Bill S-2 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act

This enactment amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to
(a) allow a claimant to make a declaration that information in respect of which an exemption is claimed is confidential business information and that information substantiating the claim is available and will be provided on request;
(b) allow a claimant to give an undertaking to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to bring a material safety data sheet or a label into compliance with the provisions of the Hazardous Products Act or of the Canada Labour Code; and
(c) allow the limited participation of the Commission before an appeal board.

[Sharon Watts, Vice-President, Corporate Services and Adjudication Branch, Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission]

Thank you.

I would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to regulatory changes being contemplated by the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. In fact, the commission has recently finalized draft amendments, two regulations that are consequential to what is now known as chapter 7 of the Statutes of Canada, 2007, formally known and presented to this committee in January as Bill S-2.

As vice-president of corporate services and adjudication of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, I have the responsibility for the development of both regulatory and legislative policy.

I would like to provide you with a brief overview of the Commission and the proposed regulatory amendments, after which we will be happy to take your questions.

I will give a brief overview of the role of the commission--you may recall I spoke of this earlier. It is to manage the trade secret component of the workplace hazardous materials information system, commonly known as WHMIS, or SIMDUT. WHMIS is a federal, provincial, and territorial hazard communication system established in the late 1980s through a consensus of industry, organized labour, and the federal, provincial, and territorial governments.

Among other things, WHMIS requires that product labels and safety documentation fully disclose the identity of hazardous ingredients within a product, the specific hazards posed by the product, the precautions to be taken in handling the product, and first aid measures to be applied in the event of exposure. The goal of WHMIS is to ensure that workers using hazardous materials have the information they need to minimize the risk of illness and injury.

HMIRC operates as a quasi-judicial independent agency with a mandate to grant exemptions from the full disclosure requirements of WHMIS while ensuring that the documentation on the safe use of the products is provided to Canadian workers and is accurate and complete.

The Commission's role is a dual one as it ensures a balance between workers' right to know what is in the products they work with and their hazards, and the industry's right to protect its trade secrets. The activities of the Commission can be broken down into three key components of our mandate.

First, we conduct an economic analysis to determine whether the claimant's information is truly a trade secret and whether disclosure will have economic consequences. Second, we conduct a scientific analysis to ensure that the health and safety information being supplied to employers and workers about the product is accurate and complete. The third part of our mandate is the administration of an appeals process. When a claimant or any affected party, such as a worker representative, challenges a decision of our commission, an independent appeal board is appointed to hear that challenge.

The governance of our commission is unique in the sense that the oversight of this three-part mandate is provided by a council of governors. On this 18-member council there are two representatives of workers, one representative of employers, another representative of the suppliers who supply the materials into the workplaces, and every province and territory has a member on this council, including a representative of the federal minister responsible for occupational health and safety.

Under our act the council has the statutory mandate to make recommendations to the minister on procedures for reviewing claims, appeal procedures, changes in fees and other related matters, and regulatory changes. The regulatory amendments we are currently proposing were developed under the aegis of this council as the means to deliver on commitments made to stakeholders as provided for in chapter 7. As did Bill S-2, the regulatory proposals have the unanimous support of our stakeholders as represented on our council of governors.

I would now like to turn to the issue that brings us here today, the proposed regulatory amendments consequential to Chapter 7 of the Statutes of Canada 2007.

The last time I had the pleasure of addressing this committee was regarding the legislative amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act set out in Bill S-2. The Bill received the unanimous support of this Committee and was reported back to the House of Commons for Third Reading where it received the unanimous support of all parties and received Royal Assent on March 29, 2007. At this point, the Bill became law as Chapter 7 of the Statutes of Canada 2007.

I would like to briefly review the legislative amendments, because there is a strong link between the legislative amendments and the regulatory amendments: one, allow a claimant to make a declaration that the information for which protection from disclosure is sought is a trade secret and that substantiating information is available upon request; two, allow a claimant to enter into an undertaking with the commission to voluntarily correct the health and safety information without a formal order; and three, allow the commission to provide factual information to appeal boards upon request.

These amendments, you may recall, were designed to reduce the administrative burden both on the claimants that come to the commission and on the commission staff itself, to speed up the correction of information that is required to get to workers concerning the health and safety information, and to expedite the appeals process.

However, in order for these changes to be fully implemented certain regulatory amendments are also required. The proposed regulatory amendments touch each of the Commission's three area of activity.

In terms of the first regulatory amendment regarding the information required to substantiate a claim—we're talking about the economic analysis side of our commission—under the declaration approach introduced by chapter 7, claimants declare that the information for which they are seeking exemption, the trade secret, is in fact a trade secret, and they provide a summary of the supporting documentation. However, the commission will require full documentation in support of a claim in the following instances: one, when an affected party challenges or makes a submission to the commission; two, when the claimant's declaration has been selected as part of a verification scheme; or three, when the screening officer within the commission has reason to believe the information may not be accurate.

The regulatory amendment outlines the basic information that will be required in a claim for exemption using this declaration approach, in addition to the detailed information that some claimants will be required to provide when their claim is selected for verification.

So the regulations spell out, one, that there's a basic new claim for exemption using a declaration approach, and two, that there's a second claim for exemption approach that requires full documentation.

Under this verification process, Screening Officers will be able to verify that the information provided by claimants with their declaration is accurate, and ensure there are no frivolous or false claims.

I will not outline the amendments related to the Commission's review of health and safety information provided by claimants.

You will recall that the second amendment to the Act allowed for the voluntary correction of safety documentation by claimants. Allowing corrections to be made voluntarily will expedite the process of getting complete and accurate information into the hands of workers, because the corrected information will be available immediately upon correction, rather than having to wait until after the publication of orders and subsequent appeal period expires at which point the correction orders become binding.

To ensure the transparency and openness of this process, we're proposing two regulatory amendments. The first, in the interests of transparency, proposes to publish the content of these compliance undertakings in the Gazette with a link from our website. This way the workers will know exactly what information has already been corrected, and in this way it provides them access to the corrected information and allows them to verify that this corrected information is actually available in the workplace.

The second amendment allows for the appeal of these compliance undertakings by affected parties to allow for recourse if the affected parties challenge the undertaking.

It's important to note here, and it was mentioned again when we talked about Bill S-2, that a formal correction order will always be issued if the claimant chooses not to make the corrections or if the undertaking has not been made to the satisfaction of the screening officer; in other words, full compliance will be realized in any case.

Turning to the appeals process, again, chapter 7 allows for the commission to provide factual clarification of the record of the screening officer to appeal boards when it's needed to facilitate the process.

Appeals are heard by independent boards with three members drawn from industry, labour and the chair of the appeal board, representing government. Most, if not all, appeals heard to date by the Commission's appeal boards would have benefited from additional explanatory information from the Commission, but this was not permitted under previous legislation.

The proposed regulatory amendments regarding the appeals process outline the process by which a party to an appeal may make a request for such clarification from the commission. This request requires unanimous support from the appeal board, and, if supported, the commission will be required to provide the appeal board with a written response.

In addition, the proposed amendments also allow for an appearance by the commission. In this case, it would be where the commission's written response already provided requires further clarification or, due to the urgency of the matter, if an appearance by a commission official would better aid the resolution of these issues.

None of this will interfere with the statutory independence of these independent appeal boards, as this is absolutely essential for the acceptance of appeal board decisions.

There are other housekeeping amendments.

There are additional proposed amendments to the regulations that are not related to Chapter 7. Among these amendments are wording updates, including those required to comply with the Bill to Modernize the Statutes of Canada, provisions to permit the electronic filing of claims, and minor amendments to streamline the appeal process.

In conclusion, I'd like to re-emphasize that the commission's regulatory changes have been developed in the same manner as Bill S-2, through extensive consultation with our stakeholders, consultations that commenced several years ago at the time the legislative amendments were being developed. Unanimous support for these regulatory amendments was most recently received from the commission's council of governors, literally last Friday at our annual council of governors meeting. Again, council of governors represent all of our stakeholders--labour, industry, employers, and each province and territory, as well as the federal government. At that meeting, our stakeholders' message was quite clear: these regulatory amendments are an extension of Bill S-2, which received unanimous support from our stakeholders and unanimous support from this committee and from all parties.

These amendments do not compromise worker health and safety. They will reduce the time to review economic information in support of claims; they will allow efficiency gains to be reinvested into the health and safety side of our business; and, when implemented, they will speed up the correction of health and safety information that needs to get into the hands of workers.

We feel these changes are a positive step forward for workplace health and safety in Canada. Thank you very much.

Hazardous Materials Information Review Act

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I will speak about Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. This bill originated in the Senate and had already been tabled. It was formerly called Bill S-40. It has been renumbered and is now S-2.

This bill aims to improve the current process of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, and it has three main objectives.

The first objective is to allow companies that want to be exempted from the general rules concerning the listing of hazardous ingredients to make a declaration that information in respect of which an exemption is claimed is confidential business information, and that information substantiating the claim will be provided on request, rather than de facto providing all information.

The second objective is to allow companies to voluntarily give an undertaking to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to modify and to bring a material safety data sheet or a label of products containing hazardous ingredients into compliance with the provisions of the Hazardous Products Act or of the Canada Labour Code.

The third objective is to allow the limited participation of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission before an appeal board.

The Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, or WHMIS, combines an assortment of legislation, regulations and procedures whose objective is to protect workers by preventing illness and injury that could result from the use of certain hazardous chemicals in the workplace.

Quebec, the provinces and the federal government are all part of WHMIS.

Under WHMIS, manufacturers and distributors of controlled (hazardous) products must provide information on the health and safety risks associated with their products, together with instructions for safe handling, storage, transportation, disposal and first-aid treatment. This information is conveyed by the product’s mandatory Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and label—

Each product's MSDS must include a number of elements. It must list all hazardous ingredients in the product, its toxicological properties, and the precautions one must take when using the product. The MSDS must also indicate the necessary first aid measures for anyone exposed to a product.

When the indications that must appear on the MSDS involve trade secrets—and this is where the problems begin—and disclosure of these secrets could have serious consequences, a mechanism is in place to, on one hand, assess the pertinence of not disclosing all the information and, on the other hand, ensure that workers' rights are protected. Therein lies the conflict between trade secrets and workers' rights. The mechanism in question is the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

This commission was formed in 1987 and consists of quite a few people. That is the beauty of the commission, which has about 18 people on it. There are automatically two representatives of worker interests, one representative of suppliers, one employer representative, one representative of the federal government, and various representatives of the provincial and territorial governments for a total of about 18 people, who form a review committee.

Simply put, the commission’s mandate is to “help safeguard both workers and trade secrets in Canada’s chemical industry”. So when a company wants an exemption from its general obligations in order to safeguard confidential business information—this could be the identity or concentration of a hazardous ingredient in one of its products—it must apply to the commission for an exemption. The claim is registered and it is up to the commission to decide whether an exemption is called for.

The commission’s mandate may also cover evaluating whether certain data sheets and hazardous product labels are in conformance.

There are certain problems with the current legislation. It mandates the council to make recommendations to the health minister on the methods for reviewing claims, the appeal procedures, and the fees to make a claim.

In November 2002, the council officially and unanimously recommended the amendments in the current Bill S-2 to the health minister at the time.

There are three kinds of problems: the complexity of the economic information, the lack of a voluntary process for correcting the data sheets, and finally the lack of flexibility in the exchange of information between the commission and the independent boards in the appeal process.

That is why the bill proposes three amendments. The first amendment in clauses 1, 2 and 8 proposes a change to the obligations in section 11(4) of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act in order to specify that when companies claim an exemption, they do not need to provide all the documentation previously required. This is intended to reduce the complexity of the claims, especially when the information does not really help the commission very much in judging the economic aspects of the claims.

Under the current process, companies claiming an exemption must submit detailed information on what they have done to safeguard the confidentiality of the ingredients used to manufacture their product and on the financial impact of the possible disclosure of this information.

In her testimony given to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology in 2006, Sharon Watts, vice-president of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, specified in which cases the commission would require full documentation.

The commission will require full documentation to support a claim for exemption from disclosure when an affected party challenges a claim or when a claim is selected through a verification scheme that we will set up to discourage false or frivolous claims

The second change is proposed at clauses 3 and 4 of the bill which amend sections 16 and 17 of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act in order to establish a new mechanism for the voluntary revision of material safety data sheets by the companies. With this new mechanism, when a company files a claim for exemption, a screening officer may “send an undertaking to the claimant setting out the measures that are required to be taken for the purpose of ensuring compliance” with those provisions governing dangerous goods contained in the Hazardous Products Act and the Canada Labour Code.

The purpose of this second change is twofold: to ensure that changes to material safety data sheets and labels are made more quickly and that companies acting in good faith will not be issued an order by the HMIRC, as this could be misleading about their willingness to comply.

In comparison, current legislation requires the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to issue a formal order for compliance, even if the company seeking an exemption is prepared to comply and to make the necessary corrections after having been notified.

The legislation also provides for a rather strict and time-consuming process. Thus, where non-compliance is found, an order is issued to the company seeking an exemption. This order is then published in the Canada Gazette and it does not become binding until 75 days after its publication. Other time limits are specified in the event that the company decides to appeal the order, or to allow the company to comply with the order and submit a new data sheet.

Finally, the existing rules would still allow orders to be issued to uncooperative companies in case of non-compliance with the rules and in the absence of a voluntary undertaking.

The third amendment proposed in Bill S-2 is contained in clause 7 of the bill, which amends the former section 23 of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, to enable the commission to provide clarification in respect of an appeal that has been submitted to an appeal board. Clause 8 amends section 48 of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act to permit the making of regulations “respecting the participation of the Commission in an appeal heard before an appeal board”.

According to representatives of the commission, the third amendment seeks “to improve our appeals process by allowing the commission, at the request of an appeal board, to provide factual clarification of the record to appeal boards, when needed to facilitate the process. Appeals are heard by independent boards with three members drawn from labour, industry and government. The government member acts as chair of the board. Most appeals heard to date would have benefited from additional explanatory information from the commission, but this is not permitted under our legislation”.

In short, the Bloc Québécois supports Bill S-2. The Bloc believes that when it comes to hazardous materials, it is vital to keep in mind worker safety and to base all decisions on that imperative.

The Bloc Québécois recognizes that the amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act contained in Bill S-2 were unanimously approved by the members of the HMIRC council of governors.

The Bloc, therefore, supports Bill S-2 so that the amendments called for by the principal stakeholders in this kind of workplace can be adopted.

In all its actions, the Bloc seeks to protect the interests of workers. That is why we tabled Bill C-257, which, unfortunately, died on the Order Paper; a bill dealing with preventive withdrawal would have enabled pregnant Quebec workers in companies operating under federal jurisdiction to receive the same benefits as Quebec workers—another bill that died on the Order Paper; and Bill C-269 to improve the employment insurance system.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act be read the third time and passed.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I know my colleague is concerned with these issues and I have heard her speak very passionately on the issue of public health as a former minister herself, so I know her concern is genuine.

I did introduce my remarks by saying that WHMIS is one of the greatest achievements in industrial occupational health and safety in this country, and we are proud of it. However, I also point out that in a survey done by the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, roughly 95% of all the material safety data sheets reviewed by the commission had been found to be non-compliant with the legislation.

There are two great concerns that I have with the actual practical aspects of WHMIS. I am not sure workers are being trained, first of all. In the industry that I come from, very few non-union workplaces bother with the mandatory eight hour WHMIS information class. It is a cost factor. In the unionized shops we mandate it. We negotiate it. We make sure it happens.

The other thing I am not comfortable with is this. If the workers do know where to find material safety data sheets, will they in fact be adequate and will they list all of the materials that the employee should be aware of?

One of the positive elements in Bill S-2 will allow a claimant to give an undertaking to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to bring a safety data sheet or a label into compliance with the provisions of the Hazardous Products Act. I would only ask, who is going to do that? How many rank and file blue collar workers on a job site are going to undertake to followthrough and ensure that some non-compliant data sheet goes through that detailed process?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member seems very knowledgeable, particularly about the issue of asbestos. In the bill before the House, Bill S-2, one of the amendments would speed up the process of getting health and safety information into the hands of workers to use the products.

I would like to ask the member, particularly in the area of asbestos or any others, whether or not he feels that this health and safety information is getting to the workers? Is he comfortable with how that health and safety information is determined, whether it is science-based, and whether there is anything that he feels should be improved in terms of the quality of the health and safety information getting to the workers in Canada?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a great pleasure for me, on behalf of the NDP caucus, to enter into the debate on Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act.

As always when a bill is introduced by the Senate, I feel obligated to point out that we object to bills that are introduced into this elected House of Commons from the other place, the unelected, undemocratic Senate. We believe that legislation dealing on behalf of the people of Canada should be put forward by the elected representatives of the people of Canada. However, having said that, we find the bill on our table today and we will do our due diligence and debate it as per the rules.

I am very interested in the subject of Bill S-2 and WHMIS, the workplace hazardous materials information system. I notice that my colleague from Surrey North, as a former minister of health for the province of British Columbia, is nodding her head. As well, my colleague from Vancouver Island North, coming from the labour movement, would appreciate the struggle that it was to introduce WHMIS legislation into the Canadian industrial workplace.

It was a long battle, the argument being quite simple: that workers have a right to know what they are being exposed to and they have the right to refuse unsafe work if they find, based on the information given to them, that they are not willing to put their personal health at risk in handling some of these products.

That is the fundamental premise and it was the groundwork that led to WHMIS as we know it. It was many more years before it became mandatory, before it became the law of the land that all workers have to be trained in the workplace hazardous materials information system and that all workplaces must have material safety data sheets listing as clearly as humanly possible in plain language exactly what chemicals or what combinations of chemicals the workplace may expose a worker to.

It was a hard-won battle. It ranks up there as one of the victories of the Canadian labour movement in Canadian industrial history. It is an issue dear to my heart. It is an issue that I am proud of. I am proud that the labour movement and the NDP played a role in putting it into effect in this country.

However, it is also something about which I have great concerns and some hesitation. In the context of doing research for this particular speech, I was shocked to learn that roughly 95% of all the material safety data sheets reviewed by the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission had been found to be non-compliant with the legislation. It was a random survey, but a scientific random survey.

The fact that 95% were non-compliant should cause us great concern in this era of greater awareness about chemical exposure and the accumulation of otherwise moderate amounts of chemicals in our systems. Chemical a may not in and of itself do us harm and chemical b may not in and of itself do us harm, but when those two chemicals are mixed together within our bodily organs, where they remain for many years, they can form chemical c, which may itself be a carcinogen or do us great grievous harm.

These shortcomings in the data sheets were not minor in terms of misspelling the names of a chemical or something. They were gross violations. They were missing either elements or products absolutely. As for the shortcomings in the data sheet system as we know it, and that very confidence we are trying to achieve that the best interests of workers are being addressed by WHMIS, perhaps we are not quite as excited about it today.

In my mind, one of the most obvious oversights in this country in terms of exposing workers to hazards comes from the toxic substances list, which was updated as of December 27, 2006. I do not think the substances are in any priority of hazards, but perhaps they are. Number six on that list is asbestos.

Asbestos is the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known. We believe that Canada should hang its head in shame with its treatment of the asbestos industry and the way it fails to protect Canadians to the hazards of exposure to asbestos. Even greater is the way we are exposing third world countries and underdeveloped nations to this hazard. It is absolutely indefensible in many ways.

Not only has Canada not banned asbestos and not only are we allowed to use it in the most alarming ways, but Canada is still the second largest producer and exporter of asbestos in the world. We export 220,000 tonnes into underdeveloped nations, often third world countries, because none of the developed nations will buy it.

Developed nations are banning asbestos in all its forms. We cannot sell asbestos to the European Union, Japan and Australia any more because they will not have the stuff in their countries. Yet Canada keeps pushing it and dumping it into developing nations. It is spending millions of tax dollars subsidizing the industry and trying to prevent other countries from banning asbestos.

When France tried to ban it, Canada sent teams of lawyers to the WTO to file complaints that we would lose our opportunity to sell the product in France and it would be an unfair trade issue if France did the right thing to protect its citizens from this hazardous carcinogen, number six on our list of toxic carcinogens in the country. Fortunately for the people of France, Canada lost its appeal. France did ban asbestos, yet we continue to produce it and sell it.

When Bill S-2 was going through the various stages of debate beginning in the Senate, clearing the Senate and coming to the House of Commons, at that very same time of confluence, a real irony, the Government of Canada was passing new regulations under the same act, the hazardous materials act, which cited places it recommended asbestos may be used. This is the real irony. It was almost as if the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing.

On the one hand, we have both Houses of Parliament engaged in writing legislation to protect workers from hazardous materials, such as number six on this list. On the other hand, they are passing new regulations not banning asbestos, number six on the list, but citing places where it is okay to be used. Guess what some of these places are? This was shocking to me, as a journeyman carpenter, as a tradesman.

One of the places asbestos can be used, and it is cited clearly in the new regulations, put into effect in November 11, 2006, is in drywall mud, drywall joint compound that every tradesman slathers on the wall between sheets of drywall. That mud has to be sanded. The sanding process makes the asbestos airborne. The workers in the field, even in commercial unionized jobs, wear no more than a paper mask, which does not stop the asbestos fibre. Because they are so microscopic, they take eight hours to drop from the ceiling to the floor.

This is stupidity. Every tradesman in the country knows we do not put asbestos in drywall mud. Why then does the Government of Canada pass new regulations that say it is okay to put asbestos in drywall mud? I think the Conservatives are trying to make a point. They are trying to say that asbestos is benign, not bad for us, yet on their list of toxic substances, it is number six.

Another place listed in the new regulations, where asbestos could be used, shocked me and motivated the NDP to take action. Recently, my colleague from Vancouver Island North and I had a press conference to illustrate how insane this was. It is okay to put asbestos in children's toys. Now that is smart. What kind of brainwave, bright light came up with that idea to put number six on the toxic carcinogens list of our toxic materials hazardous information system in children's toys?

I am almost speechless. A person would not have to be stupid to put asbestos in children's toys. A person would have to be fundamentally evil to put asbestos in children's toys. I cannot imagine anyone being that ignorant. However, the Conservatives are trying to be provocative. They are trying to stand up against the anti-asbestos lobby, the international global ban on asbestos, which has now succeeded in 40 developed nations. They are trying to say that asbestos is safe as long as people do not breathe it, eat it or be exposed to it.

We fought like crazy to get asbestos out of Crayola crayons. It took us 10 years. Finally, we managed to do that. It took us years to get the asbestos out of plasticine modelling clay. Finally, reason prevailed and we succeeded.

Now the Government of Canada, as of November 11, 2006, says that it is okay to put it in children's toys and learning products. I do not know what that means, school supplies maybe. There is this irrational, bizarre affinity that Canada has to asbestos.

We spend millions of dollars as globe-trotting propagandists for the asbestos industry. We hosted 140 conferences and seminars in 60 different countries, paid for by the federal government and our embassies, to invite other countries to buy more asbestos, to push more asbestos around the world.

I point this out to illustrate what a bizarre contradiction it seems to be for us to be debating today WHMIS, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, for the protection of workers. We are dumping asbestos all over the world, creating a legacy of health problems. It is like exporting a thousand Bhopals every year when this terribly legacy goes on.

Tomorrow I am going to the Drexel College of Medicine in Philadelphia to address a ban asbestos conference. Leading workplace safety and health doctors from around the world will be there. It is their third annual conference. Last year I went to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City to address a similar conference. The world wants to ban asbestos and Canada is playing an active role to block it.

Bill S-2 is talking about the Canadian legislation, WHMIS, the workplace hazardous information list. The international WHMIS list is called the Rotterdam convention.

Only a few months ago Canada sent another team of Department of Justice lawyers to Geneva, where COPS was meeting for the Rotterdam convention, the Conference of the Parties to the Rotterdam Convention. Once again, they were going to oppose that asbestos be listed on that Rotterdam convention list of hazardous materials. It only meets every two years, so every two years Canada trots out its Department of Justice lawyers who rush to the COPS Rotterdam convention meeting to ensure that asbestos is not on the list of hazardous materials.

I do not know what goes on behind the scenes, but this time the chairman of the committee cited Canada for being rude in not only blocking the motion to list asbestos. The chair had not even finished introducing the subject. He was just about to ask for arguments why asbestos should be on the Rotterdam convention list, when the Canadian delegation interrupted him at the microphones on a point of order and said that it was unnecessary, that it could save time, that it vetoed it because it did not want asbestos on the list. All countries have a right to veto in this consensus exercise.

I wonder if Canadians realize that we are paying these industry propagandists, the Department of Justice lawyers, to act as apologists for the asbestos industry. The asbestos industry is the tobacco industry's evil twin. For 100 hears it has been relying on tainted research, lies and cover-up. This is the most reprehensible form of questionable wacky science to keep asbestos in the marketplace. The Government of Canada is playing an active role in this.

I used to work in the asbestos mines as a young man. I am particularly sensitive to this. They were lying to us about the health effects of asbestos then, just as they are lying to us about it today.

In the context of Bill S-2, in case you are concerned about me wondering off topic, Mr. Speaker, I think it is entirely relevant to speak about one of the greatest hazards, the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known.

A lot of people do not realize that more people die from asbestos than all other industrial causes combined, and we have not reached the peak of the bell curve. The peak production and use of asbestos was in the 1970s and 1980s. The incubation period is 20 to 40 years. We have not seen the peak. It is not just the leading industrial occupation death. It is that all the other causes combined do not add up to the number of asbestos related deaths.

The people of Quebec say that somehow Quebec asbestos is benign. The National Institute of Public Health in Quebec, not the Canadian government Institute of Public Health, just published a study. They are finally facing reality.

Let me put it this way. Quebec men have the fourth highest rate of mesothelioma in the world. Quebec women have the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world. The only type of asbestos they mine in Quebec is chrysotile. Chrysotile asbestos causes mesothelioma. Mesothelioma is only caused by asbestos.

Finally, we can put to rest this myth that Quebec asbestos is okay, it is all that other bad asbestos that is hurting people. Quebec asbestos kills, just like the asbestos at the mine I worked at or the mines in Newfoundland and Labrador.

All those mines closed because of natural market forces. We cannot give this stuff away any more because it kills people. We keep supporting the Chrysotile Institute with government funding. We spend millions, not only supporting the industry, not only pushing it into third world countries, but undermining other countries' efforts to protect themselves, such as at the Rotterdam Convention.

When South Korea wanted to put warning labels on Canadian asbestos, Canada intervened and stopped it. It would not let it do so, again, as a trade issue. Canada said that Korea could not put a warning label on bags of asbestos because it could not prove that it was bad for people. It is not even on the Rotterdam convention lists of prior informed consent. Rotterdam does not even say ban asbestos. All Rotterdam does is say that there has to be prior informed consent of the end user. In other words, we have to inform the end users that what we are selling them could kill them. They have to take precautions. They have to use some measures of protection.

I get very frustrated. When I go to Philadelphia tomorrow, I do not know what I will tell the people there because we have made no progress. When I spoke to the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, I was hanging my head in shame for what the Government of Canada was doing. Since then, it has passed these new regulations which contemplate putting asbestos in children's toys. We are actually going backward.

I know why. There is a rat in the woodpile, I do not mind saying that. The current Minister of Natural Resources hired as his assistant deputy minister a man named Gary Nash. Guess where Gary Nash came from? He was the founder and first CEO of the Asbestos Institute. He is an apologist for the asbestos industry. He is filling the minister's head with a bunch of pro-asbestos propaganda that completely flies in the face of all the empirical evidence and scientific research which says asbestos kills.

This is the problem we have. Reason and logic are not driving this. Science is not driving this. What is driving this is some fear of offending what is left of this dying industry in the region of Quebec, which has the highest rate of mesothelioma in the world for women. This is the kind of thing that is driving this.

I take this opportunity to serve notice that we will not let this issue go. We intend to continue our fight. We have a motion on the books to ban asbestos in all its forms, calling on the government to increase its diagnostics and treatment abilities. As the world's leading exporter and producer of asbestos, surely we have an obligation to provide some of the remedies and some of the solutions as well. As everyone who has been exposed to or is dealing with mesothelioma in the country knows, they have to leave Canada to get treated effective for it. They all wind up in Michigan or California for advanced treatments.

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I compliment my colleague for his remarks on Bill S-2 and assure him that we agree with him on several of his points, one of which was about the primary nature of the safety of every worker in Canada, and I believe that most if not all members of the House agree.

We also believe in the dignity of all work, which leads to his idea, stated rather well, that the efforts of all workers, no matter how high or low their station, pool together in a richness that improves the quality of life for all.

I will disagree with his interpretation of the history of Bill C-257, though. He knows very well that most members in the House were in favour of the principle of the bill, but testimony at committee suggested that it was unworkable in the form it was in. In order to support the principle of the bill and get around the unworkability, the Liberal critic at committee presented a series of amendments. Unfortunately, those amendments were ruled out of order as being beyond the scope of the bill and therefore Liberal members had to vote against the bill when it came back to the House.

However, as proof of our commitment to the principle of Bill C-257, the Liberal member for Davenport tabled another bill the next day with the same principle, but with a more solid underpinning of detail that would make the bill workable, and therefore we would achieve the principle desired.

The member also said that on EI reform it makes no difference whether the government is Liberal or Conservative. I am not sure where he was last night, but just last evening we voted on a private member's bill put forward by the member for Acadie—Bathurst, an NDP member, and he could have seen the split in the House on that. The Liberals all voted in favour and the Conservatives voted against, so his rolling together of the two parties in his description was proven untrue only last night.

In his questions earlier in this debate, the member raised the possibility of amendments at report stage, and he asked me whether my party would consider them, but I did not hear any suggestions in his speech. At this time I would like to ask him if he is planning to present amendments at report stage. If so, would he like to describe one or two of them?

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Mr. Speaker, without a doubt, our societies' greatest strength, the driving force behind our economies and the factor that sets them apart, is the human capital we can rely on. This driving force is varied, dynamic and rich. We have a wealth of people whose abilities are maximized by the favourable environment we can foster and even shape thanks to the concerted contributions of individuals. When I think of the human capital we have here, I see business leaders who are tuned into small shifts and global trends and who adapt their strategies and develop the kind of clear vision that enables them to seize opportunities and use those opportunities to advance all of our communities. I think of researchers who apply their advanced knowledge to their ongoing search for better and newer ideas, thus enabling all of our fellow humans to live a better life and to dream of always living a better life. I remember whose who, every morning, leave their homes to do a job that we ask them to dedicate themselves to, and make the most of their skills to do better. These people, who do their very best every day, are the ones who enable us, as a community, to aspire to a better life.

That is why I am so pleased to rise in this House to address the Senate's Bill S-2, an Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. Needless to say, my party supports the principle underlying this bill because its reason for being is quality of life. Indeed, the Bloc Québécois believes that when it comes to hazardous materials, it is vital to keep in mind worker safety and to base all decisions on that imperative.

Mr. Speaker, you are probably not surprised to hear me say that. The members of the Bloc Québécois feel a profound desire to respect, listen to and protect workers, and we have intervened on many occasions in this House, as well as in the various ridings in Quebec and across Canada, to ensure that the rights of workers are respected.

Thus, for the benefit of my colleagues and our viewers, I would like to remind the House about a number of bills we have brought forward and defended in recent years, always driven by this desire to serve our fellow citizens and defend their interests.

First of all, I would like to mention Bill C-257, to ban the use of replacement workers in businesses under federal jurisdiction. Had it not been for the mysterious flip-flop by the current leader of the Liberal Party of Canada, this bill would have passed the report stage by now.

Members may recall that, when the Liberal Party leadership race was in full swing, my colleagues, the hon. member for Gatineau and the hon. member for Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, had obtained the consent of a majority of the members of this House, thus allowing the bill to pass second reading and be referred to committee. As demonstrated by this favourable vote at second reading, a majority of my colleagues are in favour of the underlying principle of this bill. Therefore, I am thoroughly convinced that we will see the fruits of this important contribution from Bloc Québécois in the very near future. Perseverance and hard work are our trademark, as you know.

Additionally, looking at the Order Paper, we see a bill concerning preventive withdrawal, the purpose of which is to provide pregnant women in Quebec who work in companies under federal jurisdiction with the same benefits of preventive withdrawal as other working women in Quebec. This is a matter of fairness.

The purpose of this bill is to allow these workers to make better choices for their families by having the same options similar workers already have.

There is also Bill C-269 to improve the employment insurance system. It is disgusting that the Government of Canada—whether Liberal or Conservative, it makes no difference—is as stingy as it is when it comes to this insurance program. The government does not inject anything into this program, not a dollar, not one red cent, but it collects surpluses from the contributions paid by the employers, who earn profits on their investment, and by the employees, who earn salaries from their hard work.

I would also quickly like to talk about how the Bloc Québécois has been fighting on behalf of workers aged 55, 60, or 63, who are victims of the mass layoffs that have been plaguing Quebec for the past few years, in order that these workers can reach retirement with dignity.

Including an income support program for older workers in the last throne speech, following pressure from my colleagues and me, is the start of recognizing that these workers deserve respect and, I would hope, the beginning of the end of a crazy idea held by certain Conservative ministers. According to them, it is easy for a 56-year-old worker with very little education who has worked with his hands his whole life, to go back to school to receive training in order to work in another area of activity until he is 65. Providing one-size-fits-all training is a big mistake, not to mention disrespectful of the people who have contributed to building our society.

Thus, we believe, since we always put our fellow citizens at the centre of our thoughts, our actions and our decision making, that it is essential to use the best possible framework for managing the use of hazardous materials. It seems redundant to say so, since it is so obvious that handling hazardous materials should be done following the most specific, rigorous and comprehensive parameters, both in their wording and application. Nonetheless, I think it is important to provide a few clarifications on how hazardous materials are currently managed in Canada.

The use of hazardous materials is governed by the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS). WHMIS is a combination of laws, regulations and procedures to protect workers by warning them about illnesses and injuries that could result from using hazardous chemical products in the workplace.

Quebec, the federal, provincial and territorial governments work together to implement the system.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission (HMIRC) states that:

Under WHMIS, manufacturers and distributors of controlled (hazardous) products must provide information on the health and safety risks associated with their products, together with instructions for safe handling, storage, transportation, disposal and first-aid treatment. This information is conveyed by the product’s mandatory Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) and label—

Each product's material safety data sheet must contain certain elements: it must list all hazardous ingredients in the product, its toxicological properties, as well as any safety precautions to be taken when the product is used. The material safety data sheet must also indicate first-aid treatment required in case of exposure to the product.

If any information required for the material safety data sheet deals with trade secrets, and revealing them would have serious consequences, there is a mechanism in place to determine the relevance of not posting all the information, and also to protect the rights of workers.

That mechanism is the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

Having said that, in reference to Bill S-2, it seems clear to us that the amendments to the act have been requested by the main stakeholders and, as a result, they should be adopted. These amendments have been unanimously endorsed by the members of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, also known as HMIRC. The commission includes representatives of workers, suppliers, employers, and the federal, provincial and territorial governments; in other words, all the parties who are affected by this legislative measure.

Since I have started to speak about HMIRC, I will very briefly describe the commission before dealing with the substance of the bill.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was established in 1987 under the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act as part of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, also known as WHMIS.

HMIRC is an independent agency that is accountable to the Parliament of Canada, through the Minister of Health. Its mandate is “to help safeguard both workers and trade secrets in Canada’s chemical industry”. It evaluates request from companies to withhold publication of some substances in certain products in order to protect trade secrets.

As a result, when a company wishes to obtain an exemption from the general obligation to disclose because it wishes to safeguard a trade secret—that might be the nature or the concentration of a harmful ingredient in a product that it manufactures—it must submit a request for exemption to HMIRC. The request is recorded by HMIRC, which determines whether the request for exemption is appropriate.

The mandate of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission is also to evaluate material safety data sheets and labels on hazardous materials to ensure compliance with the act.

As part of its mandate, in the fall of 2002, the council of governors of the commission formally and unanimously recommended to the then minister of health the amendments that are the subject of Bill S-2. These amendments are intended to correct shortcomings in three areas: the complexity of information of a commercial nature, the lack of a voluntary procedure for modification of a material safety data sheet, and finally, a lack of flexibility in the exchange of information between the commission and an independent board in an appeal process.

In seeking to improve the current process, Bill S-2 thus aims to achieve three distinct objectives.

First, it allows companies seeking an exemption from the general rules concerning the listing of hazardous ingredients to make a declaration that information in respect of which an exemption is claimed is confidential business information and that information substantiating the claim is available and will be provided on request, instead of de facto providing all the information.

Second, it allows the companies to give a voluntary undertaking to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to make changes to a material safety data sheet or label listing hazardous ingredients to bring it into compliance with the Hazardous Products Act or the Canada Labour Code.

Finally, it allows the limited participation of the commission before an appeal board.

To address these three shortcomings identified by the HMIRC, which are—it might be a good idea to mention them again—the complexity of economic information, the absence of a voluntary data sheet correction process, and the lack of flexibility in the exchange of information between the commission and the independent boards during the appeal process, it is proposed to make three changes to the current legislation.

First, clauses 1, 2 and 8 of the bill change the requirements under subsection 11(4) of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, to specify that, in their claims for exemption, companies do not have to provide all the documentation previously required. The purpose of this change is to reduce the complexity of the applications, especially when the information does not help the HMIRC make a decision on the economic considerations involved.

At present, companies seeking an exemption have to submit detailed documentation on the steps they have taken to protect confidentiality with respect to the ingredients used in their products and on the potential financial implications of disclosure.

In her testimony given to the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology on May 17, 2006, Sharon Watts, vice-president of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, indicated when HMIRC would require full documentation:

The commission will require full documentation to support a claim for exemption from disclosure when an affected party challenges a claim or when a claim is selected through a verification scheme that we will set up to discourage false or frivolous claims.

Clauses 3 and 4 of the bill amend articles 16 and 17 of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act in order to establish a new mechanism for having companies voluntarily amend the material safety data sheet. With this new mechanism, when a company requests an exemption, a screening officer may “send an undertaking to the claimant setting out the measures that are required to be taken for the purpose of compliance” with those provisions governing dangerous goods contained in the Hazardous Products Act and the Canada Labour Code.

The purpose of this amendment is twofold: to ensure that changes to material safety data sheets and labels are made more quickly and to ensure that companies acting in good faith will not be issued an order by HMIRC, as this can imply that they are reluctant to fulfill their responsibilities.

In comparison, current legislation requires the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to issue a formal order for compliance, even if the company that requests an exemption is ready to respect its obligations and to make the necessary changes after being served notice.

The process, under the present legislation, is time consuming and strict. Thus, when a breach is reported, an order is sent to the company that requested the exemption.

I see I only have one minute left, so I will conclude by saying that this order must be published in the Canada Gazette and is not enforceable until 75 days after publication. There are further delays to allow the company to appeal the order, or to comply with the order and produce a new data sheet.

According to members of the HMIRC, the new procedure introduced by Bill S-2 would speed up the amendment process considerably, but existing rules would still allow orders to be issued to uncooperative companies in cases of non-compliance with the rules and in the absence of a final undertaking.

If I may, I would like to skip over the third proposed amendment, and simply point out that, for all the reasons previously outlined, my colleagues of the Bloc Québécois and I support the principle of Bill S-2.

We urge the other members of this House to do the same, in the interest of workers and—

[Bonnie Brown, Liberal, Oakville, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to say a few words today on Bill S-2, concerning certain aspects of the disclosure and handling of hazardous materials in the workplace.

The bill sets out how confidential business information or trade secrets are to be accommodated under the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. This system is used nationwide to inform employers and employees about hazardous materials in the workplace.

The bill before us today proposes to change the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act in three main areas.

The information system was jointly developed by industry, labour, federal, provincial and territorial governments. It was enacted through several pieces of federal legislation and in the provinces through their occupational health and safety legislation.

This system requires the manufacturers, importers and distributors of hazardous materials to provide information on the risks associated with these problems. They must also provide those who work with controlled products with instructions on handling the products in a variety of areas, including their usage, storage, transportation and disposal.

It also provides instructions about the appropriate course of first aid treatment in the event that contamination occurs.

This information is placed on a product's mandatory material safety data sheet or label. The data sheets are used in required workplace safety training programs for the employees and the sheets must be updated every three years or when a change occurs.

As all members of the House would agree, the safety of individuals in the workplace is of prime concern. It is also important to uphold the right of manufacturers to protect the confidentiality of their proprietary chemical formulas from their competitors.

The current process, under the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, provides a process by which manufacturers can prove their compliance with the law and make safety information available to workers while, at the same time, protecting the privacy of their business information.

Under the current system, suppliers and employers may file a claim, under the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, to exempt the disclosure of a chemical's identity, to exempt the concentration of an ingredient of a controlled product, and to exempt the name of a study which identifies any ingredient of a controlled product. The commission then decides if the claim is valid.

Bill S-2 seeks to amend the existing legislation in three main areas. First, it would change the information that must be provided by a manufacturer or an employer to substantiate a disclosure exemption claim. Currently, claimants must provide a full economic justification for such claims based on their private business information.

This bill would change the legislation to state that an exemption claim can contain a declaration stating that the information provided is confidential business information and that it will be provided upon request. An exemption claim must also contain a summary of the information supporting that claim and it must be accompanied by a material safety data sheet.

A screening officer with the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission may ask the claimant to provide the information if an affected party makes a written representation relating to the claim or if the information must be verified.

The second amendment would add a new section to this act to deal with the authority of screening officers and what are known as undertakings. If a screening officer determines that a material safety data sheet related to an exemption claim does not comply with the Hazardous Products Act, or even with the Canada Labour Code, he or she may send an undertaking to the claimant. It would set out the measures required for compliance, within a specific period of time, without requiring that the claimant disclose its confidential business information.

The bill lays out the specific procedure to be followed if the claimant agrees to follow the measures that would enable it to comply with the law. However, if the screening officer is not satisfied that the claimant has taken the necessary measures, within the specified time period, he or she may issue an order to comply with the Hazardous Products Act or the Canada Labour Code.

The chief screening officer publishes decisions and orders relating to the exemption claims and compliance orders in the Canada Gazette.

Third, this bill would change the act to allow claimants and affected parties to appeal these decisions and appeal these compliance orders. The current legislation does not allow any participation by the commission in the appeals process. A screening officer's record of the undertaking and any clarifications made by the commission would be added to the basis upon which an appeal board will hear an appeal. An appeal board may dispose of an appeal either by dismissing it or by allowing it with an appropriate order.

The changes to the act contemplated in this bill have the support of business, labour and the regulatory authorities. It seems to be a sensible approach to streamlining the process while safeguarding the interests of workers and the producers of hazardous materials.

I believe the bill has the support of all parties in the House and I too am pleased to offer my endorsement.

[Anthony Rota, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Bill S-2 originated in the last session of Parliament under the sponsorship of the Liberal leader of the Senate. It was passed by the Senate, but had only received first reading in the House when Parliament was dissolved.

The bill seeks to change the process by which the manufacturers of hazardous materials can become exempt from providing full disclosure of the composition and characteristics of their products in order to avoid economic harm that would result from the publication of trade secrets during the disclosure process.

At the centre of this process is the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, the body that grants the exemptions to full disclosure. The amendments to the act have been requested by the commission itself, which has been restructuring over the past three years to allow it to perform its work more effectively and more efficiently.

The Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System was set up in 1987 as a collaborative effort among labour, industry, the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It was designed to facilitate the disclosure and appropriate handling of hazardous materials in the workplace. It requires product labels and safety documentation to include identification of hazardous ingredients in a chemical product, the specific hazards posed by the product, the precautions to be taken when handling the product, and the first aid measures to be applied in the event of exposure to this product.

However, full disclosure of the chemical composition of products does not have to take place if revealing such proprietary information would likely cause economic loss to the claimant or economic gain to the competitors.

As I have mentioned, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was created to review such claims against full disclosure. It reviews the health and safety documentation of those products, issues compliance orders, and provides appeal mechanisms under federal, provincial and territorial legislation. The operations of the commission are overseen by a council, consisting of 17 members who represent organized labour, industry, each provincial and territorial government and the federal government.

When the commission receives a claim, it must determine if the information to be concealed is indeed proprietary and whether disclosure would indeed be economically determined to be detrimental to the claimant. If the trade secrets claims is not upheld, then the ingredients must be disclosed, otherwise the product cannot be sold in Canada.

The commission also ensure that the health and safety information supplied to employers and workers accurately and completely describes the hazards of the product and its ingredients. In the event of a claimant or any affected party challenging a decision of the commission, an appeal is begun and is heard by an independent board made up of representatives from government, labour and industry.

Bill S-2 makes three amendments to the current process. The first amendment is aimed at reducing the administrative burden on claimants who currently must gather and present substantial supporting documentation, and on the commission that must review each detailed submission.

In the 17 years that the commission has been in place, no claims have ever been deemed invalid by the commission and only one in 500 claims have been found to be non-compliant.

Under this amendment, a claimant's declaration will be deemed valid and the production of supporting documentation will only be required if requested by the commission, or if a claim is challenged by an affected party. This will lighten the administration burdens of both the claimant and the commission, allowing the commission to focus its resources on the dissemination of health and safety information to workers and employees.

The second amendment in Bill S-2 shortens the time to get health and safety information out to workers and employers. Currently, when claimants are found to have inaccuracies in their safety documentation, a compliance order is issued and published in the Canada Gazette. This amendment allows claimants to undertake to correct these inaccuracies without having a compliance order issued. This will reduce the delay in dissemination of corrected information to employers and workers.

The final amendment with Bill S-2 is also aimed at increasing the efficiency of the claims process, this time with respect to appeals. With the amendment the commission will be permitted to respond to requests by appeal boards for clarification of the record. Current legislation prohibits the commission from providing input at this stage, even for the purpose of clarifying what are often scientifically complicated details. By permitting the commission to assist, when needed, the appeals process will be expedited.

All affected groups, including industry, labour groups and the regulators support the changes to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission's process contained in this bill.

More specifically, the amendments would reduce the documentation required to apply for an exemption, would reduce the delay in disseminating accurate health and safety information to those workers who use the product, and would enable a prompt appeals process by allowing the commission to respond to requests by appeal boards for clarifications of the record.

For these reasons, I will be happy to support Bill S-2.

[Rick Dykstra, Conservative, St. Catharines, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to support Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission which operates under the act being amended is part of a joint effort of the federal government, the provinces, the territories, industry and organized labour to protect the health and safety of those who are going to be working with hazardous materials. The primary objective of these amendments is to speed up the process of getting the information needed to handle hazardous materials safely into the hands of workers. This will of course enhance the protection of their health and their safety.

There have been extensive consultations on these amendments with all stakeholders, including organized labour, employers using hazardous materials in their operations, suppliers of hazardous materials and finally, all provincial and territorial governments. I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, that they are all in full support of the legislation.

The commission is part of the workplace hazardous materials information system, WHMIS. The system was set up in the early 1980s to establish an integrated mechanism to provide workers with the information they need when they use hazardous materials safely. It is supported by industry, by organized labour, by the federal government, and by all provincial and territorial governments.

When WHMIS was established, industry had a concern that there would be circumstances in which the full disclosure of all information on the hazardous ingredients in a product would betray a trade secret. That is a fair point because this would result in a potential loss of competitive advantage to the company holding the trade secret and either a financial loss to that company or a potential financial gain to its competitors.

In order to address this issue, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was established under the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. The commission is a unique agency in several ways.

First, it is the only organization that has the authority to provide an exemption from disclosure of trade secret information related to hazardous materials used in the workplace.

The second part of its mandate is that it balances its function of protecting trade secrets with a direct responsibility to ensure that complete and accurate information is provided to employers using these products because the workers are actually going to be handling these materials.

Third, the act establishes an independent appeals process through which the decisions of the commission can be challenged.

Finally, the commission carries out its responsibilities for the protection of trade secrets and just as important, ensures that workers have the health and safety information they need, on behalf of the federal, provincial and territorial governments to do their work.

The commission's authority for carrying out these responsibilities on behalf of provincial and territorial jurisdictions derives from the fact that the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act has been incorporated by reference into the occupational health and safety legislation of all provinces and territories.

This means simply that any supplier of hazardous material who wishes to sell the product in this country and who wishes to conceal the information on the product as a trade secret, must first make application to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to do so.

The application discloses to the commission the information considered to be a trade secret. It is accompanied by the information specifying the measures that the claimant has taken to protect the information from public disclosure. Documentation supporting the application must clearly show the value of the information to the claimant.

The commission first reviews the economic documentation provided in support of the claim for the exemption from disclosure and then determines whether the information meets the specifications for trade secrets as set out in the regulations.

If the application meets all aspects of the regulation, the exemption is granted and the information is then protected. If the requirements are not met, the claimant must reveal the information for which the exemption was sought or stop selling the product here in Canada.

The commission's experience had been that industry has been conscientious in all its claims for trade secret protection. I am happy to report that nearly all have been found to be valid.

The second mandate of the commission is a review of the health and safety information to be provided to workers so that it ensures it is in full compliance with the relevant federal, provincial and territorial governments.

If the health and safety information is not in compliance, the commission issues an order requiring that the information be corrected within a specified period of time. So that all potentially affected parties are aware of the corrections that have been ordered, the compliance order is published in the Canada Gazette. It is at this point that the claimant has the option to make the corrections, appeal the decision, or simply withdraw the product from sale in Canada.

It is important to note that the track record of claimants with respect to providing accurate and complete health and safety information has not been as favourable as that for the economic justification of their trade secrets.

While the commission requires that all information be in compliance before it finalizes its deliberations, roughly 95% of the applications include health and safety information which must be corrected before there is full compliance. Appeals by the claimant or by any other affected party are heard by an independent appeal board made up of three individuals representing organized labour, industry and of course government.

In response to the concerns of stakeholders, the commission undertook a renewal program with the objective that would make the commission more effective, more efficient and more client oriented. It is also going to be more focused on early compliance with respect to health and safety legislation.

The renewal program was again a tripartite effort with the lead role played by the commission's council of governors. I would like to overview the council itself. It is an oversight body which provides strategic advice and guidance. Its membership includes representatives of organized labour, industry and of course all orders of government.

While the council focused on a number of changes which have already been implemented through administrative or regulatory means, the council of governors also unanimously recommended to the Minister of Health that the renewal exercise be completed by enacting the amendments which are set out in Bill S-2.

There are three amendments. The first relates to the economic justification in support of claims for the exemption from disclosure of trade secrets. The second relates to the correction of health and safety information. The third relates to the facilitation of the appeals process.

The first amendment will permit claimants to make a declaration that the information for which they are seeking an exemption from disclosure is indeed a trade secret as set out in the regulations and further, that documentation in support of that claim is fully available and that this documentation will be provided upon request.

This amendment will ease the administrative burden on claimants and the commission, thereby starting the process of ensuring accurate health and safety information are in the hands of employees and workers.

Administrative measures will be put into place so as to ensure the integrity of the process, but the track record of industry suggests that problems are highly unlikely.

It is also important to stress that this amendment deals specifically with the economic documentation in support of trade secret claims and has no impact on the evaluation of the health and safety information to be provided to workers and employees.

The second amendment will permit claimants to enter into undertakings with the commission. The purpose of these undertakings will ensure that the necessary corrections to the health and safety information will be provided to workers without the issuing of a formal compliance order.

This simply acknowledges industry's concerns that formal orders reflect negatively on its commitment to workers' health and their safety. More important, complete and accurate health and safety information will be in the hands of workers much sooner than is now the case.

The third and final amendment will allow the commission to provide appeal boards with clarification of records at the request of those boards or at the request of the parties to an appeal. This is something that the appeal boards have been seeking, but is not permitted under the act as it stands currently. This change will expedite the appeals process and again ensure early delivery of accurate health and safety information to workers.

These are the amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act set out in Bill S-2. Members can be assured that the amendments have the unanimous approval of all stakeholders: organized labour, industry, all provincial and territorial governments and the federal government.

The net result of these amendments will be earlier worker access to complete and accurate information on the safe handling of hazardous materials in the workplace. This can only be a positive step for workers' health and safety.

To that end I would like to comment on one of the commitments in the government's 2007 budget, which complements this legislation in a very real and tangible way.

Budget 2007 provides $1 million over two years to the Canadian arm of the International Association of Fire Fighters to help implement the hazardous materials training program. This program will be available to all first responders to an accident or a potential attack. This training and preparation complements this bill.

Firefighters in my riding came to Ottawa to tell me and the finance committee why this program made sense for them as first responders. It is a request that they have been making for over seven years. When it comes down to dealing with hazardous materials, the finance minister, the Minister of the Environment, the Prime Minister and this government listened and with the passage of this bill, we will continue to listen.

All around, it is clear this bill is a good one and is supported further by this government's focus on dealing with this important issue.

The House proceeded to the consideration of Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I believe that the opposition House leader takes a very broad view of the definition of technical. However, we hope that Bill C-16 will progress and will be approved in a form that is appropriate and reasonable to approve and that we will have it here to deal with in the House quickly. That has not happened yet, however, and therefore today we are going to continue with the Liberal opposition motion and the business of supply.

Tomorrow we will continue debate on second reading of Bill C-35, which is the bail reform bill. This is one that has been the subject of positive words from the opposition, and we hope that we will be able to move to unanimous approval.

That would allow us to get on with other issues such as Bill C-42, the Quarantine Act; Bill S-2, hazardous materials; Bill S-3, which deals with defence and justice matters; and Bill C-33, which is an Income Tax Act item.

On Monday, we will be having day three of the budget debate. On Tuesday, we will have the final day of the budget debate.

On Wednesday and Thursday we will continue with the unfinished business from this Friday, including hopefully, the addition of Bill C-10 dealing with mandatory minimum penalties, which I know the opposition House leader will want to add to his package of justice bills he wishes to enthusiastically support.

On Friday, March 30 we will begin debate on the budget implementation bill.

I would like to designate, pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), Wednesday, March 28 for the continuation of the debate on the motion to concur in the 11th report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture, and Thursday, March 29 for the continuation of the debate on the motion to concur in the second report of the Standing Committee on Health.

There is one further item that the opposition House leader raised which was the question of the labour bill. I believe he heard a very generous offer from the Minister of Labour today. I believe the ball is now in the opposition's court on this.

Health

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Health. The committee has studied Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, and has agreed to report it to the House without amendment.

[Weldon Newton]

Thank you, Sharon.

These are the amendments contained in Bill S-2. They are straightforward. They are the product of extensive consultations among industry, labour, and federal, provincial, and territorial governments, all of which support this bill.

I would like to share a little sidebar comment. At our annual meeting of my council in September, we spoke of Bill S-2. I reminded them of the importance of being able to say to this committee today, when given the opportunity, that the bill continues to enjoy unanimity of support among all stakeholders.

A process was agreed to. Each jurisdiction, represented by counsel, would take the bill, brief the jurisdiction's communities and stakeholders one more time, and confirm in writing—I received those confirmations prior to coming here today—an exchange of correspondence, again with my eighteen-member council, the unanimous authorization to restate today their absolute support for Bill S-2 as presented to this committee.

In a nutshell, the amendments will reduce the time required to review claims for exemption from disclosure of trade secrets. It will speed up the correction of information workers need to handle hazardous materials safely. Thirdly, it will expedite the appeals process. The net result will be earlier access by workers to complete and accurate information on the safe handling of hazardous materials. This can only be positive for workplace health and safety.

Those, Mr. Chair, are our opening comments.

[Weldon Newton, President and Chief Executive Officer, Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission Canada]

I'd like to thank the committee for the opportunity to speak to the amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, as set out in Bill S-2.

As president and chief executive officer of the Hazardous Materials Commission, I wish to introduce the officials who accompany me. Sharon Watts is a vice-president, corporate services and adjudication. Also here today is Marc-André Dionne, our legal counsel to the commission.

I will provide you with a brief overview of the Commission's responsibilities and governance structure. Ms. Watts will then present each of the proposed amendments, after which we will entertain your questions.

But first, by way of introduction, I would like to describe how the Commission fits into Canada's overall system to protect the health and safety of workers.

In 1987 the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, known as WHMIS, was established through a consensus of industry, organized labour, and the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. The goal was an integrated and coordinated approach to ensuring that workers using hazardous materials had the information they needed to minimize risk of illness and injury.

The WHMIS system ensures that appropriate information--key word, it's an information system--on the handling of hazardous materials is provided to workers through product labels and material safety data sheets. Concomitantly, these information documents provide the basis for workers to receive necessary education and training.

When WHMIS was established, it was recognized that there was a need to balance the right of workers to have accurate health and safety information with the right of industry to protect confidential business or trade secrets. The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission was set up as an integral part of WHMIS to provide this balance.

Like WHMIS, the commission is a joint undertaking on behalf of labour, industry, and the federal and provincial governments. I'll be coming back to this later when I make some comments on governance of the commission.

I will now provide a brief overview of the roles and responsibilities of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission and its governance structure.

The role of the commission is to manage the trade secret component of WHMIS. It operates as an independent, quasi-judicial agency established under the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. The commission's mandate is to grant exemptions from ingredient disclosure for bona fide trade secrets, while ensuring that the documentation on the safe use of the hazardous products provided to workers is accurate and complete.

In essence, WHMIS is a hazard communications system. The system requires that product labels and safety documentation include the identification of hazardous ingredients in a product, the specific hazards posed by a product, the precautions to be taken in handling the product, and the first aid measures to be applied in the event of exposure to the product.

The basic rule of WHMIS is that health and safety documentation must include full information on the chemical identity, concentration, and mixtures of all hazardous ingredients in a product. But there's an exception to that full disclosure rule, and this is where the commission's mandate is so important.

Exemption from full disclosure of hazardous ingredient information is possible when disclosure would reveal a trade secret or betray a trade secret, and when this revelation would result in an economic loss to the claimant or an economic gain to the claimant's competitors.

The essence of the Commission's mandate is the review of economic and safety documentation in all situations where a hazardous material has a trade secret component and is being claimed as such. When the disclosure of certain information on a hazardous product would betray a trade secret, an application can be made to our Commission for an exemption from the requirement to disclose that specific information.

The commission is unique, in my opinion, because it is a single organization of government that serves all jurisdictions. The commission receives claims for trade secret protection, reviews health and safety documentation, issues compliance orders, and provides appeal mechanisms on behalf of the federal, provincial, and territorial jurisdictions.

The commission's mandate has been incorporated by reference into provincial and territorial legislation. For example, if you look at the Saskatchewan Labour Act you'll see the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission named as being the provincial entity for having a provincial mandate to grant trade secret orders, while reviewing and issuing orders for health and safety compliance. It is really a unique, single-window type of commission.

At this point in my presentation, I would like to describe the Commission's activities in three key areas as they relate to its dual role to ensure a balance between workers' right to know what is in the products they work with and their hazards, and the industry's right to protect its trade secrets.

The commission's mandate really breaks down to three business lines, for want of a better description. First, we do an economic analysis to determine whether the claimant's information is truly a trade secret, and whether disclosure will have economic consequences.

Second, there's a scientific analysis to ensure that the health and safety information being supplied to employers and workers about the product is accurate and complete in its description of the product's hazards, ingredients, protective measures, and first aid to be taken should someone be exposed.

The third part of our mandate is an appeals process. We issue mandatory compliance orders when violations are found--and I'll come back to this. When the claimant or any affected party, such as a worker representative, a union, challenges a decision of our commission, an appeal board is appointed to hear that challenge.

I'd like to go back to the first part of our mandate. To support a claim that certain information is a trade secret, the current system requires that a claimant--for example, a big chemical company, whether American or Canadian--file documentation on the measures taken to keep that information confidential. The claimant must also file documentation on the amount of economic loss they would suffer if they had to disclose that information and it became public knowledge, or they have to file documentation on the economic advantage their competitors would gain if the information became public.

When the documentation accompanying a claim comes to the commission, it's checked by commission staff. All the relevant information is enclosed in the application, and based on the fact that the file is complete, we issue a registration number that replaces, and therefore protects, the trade secret ingredient information on the health and safety documentation. The registration number permits the product to be marketed by the claimant in Canada.

Based on the information filed by claimants as to the value of their trade secrets protected by the commission during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2006, the disclosure protection mechanism administered by the commission had an industry value in the order of $624 million.

The second part of the mandate of the commission is the scientific review of the health and safety information to be supplied to employers and workers using the product. The claimant must include this information with the application for trade secret protection.

This second part of the mandate is crucial. Because employers and workers do not have access to the information protected as a trade secret, it is essential that all of the health and safety information they are provided is complete and accurate.

Over the history of the commission's operations, the commission has ordered corrections to the health and safety documentation on a very high proportion--roughly 95%--of the claims filed. In 2005-06, a total of 2,605 inaccuracies--violations, if you will--were ordered to be corrected. On average, eight to nine corrections to health and safety information have been required on each claim filed with the commission.

A significant number of these inaccuracies result in a potential threat to the health and safety of workers. They include, for example, failure to identify hazardous or toxic ingredients in a product, and improper classification of the toxic properties of an ingredient, the first aid measures, and the protective measures that workers can take to protect themselves. That is, to some extent, the clustering of the violations.

Once we've completed our economic and scientific analysis, we communicate to the claimant our decisions: whether the trade secret's valid, and whether the health and safety documentation meets regulatory standards. At the same time, we publish these decisions in the Canada Gazette and on our website for all to see.

When the decision is that the health and safety documentation is not compliant, we oblige the claimant to make the necessary corrections. As I said, last year 2,605 corrections were ordered, obliged. The claimant must then provide the commission with a copy of the amended documentation, or, alternatively, appeal the decision, or stop selling the product in Canada.

This brings us to the third part of the commission's mandate: the appeals process. Appeals can be filed by the claimant and also by affected parties. An affected party could be a union. These appeals are heard by independent boards on which government, labour, and industry are represented.

So those are pretty well the three parts of our mandate. Now I'd like to switch to governance, because this commission has a unique governance structure that's worth sharing with you.

The governance structure of the commission is unique. It's overseen by a council of governors. This council of governors is an 18-member council. There are two representatives of organized labour, two industry representatives, one representing employers of those handling hazardous materials and one representing those supplying such materials. We also have a representative of each provincial and territorial government on our council, and a representative of the federal minister responsible for occupational health and safety.

The role of the Council is one of oversight and governance. Under the Act, the Council has the mandate to make recommendations to the Minister on procedures for reviewing claims, appeal procedures and changes in fees.

With respect to the amendments set out in Bill S-2, which is in front of this committee, these were developed under the aegis of our tripartite council, which then recommended them to the Minister of Health in accordance with the provisions of our act. This 18-member council played a key leadership role in the stakeholder consultations and analysis that were carried out under the renewal program initiated by the commission.

I believe it's unique to have industry, labour, and federal, provincial, and territorial governments at the same table for 19 consecutive years. They work extremely effectively. Throughout the renewal process there was a great deal of discussion. It was always positive. It was always constructive. In the end, unanimity was achieved, with the full support, again, of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments; the workers handling the hazardous materials; the industry supplying these materials; and the businesses using the materials.

In November 2002 the council of governors formally recommended to the Minister of Health that the renewal of the commission be completed through the implementation of the amendments that are the subject of Bill S-2.

The amendments you will be considering have been the subject of extensive consultation and debate among stakeholders. There were many improvements identified through the renewal process. Most of these have already been implemented through changes to administrative procedures or through regulatory changes.

At this point I will stop and ask Sharon to deal in more detail with the amendments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I want to thank the committee for being here. I believe we will have a productive and perhaps very short meeting today, in the sense that we're dealing with Bill S-2, which comes to us from the Senate. It's on the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act.

First I would like to welcome from the department Weldon Newton, Marc-André Dionne, and Sharon Watts. It's good to have you with us.

We will start with your presentation on this piece of legislation. Then we will open it up to questions. The floor is yours.

[Sylvain Lacroix]

I would just add that with the new Official Languages Act and Bill S-3, I think francophone organizations will have to start taking action against the government if it does not provide the funding we require and does not serve us in keeping with our rights. We are not a minority. We are part of an official language community. We are founding people and the Franco-Ontarian nation starting now demands its rights.

[Monte Solberg, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

With respect to citizenship issues, I would simply say that we moved forward on Bill S-2 when we were in opposition. There is a pathway now to citizenship for the children of Canadians who moved out of the country. There is a pathway for that now, because of a Conservative initiative, Bill S-2. We are moving forward with Bill C-14. We're trying to get that through and make changes so that Canadian parents of foreign-born children can have their children get citizenship more quickly.

So we are making changes, and we'd like to make other changes in the future, but we don't need to reinvent the act just to do that.

Hazardous Materials Information Review Act

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I was not at the committee to hear the witnesses’ presentation. However, I can say that this decision was made by the council of governors of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. As well, the industry as a whole, labour, and the federal government are involved in this review commission. All of the stakeholders who were entitled to speak to express their desire for change were in favour of Bill S-2. You know very well that if there had been a risk to workers, or if labour had not agreed with this bill, we would have studied it further and we would have gone into much greater depth in our consideration of it.

I think that it would be a step in the right direction to provide better monitoring of safety in the workplace and in terms of the information that has to be provided. We know that labelling and material safety data sheets are very important. The council of governors, which has chosen this arrangement, was in contact with the entire industry, and especially with labour. We know that the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission is made up of 18 people, nonetheless. Some of them represent the provinces and territories and the federal government, others represent labour unions and businesses. It is somewhat rare to see so many people around a table supporting a bill. There was ultimately consensus on this question.

This is why the Bloc Québécois wants to see it pass.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague for her speech on Bill S-2.

As we know in the House the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission is part of WHMIS which is the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. This is a communications system which provides workers with information on the safe handling of hazardous materials used in the workplace.

I noted that since 1988 the commission has registered a total of just over 5,200 claims and that presently there are 1,450 active claims. To help rectify this matter the council of governors has put forward some legislative proposals such as, first, allowing claimants to declare that the information for which an exemption is sought is confidential business information and that full justification is available and will be provided on request; second, allowing claimants to enter into undertakings with the commission to voluntarily correct health and safety information when it is found non-compliant with applicable legislation; and third, allowing the commission to provide factual information to independent appeal boards.

I would like to put a question to my colleague. In her dealings with business and industry, and in her dealings with workers, what sort of feedback has she received from those two different groups with respect to Bill S-2 and these amendments that we would like to bring forward on WHMIS?

[Mario Laframboise, Bloc, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would first like to congratulate my colleague for her excellent presentation on Bill S-2 regarding hazardous materials.

My question is simple. The hon. member represents a very beautiful riding, Quebec City—one of the oldest cities of our nation of Quebec—which has developed and evolved considerably, and has been extensively renovated. Many products containing hazardous materials were used to make these magnificent improvements to Quebec City.

I would like the hon. member to give the House a brief overview of the work that has been done in Quebec City and to tell us about the workers who worked there, who are currently working there in construction and who may receive assistance thanks to this bill.

Quebec City has undertaken some magnificent improvements and renovations because it will soon be celebrating its 400th anniversary. Can the member tell us how the city is getting gussied up for this event?

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Mr. Speaker, perhaps I was confused. That happens sometimes; it is very human. We are here in the House and often we have information to give to colleagues. That sometimes disturbs the concentration that we require to speak on a subject.

I will continue my remarks. The Hazardous Materials Information Review Act governs the activities of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. That is an agency independent of the government with a quasi-judicial role. The commission plays a role in workplace health and safety and in the protection of industrial secrets.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission is also a component of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System (WHMIS). This system was developed by unions, industries and the federal, provincial and territorial governments. It provides information to workers who are in contact with hazardous materials and who need information for their own safety at work.

Why does such a system exist? As I have said, it serves to communicate all the information workers need concerning hazardous materials. All those workers who come into contact with hazardous products need to be protected. That is why the Bloc Québécois supports this bill, along with all the other stakeholders on this subject, including the workers, the industry, the unions and the manufacturers of these products.

WHMIS provides information in the form of data sheets and on labels. For example, if the information is contained on labels that are damaged and the information can not be properly read, a person who must work with that hazardous product can refuse to handle it. He or she can call for the manufacturer to provide information on the dangers of handling certain products. This provides a degree of safety for all workers, and especially for new employees, who also need the data sheet. That data sheet should be available at all times and should be placed in a location that is easily accessed. If it were under lock and key, workers would not have easy access to the data sheet, and that would be contrary to the objectives of the act.

The data sheet provides a list of all dangerous and toxic ingredients, as well as the precautions to be taken in handling the product. The data sheet also describes how to provide help to someone who is exposed to the product, or whose body or eyes have been in contact with the product. There are first aid procedures for anyone who has been in contact with a hazardous product. WHMIS is very important. It is very useful to have an established protocol that all companies must follow for the health and safety of employees in the workplace.

So, there is the establishment of WHMIS, the disclosure of information on the loss of competitive advantage and the disclosure of ingredients. Companies are uneasy about having to provide all the information about the manufacture of a dangerous product. I was going to say, “ a drug.” Since I am our health critic, I almost made a mistake. Really, this is a product that contains hazardous materials. This information must be disclosed; but some company information must remain secret when a product is marketed. The company asks for an exemption from disclosing certain information about certain products to their competitors.

There is a process to claim exemption from disclosure of this information. The bill sets out to ensure that this exemption claim, which is processed by the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, is much easier to make than it is now.

Application for exemption from WHMIS documentation on how to use hazardous products safely will be much easier and will require much less red tape. It will cut to the chase.

Then we will see how a claimant can be exempt from having their information reviewed, while still providing information on the health and safety risks associated with their product's ingredients and their effects. Some information could also be provided that the companies do not want to disclose in order to protect their trade secrets. This process will be much easier and less restrictive.

Those who do not have trade secrets have no problem since there will be no documentation to provide on health and safety.

The companies will be subject to a review by a federal, provincial or territorial agency and not by the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

Others, who want to withdraw from this exemption, will continue their efforts with the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

The significance of the trade secrets will be carefully looked at. Not everyone will be exempt. Furthermore, the compliance of the company's material safety data sheet will be determined based on federal, provincial and territorial requirements. If the documents submitted are not satisfactory, then a new material safety data sheet may be required.

Bill S-2would make a number of changes. It would change the procedure by which a hazardous materials manufacturer can obtain an exemption from disclosing the confidential composition of its products.

As I said earlier, the organization that grants exemptions is the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission. This organization works with industry, associations and workers, who are the primary stakeholders.

I think this bill strikes a balance between the challenge of keeping workers safe while handling hazardous materials and industry’s right to protect trade secrets from the competition. The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission will follow up and make the procedures more efficient. In fact, the commission's council of governors asked that the hazardous materials bill be amended in this way.

The commission was established in 1988. The data sheets were reviewed and 95% were found to be non-compliant. This bill makes it possible to determine whether the data sheets are providing accurate information not only on toxic substances but also on hazardous materials. How could we do a better job of training the people who work with these hazardous materials?

Over the past few years, eight or nine corrections have been required on each data sheet. Better protection for workers' health has also been implemented. There were hazards to their health. Monitoring was inadequate. This bill corrects that situation.

Workers must be given all available information to better protect their safety. The commission plays two roles: one in approving exemptions and the other in health protection with respect to exemptions.

The council of governors is the consultative body that sets policy for the commission. It was the council of governors that submitted the three amendments before us today. Only four out of more than 1,400 claims for exemption have been denied in the past. In addition, the documentation was too detailed, and the goal is to expedite this process because of the administrative burden it places on claimants and the commission.

I would now like to come back to the material safety data sheet. It must be available at all times, even for new workers. Quebec has a welcome protocol that provides new workers with information about a company's traditions and practices. But when it comes to hazardous materials, companies have to go beyond traditions and practices and support workers properly in handling these hazardous materials.

I think that this is the reason why the Bloc Québécois supports this bill. It is a question of facilitating the process to speed things up.

As well, many companies wanted to update their material safety data sheet and the information they gave their workers. The new bill can facilitate that. A company will now be allowed to act voluntarily instead of waiting to be notified to make a claim for exemption.

I think that this is a good idea, because if the company shows that it is willing to support its workers better in handling hazardous materials, it will not have to make a claim for exemption. It will be allowed to proceed voluntarily. That is why the Bloc Québécois supports this bill.

The Bloc is very proactive when it comes to the health and safety of workers. We have submitted a number of bills that were very proactive in this area. Take, for example, the bill introduced by my colleague from Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert on preventive withdrawal for pregnant workers who have to handle hazardous materials. Considerable caution is required.

And then there are replacement workers. It could be dangerous for them to work in places where they have to handle hazardous materials. We are already talking about the workers who are used to their job, but there are all the other workers, including replacement workers. My colleague's objective, or at least her concern, was to introduce a bill on replacement workers during a strike, should a company decide to use such workers. Taking that another step, if a replacement worker should have to work with hazardous materials it would be dangerous for him or her to do so. We have to think about workers who are in daily contact with hazardous materials.

I think I have covered the issue with respect to the body charged with implementing the new procedure. This is an improved procedure that is more functional and less restrictive, but also makes companies accountable. I think that when workers, the company and the people concerned agree with a bill and its amendments, then the Bloc Québécois—which has closely followed this issue and has the workers' interests at heart, as several bills confirm—also agrees. We will therefore also vote in favour of this Senate bill.

[Christiane Gagnon, Bloc, Québec, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Bill S-2 originated in the Senate. It is the old Bill S-40 from the Senate before the last elections. It was discussed in the Senate. Now it is being debated in the House of Commons. We need to debate this bill on reviewing hazardous materials information.

I am the second Bloc member to speak on this. My colleague, the hon. member for Brossard—La Prairie, was a health and workplace safety engineer at Hydro Quebec and made his career in the health field. He spoke about this bill, guided us in our understanding of it, and enlightened us on its purposes.

The Bloc Québécois supports this bill for several reasons which I will explain over the next few minutes. Its purpose is to reduce the amount of information required to claim an exemption. The current process for claiming an exemption is very long. The form is complex and can delay the adoption of an exemption, even when the company agrees to do so. In the past, this was refused. Now, when there is a claim for an exemption, the process will be much shorter.

The second purpose is to speed up the process for providing workplace health and safety information about using these products. This bill enables the commission to reply to requests for further information on matters submitted by the appeal board. At present, this is not permitted. When companies want to submit rectifications without going through a long process, they are refused.

The House resumed from October 16 consideration of the motion that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue with Bill C-28, the bill to implement the 2006 budget tax measures. This would be followed, time permitting, with Bill S-2, hazardous materials, and Bill C-6, the aeronautics amendments.

Tomorrow we will continue with the business from today with the possibility as well of completing the third reading stage of Bill C-16. I will talk to the opposition House leader about that after this.

Next week we hope to begin debate on some of the government's justice bills. The first one will be on the age of consent, Bill C-22. If we could get unanimous consent to pass that at all stages that would be very much appreciated.

We will go then to Bill C-27, our dangerous offenders bill and any cooperation we can get to move that along would be appreciated, I think, by the people of this country.

I am looking forward to sitting down with the official opposition and other parties to discuss the speedy passage of the many popular bills that the government has introduced and I am looking forward to their cooperation on that.

Pursuant to Standing Order 66(2), I would like to designate Tuesday, October 31, as the day to continue debate on the second report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

In response to the member's questions, consideration in committee of the whole of the votes under the Department of Human Resources and Skills Development on the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, shall take place on Wednesday, November 1, 2006, pursuant to the Standing Orders. The second day for consideration of committee of the whole will be November 7, 2006.

As well, I should indicate that Thursday, November 2, 2006, shall be an allotted day.

With respect to the member's questions with respect to the same sex marriage, we will fulfill our campaign promise on that and we will be proceeding with it this fall.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue the debate on an opposition motion which gives the government an opportunity to talk about keeping its promise to review our programs to ensure every taxpayer dollar spent is well spent and by reducing the debt by $13.2 billion.

Tomorrow we will begin debate on Bill C-25 , proceeds of crime, followed by Bill C-26, payday lending.

Next week, we will continue with the business from Friday with the addition of Bill C-27, dangerous offenders, Bill S-2, hazardous materials, Bill C-6 aeronautics, and Bill C-28, a second act to implement certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on May 2, 2006.

With respect to my hon. colleague's question on supply day, just like a child waiting for Christmas, he will have to wait a little bit longer. We will get back to him next week.

Hazardous Materials Information Review Act

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

It was tax deductible. It is unbelievable. While other organizations in North America were fighting to increase those penalties and fines, if we poisoned the water that our children drink, at tax time we could get up to 50% of that money back. We found that unacceptable, which is why this party in this corner of the House fought to end that diabolical practice. It was unfair to ordinary citizens and to other companies. Other companies, which were practising the right procedures, doing the right things by labelling their chemicals, by having the proper disposal practices and by living up to the bargain that has been part of the law of our country, had unfair competition from those that actually could subsidize their industry by polluting and not paying those fees.

It is important to note that Bill S-2 would provide us an opportunity to update those types of chemicals and materials. I believe we need to go further. I think that if, for example, we are going to have a continued non-compliance of 95% of the data forms and updating, there have to be significant consequences. These are known factors. We have seen the continual effects on human health in our society.

Most recently, because of the chemicals, the toxins and the pesticides in their environment, we have seen that people in farming communities are experiencing much higher degrees of breast cancer. We are trying to eliminate the pesticides that are not necessary. My municipality has worked very hard on this. Why our legislation to ban pesticide uses that were unnecessary failed is unconscionable. It has an effect. The prevention issues that this bill has and what we can do would not only improve our economic development through ensuring that we have a higher productivity value, it would also lessen our costs for health and other types of problems that emerge by neglect.

When the laws of the land that define the responsibility and the use of those products are not being administered and not being followed, then I believe there needs to be greater consequences. These products affect society as a whole.

My colleague from Winnipeg Centre skirted around the issue of asbestos quite well. In his recent press release, “Canadian officials are acting as globe-trotting propagandists for the asbestos industry”, is about as straightforward as one can get.

It is important to note that this type of advocacy and prevention, similar to Bill S-2, is how we can actually eliminate some of the tragedies. The member went into great detail about the asbestos industry but I would hammer home the fact that prevention is really a lot of the solution to some of our problems here and it is one that we can control. Why we would be sending trade delegations abroad to push a killer industry is unacceptable and unconscionable.The member has done justice to this file and it is one that can apply to the fact that we need to start examining our responsibility internationally.

A number of different chemicals and hazardous materials are transported on a regular basis between Windsor and Detroit and we are supposed to have specific laws to do so. However, the regulations and laws do not always match up with the United States. The situation on the Ambassador Bridge which runs between Windsor and Detroit is that the Americans can come into Canada some types of chemicals and hazardous materials but some Canadian chemicals cannot go to the American side. The chemicals still cross on the same bridge no matter what but it all depends on which regulation is being used as to where the chemical ends up. We can do some work on those regulations because there are a series of potential problems with hazardous materials.

We have a ferry service that actually does pre-clearance. This is important with regards to the data sheets. Greg Ward and the ferry service receive the information on the hazardous materials. It is cleared by customs before it even gets on the hazardous materials barge and then the barge goes across to Detroit.

We have a system in place where the information is necessary for entry into and exit from the United States but it also has to be provided correctly. This operation has been in existence for over 11 years and there has not been one accident. The Department of Homeland Security supports the operation and has given it a number of different accolades. It is a model that has been very good.

While that was happening on the U.S. side, as the U.S. government was dealing with supporting the ferry service and its management of hazardous materials across the Detroit River and the ecosystems that are so delicate in that area, the previous Canadian government tied the Americans up in the courts for years because they provided free customs officials to the Ambassador Bridge but then they charged the customs people and the ferry service.

The safer route that has enjoyed the support of the Department of Homeland Security on the U.S. side, being touted as a responsible mover and administrator of these types of materials, was being unfairly treated by the Canadian government and still is to this day. They had to settle in court and I know they have to pay for some of their customs officers. It makes no sense because it is unfair that one business would have an actual subsidy of customs officials and another one, a competitor, that is supposed to be providing the hazardous material waste movement for the region, is being attacked in a sense by having to pay for their customs officials. It raises the price and costs.

What we would have would be similar to what we have now where truckers take off their placards, placards that are supposed to go on the back and sides of a truck to show that chemical materials are being transported across a different region. We know that the price of the ferry is a little bit more.Truckers were taking off those placards and then using other means to get to the U.S. side, and that has been done openly. Why the government has not cracked down on that has been very disappointing. We have not seen the proper action.

The materials identified in the bill are very serious. I will give another important example. Chlorine gas is being transported on rail systems through my region as well. The Department of Homeland Security in the United States has classified those containers of chlorine gas as weapons of mass destruction because they can kill up to 100,000 people in a 15 mile radius if there were an accident or an attack on one of those types of containment vessels.

Several jurisdictions in the U.S., and I believe Washington is one, Cleveland is another and Dayton county in Florida, have come up with specific strategies to re-route those chemical materials outside of those jurisdictions which ensures that large urban areas are not exposed to this.

It is also important to note that our first responders, the police and firemen, but in particular firemen, who need access to the rail yards to deal with the issue in case of an accident, need permission first. We need to get Bill C-3, which deals with the bridges and tunnels act, passed by the Senate. The Senate is dealing with it and I believe it will be going to committee. However, until that bill is actually passed, the Ambassador Bridge will continue to be considered private property. We will have the same jurisdictional problems, which must change.

These are all things we can control and these are issues on which we can actually have a positive impact. I believe this bill will get wide support to move forward because it is a first step. It contains a number of different prevention strategies that are important. I would urge all members to consider what we can do on the other fronts, whether it be asbestos management and Canada's international relations or other types of human health and toxic chemicals that are in our environment. We should be thinking of ways to take remedial action and find prevention techniques to offset their harm so people do not get sick from those materials because they have been exposed either improperly, by accident or by design.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to speak to Bill S-2. This is an important bill and it does have consensus among industry and labour organizations. Bill S-2 would update the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. It would provide an opportunity for chemicals and their contents to be registered in a much more appropriate fashion. Some of the problems we have right now would be corrected by Bill S-2, such as updating current data sheets. Ninety-five per cent of the current data sheets have not been updated.

It is important to note that this debate on Bill S-2 is about prevention. It is about controlling the appropriate regulations documenting chemicals and their contents and their effect upon human health.

I was privileged to be in the House when the member for Winnipeg Centre gave his speech. I listened to his great remarks relating to the asbestos industry and the issues that he has been dealing with in his attempt to raise attention to the problems with asbestos. Prevention is very much a part of the solution to many of our problems. The fact that we could head off some of the problems in terms of spills or chemical use in a general sense and the rights of workers is very important.

I would like to congratulate the labour community for its dogged determination to ensure that the law is updated. This community does not just work for itself, but it works for all workers across this country. It ensures that standards are met and that workers who are not represented know about the chemicals they are working with and how those chemicals will affect them and their co-workers. This is an important point to note because these chemicals do have an effect on all of us.

My previous occupation was that of a job developer for persons with disabilities. I worked at Community Living Mississauga and I worked at the Association for Persons with Physical Disabilities. I also worked at the Multicultural Council of Windsor and Essex County as a job developer and an employment specialist.

WHMIS training and data sheets are very important, not only in terms of the content descriptions labelled on the sheets and on the products, but also the visual pictures. I have had the privilege of working on behalf of individuals with learning disabilities or literacy problems. These individuals did not have the ability to understand some of the terminology on the data sheets but they did understand some of the visuals. It is important for people with disabilities to understand chemical labelling because chemicals do affect their health.

I have a passion for eliminating the unnecessary chemicals and taking remedial action to deal with their effect on humans. The simplest thing to do is to have appropriate training in place so accidents can be prevented. Data information sheets are important, not just in terms of understanding the use of a chemical, but whether that chemical is being used in a way that it is not supposed to be used. If there has been a leak or if there has been a spill, it is important that there be an immediate response by employees and management to contain the situation.

On behalf of the people with disabilities, we were able to use a number of different techniques to associate the labelling with necessary action and they were also able to understand how to handle the chemicals properly.

The reason chemicals need to be identified and appropriately marked is that one chemical by itself may not have a severe consequence if it is spilled, but if that chemical is mixed with another chemical it could create a toxic cocktail so to speak that could cause greater damage. It is important for an individual to know how a chemical is being used and how to dispose of that chemical. It could create a huge health problem if these chemicals are disposed of through our sewer systems or our ordinary plumbing systems. This could have a causal effect on our water systems. Windsor and the surrounding area has had to fight some of the environmental problems. It is amazing to think how far we have come.

It was an NDP amendment that actually ceased the elimination of corporate tax deductions for polluting our Great Lakes system and our environment.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there is no question at all that this government is certainly in favour of improving the environment. There is no question about that. When it comes to the purpose of the amendments to Bill S-2, I think the first and foremost and prime purpose of the bill is to improve the health and safety of everyone in this country.

I think that is what this bill is going to do. I certainly look forward to the support it deserves. The sooner we can have this improvement put in place for the workers of this country, the better it will be for all of them.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite certainly brings up some issues that are of prime importance to all of us, whether we are the workers involved with using the hazardous materials, the industry involved with developing them, or the commission that is involved with regulating. Those certainly have been issues in the past. We know that. We also know that the amendments we have before us in Bill S-2 have been developed in consultation with all those involved, whether it was the workers or the industry and so on.

There has been a consensus that we need to move forward to do this. Over the history of its operation, the commission has ordered corrections to health and safety information in a very high proportion. In roughly 95% of the claims that have been filed, there has been some type of inaccuracy. The commission has acted on them. In 2004 and 2005, we saw a total of 2,103 inaccuracies. It was ordered that they be corrected. On average, eight to nine corrections to health and safety information have been required for each claim. In most instances, it has not been just a single issue. There have been several different issues identified.

A significant number of those inaccuracies result in a potential threat to the health and safety of workers, so it is extremely important that the commission is on top of this, that it continues to order these corrections and that it includes things such as first aid measures and the danger of fire and explosion. Certainly the amendments to this act in no way diminish the role of the commission. In fact, they enhance that role. The member has brought up very important issues in her question.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in the House today to speak in support of Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act.

I would begin by noting that the primary objective of these amendments is to facilitate the earlier delivery to workers of the health and safety information essential to the safe handling of hazardous materials in the workplace. Further, all stakeholders, workers handling hazardous materials, their employers, suppliers of those materials, and provincial and territorial officials responsible for worker health and safety are all aware of the proposed amendments and all of them are in full support.

The work of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission may not be highly visible to the general public, but it is to those whose health and safety depend on the commission and to those who rely on the commission to protect the trade secrets on which the competitive advantage of their business rests. This reflects the commission's dual role.

The unique part of that role is the protection of information which is truly confidential business information, a trade secret. Without such protection, products which may be key to the competitive position of industry could very well not be made available for use by Canadian businesses.

The second part of the commission's role is to ensure that those working with the hazardous materials for which trade secret protection is sought have full and complete information on the hazards posed by these materials and on the measures that they must take to handle those materials safely. I stress that the hazards faced can involve threats to their immediate safety, threats to their long term health, or indeed, risks which are life threatening either immediately or in the longer term.

The protection extended by the commission to workers' health and safety is not trivial. I have been provided with information which shows that over the past 15 years roughly 95% of the accompanying health and safety information reviewed by the commission was found to be non-compliant with legislation and that in recent years there have been on average nearly nine violations on each health and safety submission that the commission has reviewed. Many of these shortcomings pose a potentially major threat to the health and safety of workers.

Typical violations include failure to identify the effects of exposure to a product, failure to identify risks of fire or explosion, and failure to provide adequate information on the appropriate first aid measure if a worker is accidentally exposed to a hazardous material. It is the commission's responsibility to ensure that the health and safety information related to trade secret claims is complete and accurate. Workers will then know the risks they face and will be able to use hazardous materials in ways which do not endanger their health and safety.

The trade secret facet of the commission's role in balance with the protection of workers' health and safety is of substantial financial benefit to the businesses whose trade secrets are protected. Those seeking an exemption from disclosure of confidential business information must provide the commission with an estimate of the actual or potential value of that information to their businesses or to their competitors. The estimates provided with the claims reviewed by the commission in 2005-06 show the aggregate value of the trade secrets protected to be in the range of $624 million annually.

The commission is also unique in that it carries out its dual function of protecting workers' health and safety and protecting trade secrets on behalf of not only the federal government but also the provincial and territorial governments. That is, if a business has trade secret information, for example, the full chemical identity of a hazardous ingredient in a product, it makes application to the commission regardless of whether it might normally be subject to the occupational health and safety legislation of the federal government or of one or more of the provincial or territorial governments. In all cases the commission decides whether the claim for exemption is valid and makes sure that the accompanying health and safety information is in full compliance with the relevant federal, provincial or territorial legislation.

In addition to its responsibilities to government, the commission also draws advice and guidance from those most directly affected by its operations: those working with the hazardous materials, suppliers of hazardous materials and employers using hazardous materials in their operations. The main vehicle for obtaining the input of stakeholders is the commission's council of governors, which has representation from organized labour, industry, the federal government and all provinces and territories.

It was through the council of governors that the commission initiated its renewal process. This involved extensive consultations and resulted in the identification of many modifications which would improve the operations of the commission, with the focus being on early compliance with health and safety legislation. Many of these changes could be made administratively or through regulations. These changes are already in place. There were, however, three changes which could be implemented only through amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. Those amendments needed to effect these final changes are contained in the bill that we have before us.

In brief, the three changes required to complete the renewal program are: a provision to permit claimants to make a declaration that they believe that the information for which they are seeking protection from disclosure meets the regulatory criteria for confidential business information; a provision to allow the commission to enter into undertakings with claimants through which the claimant would make the necessary corrections to the health and safety documentation without the issuing of a formal order by the commission; and a provision to allow the commission to provide the boards hearing appeals of the commission's decisions and orders with factual clarifications of the record. Let us consider each of these in turn.

Under the current act, a claimant seeking an exemption from disclosure of what the claimant considers to be confidential business information must file a detailed justification for that claim. This includes information on the steps taken by the claimant to maintain the confidentiality of the information and estimates of the financial value of the confidential information to the business of the claimant or to the claimant's competitors. This information must be reviewed by the commission to determine whether the information meets the regulatory criteria for confidential business information, and a decision is then rendered on the validity of the claim.

This is an administrative burden on claimants and on the commission. The reviews carried out by the commission since its inception have shown no tendency on the part of claimants to make frivolous or false claims of confidential business information. In fact, nearly all of the claims for exemption that have been reviewed by the commission have been found to be valid.

The amendments we are considering will allow claimants to submit a declaration to the commission that the claimant believes the information is confidential business information as defined in the regulations and that information substantiating the claim is available and will be provided on request.

To guard against false claims, the amendments require full substantiating information to be provided when an affected party makes written representations regarding the claim, when the information contained in the summary provided with the claim must be verified, and when a claim is identified as requiring full documentation through a validation scheme established to protect the integrity of the system.

The benefits of this change are simplified procedures for industry claimants and a reduced administrative burden for both industry and the commission. This increased efficiency will expedite the delivery of health and safety information to workers who are handling the hazardous materials.

The second change will again shorten the time required to make the necessary corrections to the health and safety documentation provided to workers.

As the act now stands, when the commission finds that the documentation is not compliant with legislation, it must order the claimant to make the necessary corrections. Many claimants are prepared to make the necessary corrections without an order being issued and see these orders as questioning their commitment to workplace safety.

The amendments set out in this bill allow the commission to enter into an undertaking with a claimant to make the required corrections to the health and safety documentation on a voluntary basis. If the claimant fulfills the conditions of the undertaking, the commission will confirm compliance and, for transparency, will publish the corrections that have been made in the Canada Gazette. If the undertaking is not fulfilled, the commission will revert to the current process and order the claimant to comply.

Aside from the increased satisfaction of claimants, this amendment will avoid delays built into the system currently and will therefore significantly speed up the process of getting full and accurate health and safety information on the handling of hazardous materials into the hands of the workers.

The last change deals with appeals of the commission's decisions and orders. The act does not now provide for any participation by the commission in appeals. This has meant that the commission cannot respond to requests of appeal boards for clarification of the record. The amendments we are considering would rectify that situation. This will facilitate the appeals process and, again, speed up the process of getting accurate health and safety information into the hands of workers.

In summary, then, the amendments set out in the bill are very positive for workplace health and safety and they will simplify and streamline processes to the benefit both of workers and of industry. I cannot stress too strongly that those amendments have the full and unanimous support of all affected parties. There is no opposition. I most strongly support the passage of this bill.

[Nicole Demers, Bloc, Laval, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise in this House today to speak to Bill S-2.

Of course, as always, the Bloc Québécois agrees with what tends to be reasonable. We are very responsible. This is why we thoroughly examined the changes proposed by Bill S-2. If this can help businesses to improve their performance and their effectiveness, we agree. However, we must also be careful, because, even through we agree with what makes sense, we know that errors can sometimes happen. Because we agree with Bill S-2, we would not want Health Canada to think that we agree with everything that is related to the hazardous product problem.

Hazardous products have caused, many times in the past, incidents and major accidents that have left some people handicapped for life and that have even killed others. We only have to think about the case of Produits chimiques Expro inc. in Quebec. We are being very careful and very vigilant in the implementation of this bill.

I had the opportunity to speak with my colleague from Beauharnois—Salaberry about this bill and hazardous materials. She used to work in a hospital setting. She had the responsibility of explaining to people under her direction how hazardous products had to be used. Of course, when we talk about hazardous products, we are talking about products that may be very toxic. She thinks that this approach is working very well; it is very easy to explain to people. However, she was also telling me that there was not enough time. There was not enough time and, very often, unfortunately, the French versions of WHMIS data sheets were very slow in coming. Businesses should solve this problem, because, when one works in a hospital setting, one is in contact with people who are often very vulnerable and cannot always defend themselves against invasions of bacteria that might come from certain products.

One of her tasks was to explain how to use those products. She was responsible for health and safety but found that employees did not have time to inform themselves. She had to give them the information in the corridors, between two rooms. She regretted that because those dangerous products caused considerable damage. However, I find the amendments to the original act very valuable and legitimate. We can understand the desire to help companies; it was not really necessary to provide the government with the information requested by companies, as long as the companies respected appropriate confidentiality. That way, we know that they will act with full knowledge of the facts and very responsibly.

In comparison, the present legislation forces the HMIRC to give an official compliance order, even if the company which requests an exemption is ready to respect its obligations and to make the necessary changes after being served notice. The process in the present legislation is time consuming and strict. The order sent to companies must be published in the Canada Gazette and is enforceable 75 days later. There are further delays to allow the company to appeal the order and to produce a new data sheet. Once again, in many companies in Quebec and Canada the most obvious language is English. As the sheets must be translated, that unfortunately adds a little too much time. That is regrettable because if the people who have to work with the products cannot read the sheets and understand them correctly they will be at risk.

The HMIRC will also be in a position to give information and to clarify the cases under appeal. Right now, the independent appeal boards cannot consult the commission.

Nonetheless, some aspects worry me, as far as hazardous materials are concerned, and I am not just talking about their composition. We know that often accidents occur in the transportation of these materials. I think we must ensure, for the transportation of hazardous products, that every appropriate safety measure is taken to avoid accidents from happening to people who earn their living under difficult circumstances and who work very hard; people like truck drivers and their helpers, who unfortunately do not always have the luxury of defending themselves because they are not part of a union.

We also know that many questions remain on the choices made by firefighters. There are also many questions about the choices made by transport companies. They have to keep increasing their productivity and efficiency. The cost of gas is so high they have to keep their trucks on the road day and night to earn a decent income, which—even at that—is not guaranteed. Anything that allows companies to put their products on the market in a more diligent manner is fine by us. However, it is important to ensure that these trucking companies and other transport companies are just as diligent in the application of safety measures for their products when it comes to dangers and difficulties.

I also want to note that a number of times now, institutions, even schools, have had to be evacuated because of problems with toxic and hazardous materials.

Take for example an incident that occurred in May 2005 when the handling of nitric acid forced the evacuation of a thousand or so people from the chemistry and biochemistry department at the Université du Québec à Montréal. The incident occurred in a lab when a researcher was busy pouring nitric acid in a recycled container and a chemical reaction ensued. It is very dangerous. A lot of students and other people on site could have suffered extremely unfortunate consequences. Fortunately, this was not the case. The incident was classed as a true accident because the product was not defective. The problem was in the way the product was handled by the professor. The company was not at fault.

There was also the release of a toxic cloud in Valleyfield. Environment Canada monitors 585 facilities in Quebec that may pose a risk, because they store substances deemed hazardous, such as the sulphuric anhydride that was released at Noranda's CEZinc plant, in Valleyfield. That plant is not governed by Health Canada and Environment Canada's regulations. In fact, it does not store that product. The sulphuric anhydride is merely transiting through the plant in its pools. That plant is not deemed to be a facility that stores toxic and hazardous products, and it is not subject to the same regulations. This is why accidents such as the one that occurred in Valleyfield, on the evening of August 12, 2004, can happen. People living close to the plant had to be evacuated, because an extremely toxic product had been released, thus creating a very dangerous situation.

A chemical product also caused a number of people to faint at a flea market. Flea markets are very popular in Quebec and families enjoy going there on Saturdays and Sundays. So, when incidents like that occur in such locations, we are concerned about people's health and safety. When people faint because of a chemical product, it means that the substance is really very potent. We do not always know the origin of that chemical product, and we may also not know what it is exactly.

People try to find out where the product came from, but to no avail. This raises some important questions.

I know the companies that make these products are very competent and do as much as they can to ensure that such incidents do not occur. However, humans being what they are, unfortunate things sometimes happen.

I completely agree that we should give companies the opportunity to get their products to market faster and more efficiently. I am pleased with this move to amend the act because it is a little restrictive.

We have strong environmental convictions. Even though some members and government ministers claim that the environment is responsible for a number of plant and business closures, we know that is not true. We know that this is not the principal cause of plant and business closures.

We do not put much stock in such simplistic explanations. We try to do our homework and study the issue in its entirety before making a decision about whether to support this or that bill.

This bill is not a problem for us because its implementation does not directly put anybody’s life in danger. The change that is requested is minimal and only speeds up a process that we know is very long. In all departments, the approval processes are very long.

For example, just in the area of natural health products, some companies have to wait as many as two, three or even four years to get a product evaluated and recognized by Health Canada. These waiting periods are senseless because, after all, some of these products are used by a lot of people all over the world and have very conclusive effects on their health. I myself have been taking some for a number of years, and as you can see, I am in excellent health.

All of this to say that there is not much in the bill that would cause us to oppose it. We cannot be against virtue itself. Unlike the governing party, which seems to be against all environmental virtue, we do not think that a bill like this has any environmental effect at all.

We will therefore be very much in favour of the bill in principle. We hope that hon. members of all parties will also support it because we think that the passage of this bill will make all our companies in Quebec and Canada more efficient. We also believe that the committees charged previously with assessing hazardous products have done a good job of evaluating the implications of this amendment.

This is an amendment, therefore, that will in no way compromise the safety or all the precautions that should be taken to ensure that hazardous products are properly stored, used and provided to customers, as well as properly transported. We also believe that the owners of the companies that produce these hazardous products are competent people who ensure that their products are used properly and who will do even more in the future to ensure that their products include data sheets translated into French as well as English ones so that people who use the products have the information they need more quickly.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, the member's helpful question gives me the opportunity to point out that the proposed amendments in Bill S-2 will permit the voluntary correction of material safety data sheets and product labels when the commission finds them to be non-compliant. We can save that burdensome step.

At present, the commission must make formal correction orders even if the manufacturer or the person distributing whatever material claims it is fully prepared to make voluntary corrections. Therefore, there is some room for optimism that we can benefit the situation in workplaces around the country if it is not such an onerous task to make orders to correct deficient workplace safety and health data sheets.

One of the figures my colleague, the member for Windsor West, pointed out, which we should all be well aware of or take note of and be concerned about, is that 95% of those data sheets examined by the commission were found to be non-compliant and not just in immaterial ways. On average eight or nine errors were in those sheets examined. Therefore, clearly the WHMIS regime in the country is sorely lacking and it needs correction.

I hope I did not overstay my welcome by arguing about asbestos, but I would like to see the material safety data sheet on Quebec asbestos, on chrysotile asbestos. That safety data sheet would say that there is no safe level of asbestos, that we should not handle the product and that our wives and children should not be exposed to it because it will kill them. This would be the only fair WHMIS data sheet on asbestos that we could put because there is no safe level of asbestos. There is no control or safe use of asbestos. Exposure to one single fibre can and in many cases has caused life threatening disease.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, a funny thing happened to me on the way to S-2. That was the member's speech. However, we should probably give him some credit for being so tenacious on this issue that he feels very strongly about. It does raise a question though.

In Bill S-2, when the chief screening officer has to make some changes, the bill prescribes that they have to be gazetted. I would suspect, if we asked the 308 members of the House whether or not they have ever scanned the Gazette and followed it to see what was in there, there is a very high proportion of members who have not even had a look at the Gazette. It is a formality of sorts. However, the question really becomes: How does this link in to the health and well-being of Canadians?

I must admit, other than asbestos, that I was thinking of the recent study and report that on farms the likelihood of women developing breast cancer is significantly higher than women who are not in agricultural sites. Perhaps, here is yet another example that hearkens home to a lot of members about the importance of this information when it comes up.

I wonder if the member has any thoughts about how this process of having this hazardous materials information review act in place which gazettes information, whether or not the rubber really hits the road in terms of making sure that all of that gets down to ordinary Canadians, would ensure that Canadians are also made aware of the health risks associated with certain chemicals and other dangerous materials.

[Christian Ouellet, Bloc, Brome—Missisquoi, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my honourable colleague opposite, the member for Winnipeg Centre, got sidetracked somewhat since Bill S-2 does single out asbestos, and I think he used the bill to talk about the era when he worked in the mines. I agree with him that it was actually dangerous at the time. He is correct, back then it was called long fibre asbestos.

However, the asbestos produced at that time is not the same fibre as the cryolithe being produced today. That is a lie. It is not the same fibre, it is not the same thing, it is not as dangerous and does not even come close to posing the same risks.

My colleague stated that he was a carpenter, and so was I. I imagine that we worked at similar workplaces. At the time, we knew very well what it involved.

He stated that asbestos was extremely dangerous. It was a hazard for the workers, for those who mined it and those who carried out renovations. This fibre remains dangerous. However, it was never dangerous when properly installed in walls, around beams or when properly contained or hardened.

Asbestos cannot be readily replaced in high temperature areas. Contrary to what my colleague stated, it cannot be replaced with cellulose, which can be used as insulation but not for anything else.

I would like to ask my colleague for Winnipeg Centre why he did not once mention cryolithe?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

You are right, Mr. Speaker. I was taking the long circuitous route to bring me back to my original point which was dealing with workplace health and safety issues. The connection was so plain and so obvious in my mind.

What I am advocating here is an amendment to Bill S-2. I believe there should at least be a reference in Bill S-2 to our international obligations. The type of workplace safety and health conditions put in place in Canada in 1988 are admirable. They are some of the best in the world. There are some hiccups and some problems with the material safety data sheets, but the intent is laudable and honourable.

There is a glaring contradiction though in the fact that we do not extend this beyond our own shores, and as such, we are doing a great disservice to other underdeveloped countries. Part of our overall development aid in recent years has been building the administrative capacity of countries as well as brick and mortar development in terms of digging wells or infrastructure.

With the globalization of capital, one of the things that is terribly lacking is the fact that there has not been a globalization of harmonizing workers' rights. We have globalized the free movement of capital, but we have not globalized things like a commitment to human rights, and a workplace safety and health standard. I wish Bill S-2 dealt with these things.

I think there would be broad interest in the general public's point of view. Canadians would be horrified to learn that we continue to be the third largest producer and exporter of asbestos in the world. Canadians do not realize that asbestos is not banned in this country and we need to caution them about this fact.

Just because we will not let a Canadian be exposed to a single fibre of the stuff does not mean it is banned. It certainly does not mean that we are doing anything to stop pushing this material into underdeveloped countries in the third world.

We have put the Rotterdam Convention in jeopardy. At the same instant that we are debating WHMIS in this country, the international equivalent of WHMIS, the Rotterdam Convention, is near collapse because of the corporate greed of the asbestos industry and Canadian government officials who are handmaidens to that industry. They have put the integrity of the Rotterdam Convention at serious risk. I predict they have jeopardized its very future.

[The Deputy Speaker, NDP, Bill Blaikie]

Order, please. The hon. member was in the habit of returning to the subject at hand every once in a while, but he has fallen out of that habit and it has been a long time since he has said anything about Bill S-2. I wonder if the member could remember the rule of relevance.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to enter the debate on Bill S-2. I have great personal interest in this legislation dealing with the WHMIS, the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System.

In 1988, when I was a journeyman carpenter, WHMIS came into effect and all of us had to be trained on a 40 hour WHMIS course. We were not allowed to go back on the job until we had our WHMIS certification.

Since that time I became the leader of the carpenters' union in Manitoba. It was our job to ensure all of our membership had passed WHMIS. I therefore am very aware of the value of this right to know legislation, which is how we phrase it. WHMIS is the right to know and, flowing from that, the right to refuse unsafe work is the next logical step to the right to know. It is based on the premise that workers have the right to know that the materials they are being asked to handle as an aspect of their job are in fact safe. They also have the right to know if they need to take any safety precautions in terms of a mask or gloves.

However, the workers also has the right to know some of the complex things that my colleague from Windsor West tried to raise in that sometimes there is a perfectly benign chemical or compound and another perfectly benign chemical but when those two are added together they create a third product that can be very hazardous.

The WHMIS data sheets need to be very accurate and they are very complex. Workers need to be well versed to understand the complicated chemical language that is sometimes on these material safety data sheets.

I was shocked to hear my colleague from Windsor West point out something that I had never heard before. He said that roughly 95% of all the material safety data sheets reviewed by the commission had been found to be non-compliant with the legislation. Ninety-five per cent is a pretty appalling figure. Many of these shortcomings, in fact typical violations, they found were not minor in terms of misspelling the name of a chemical or something. Many of the violations included the failure to identify the effects of acute or chronic exposure to a product and the failure to identify that a hazardous ingredient in a product is a known carcinogen. Those are serious shortcomings in the WHMIS data sheet regime as we know it.

However, I take some comfort in the fact that we are addressing this, that Parliament is seized on the issue of workplace safety and health as it pertains to material safety data sheet. I only wish that we could extend that same interest in the rights of workers to know hazardous products to our international activities because what WHMIS is to the Canadian workforce, the Rotterdam Convention is to the international workforce. The United Nations has come together under the auspices of the Rotterdam Convention to identify hazardous products and to require labelling of these products when prior informed consent of the user is deemed to be necessary.

The most graphic illustration of Canada's failure to take into account the long term health effects of foreign workers is asbestos. Canadian asbestos continues to pollute and contaminate most of the free world. The legacy of the contamination from Canadian asbestos is still being realized in places like Europe but it has had the common sense to ban asbestos completely. However, Canada continues to be the third largest producer and exporter of asbestos in the world and we dump it all into developing nations and third world countries because no one else will buy it anymore.

Where the Rotterdam Convention comes in and where this contradiction comes in is that just last week in Geneva, Canada barred the inclusion of asbestos on that list of hazardous materials which would require the PIC, prior informed consent of the user. This is appalling. I personally hang my head in shame that Canada is acting like international globe trotting propagandists for the asbestos industry.

I do not know what we owe the asbestos industry but we are doing the industry a great favour by fighting its battles when we send teams of Department of Justice lawyers half way around the world to Geneva to argue against having asbestos listed as a hazardous material. They are serving some master in the asbestos community and it is beyond reason as far as I am concerned.

The Rotterdam Convention does not even seek to ban asbestos, although I personally believe the world should ban asbestos. The Rotterdam Convention only says that if asbestos is going to be sold and used that it at least should be mandatory that the users at the other end be cautioned that the material is hazardous to their health and safety and that safety precautions should be taken.

Canada opposes that as a nation. For the third time in a row Canada has gone to COPs, the committee of parties that form up the Rotterdam Convention, and we have done more than resist this. We have been an international bully. We have arm twisted. We have used every diplomatic means that we know of to convince other countries to follow our lead and not allow asbestos to be listed.

In the context of debating WHMIS and a workers' right to know, I wish somewhere in Bill S-2 we could require that what we want for ourselves we should extend to our business activities internationally. This is a concept of corporate accountability that was introduced in the last Parliament by the former member for Ottawa Centre, the hon. Ed Broadbent. Ed felt that some of our activities internationally were an embarrassment in terms of labour standards, human rights standards, health and safety standards and environmental standards. He felt that what we do in Canada, where we are guided by certain principles of fairness, of ethics and of a commitment to workplace safety and health, that by extension we should be propagating those principles in the third world and in developing nations because we want to bring them up to those same high standards that we enjoy in this country.

For all those people who think asbestos is banned in this country, I am here to say that asbestos is not banned in this country at all. I used to work in the asbestos mines as a young and foolish man. I can say that they were lying to us about the health hazards of asbestos then and they continue to lie to us about the health hazards of asbestos today.

I call the asbestos industry corporate serial killers. I do not hesitate to do that. The asbestos industry is the tobacco industry's evil twin because both of them have made a fortune in the last century by pushing a product that they know full well kills people and hiding behind fabricated research, tainted research, cover-ups, falsehoods and lies about the health hazard.

It is bad enough that the asbestos industry itself is lying to workers, its own employees, its own industry and to people around the world, but the Government of Canada feels some obligation to be the handmaiden to the asbestos industry and, as I say, to be globe trotting propagandists and spending millions of dollars artificially supporting and subsidizing an industry that is killing millions of people nationally and internationally.

Now that the government has done its dirty work for the asbestos industry in Geneva last week, it will be another two years before we have the chance to get asbestos back on that list. I am concerned that there will not be a Rotterdam Convention in two years when the next biannual meeting is convened because we have seriously jeopardized the integrity of the whole convention by allowing commercial considerations to override the health considerations around which that convention was first established.

Of the 90 countries that were in attendance in Geneva last week, only 8 countries supported Canada's position. The chair of the Rotterdam Convention introduced the subject on day one saying that chrysotile asbestos was a sensitive issue and that there have been difficulties with it before. He suggested that we follow the four point framework to assess the health hazard and to review the science.

Before the chair of the committee could even finish speaking, the Canadian delegation rushed to the microphones and said, “we don't need to waste our time. We move that asbestos not be put on the list”. Because that international institution runs by consensus, everyone has a veto. As soon as Canada set the tone by being rude and ignoring the international diplomatic protocols of courtesy at one of those conferences, that set the tone.

Then all of our customers went to the microphones too because we had twisted their arms: India, Thailand and Senegal. These are countries where we are dumping 220,000 tonnes, not pounds or kilos, per year of Canadian asbestos. It is being dumped into the third world creating a legacy of illness that is of epidemic proportions.

It is not an exaggeration to state that we are exporting misery on an astronomical scale because one single asbestos fibre is a carcinogen. We in Canada rank asbestos as a class A listed carcinogen. One errant asbestos fibre finding its way into the mesothelium of the lungs, heart or internal organs can trigger mesothelioma, the cancer that is caused only by asbestos.

No doubt some people will try to argue that Quebec asbestos is somehow benign, that it is different from other asbestos. The Institut national de santé publique du Québec did a study in 2005 and found that of the people who live in the asbestos region of Quebec, the men have the fourth highest incidence of mesothelioma in the world and the women of that region have the highest incidence of mesothelioma in the world. There is nothing benign about Quebec asbestos.

Quebec asbestos kills the same way that Yukon asbestos kills. I worked in the mines there. Newfoundland asbestos kills because that mine was shut down, too. There is Timmins, Ontario. Everywhere where they mine asbestos they have merchants of death. I can say it in no other way.

The asbestos industry, the tobacco industry's evil twin, continues to pollute the world with a product that should never have taken out of the ground.

As we are debating Bill S-2, which originated in the Senate as the workplace hazardous material information system bill, we should try to contemplate at least that what we wish for ourselves we wish for all. We should contemplate the fact that there is no business case for pushing asbestos.

There is an enormous scientific case for banning asbestos altogether, but we have to ask ourselves, by what convoluted pretzel logic is it in anybody's interest to keep pushing a product that kills people and to keep subsidizing that industry to this degree?

The Asbestos Institute, paid for solely by the federal and provincial governments of Canada and Quebec, pushes asbestos around the world. Our foreign missions and embassies host these trade junkets for them, 120 trade junkets in 60 countries around the world in recent years by the Asbestos Institute trying to find new markets for Canadian asbestos and trying to quell the overwhelming body of scientific evidence that illustrates clearly that asbestos kills.

That is the dual function of the Asbestos Institute, to come up with phony science. It just paid for a research study recently by Dr. David Bernstein. It paid $1 million to add a question mark beside asbestos, so that it can safely say that the scientific community is not unanimous in its condemnation of asbestos. The one scientist who we just bought and paid for clearly has a question about whether Quebec asbestos is good for us or bad for us.

I am here to say that asbestos is the greatest industrial killer the world has ever known and 100,000 deaths a year are directly attributed to asbestos, and hundreds of thousands more are never diagnosed because of the long incubation period. Parts of the world where Quebec asbestos is killing people today do not have the diagnostics and treatment centres that can accurately diagnose that asbestos in fact is killing these people.

There is an additional twist that I have to add to Bill S-2 and the workplace hazardous material information system because there is a mill in Kamloops, British Columbia, that is just about to close. It is owned by Weyerhaeuser. It has developed a product using the cellulose fibre from Douglas fir that is a perfect substitute for asbestos in ferrocement. It has a perfect substitute, but yet it cannot break into the market because the cement pipe manufacturers and the cement building material tile manufacturers all use asbestos from Quebec as the binding agent in their material.

There is a better product that grows in British Columbia. We have all these standing dead forests that are killed by the beetles et cetera, but the Douglas fir byproduct cellulose is the perfect substitute for asbestos in asbestos cement.

We could save that mill in Kamloops, British Columbia, if it could only find a market for the material it is willing produce. Instead, we are inexplicably married to the idea that we have to support asbestos and that Canada has to push asbestos.

I cannot believe the fact that we send teams of Department of Justice lawyers around the world to represent the asbestos industry. I do not know what they have done to deserve that level of public support. I do not know what they have done to deserve that kind of corporate welfare. Here we have corporate welfare for corporate serial killers. Corporate welfare, in any sense, should be condemned. In actual fact, we are aiding and abetting this industry that is knowingly and willingly killing workers.

Thailand is the world's second largest importer of Canadian asbestos. I went to Thailand this summer to speak at a conference of the medical community and the industry about the hazards of Canadian asbestos. I believe we had them convinced. Speaker after speaker from Japan, Australia, the European Union, all those countries that have banned asbestos, stood up and spoke. I think we had the government of Thailand convinced except when one very honest diplomat went to the microphone and apologized. He simply said his country was under enormous pressure internationally to buy Canadian asbestos. It is as if buying Canadian asbestos is tied to other aid, although he did not go that far and suggest that. It seems to me that the Canadian government will stop at nothing to promote this material.

Gary Nash, the assistant deputy minister of Natural Resources Canada, was the founder and first president of the Asbestos Institute.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I find it interesting that the member from the NDP talks about hardening or making more severe penalties when the three elements of the legislation for which amendments are being proposed in Bill S-2 come as a result of unanimity among the unions that represent the workers, the governments and industry. Obviously these three principal actors, if I can use that word, came to an agreement that these were three elements in the legislation which required amendment and modification in order to better ensure the health and safety of workers who must precisely manipulate hazardous material.

Had the issue of strengthening penalties been discussed, obviously there was no agreement. I am not aware of any discussions on that particular issue. It may be something that one or more of the parties wish to discuss, and they are more than free to do so, but right now I have no indication that the penalties need to be made more severe. What is needed, however, are these three amendments.

The member spoke of 95% of the cases, demande de dérogation, and I apologize that I do not know the term in English.

The data sheets must be updated because the information is incomplete. I have not seen any evidence that the missing information places the health and safety of workers at greater risk. If that were the case, the unions would be in a very good position to lead the fight and they would have asked for more severe penalties.

I leave it to the union representatives to take up that fight.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure and an honour for me to be here in this House as Deputy House Leader of the Official Opposition.

In the 38th Parliament, this bill was Bill S-40. At the time, the Liberal Party of Canada formed the government in power. The bill that is now before this House was introduced under that previous government.

This bill is crucial to occupational health and safety. As I said, it was introduced by the previous government during the 38th Parliament. Bill S-2, which is the reincarnation of that bill, amends the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. This act governs the activities of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, an independent, quasi-judicial government agency. The commission plays an essential role in protecting workers' health and safety and also protects trade secrets.

The commission forms part of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, also known as WHMIS. This information system was developed jointly by unions, industry and the federal, provincial and territorial governments. This is extremely important, because it is not every day that all the parties to an issue decide of one accord on the amendments that must be made to a bill or an existing law.

The role of WHMIS is to ensure that information on hazardous products is conveyed to the workers who use those products. A list of all the hazardous ingredients in the products is therefore available, as is information on how to handle those products safely: information on health and safety, first aid in case of contact with the product, how to dispose of the product, and so on. This information is essential to protect the health and safety of workers who have to use this type of product and these hazardous materials and handle them safely in their work.

This information is provided on a data sheet or a label affixed to the product. When WHMIS was introduced, the industry stated that there were cases where the full disclosure of hazardous materials ran the risk of disclosing industrial secrets and making them available to business competitors. To ensure that Canadian industry and our economy continue to grow and that new jobs are created, it is very important that companies that create this type of product have an assurance that confidential business information will not be communicated to or made accessible to their competitors.

If the complete chemical composition of ingredients were listed on a data sheet, a competitor could use that information in unfair competition and gain an advantage. Therefore, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission intervenes by examining the claim for exemption. That means that a company can file a claim for exemption so that the list of dangerous products does not appear on the label. However, the commission still provides documentation concerning the risks and dangers of the product.

In that case, it means that the competitive advantages of a company and its industrial secrets are protected. However, at the same time, sufficient information must appear on the label or in the data sheet to ensure that the health and safety of workers who are involved in the production or handling of this type of hazardous products or materials are protected.

The commission’s mandate consists in establishing a balance between the rights of the employers and the right of employees to obtain information about the dangerous products that they handle.

When a company wants to protect information concerning dangerous ingredients within a product, it must file a claim for exemption from the requirement to disclose the information, and submit the required documentation relating to health and safety.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission determines whether it is an industrial secret and whether the information provided concerning health and safety is satisfactory.

If the information in the data sheet or on the label does not comply with the law, the commission orders changes to be made and calls for submission of a corrected data sheet.

If the corrections are not made within the required time limit, the company is subject to corrective action or the commission can simply prohibit the product.

That is very important. It is up to the commission to determine whether the hazardous materials information is sufficient to ensure the protection of the health and safety of workers who have to handle products containing that kind of hazardous materials.

If a company files a claim for exemption but fails to provide sufficient information to ensure that the health and safety of workers are protected, the commission has the authority to order corrective action or to simply ban the product in question from the market.

The claim for exemption forms have to be corrected 95% of the time because of missing information. On average, eight or nine pieces of information have to be added on each form.

In 1998, the commission undertook a renewal process designed to streamline its administrative operations and better meet the needs of stakeholders.

Many changes have been made to better meet the needs of stakeholders. Three, however, require legislative amendments, hence the need for Bill S-2, which, under the previous government, during the last parliament, was known as Bill S-40.

These three changes requiring legislative amendments correspond to the amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act contained in Bill S-2.

This act has to be amended to allow claimants to make, with a minimum of substantiating information, a declaration to the effect that the information in respect of which an exemption is claimed is indeed a trade secret.

At present, claimants are required to submit detailed documentation concerning the financial implications of the possible disclosure of the chemical components. This places an administrative burden on claimants and on the commission as well.

The majority of claims for exemption are valid. To date, only four out of 2,400 have been rejected.

Second, the amendments proposed by Bill S-2 will enable companies to voluntarily correct any safety labels the commission deems are not compliant.

Under current legislation, the commission must issue a formal order for compliance even if the claimant is completely prepared to make the necessary correction after being notified that some information is missing. Companies must then undertake a long administrative process, even if they voluntarily agree to change the health and safety label.

The second element is the amendment enabling companies to voluntarily correct safety labels, which is a good thing. I think that all of us in the House agree that this is a good thing.

If it is possible for corrections to be made voluntarily, the process can be speeded up. Workers can thus have faster access to any health and safety sheets that have been changed.

It should also be pointed out, however, that in cases of non-compliance with the rules and lack of undertaking by the claimant respecting the corrections requested, the commission can always issue an order to ensure compliance with the requirements, as exists now.

Workers’ health and safety is therefore not at all compromised by this amendment. It only speeds up the administrative process, making information accessible to workers much more quickly than the current system allows.

Third, the amendments will improve the appeal process by allowing the commission to provide the appeal boards with factual clarifications.

The appeals are heard by independent boards composed of three members who represent workers, industry and government. Up to now, 16 appeals have been heard and they would have benefited greatly from additional information from the commission. But to date the law does not allow this. The three parties concerned, that is, government, industry and workers or unions, all agree that this amendment should be made so that the commission can provide factual clarifications or information to the independent board with the authority to hear the appeals.

Representatives of industry, as well as unions in the provinces and territories, have unanimously supported the three amendments proposed in Bill S-2. The amendments to this act are very positive for the health and safety of workers and will simplify administrative procedures. There are of course significant economic impacts for companies, which will no longer have to deal with lengthy administrative procedures.

To recap, the three amendments will enable companies that have claimed an exemption to put their product on the market more quickly, while complying with health and safety requirements. In addition, workers will have access to corrections to health sheets faster since the administrative burden will be considerably reduced.

As I have already mentioned, this enables industry to access the market more quickly, while complying with the requirement to inform workers of any safety precautions to be taken.

In conclusion, I would simply say, as I have already mentioned, first that Bill S-2 is what was called Bill S-40 during the 38th Parliament. Second, these three amendments to the act have the shared support of industry, unions, the provinces and territories, and government.

I think that this is something good and that the members of this House should support it.

On that note, I conclude my remarks.

The House resumed consideration of the motion that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

[Rob Merrifield, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to stand and give my commentary on this important legislation. It speaks to the important subject of hazardous materials and the use of them by the citizens of Canada and its industries. It is important for people to have the information so they can deal with this material in a way which is safe as well as productive.

First, I compliment those who have worked so hard to produce the three amendments, not only the labour sector that on day to day work with these materials in many different ways. I also compliment the industry and federal, provincial and territorial governments, which came together collectively and brought forward some of these recommendations. It is important we applaud their efforts.

I look forward to looking at this proposed legislation further when the House votes on it and sends it to the health committee. At committee we will examine it and bring forth witness to discern how perhaps we can make the legislation better. We will certainly give it a full review so we can pass laws in this chamber that are in the best interest of Canadians.

We are looking at three amendments. The first one is to reduce the time it takes to require the review of confidential information that may be covered under patent law. We respect and understand the full amount of wealth, money and investment that it takes to create a product and we want to ensure that proprietary information is protected. At the same time, we must ensure, first and foremost, the safety of the citizens of Canada. We also must ensure that individuals know that the formulations they are working with are appropriate.

One example I can think of that more explains the first amendment is the products that are very familiar to all Canadians. They are not necessarily hazardous, but they drive the point of what the proposed legislation would do. It is protecting formulations and yet ensuring that those citizens who are engaging in these products are safe.

One that comes to mind is Coca-Cola. That product has been on the market for many decades, yet no one really knows what goes into the formula. It is important that Canadians know that the product they drink, if they drink it in moderation, will not be harmful, but the formulation is protected. It is important that we understand that. Moderation also goes to another subject we are talking about in the health committee and that is obesity in a country.

Another product I can think of is Colonel Sanders' secret recipe for his chicken. We do not know what products go into the recipe, but we need to know they are safe.

It is the same thing for hazardous material. We need to know that the formulations which go into be products are safe if they are handled according to the recommendations on the package, but also that they are protected, and in the process we protect patent law.

In essence that is where we are on the first amendment, which I applaud. I think it reaches that golden balance between the two. It is important, as we look at the proposed legislation, that we recognize this. I do not think people have many arguments with the first amendment, as long as we strike that balance.

The second amendment deals with speeding up any corrections of the formulations for the workers who are handling the hazardous materials to ensure they are safe. If we are handling a product and we know there is a problem with it, we need to have the opportunity to correct the information and get it to the person who uses the material as fast as we possibly can. It is important that we streamline the red tape so this can happen.

When it comes to labelling of a hazardous product, it is very important that not only are we absolutely accurate in the product label, which is just part of it, but we also have to be absolutely clear in how that accuracy of information is delivered so that it is understood by the person reading the label. We can be absolutely accurate in the product label and still not accomplish what needs to be done to make sure that those individuals who are using the product understand that it is a safe product. This goes back to my years in agriculture, when I handled a significant amount of hazardous products in the pesticides we used on our farm.

I remember when we changed from the imperial system to the metric system and went from acres to hectares and from ounces to grams and kilograms. Not only was it important for us to understand that the formulation on the label was accurate, but it also was important that we, the people using the products, understood the hazards if we did not read properly and really understand the labelling.

So when it comes to labelling, on both sides of it, it should be absolutely precise and accurate but it should also be understood. We find this not only with hazardous materials. There is actually a piece of legislation about the labelling of foods that has been brought forward by a member of this House. I would say the same thing: when a piece of information is given and is put on a label it has to be absolutely accurate. If it is not absolutely accurate, then it is deceptive. If it is deceptive, it is bad information. We have to make sure these labels are right. When they are not right, we have to make sure that we correct them very quickly. We also have to make sure that they are very much understood by those using them.

On the second amendment, if we find that a correction needs to be made, we can accelerate the process so that the individual or industry using a hazardous product, whoever it might be, gets the information sooner rather than being held up in red tape after the 75 days of articling happens.

I think these first two amendments both are very important and very worthwhile. This House should consider them in improving this piece of legislation as it is laid before this House and as it goes out as far as changes to the laws in the country are concerned.

When it comes to the third amendment, we are really talking about the idea of an appeals process and making sure it is there. I believe that is the way we should be with all pieces of legislation or anything we do as far as government is concerned. We need to make sure we are a government that is transparent and accountable and does things in a timely fashion, that we do not bog down our citizens in red tape when it comes to legislation or these types of things. It is an area that we absolutely have to accelerate in to make sure that everything is done in a way that is all of those things.

When we look at this legislation, we look at three things. We look at making sure that we disclose the claims and that the formulations are safe for Canadians to use. We look at making sure that we speed up any corrections that have to be made so individuals can make informed choices when they use these products. We look at making sure that appeal processes are not bogging down the system in red tape.

These are the three amendments I see in this piece of legislation. When we examine Bill S-2 in committee, we will examine these amendments more thoroughly and bring witnesses forward in a more fulsome way and have a debate on it. I am looking forward to that.

I would say to this House that from what I see so far in this piece of legislation at this stage, we should pass this piece of legislation here in this House and get it into committee so we can take a more fulsome review. That is what is in the best interests of Canadians. That is what this House should be concerned about as we move forward with this piece of legislation and all pieces of legislation for the betterment of Canadians.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am especially pleased to speak to Bill S-2, since the area of hazardous materials was my concern for several years in my career as a health and safety engineer for Hydro-Québec. I even brought with me the guide my colleagues and I prepared on managing hazardous materials.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Act is governed by a board. This large board is made up of 18 members, including 2 workers, a supplier, an employer, a federal government representative and 4 to 13 representatives from the provinces and territories.

This large board is part of the framework of WHMIS, which stands for Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System. WHMIS participants and stakeholders can be divided into four main categories. First are the suppliers and manufacturers. Next are the workers who handle the products. Third are the employers or industries that purchase the products. Finally, there are the provincial, territorial and federal governments that monitor the system.

WHMIS, the information system, must provide workers with all the health and safety information they need to handle hazardous materials without any risk to themselves, their neighbours, friends or colleagues, and in order to avoid all dangerous situations for pregnant women.

Information on the use of hazardous materials in the workplace is provided in two ways. First, information appears on the label. All containers must have an identification label. If a label identifying a product is damaged, covered or illegible, the worker has the right to refuse to handle the container and its contents, and can have the contents verified by the manufacturer, if the manufacturer is identified on the label. Otherwise, the product is disposed of in a safe manner.

The second is the material safety data sheet, which must be kept in a catalogue accessible to everyone at all times. It is important to emphasize “at all times”. Regular drills must be conducted to verify the storage location of the binder or catalogue. The MSDS must also be kept up to date and must be accessible to workers. This means the catalogue or MSDS cannot be locked up in a supervisor's office or someone else's office. All of these details must be discussed regularly during mandatory workplace health and safety meetings.

Careful attention must be paid to making new employees aware of health and safety regulations because they must know where catalogues are located and be familiar with all of the products they will be using in the workplace.

What information does the MSDS provide? First of all, it lists dangerous ingredients and, if applicable, toxic products. Second, it details the health and safety risks associated with using the product. Third, it describes product-handling precautions. Fourth, it recommends the first aid to be given in cases of accidental exposure, such as ingestion, skin contact or inhalation.

Anyone who cares about the environment will be careful when disposing of large quantities of these products and will know how to respond appropriately in case of accidental spills in sewer or storm drains or in sensitive environments, such as lakes and reservoirs, wetlands or other vulnerable ecosystems.

Bill S-2 proposes three changes. I have read the speeches given by the senator and other senators during debate in the Senate. I hope that there will be no questions insinuating that I have cribbed from the senators.

Trade secrets represent the first major change. In my opinion, there has to be a certain balance between the right of workers and employers to have complete information about the use of hazardous products and the industry’s right to protect trade secrets, patents, contents and components, which competitors could use to their advantage.

The Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission will therefore have the power to grant exemptions to protect genuine trade secrets of manufacturers and distributors of hazardous products. The commission will review claims for exemption. As well, the required health and safety documents will be filed, and manufacturers will also be asked to provide documents of an economic nature. Those measures will protect the confidentiality of the information and will also eliminate the financial consequences of disclosure of the documents.

The second amendment to the existing act allows for voluntary correction of material safety data sheets and labels where the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission determines that they do not comply with the act. This is a new procedure. There is also a third amendment proposed in the bill, to improve the appeal process.

The Bloc Québécois supports the principle of Bill S-2 and believes that when it comes to hazardous materials it is crucial to keep worker safety in mind. We also believe that this essential effect must be the basis of all decisions made. The Bloc Québécois notes that there is unanimous support for the amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act set out in Bill S-2 among the members of the commission’s governing council, that is, among the participants I identified earlier: industry, workers and governments.

The Bloc Québécois supports Bill S-2 so that the amendments that the leading stakeholders in those groups have called for can be enacted. In everything it does, the Bloc Québécois seeks to protect working men and women, and that is why it has introduced Bill C-257 to ban the use of replacement workers. There is also a bill on preventive reassignment on the order paper, the purpose of which is to provide women in Quebec who work in undertakings under federal jurisdiction with the same benefits in respect of preventive reassignment as other working women in Quebec.

A third bill, Bill C-269, to improve the employment insurance system, is one such law that affects working men and women. I would remind you that the Bloc Québécois also had the throne speech amended to incorporate an income support program for older workers.

The Bloc Québécois will be supporting Bill S-2.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to express the support of our party, the official opposition in the House, for Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. It is very similar to Bill S-40 which was introduced in the previous Parliament by the Liberal government. The bill seeks to change the process whereby manufacturers of hazardous materials can become exempt from providing full disclosure of the nature of their products where that disclosure would force them to reveal trade secrets.

I know the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health has very eloquently put forward some of the changes that would take place, but perhaps I could also divulge some information in regard to this piece of legislation.

As was mentioned by the member opposite, the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission is an independent quasi-judicial agency of government. It plays a very important role in ensuring that we protect the safety of our workers in Canada. Ultimately that is what this legislation is about; it is about protecting workers, both their safety and their health in Canada.

The commission is part of the Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System which provides workers with information about health and safety. There are product labels which are available to employees and workers who handle hazardous materials, along with material data safety sheets. They provide workers with information that is important for their protection, such as the different types of hazardous ingredients that they perhaps are working with, the specific risks that may be encountered when utilizing those products, and precautions on how to store and transport those products, and also how to ensure the proper disposal of those products. The labelling sheets and the data safety sheets also provide information on first aid measures that one can take if there is any type of accidental exposure.

The commission has played a vital and important role in terms of educating workers and ensuring their safety. The legislation that is before us wants to implement three amendments. The first amendment reduces some of the administrative burden that one requires for documentation. The second amendment deals with the voluntary correction of material safety data sheets and product labels. The third amendment improves the appeals process.

With respect to the first change regarding reducing the amount of administrative burden, when employers put forward information on how to provide for an application for hazardous materials, they must apply for an exemption. One of the difficulties with the exemption is that when they reveal what the chemical compounds are in those hazardous materials, they may end up revealing trade secrets and therefore, they apply to the commission for an exemption. However, the commission has only denied two of the 2,200 applications that have been put forward to the commission. There is an amendment to allow individuals to label their applications as confidential and the commission would only then review those applications if they were challenged on the basis of confidentiality.

The second amendment being put forward is the voluntary correction of material safety and data. As the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health told the House, if a correction is required to the product labels or the material safety data sheets, it has to appear in the Canada Gazette through a formal order and it is not binding until 75 days after it has been publicized. Thus workers cannot receive the appropriate information until 75 days after it has appeared in the Canada Gazette. This bill would ensure that workers would receive information in a timely manner because instead of having to go through the Canada Gazette, one could make a voluntary undertaking.

The third improvement is in regard to improving the appeals process. Right now the commission cannot have any type of interference. However, if it were able to provide some sort of factual clarification it would actually speed up the whole process.

In conclusion, we support this piece of legislation. It would provide definite improvements to the whole process. It would absolutely ensure that workers in this country had access to safe and effective information that would ensure their health and safety. Also, the information would be made available in a timely manner.

We will be supporting Bill S-2.

[Steven Fletcher, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to introduce legislation that has the full support of all stakeholders.

The amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act will benefit workers exposed to hazardous materials in the workplace, employers in whose businesses these materials are used, suppliers of hazardous materials to Canadian industry and provincial and territorial governments in their responsibilities for occupational health and safety. All of these interested parties see the amendments as very positive. There is no opposition to their adoption.

In particular, the net result will be earlier delivery to workers of full and accurate information on the safe handling of hazardous materials. As everyone will appreciate, the outcome is welcome for all those involved in the use of hazardous materials in Canadian workplaces.

Before discussing the provisions of Bill S-2, I would like to outline the responsibilities of the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission in order to provide context for the amendments. The commission is an independent, quasi-judicial agency of government which, while it may not have been in the public eye, plays an essential role in the protection of workers' health and safety and of industry's trade secrets.

The commission is part of the workplace hazardous materials information system, or WHMIS, a joint undertaking of labour, industry and the federal, provincial and territorial governments. Under the authority of the federal Hazardous Products Act, WHMIS is the mechanism by which the health and safety information needed to handle hazardous products safely is disclosed to workers using those products.

The information which must be provided to workers identifies the hazardous agreements in products, the specific risks to the health and safety of those using those products, the precautions that must be taken in handling the products and the appropriate first aid measures in the event of accidental exposure to hazardous ingredients.

When WHMIS was established in 1987, industry was concerned that there were situations in which the full disclosure of information on the hazardous material would betray trade secrets. This in turn would result in financial losses to companies holding trade secrets or financial gain for a company's market competitors.

For example, a company might find through its research a new application for a hazardous ingredient in a manufacturing process. If the full chemical identity of that ingredient was made available to workers, it would be available to that company's competitor and the company making the discovery would lose a competitive advantage that it has gained. The commission was created with a mandate to grant exemptions from disclosure for bona fide trade secrets while at the same time ensuring that documentation on the safe use of hazardous products provided to workers is accurate and complete.

I also draw the House's attention to the fact that the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act has been incorporated by reference into the occupational health and safety legislation of the provinces and territories. The mandate of the commission to balance the rights of employers and workers to full information on the use of hazardous materials with the right of an industry to protect its trade secrets is, therefore, carried out on behalf of the federal, provincial and territorials governments.

This means that whenever a business wants to protect information it considers a trade secret, it makes application to the commission for an exemption from disclosure and with that application includes the required health and safety documentation. The commission reviews the economic documentation in support of the claim for exemption from disclosure and determines whether the information meets the regulatory criteria for trade secrets.

The commission also determines whether the accompanying health and safety information is in compliance with the federal, provincial and territorial requirements with respect to providing the information needed to protect the health and safety of those working with the product.

If the commission determines that the information being provided to the worker is not in compliance with the applicable federal, provincial or territorial health and safety regulations, the claimant is ordered to make the necessary corrections and to provide the commission with a copy of the corrected health and safety documentation.

The decisions and orders of the commission are published in the Canada Gazette so all parties have full information on the corrections the claimants have been required to make. If the corrections are not made within a specific time period, there are measures at the commission's disposal, including steps leading to the restriction of the sale of the product in question.

A key part of the national program delivered by the commission is a tripartite Council of Governors. The governors represent organized labour, industry, the federal government and all provincial and territorial governments. The council acts as an advisory body to the commission and provides strategic advice and guidance. It is through the council that concerns of stakeholders are expressed and it is through the council that appropriate means of resulting concerns are identified.

With the full support of the Council of Governors, the commission undertook a competitive and comprehensive renewal program with the objective of making its operation more transparent and efficient, with a focus on early compliance with the health and safety standards.

Through an extensive consultation process, many improvements in the operations of the commission were identified. Most of these improvements have already been implemented administratively or through changes in regulation. For example, the commission changed its procedures to make the scientific basis for its decision available to applicants early in the process. With a better understanding of the reasons of the decisions, applicants will have less incentive to appeal. Because appeals take time, this means that full and accurate information is in the hands of the workers much earlier if there is no appeal than if there is an appeal.

The legislative changes set out in Bill S-2 complete the renewal process and further the goals of making the commission more efficient and transparent and shortening the time required to get full and accurate health and safety information into the hands of the workers.

There are three changes set out in Bill S-2.

First, the bill amends the act to allow claimants to declare that the information for which they are seeking an exemption for disclosure is confidential business information. That documentation in support of this claim is available and will be supplied on request. Currently, claimants are required to submit detailed documentation on steps they have taken to protect the confidentiality and on the potential financial implications of disclosure. This is an administrative burden on claimants and on all of the commission. The commission has found nearly all claims for exemption to be valid.

While this amendment will generally allow claimants to declare that information is confidential business information, the commission will collect full documentation when affected parties, such as labour organizations, challenge a claim or when a claim is selected through the validation scheme set up to ensure the integrity of the decision making process.

This change will simplify procedure for industry claimants and reduce the administrative burden for both industry and the commission. This efficiency will facilitate getting complete and accurate health and safety information into the hands of workers. It should also be stressed that the protection from disclosure of confidential business information in no way affects the requirement that workers be provided with full information on the safe handling of hazardous materials.

The bill also amends the act to permit claimants to make the corrections needed to bring the accompanying health and safety information into full compliance without the issuing of a compliance order.

Currently, if the commission finds that the health and safety documentation is not compliant with legislation, it must order the claimant to make the necessary corrections and publish the order in the Canada Gazette. A large portion of the claimants are prepared to make all necessary corrections as soon as they need to be identified and feel these orders reflect badly on the commitment to workplace health and safety.

The amendments would allow the commission to enter into an undertaking with the claimants to make the required corrections to the health and safety information on a voluntary basis. If the claimant fulfills the conditions of the undertaking, the commission will confirm compliance and, for transparency, will publish the corrections which have been made in the Canada Gazette.

If the undertaking is not fulfilled, the commission will order the claimant to comply. This will speed up the process of getting health and safety information into the hands of workers because it will avoid the delays built into the current process.

The act now requires that when an order is made it must be published. There is then a period of 45 days in which appeals can be filed and a further 30 days after the appeal period before the claimant must have the changes in place. After adding the inevitable delays in publication, there are very significant advantages to workers in pursuing the amendments to permit the voluntary correction of health and safety documentation.

Finally, the bill amends the act to improve the appeal process. The amended act would allow the commission to provide actual clarifications to appeal boards when these are needed to facilitate the appeal process.

Appeals of the decisions and orders of the commission are heard by independent boards with three members drawn from labour, industry and government. Most appeals heard to date would have benefited from additional explanatory information from the commission but this is not permitted under the current legislation.

As I previously mentioned, the improvements already put in place through the commission renewal process have significantly reduced the number of appeals filed. With the proposed amendments, the process of dealing with any future appeals will be facilitated. As with the other two amendments, this would speed up the process of getting accurate health and safety information into the hands of workers.

Those are the proposed amendments to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act. I stress again the full support of all those affected: the workers using hazardous materials, the employers of those workers, the suppliers of hazardous materials and the provincial and territorial governments as guardians of occupational health and safety. There is no opposition.

The prime attraction of these changes is that they would be vital for the health and safety of workers as they provide information more quickly. The amendments would also provide more efficient and transparent processes and would benefit all the interested parties.

Given the unprecedented support and in light of the fact that the overriding objective of the amendments is to speed up the process of getting complete and accurate information on the safety of hazardous materials into the hands of workers, I have no hesitation in most strongly urging the support of the passage of this bill.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

moved that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Business of the House

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, today we will continue to debate an opposition motion.

Tomorrow, we will complete debate on the amendment to Bill C-24, the softwood lumber agreement. Under a special order adopted Tuesday, there is an opportunity to sit into the weekend if needed to give members, particularly members of the New Democratic Party, the debating time they requested on such an important bill.

Next week, the House will be adjourned to allow members to return to their ridings.

When the House resumes on October 16, we will debate Bill C-23, the Criminal Code; Bill S-2, hazardous materials; and Bill C-6, aeronautics.

On Tuesday I will call Bill C-24 again. Thursday will be an allotted day.

We will introduce the motion that the hon. member requested in due course.

At the same time, I would like to wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving weekend.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, it sounds like the hon. gentleman would like us to table everything we are going to do for the whole fall, right up to Christmas. Usually, the Thursday question is just for the week ahead, but it seems to have expanded.

Today, for sure, we will continue with the debate on the opposition motion of his party.

Tomorrow, we hope to complete Bill C-24, the softwood lumber agreement, which will followed by Bill S-2, hazardous materials, and Bill C-6, the Aeronautics Act.

Tomorrow, I intend to ask the House to approve the appointment of Graham Fraser as Commissioner of Official Languages for Canada for a term of seven years.

Depending on progress on the softwood lumber bill, it is my intention to call three justice bills next week as follows: Bill C-19, street racing; Bill C-18, DNA; and Bill C-23, Criminal Code efficiency and effectiveness.

Next Thursday will be an allotted day.

The answers to the hon. member's other questions he will know in good time.

Finally, there have been consultations and there is an agreement to have a take note debate on the situation in Sudan. Therefore, I think you would find consent for the following motion. I move:

That a take note debate on the subject of the Situation in Sudan take place, pursuant to Standing Order 53.1, on Tuesday, October 3.

[Rob Nicholson, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons and Minister for Democratic Reform]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to answer the hon. member. Today and tomorrow we will continue with Bill C-12, the emergency management act, which will be followed by Bill S-2 for hazardous materials and Bill C-6, the Aeronautics Act.

Pursuant to an order made on Monday, September 18, there will be an address by the President of Afghanistan to be delivered in the chamber of the House of Commons at 9 a.m. on Friday, September 22, 2006.

On Monday we will begin debate on the bill to implement the softwood lumber agreement. We have designated Thursday, September 28, as an allotted day, which, of course, will be allotted to the Liberal Party and it can debate any subject that it would like.

With respect to the member's other questions, this fall we will be proceeding in those areas that we have indicated to Canadians are important. If the hon. member wants a more complete blueprint of what we intend to do all he has to do is have a look at what we said in the last general election.

Hazardous Materials Information Review Act

[Greg Thompson, Conservative, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

moved that Bill S-2, An Act to amend the Hazardous Materials Information Review Act, be read the first time.

(Motion agreed to and bill read the first time)

Message from the Senate

[The Acting Speaker, Conservative, Royal Galipeau]

I have the honour to inform the House that a message has been received from the Senate informing this House that the Senate has passed Bill S-2, to which the concurrence of this House is desired.