Mr. Speaker, it is a privilege to address some of the concerns the Canadian Alliance has with regard to Bill C-53, the pest control management legislation.
This is a very important bill and one which the committee worked on for a long time. It is important to many Canadians from different perspectives. The legislation has three main intentions. The Canadian Alliance generally supports those intentions to strengthen health and environmental protection; to make the registration system more transparent, which is very important; and to strengthen the post-registration control of pesticides. We agree with these.
The Canadian Alliance agrees that safety and environmental issues are very important to Canadians. Health and environmental concerns must be at the forefront of Canada's pesticide registration regime.
Bill C-53 looks at the ten times safety factor and the thousand times safety factor. Whatever the factors are and whatever decision making goes into the bill, we have to ensure they are based on science and not based on emotion, half truths or misinformation. We must have the facts before we make a decision. Once we have the facts it becomes easier to make a proper decision.
We welcome the formal commitment to protect the health of infants, children and pregnant women. This is a given in the bill.
One of the disappointments of Bill C-53 is the way it was brought into the House and how it went through committee. At the initial stages of discussion on how it should be brought into parliament it was felt there should be a joint committee of agriculture, perhaps international trade and health. We are dealing with an issue that goes across more boundaries than just health. It has significant implications for international trade and for the agricultural community. We had hoped that would have taken place at the beginning but because it did not, we see some flaws in the bill which need to be addressed.
This legislation has not been worked on since 1969, some 33 years ago. It is high time it was modernized and brought up to speed. It is very important to incorporate modern risk assessment concepts and entrench the current practices into law. It is important to account for the new developments in pesticide regulations around the world and to reflect the growing concern for the health of children and others.
Looking at the legislation from a farming or forestry perspective, agricultural practices have changed considerably in the last two decades. Agriculture is an industry that is evolving probably faster than many others. We are seeing a greater reduction in the use of pesticides in agriculture and for very good reasons. I have yet to meet a farmer who likes to use pesticides. Farmers use them as a tool to solve a problem they may have and they need to be competitive with our neighbours to the south and others around the world. It is very important to understand that fact as we look at Bill C-53.
Two amendments were put forward at committee with respect to the renewal period for this legislation. It was to be reviewed not in 33 years as was mistakenly done in the prior legislation, but in five years as stated in one amendment or 10 years as stated in another. The committee settled for seven years. That is okay. At least it is not 33 years. We know that in seven years there will be another review of the legislation.
What disturbed me and others on the committee is who would do the review. An amendment came out of committee stating that the legislation should go back to a House of Commons committee and not be sent on to the Senate. That was overturned by the minister. This legislation could be reviewed in seven years by an unelected, unaccountable arm of the Prime Minister and not by a committee of the House of Commons. We have great concerns with this. Is that a true review of a piece of legislation? The committee amendment was overturned by the minister and we have serious concerns about that.
We were pleased to get some amendments through at committee. One was the harmonization of pesticides and the review of pesticides from the OECD nations and other countries. Harmonization is very important in order to be competitive with some of our trading partners. This could avoid many of the costly duplications when pesticides are registered. Newer and safer products would get into our marketplace more quickly than in the past. Some products have been held up for as many as 20 years.
The inefficiencies in the PMRA absolutely need to be addressed.
There are many shortcomings in the bill. The preamble completely ignores the value of pesticides to Canadians
It is not that we put pesticides out for our health or because we are trying to do anything other than good for Canada. There is a lot of good that comes out of the use of pesticides. Unfortunately that is not recognized in the bill. It helps us to be competitive, although we do have to recognize that health and safety come first and on that we agree.
One issue we want to talk about is the minor use products. The bill makes no provisions for minor use products. It is something that we tried to get through. A minor use of a pesticide is defined as “a necessary use of a pesticide for which the anticipatedsales volume is not sufficient to persuade a manufacturer to register and sell the product inCanada”.
It is a product for which very few acres are involved. It is not really economical to go through the regime that we have right now. Yet it is very important that we see some of these products on the market because they are much safer and much better.
It impacts the horticultural sector, the producers of fruits, vegetables, herbs and floral crops. These are small in comparison with many other crops in the country but it is a $4.2 billion sector. It is one of our fastest growing agricultural sectors. It is also very important to the pulse crops sector, which grows peas, beans, lentils and chickpeas. These are small acreage crops but it is very important that they be competitive particularly with our American counterparts.
What actually is happening with our American counterparts is something we should consider so that we are on the same footing. It will give us an idea as to how slow we are in bringing forward different products.
In 2000-01 the total number of minor use products that were registered in Canada was 22. Eighteen were for food use and four were for non-food use. During that same period of time in the United States, 1,200 different products were approved, 500 plus of which were approved for food use.
The government does recognize the importance of minor use but it is not in the bill. That is one of the problems we have with this legislation. The PMRA doubled its resources recently in being able to evaluate minor use. We are hoping that something can be done perhaps in regulations, however it should be in the legislation that is before us. It is very important.
Given the evidence that we have, why did the government not recognize that? The government recognizes it as being valuable but not valuable enough to put in the bill. That is something which disturbs us.
We can also talk about the reduced risk products. The bill makes no provisions for getting newer, safer reduced risk products into the marketplace. We need to expedite the review of these products. My colleague mentioned that the United States has had reduced risk categories and timelines for the last year. The timeline to get these products registered was approximately 35% less than conventional pesticides.
It does not matter what one's perspective is on this legislation, whether one believes we should ban all pesticides, and there were people who said that at committee, or not, the idea of timeliness for approving newer and safer products in Canada is very important. It does not matter which side one is on. We put forward amendments suggesting that the minister at least come up with a timeline, perhaps within a year after the bill is enacted, so that the industry would know how long it would take to approve some of these products.
It is certainly something that would hold the PMRA accountable to Canadians and to what it is mandated to do. We heard from many witnesses about the PMRA. There is one thing that was consistent. Nobody said anything good about the quality of performance of the PMRA. It is something the bill should recognize and try to address as one of the concerns.
The agriculture committee looked at the efficiencies of the PMRA. It called for an independent ombudsman and for the auditor general to review that agency with a view to making it more efficient. We are pleased that cosmetic pesticides are left in the hands of local municipalities because Canada has many diverse problems in different areas. The problems in the Northwest Territories are different than those in southern Ontario. It is important that the responsibility be left with the municipalities.
It is important that we have the bill before us now. It is 30 years late, but it is here. It will ensure that farmers have access to newer and safer products. It will also ensure that Canadians have access to safe and reliable food at a competitive price.