World News

Brennan Wong: Staff Writer

There was a late breaking story from China about tainted milk products. Contaminated milk products for babies has caused two deaths and sickened approximately 1250 infants. Last year, China was shaken by numerous scares involving defective toothpaste, tires toys, pet food, and medicine. Many are wondering whether they should still buy Chinese products or not.

In the past 30 years, China has become a major manufacturing powerhouse. Cheap labour prices have attracted many production facillities around the world to open factories in China. Many people found factory jobs and altohough they were low-payed, they went a long way to mobilizing a labour force that used to be agrarian in nature. Global consumers also benifited from lower prices. Many people ask if they should sacrifice quality control for cheaper goods.

The following are some of the reasons why Chinese made goods have been less-than-perfect:

With the transition from communist to capitalist in such a short time, the gold rush mentality has made profiteering the ultimate goal. Everyone was out to make a quick buck. However, many public officials are corrupt and are willing to turn a blind eye to illegal activity (e.g. using unsafe ingredients). Furthermore, since China is still a developing economy. The emphasis of most factory members is on production and there are not enough regulations to monitor the safety and quality of produced goods.

There have been debates about whether people should boycott Chinese products. Most of them say not very likely. Some say that when they walk into their local Wal-Mart, it is nearly impossible to find a product that is not Chinese. Consumers think about lobbying the government to pressure importers of Chinese goods. They also say that consumers should be careful of buying goods from China if they can not locate any other substitutes.     

Brennan Wong: Staff Writer

Do you think that Ontario should ban youth from smoking cigarettes? Currently, there are 150,000 underage smokers in Canada. It is illegal to sell cigarettes to minors in Ontario, but there is now debate on enforcing a ban on underage smoking. A recent study was conducted by the University of Florida and DePaul University about laws banning minors from smoking. The report noted that if youth can’t smoke openly in public, then there would be less pressure to pick up the habit. Banning youth smoking would be an effective way of reducing the number of youth smokers.

Ironically, convenience stores which make a significant amount of profit from selling cigarettes are in favour of the ban because it would put less pressure on them to enforce sales ban. However, Physicians for a Smoke – Free Canada are opposed to the ban, saying that funds should be spent on educating minors about the dangers of smoking rather than trying to enforce the ban.