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Pain in the ass Canadians
Oct. 4th, 2007 07:28 amThe president of my company just won’t give up trying to sell to the Canadian government. I guess they “want to buy” millions of dollars of our product if only we meet their specifications.
The problem is the specifications are designed to make any non-Canadian company pay through the nose to sell to the Canadian government.
I can see why. You want to give government contracts to the country you govern. That makes perfect sense to me.
I just wish they’d be honest about it.
Instead they give tests like “even though you’ve passed UL, UL Canadian, and ASTM flame tests you have to pass the special Canadian government flame test.”
All the other tests you take the thickest product and burn it and the thinnest product you and burn it. If both pass the test, you’re given approval for everything in between.
Not the “special” test. The special test you have to do samples in every increment between the two to make sure they all pass.
For our equipment that would be 18 different tests per product at $6000 each. We have 4 product lines. And, that is only for the test. It doesn’t include the cost of the test samples we need to make. Grand total is more than half a million.
There aren’t a lot of test labs set up to do this kind of flame test in the first place. And, none of the ones in the US had even heard of this test.
When I tried Canadian labs I keep getting the question “they’re making you do that test? We haven’t had to run that test for anyone in years.”
We had our sales folks in Canada check with other companies that make product there. Apparently they all got waivers that this test wasn’t needed as long as they did the other tests.
I remember back in the 80’s when I was designing music synthesizers. We had a similar problem shipping one of them to a film studio in Spain. It got stopped at the boarder for not having all of the required Spanish tests done on it.
That was solved much easier. Our sales guy asked the custom agent “how much do I pay you to get you to let this in?”
It was a hell of a lot less than the cost of the special testing they were asking for.
But, at least that guy was honest. I have a certain respect for someone who will say “pay the bribe” instead of this passive aggressive Canadian bullshit.
I just wish the powers that be here were willing to see it for what it is, and not try and take the bait.
The problem is the specifications are designed to make any non-Canadian company pay through the nose to sell to the Canadian government.
I can see why. You want to give government contracts to the country you govern. That makes perfect sense to me.
I just wish they’d be honest about it.
Instead they give tests like “even though you’ve passed UL, UL Canadian, and ASTM flame tests you have to pass the special Canadian government flame test.”
All the other tests you take the thickest product and burn it and the thinnest product you and burn it. If both pass the test, you’re given approval for everything in between.
Not the “special” test. The special test you have to do samples in every increment between the two to make sure they all pass.
For our equipment that would be 18 different tests per product at $6000 each. We have 4 product lines. And, that is only for the test. It doesn’t include the cost of the test samples we need to make. Grand total is more than half a million.
There aren’t a lot of test labs set up to do this kind of flame test in the first place. And, none of the ones in the US had even heard of this test.
When I tried Canadian labs I keep getting the question “they’re making you do that test? We haven’t had to run that test for anyone in years.”
We had our sales folks in Canada check with other companies that make product there. Apparently they all got waivers that this test wasn’t needed as long as they did the other tests.
I remember back in the 80’s when I was designing music synthesizers. We had a similar problem shipping one of them to a film studio in Spain. It got stopped at the boarder for not having all of the required Spanish tests done on it.
That was solved much easier. Our sales guy asked the custom agent “how much do I pay you to get you to let this in?”
It was a hell of a lot less than the cost of the special testing they were asking for.
But, at least that guy was honest. I have a certain respect for someone who will say “pay the bribe” instead of this passive aggressive Canadian bullshit.
I just wish the powers that be here were willing to see it for what it is, and not try and take the bait.
