{"id":731305,"date":"2026-06-12T05:26:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/731305\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T05:26:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T05:26:13","slug":"you-are-weakening-the-voice-of-consumers-advocacy-groups-reeling-after-ottawas-funding-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/731305\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You are weakening the voice of consumers\u2019: Advocacy groups reeling after Ottawa\u2019s funding cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Several consumer advocacy groups<\/a> across the country are warning the voice of Canadian consumers could be in jeopardy.<\/p>\n

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Ottawa has announced it is phasing out the Canadian Consumer Protection Initiative and the Office of Consumer Affairs which currently supports non-profit consumer organizations. \u201cIt was shocking rather than surprising to hear that this program in the Office of Consumer Affairs is coming to an end,\u201d said acting General Counsel at the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), Tahira Dawood.<\/p>\n

The Public Interest Advocacy Centre is a national non-profit which advocates on behalf of consumers in several industries including telecommunications, financial services, and transportation.<\/p>\n

Dawood warns the cuts will hurt all Canadians.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis program has been in place for many decades and PIAC, along with other consumer groups, have relied on this program to produce very important and valuable independent consumer research,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) confirmed to Consumer Matters the savings associated with the changes will reach $2.6M per year by 2028-2029.<\/p>\n

ISED spokesperson Hans Parmar stated the decision was part of the Comprehensive Expenditure Review announced in Budget 2025, which is taking measures to \u201cdeliver more efficiently and effectively on main priorities like consumer protection.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cAgency organizations such as the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, the CRTC, and others continue to provide Canadians with effective ways to voice their concerns and ensure fairness and transparency in our marketplace,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

However, Dawood strongly disagrees. \u201cYou are weakening the voice of consumers because consumers don\u2019t go on their own to present their arguments to a regulator. If there is no consumer group that is able to actively participate in different regulatory hearings or different matters, then you don\u2019t have your voice on the table,\u201d she argued.<\/p>\n

Non-profit Car Help Canada, which helps consumers in the automotive industry, says the Canadian Consumer Protection Initiative provided critical funding to its research projects over the past 25 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis sustained support directly enabled initiatives that advanced consumer education campaigns, drove delegated authority policy reforms, and shaped provincial and federal consumer protection legislation. Without this vital funding stream, our organization\u2019s capacity to conduct essential consumer advocacy research is severely compromised,\u201d said Car Help Canada\u2019s Shari Prymak.<\/p>\n

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Option consommateurs, a Quebec-based non-profit consumer advocacy group, is also sounding the alarm.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis decision will make public interests weaker and private interests will be more powerful. It\u2019s as simple as that,\u201d said Christian Corbeil, Executive Director of Option consommateurs.<\/p>\n

Corbeil proposes that funds from the private sector be used as a solution to the recent cuts.<\/p>\n

He suggests fines imposed by the Competition Bureau for violations of federal consumer protection laws could be allocated to a fund dedicated to financing consumer organizations.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it is a pragmatic approach in an economy of constraints that will respond to the needs of the government to lower costs, but on the other side to protect consumers,\u201d said Corbeil.<\/p>\n

Still, Dawood notes her organization is navigating through the recent announcement. \u201cThis is very disappointing. We do not know of any alternatives,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Several consumer advocacy groups across the country are warning the voice of Canadian consumers could be in jeopardy.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":731306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194295],"tags":[255729,49,48,1849,172895,20739],"class_list":["post-731305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ottawa","tag-advocacy-groups","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-consumer","tag-consumer-matters","tag-ottawa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=731305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/731305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/731306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=731305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=731305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=731305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}