA charges for mandatory site inspections, most of which don’t involve any actual inspection.

Churnover: As a result, 31% of CSA’s board have exited in 2015, and we’re only halfway through the year. Officially, in this year alone, the cumulative turnover has now reached 61%. That’s 12.31 times the national average.

Well, this is just juvenile;

In May of this year, CSA launched a claim against RestoreCSA with the Canadian Internet Registry Authority (CIRA).
In Canada, CIRA is the authority responsible for the registration of website addresses. They don’t control the content of websites but they do have power over the addresses of websites using the “.ca” suffix. In this case, the CSA was claiming the right to own the RestoreCSA.ca address and, on this argument, they made some demands.
Specifically, CSA requested that CIRA “order that the registration of [RestoreCSA.ca] be transferred to the Complainant.” In other words, they wanted CIRA to take the RestoreCSA.ca address away from its legal owner, P.S. Knight Co. Ltd., and give that ownership to CSA Group.

And they lost.

The Inspector’s Debate.

“I have read the amendments and am a little dumbfounded as to the changes. […] I know this may sound a little bit like paranoia but this Code seems like it was written exclusively to exclude my product.“

We also requested copies of Industry Canada’s correspondence related to our company, PS Knight Co Ltd, and the CSA and its affiliates. We wanted to know what they had been saying about us, what they had said to CSA about us, and what orchestrating between them was underway. Well, Industry Canada advised that this search will require 27,983 hours of time and we have accordingly been invoiced for $279,780.

So, Michael Jackson made a widget. It was a lovely widget, this widget. It was cheaper than anything on the market and was demonstrably safer than anything on the market. Indeed, Michael’s widget had run the engineering gauntlet and, as a safety device, had been demonstrated in a long series of mandated, independent testing to be objectively safer than the competition.
In fact, the competition’s widget had never been run through any engineering gauntlet. The competition’s widget was an old design and its introduction predated most of the currently mandated testing. This old design is the status-quo widget, and the manufacturers of said widget were on the CSA committee that decided new product certification.
Well, Michael paid a fortune to have his widget tested to CSA’s satisfaction but, however satisfactory it was proven to be, the CSA committee wouldn’t certify the widget for use in the market. It took years of effort and expense, the expenditure of nearly a life’s savings and a relocation to the US, but no matter how many times his widget passed its tests, the CSA committee of his competitors wouldn’t certify his widget.
While we were pondering Michael’s story we heard from another caller, this time from Canada and he had a very similar story. Larry Mullen’s story is uniquely interesting, because Larry’s on the CSA’s Canadian Electrical Code Committee. Larry’s an insider.

Is it a story now?

We can now confirm that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Financial Crimes Unit (RCMP) has opened a criminal investigation into CSA conduct. FYI, the Financial Crimes Unit has responsibility for government corruption cases. We can further confirm that the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has initiated at least two criminal investigations into CSA activities in the United States.

SDA gets results! “In December, the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) fired their President and CEO, Ash Sahi…”

In a series of discussions with CSA staff, both current and former employees, we’re gradually getting a clearer picture of the culture of the place and why it’s so poorly managed. Along the way, we’ve received internal payroll information and personnel files…

Another thing is clear – RestoreCSA has some serious sources.

Restore CSA;

The story goes like this. First, as we already know, the CSA is always looking for foreign companies to purchase with taxpayers’ money. One such acquisition target was a British company called SIRA. This target was a testing company, smallish and highly specialized…

Really, James Moore? $15,830 for a grep > out.txt or SQL SELECT? Really?

“Well Gord, where there’s smoke there’s fire.” So said one Parliamentary veteran about Moore’s cost inflation on this file. It seems that we’re onto something. Or, to rephrase, it seems that they’ve been up to something, that there’s evidence in the files, that Ms Pegeot’s up to her neck in it, and that’s why Moore’s not complying with his own Governments Access to Information laws.
But quoting James Moore’s own website; “it is only right that the activities of all those who represent Canadians in Parliament be as open and transparent as possible.” That is, unless its embarrassing to Moore or hobbles his ambitions or frustrates his minions.

Here’s what’s supposed to happen. A manufacturer makes a lovely widget. This widget, however lovely, requires [Canadian Standards Ass’n] certification to be legally sold or installed. The manufacturer must pay money to CSA, at whatever rate the CSA wishes, for CSA to not only test the widget, but also to inspect the facility in which the widget was fabricated. This latter part is called a field inspection.
So, two things to note; First, these manufacturers are a captive market for CSA, they are obligated to have CSA certification or they’re out of business, and; Second, the CSA makes the standards governing the widget and the inspection, so the CSA decides the service levels that they’re obligated to provide as well as the prices they’ll charge, while manufacturers have no choice in either matter.
Here’s what happens in practice….

On June 5th, 2009, two men walked onto the property of a private residence on Millar Ave. in Saskatoon. They had instructions to remove the safety labelling affixed to a residential building. This wasn’t a foreclosure, there were no banks involved, and it wasn’t sanctioned by local police. Rather, it was part of a much larger raid taking place on private properties all across the Province, it was a scheme to remove evidence. The two men were from the Canadian Standards Association (CSA).

So how did the [Canadian Standards Association] achieve identical test results, eighteen years apart, from a product so susceptible to external factors? Well, that was the CEO’s question….

Restore CSA;

“I’m calling about one of your Access to Information filings, there’s a problem with some of your requested data.” This civil servant had a gift for understatement. The problem? “This, …this ‘Ash Sahi’, we don’t know who this is.” Understatement indeed, that’s quite a problem.
You see, Ash Sahi is the CEO of the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) and, according to CSA, Sahi was formerly the Director of Industry and Trade at Industry Canada. How can records officials at the Federal Government not know who Ash Sahi is? How could he fit under their radar?
“I can find no record of anyone by that name, or individually by that first or last name, having been employed by the Federal Government.”