From the Hamilton Spectator:

June -- Canadian toothpaste buyers start reading labels after a man buys a potentially tainted fake Colgate tube from a Guelph dollar store. The label has misspellings and contains no French writing. Questions are raised as to whether the tube is linked to a toothpaste recall in the U.S. involving an ingredient used in antifreeze.

Of course, I was hunting for that toothpaste, suspecting that something that was so readily available in the United States was quite possibly imported into Canada. It was the next logical step in the blogging work I was doing on the question of Chinese substandard or illegitimate imports.

But it was the effect of finding the toothpaste and then blogging about it that gives me pause:

Canadian toothpaste buyers start reading labels...

Wow. The power of the Web to connect people and to move information quickly and efficiently to where it will have the most effet.

In this case, the information moved over to the main stream media, who then took the message to Canadians from coast to coast. But when the full story of the counterfeit Colgate toothpaste is finally written, Canadian bloggers everywhere will have earned a measure of respect, I think.

Check out other entries from the Colgate toothpaste category
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Check out what Canadian bloggers have posted about Colgate toothpaste
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