The Chinese ambassador to Canada said Wednesday that China has been unfairly blamed for making unsafe products, a day after Mattel recalled more than 800,000 Chinese-made toys.
Lu Shumin said international importers -- not just Chinese manufacturers -- are responsible for testing the safety of products.
"My understanding is that among the toys recalled, 84 per cent were produced according to the design and standards of the importer -- of the company who asked for them," he told CTV Atlantic during an official visit to Nova Scotia.
"This is not the Chinese standard, it's the Western standard, or standard of the importer."
Lu added that the importer had likely "changed its standards recently," but the Chinese company didn't know, triggering the recall.
Late Tuesday, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and Mattel Inc. announced the company would pull 844,000 units of various Barbie accessory toys from store shelves, because they contained dangerous amounts of lead.
The products were manufactured in China between Sept. 30, 2006, and Aug. 20, 2007.
In total, there are 25,500 toys affected by the recall in Canada -- including seven Barbie-branded toys.
The action also involves 8,900 different toys involving Big Big World 6-in-1 Bongo Band toys from the company's Fisher-Price brand. Those products were sold from July 2007 through Aug. 2007.
Mattel instructs customers to go to its website to determine whether they own a recalled product. After they fill out a form and mail back the affected parts, Mattel will send them replacement and bonus parts.
Among the three Fisher-Price toys recalled globally: two Fisher-Price Geotrax toys were sold in Canada and one "It's a Big Big World" toy was sold exclusively in the U.S.
Health Canada has said it's largely up to companies and importers to monitor products entering the country for safety, not federal officials.
Mattel's last recall, its second announced on Aug. 14, covered about 18.2 million toys worldwide -- with more than 900,000 of them in Canada, and about 9.5 million in the U.S.
They included Chinese-made toys that either had excessive amounts of lead paint or had small magnets that could easily be swallowed by children.
In its first recall on Aug. 1, Mattel's Fisher-Price division said it was recalling 1.5 million preschool toys featuring characters such as Dora the Explorer, Big Bird and Elmo because of lead paint.
Under current regulations, children's products found to have more than .06 per cent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.
Lead is toxic if ingested by young children and can cause adverse health effects.
With reports from CTV Atlantic and The Associated Press
