By Craig McInnes, VANCOUVER SUN March 27, 2009

For years, Richard Kinar has been pushing for performance standards for recreational ski and snowboarding helmets.

So I assumed the former professional ski racer from West Vancouver would be delighted by the announcement of a new Canadian standard this week in the wake of the death of British actor Natasha Richardson from a head injury after she fell during a skiing lesson in Mont Tremblant, Que.

Not so. Instead what he sees is a continuation of a pattern of inexplicable government foot-dragging on changes that could save young lives and millions of dollars in health care costs.

The Canadian Standards Association announced certification protocols this week that will lead to the first CSA-approved helmets. Testing can begin next month, but there is still no requirement that helmet makers submit their head gear for approval.

The federal government could make CSA approval mandatory by making it illegal under the Hazardous Products Act to sell substandard helmets, as it already does with hockey helmets and masks.

Instead, Health Canada has begun public consultations on whether helmets should be required to meet the new standard, which was finalized last summer but coincidentally only announced this week.

In the meantime, anything goes.

“The Conservative government is employing stalling tactics,” Kinar says. “They are saying they want to study it and there really is virtually nothing to study.
“We know there are potentially very poor quality sports helmets being sold in this country and the remedy is the Hazardous Products Act.”
Liberal MP Hedy Fry has a private member’s bill calling on the government to enact such a change, but it is suffering the usual fate of such opposition bills and going nowhere.

But the larger issue is that Richardson didn’t die because she was wearing a substandard helmet; she was not wearing a helmet at all.
Jimmie Spencer, president and CEO of the Canada West Ski Areas Association, says skiers and snowboarders are encouraged to consider wearing a helmet, but are not required to do so.

“We believe that this should be a question of personal choice and we hope that that will remain such.”

Spencer’s arguments against mandatory helmets for skiers and snowboarders remind me of the failed arguments used against requiring seatbelts in cars or helmets for motorcycles.

If you crash at high speed, they may not do you much good and they may encourage dangerous behaviour by providing a false sense of security.

“The fact that you have one [a helmet] on your head doesn’t mean that if you hit a solid object at a fairly fast speed that it is necessarily going to save you,” he says.
Not necessarily, perhaps. The certainty, however, is that if you are not wearing one, your chances of escaping uninjured are greatly diminished.

The government of British Columbia, which has the power to require helmets for skiers as it has for bicycle riders, has been silent on the issue so far, although it deserves recognition as the only province to provide funding for the research that led to the development of the CSA standard.

Of course, helmet use would become mandatory instantly if the insurance companies that provide liability insurance for ski resorts insisted that no one could get on a chair lift without one.

Since taxpayers cover the tab for health care when someone gets hurt or permanently disabled with a head injury, maybe it’s time for the province to start thinking like an insurance company and step in to reduce claims if just the prospect of reducing suffering isn’t enough.
cmcinnes@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun