A Christmas ornament available at Lowe’s Canada locations in the Calgary-area carries a warning indicating it may cause cancer or a rash but the sticker was meant to caution Californians not Canadians.

Customers have encountered owl snow globes on Calgary store shelves but not all of the products include the warning label that states ‘Warning: May cause cancer! May cause an allergic skin reaction’.

CTV Consumer Watch reporter Lea Williams-Doherty visited the Lowe’s location in Westhills and discovered six of the 11 snow globes available for sale were without the safety sticker as the label had been removed.

A spokesperson for Lowe’s told CTV Calgary the labels are meant to satisfy a California law requiring manufactures to warn of the presence of any carcinogenic material even at safe levels. According to the spokesperson, the snow globes contain a minute level of lead and have passed Lowe’s safety protocols. The labels should have been removed when the product arrived in Canada.

Information design expert Glenn Ruhl confirms warning label laws vary between jurisdictions.

“The label itself doesn't always tell the full story,” explained Ruhl. “Where's the point of origin, where's that label being distributed and through what country? Why are they putting it on there and, obviously, is it something we should all be aware of?”

“There's nothing really wrong with being aware, but we can't live in total fear all the time either.”

Health Canada confirms Canadians do not face risk despite the variances in label requirements. According to Health Canada officials, Canadian law requires labels for certain hazardous products and, as for all the others, manufacturers have the legal obligation to identify and avoid potential hazards.

With files from CTV’s Lea Williams-Doherty