I'd like to go back to what Mr. Rankin was talking about. Originally when I asked you the question, I talked about the fact that the major reason for this particular act is to look at health and environmental effects, and to ensure that the safety to people and the environment is paramount.
I also asked about whether harmonization has brought us down to a lowest common denominator. I am a little concerned because I'm hearing about people moving away from Codex, which was the best form of harmonization—the World Health Organization looked at everyone having some fairly clear guidelines—and moving into creating their own regional guidelines or block guidelines, etc. For me, that means there is going to be a big differential between the kinds of safety measures and environmental measures that we see.
I want to go back to this. I brought up Sri Lanka and Mexico, where we see a lot of illnesses caused by people who use pesticides, etc., on foods that we are sent here, and which in the name of trade.... I have no problem with trade. Of course we're a trading nation; we need to trade. At the same time, I do have a problem with the talk about bees and how Europe is using a different set....
I mean, I'm a physician. Looking at drugs, there are very clear international guidelines, and we see what happens when anyone strays from them. An example is that sometimes Canada is very slow to accept certain drugs that other countries have accepted, and the reason is that Canada is working really hard to try to make sure there are no adverse effects. I'm a little concerned that what other countries have found—especially very developed countries, like in Europe, which has very rigid and high levels of safety in terms of health and the environment—is dismissed.
We hear these concerns in Canada, and we are being told, “Well, you know, they're using different methods.” Surely to goodness in pesticide testing, and in the use of pesticides and other ways of looking at sustainable farming around the world, there has to be some clear decision about which is the best way of having an international standard. Again, to me, Codex seems to be that.
The argument that we would look at this every 15 years does not leave me, as a physician, with a lot of hope about human health effects. That 15 years is a long time; 15 years is almost a generation. Do you not regularly do adverse reporting in terms of risks? Is there no way of ensuring that people are checking every two years, that physicians can write in and say, “We're suddenly seeing these kinds of effects and we have reason to believe it is your pesticides.”
Look at the whole lawn issue. Pesticides on the lawn created a massive backlash in Canada, and now municipalities have been setting different standards for looking at pesticides on lawns.
The precautionary principle is something you talked about, but the precautionary principle, surely to goodness, is about human health and safety. Could Canada not follow its drug regulatory mechanism where it won't allow a drug that it doesn't think is safe, rather than saying, “I'm going to allow you to have it, and if I see problems three years later...”? Isn't that closing the stable door after the horse has bolted?
The bottom line is that even if you don't care about the environment, you don't want adverse effects on human beings. Wouldn't it be better to say “Because we're hearing different reports from different countries, we may want to hold off”, rather than the other way around? Mr. Lobb spoke about this, and he said that it's good that people are relooking at things.
My question is on allowing something to occur and relooking at it to see adverse effects, as opposed to not allowing it—as we do with drugs—because we're not sure we have good enough results based on outcomes, not on process.
