Thank you, Chair.
This is for Mr. Enei or anyone at the Department of the Environment or Department of Health.
Maybe even the brand new deputy minister of Health would like to try to answer this question; I'm sure you can, but it might not be fair because you're brand new.
I'm curious as to why we're using the term “risk management instead of “precautionary principle”. How did we get to risk management?
This process at Health Canada, the chemicals management plan, is in my view perhaps the most significant ever in assessing 200 high-priority substances and being on schedule for the assessments at 170. I also think that 70 assessments a year is an accomplishment. I think you're doing the right thing.
When you started this in 2006, you completed a triage of 23,000 existing chemicals. You identified 4,300 chemical substances for further attention and got it down to your high-priority substances. I've never seen government work this well on an environmental issue. Your accomplishments are very, very considerable.
Congratulations on being the first country in the world to ban bisphenol A in baby bottles. I think that was a gutsy move. I think it was a gutsy move to ban lead in children's toys. I think it will save lives. It will protect the health of infants and children.
My concern is about using the term “managing risk”. I'm wondering how important it is to have lead in consumer products at all. Why don't you use the momentum you now have—in fact, Canada is leading the world on lead and bisphenol A—and declare with some of these chemicals that by the precautionary principle, because the chemical is not proven safe for any use, you're going to ban the substance until the industry can prove it safe? Declare to industry that you are going to operate under the principle of “better safe than sorry”.
Everybody is anxious to try to answer that question.