Health committee  Both the California model and the European model provide good instruction for Canada, and we could easily adopt a similar system here. But they've adopted a much more precautionary approach to risk management than the traditional approach Canada generally takes.

Health committee  Actually, I'll defer back to the member, if that's okay.

Health committee  The first element of your question was, essentially, how you populate the list. If you create what we sometimes refer to as a hot list of chemicals, how do you populate that list? Probably the easiest place to start is where the Canadian government has already assessed a chemical as being health toxic.

Health committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to speak to this bill. We think this legislation is an important step in bringing Canada up to the standards of other countries in terms of consumer protection from toxic chemicals. We feel this legislation could be greatly strengthened, however, to place Canada among the global leaders in consumer protection and to promote clean technology and jobs in the new economy.