Agriculture Committee on June 8th, 2006

[Richard Aucoin]

In terms of the timelines you spoke to earlier—Canada's timelines for a brand-new active ingredient, a brand-new chemical—we have a review period of about 18 months, which is our standard review time for a conventional chemical. That would compare with Australia's, which is 14 months, and with the United States', which is about 22 months. In the European Union, you're looking at about 18 to 24 months for a similar approval for a brand-new chemical.

In Canada, we deal with about 12 to 15 new chemicals each year. Fortunately, about one-third of those have recently been done jointly with the United States, and we're hoping to increase the number done jointly with other countries around the world.

We're meeting our expectation on those 18-month timelines in Canada about 85% to 90% of the time. In fact, with most of the joint reviews we're conducting with the U.S. EPA now and looking ahead to the future, we'll be done in less than 18 months, in part because of the efficiencies of sharing the workload.

Also, as almost an incentive to companies to come in for these joint or global reviews, we're trying to keep those timelines as tight as possible. The global review, which I spoke to earlier, will have an approximate 12-month to 13-month timeline.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

I applaud you for moving down that path. I think the more we can do with harmonization and joint registrations with other countries, the more it will benefit our farmers and level the playing field when it comes to products.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you, Mr. Bezan.

I have a point on Mr. Bezan's questioning. You talked about our timelines being very comparable with those of our trading partners, but how about costs?

[Richard Aucoin]

The actual registration cost, the fees associated with the Canadian registration, relative to the United States is much less than half the cost of a U.S. registration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko, seven minutes, please.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

In preparation for this, I talked with the president of the B.C. Fruit Growers' Association. You may have answered some of these questions, but I'll just run down....

For the first one, he talked about measuring the performance of how changes are impacting the new registration in Canada. Has there been a marked rise in performance? Are we seeing more registrations—I think you said yes—of more pesticide companies wanting to register their product...more access? That's the first question.

[Karen Dodds]

One of the good indicators.... We had a NAFTA technical working group that met with stakeholders in Charleston last December. I actually had a number of American companies approach me and say, for the first time, that they were interested in bringing products to Canada. There had been such discussion about joint reviews and the comparability of our two systems before, but they saw the Canadian regulatory regime as an unknown and as a small market, and they simply weren't interested in coming. The fact that they're now saying they're interested is good, and Richard has been down there and has met with some of them, and we'll continue to encounter them at the NAFTA forums.

With our Canadian registrants, the challenge is pretty obvious. Minor use is an issue everywhere around the world. It still is an issue in the big markets, like the United States and the European Community, so when you are such a small market compared to the United States, minor use is a huge challenge.

Again, we're just at a good spot now where we can say that the new chemicals are better and that we want the farmers to be able to access those new chemicals because they're better for them, they're better for health, and they're better for the environment.

So as regulators, we see great advantage to us and our stakeholders in working to increase harmonization and international regulatory cooperation right now.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Apparently, some new products are flowing, and we talked about that, but it still takes much longer in Canada than in the U.S. Can you comment on that?

[Richard Aucoin]

That's actually something we hear quite often, that it takes longer in Canada than in the United States, but typically what it means is that it has actually come to Canada later than it has come to the United States. Given the economic situation--the small Canadian market--the big place to go with your product is the United States. There might be a market for that product in Canada later.

It actually comes into Canada later, and by the time we've reviewed it and it's accessible to Canadian farmers, it appears to have taken longer.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

The process itself is not longer; it's the fact--

[Richard Aucoin]

The fact that it came later is typically the problem.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

The fear of harmonization was mentioned to me. How do we get past this fear? Can we get more harmonization to have more products registered simultaneously? You've touched on this, but that's a question.

[Karen Dodds]

Again, there are some standards in Canada that Parliament has given us that are different from standards that Congress has given the U.S. EPA. That's outside my authority to change, and it's outside the authority of my colleague in the U.S. EPA.

What we've committed to do is to say that anything that's within our sphere of authority, we'll address. In terms of international regulatory cooperation and harmonization, the agriculture sector is an example that sees all the benefits of harmonization. Some health and environmental people would be concerned that if we have to adjust standards, we might adjust them down, and in the States they would ask whether, in adjusting standards, you're adjusting them down.

The finding is typically that when you work collaboratively internationally, you both migrate to the higher standard, and neither of you moves down. I know from talking with many of the scientists who are actually involved in doing the joint reviews with their colleagues that they find it very helpful to have the direct conversation with other expert scientists who have looked at the same data. So there are lots of benefits to us from working in a harmonized fashion.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Apparently, products approved in the U.S. are automatically approved in Chile. Is that the case? And if it is, should we be striving for this, and if so, would that lower our standards?

[Karen Dodds]

I don't know about the situation with respect to Chile. I do comment to stakeholders interested in the pesticide regulatory system that the new Pest Control Products Act, which was given royal assent in 2002 and was one of the outcomes of the pesticide review in 1990, requires a Canadian registration. It gives me my instructions too, and it says that we need to do the scientific evaluation that we consider necessary. The new act is good in that it is clear. It says to do the evaluation that is necessary, so it provides us with flexibility. If we have confidence in the U.S., we can look at their review and say that yes, this looks good, and accept it. But we can't just say that they said yes, so we'll say yes.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

It's not an automatic approval, then, which is obviously in our best interest, I would imagine.

[Karen Dodds]

Again, I can tell you quite clearly that whether or not you think an automatic yes is in our best interest will depend on what sector of the stakeholders you come from. But I can tell you that on the joint reviews, in every situation we've come to we can register, and we can register for essentially the same conditions. Even though there have been some differences in standards, when we've worked in a collaborative fashion on joint reviews with the EPA, the experience is that we've come to the same decision at the same time.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

This question has been asked of me before.

Certain products in the U.S. are grown—apples, for example—with specific chemicals not approved in Canada. We import these products, yet our people can't use the same pesticides or chemicals. Can you comment on this? Is this not a danger to our health, then?

[Karen Dodds]

There are a number of reasons that situation could occur.

Again, under both the current and the new act, our responsibility in approving pesticides in Canada is that we've addressed human health from a number of different perspectives. We have to look at occupational health and safety. We have to be reasonably certain that there will not be harm to the farmers or workers who are using the products, or to bystanders, or of course, the people who might be exposed through consumption of food or water.

We also have to look at the environment. If we have a concern that it's inappropriate to approve the pesticide because of environmental effects, we'll say no. We can then say that the U.S. has approved a product that we might have said no to because of concerns about occupational health or about the environment, but that it doesn't present a food safety concern. We might have set an import MRL under those conditions.

The other thing is this general default that I mentioned, which we have already proposed revoking. If they use a product that isn't approved and the residue on the product is below 0.1 parts per million, at the moment it can come in legally--any residue can come in if it's below the 0.1 parts per million.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I have a few more seconds, so I'll ask a general question.

How do we strive for this harmonization without giving up our sovereignty? I know it's a philosophical question. Obviously, you're working on that. Could you comment on that, please?

[Karen Dodds]

It's really beneficial to have the discussions directly with my U.S. colleagues. When we have the NAFTA meetings, Jim Jones, who's director of the EPA's office of pesticide programs, is there. They have the same issue. Americans don't want to lose their sovereignty. So we come at this from exactly the same place. We want to approve pesticides that are appropriate. We want the economic sectors such as agriculture to have the tools they need, while recognizing that we might have some different standards, whether they're environmental or something else.

If it's the Species at Risk Act in Canada and the Endangered Species Act in the States—they do have differences—you'll see a difference in pesticide approval. But it will likely be the smallest difference, whereas we are working from an historical background. I believe there was a pest control products act as early as 1927, so you're bringing together 70 years during which we weren't closely together. Now we've been working very closely in the last decade, and joint review has been a good experience in the last four or five years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you, Mr. Atamanenko.

Just on a point of clarification, Ms. Dodds, you're talking about the new regulatory regime that was passed in 2002, which is still not in play. Now, as I understand it, it has to be gazetted, and it takes roughly four years plus to run through that process.

You're shaking your head. How long until we actually see that come into force? I mean, it's four years old already.

[Karen Dodds]

The initial strategy for bringing the act into force was to have developed and to gazette essentially all of the new regulatory schemes authorized under the new act. Last year we developed a new strategy with stakeholders for implementation, recognizing the length of time it has taken and saying that we want that act to come into force as soon as possible. We've asked, what's the minimum required? The minimum required was that we revise the current regulations, develop and publish the list of formulants and contaminants of concern, and have an order.

We had the revised regulations proposed in the Canada Gazette part I last November. The intention is clearly that they're turned around and published in the Canada Gazette part II. We expect that will happen very shortly and that the new act will be in force shortly.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you.

Mr. Merasty, five minutes please. I'll turn the chair over to Mr. Bellavance while I run over and table a report.

[Gary Merasty, Liberal, Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, SK]

Thanks for your presentation. I think everybody around the table agrees that putting emphasis on working in partnership with the stakeholders, the open and transparent process that you're talking about, is absolutely critical in moving forward.

I have one quick question before I pass it over to Roger. I think in the past farmers have raised concerns with re-evaluated products not being replaced. Has any progress been made in that area?