Bill C-30 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on March 29th, 2007

[John Moffet]

Are you asking whether you need me, or whether you need--

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

It was a rhetorical question. I expect the answer to be no.

[John Moffet]

We do not need this clause.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you.

[John Moffet]

This clause simply extended the authority for pollution prevention planning orders to air pollutants and greenhouse gases, which in the original construction of Bill C-30 would have been taken out of the toxic substances list. Now that they are still toxic substances, we don't need this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay.

Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Just for clarification, Chair, Canadians need this. I think Mr. Moffet was saying that we don't technically need this, but I believe Canadians still need this.

I just want to clarify that we're dealing with clause 10 and that there will be a 10.1 after this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

That's correct.

We still need to deal with clause 10.

(Clause 10 negatived)

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Moving on to new clause 10.1.... We had some previous amendments. We are now at NDP-15.3, page 30.7.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Yes, this is about the principle of substitution. This is obviously a clause we stood earlier, because there were some language concerns around the table.

The principle of substitution, if committee members will recall, is in a sense a higher order of effort on behalf of policy-makers and government. What it does is call upon the government to do a substitution analysis of some of the pollution we're talking about.

The reason I refer to this as a higher order is because the second order is that you start to talk about limits or caps or mitigation--mitigation being the last one--once the pollution is made and once people are sick or once the climate has heated up, depending on which topic you're talking about.

What substitution calls on the government to do is ensure that there is some substitution considered for the pollutant in the first place: are there other industrial applications that can be used?

We've seen the successful use in some U.S. jurisdictions. It is being brought in as one of the principles in Europe under the REACH regulation that you always, as the first order, assess if there is something else that can be used in the industrial application. Therefore the pollution is not made, therefore you don't have to limit it, and therefore there is no mitigation concept. It's the ounce of prevention versus pound of cure concept.

We stood this clause earlier. We allowed some language to be worked on, but we soundly believe in the principle. This is the most cost-effective way to go about doing things, both in the public and private sectors, because you just don't make the pollution in the first place. You don't cause the negative effects, you don't limit production, and you don't have to deal with the health or environmental consequences of pollution being emitted, because you just don't emit it.

It's something--and as a small part, I have a private member's bill, and there are other ones in the House right now--we probably haven't led the field on as a country, and we need to.

I seek perhaps a friendly amendment around the table that could clarify some of the language concerns, and we can move on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I'll just interject at this point and say, if members recall, that I did have some reservations about the relevance of this, but I listened to the debate at the time this was moved, and I am prepared to give the member the benefit.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

You're prepared to what?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

I'm prepared to give the member the benefit of the doubt in this case.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

We'll go to Mr. Warawa.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

I do have a friendly amendment that I'd like to present to the mover, Mr. Cullen.

I think you've expressed the concern about the relevance of the amendment, so I believe what's being proposed here as a friendly amendment will narrow that scope and make the amendment relevant to the bill.

That friendly amendment is to remove proposed paragraph 68.1(1)(a); (b) would stay, and immediately after (b) it would read, “which have not been identified for the assessment under section 74”. Proposed paragraph (c) would read as follows: “substances of concern identified”, and then everything after “identified” would be removed and replaced by adding “by the Minister”. So proposed paragraph 68.1(1)(c) would read, “substances of concern identified by the Minister”. Is that clear?

So (a) would be removed, (b) would stay, and we would be inserting what I just read--“which have not been identified for the assessment under section 74”. Then (c) would be modified. Is that clear?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Okay, you're going to provide--

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Is it not clear?

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

It is, but just for super clarity, I'll re-read that.

Mr. Cullen, this is directed to you.

What we're saying is that the friendly amendment starts at proposed paragraph (a), which would be deleted. Proposed paragraph (b) would then read, “known or suspected carcinogens identified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC); and which have not been identified for the assessment under section 74”. And then (c) would read, “substances of concern identified by the Minister”.

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It may not be gold, but it's a decent silver, Chair. We'll take it on this one.

[The Chair, Conservative, Laurie Hawn]

Are there any other comments on that one, any other debate?

Mr. McGuinty, do you have a point?

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

Just to make sure, removing proposed paragraph 68.1(1)(a) is a good idea, because if I understand it, we would be asking for the substitution of carbon dioxide, and I don't think there's a substitute yet.

Secondly, I think this would reflect the fact that we've already voted against separate schedules for GHGs and air pollutants. Our fear was that this was creating a new class of substances.

Mr. Moffet might help me understand or confirm that this in fact would not do so.

[John Moffet]

The specific question is whether this creates a new list.

[David McGuinty, Liberal, Ottawa South, ON]

A new list or a new class of substances.

[John Moffet]

It absolutely does create a new list of substances or a new class of substances. It gives the minister authority over a number of substances that have not been identified, have not been categorized as a result of the section 73 categorization, will not be subject to a section 74 screening assessment, and are not on the list of toxic substances, schedule 1 of CEPA. This does identify a number of new substances, and I can explain how.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer has a number of lists. Taken in totality, there are about 414 substances on their list. For most of those substances, the pathway by which they work is not through the air, so most of them are not air pollutants. That's one issue in terms of the relevance to air pollution.

There is a second way in which they create a new list. I need to give you a bit of context on how the categorization process worked.

The categorization process looked at the 23,000 or so substances that were in commercial use in Canada, including most of the substances on the IARC list. In addition, in any event, the Department of Health also looked at the entire IARC list, took the results and identified about 4,000 substances for screening assessments under section 74.

Those substances include a number of IARC substances, and they would be excluded from this as a result of the friendly amendment. But they don't include all IARC substances. The reason for that is that we excluded those IARC substances for which we believe there is no potential for exposure in Canada. Health Canada has done the preliminary exposure analysis, and if there's no potential for exposure, we've determined not to do further assessment on those. We have limited assessment resources, so we're going to focus on those that are used and exposed in Canada. This would require the minister to take some action with respect to that broader list, notwithstanding the fact that we've narrowed it somewhat.