Louis Vuitton knock off

The Adidas T-Shirt packaging warned of "suffossation".

The Yu-Gi-Oh cards did not have serial numbers.

The Louis Vuitton handbags, well they had puckered leather and wonky stitching but the girl selling them insisted they were the real thing.

Welcome to Canada's largest and most blatant bazaar of fakes--the Richmond Night Market--where labels are everything and quality is not.

According to Canada's leading anti-counterfeiting crusader Lorne Lipkus, the night market in Richmond and the smaller one in Vancouver's Chinatown are havens for fakers.

But ask any of the over 100,000 people who flocked to the Richmond Night Market this summer and they will tell you who cares

They love it for its food, its trinkets and its counterfeit glory.

Who amongst us has not been lured by the $15 misspelled Rolex look-alike or that three for $10 Nike T-Shirt

And chiefly for that reason, the Richmond night market has become a runaway success attracting major sponsors like Tourism Richmond and the Richmond Chamber of Commerce.

Counterfeiting has become a multi-billion dollar industry worldwide because most of us feel that we are doing nothing wrong by buying the cheaper version.

In Vancouver alone, police estimate that there are three major counterfeiting operations in the city that may have ties to national and international counterfeiting rings.

They estimate that the knock-off market in Greater Vancouver is between $2 billion and $3 billion.

Counterfeiting is just not about multi-nationals losing money.

It is about the small businessman in your community losing their business.

It is about child labor in unsafe factories in Asia.

It is about toxic material in ink and choking hazards in toys.

It is about sunglasses that have stickers stating that they provide UV/UB protection when they don't.

It is about batteries of poor quality that have exploded leaving scars on some people's ears.

It is about running shoes lacking the technology to cushion the impact on knees and joints.

The list is endless but one thing is clear.

Those making counterfeit products are only interested in one thing money.

The potential earnings are so high, police say, that organized criminals and even terrorist networks have joined the racket.

So what is Canada doing about this Very little it seems.

We recently got a tongue lashing from the United States for failing to crack down on counterfeiters who flood the market with fake and potentially deadly products.

Our legal loopholes have allowed counterfeiters to thrive while robbing the legitimate economy of countless jobs and billions of dollars.

For the second year in a row, Canada is on a counterfeit "Watch List" alongside Thailand, Vietnam and Guatemala.

Much of the counterfeit stuff sold in Canada including our night markets is from overseas.

But for some bizarre reason, Customs officials cannot seize counterfeit goods. They have to call in the RCMP.

If the RCMP is too busy to take the call, the goods get into Canada.

All Ottawa has to do is to add "counterfeit goods" to the list of prohibited items contained in the Customs Act--a move that will instantly allow Customs agents to seize fake products without having to wait for the Mounties.

That will go a long way in the fight against piracy and its associated evils.