Health committee  Burning through it.

Health committee  Thank you. The Canadian Environmental Law Association is a public interest organization and an Ontario legal aid clinic. Alongside legal representation, our legal aid work is equally about law reform. In responding to Bill C-6,, we think in terms of protecting the most vulnerable within the broader public interest.

Environment committee  I can speak to the Pest Control Products Act and its implementation by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency. It's not necessarily an issue with respect to CEPA. Certainly I'm aware of the progress that's been made in terms of getting through the backlog of re-evaluation, which is comparable to the backlog we're talking about here, only it's significantly smaller.

Environment committee  Okay.

Environment committee  The road salt issue, as I understand it, was the issue of road salt specifically being environmentally toxic. That was the nature of that decision. But I think Dr. Khatter wants to respond to that.

Environment committee  I like to try to be reasonable. I think it's a matter of shutting off the tap before you clean up the floor. Stop producing products with what would appear to be highly toxic substances. Once that regulation is in place, then yes, the recall power kicks in after you've decided that you put in place a regulation.

Environment committee  Can I respond to that? I didn't catch what you were saying initially. That's a really important point, and overwhelmingly it's an issue of imported products. In the examples I've used, certainly with lead, it's an issue of imports. That's why the concern I've raised is trade trumping health.

Environment committee  Okay. Well, we'll see how that gets used.

Environment committee  When I look at the Clean Air Act and the package of announcements that accompanied it—and I'm going to be responding to the consultation deadline, which I think is December 21—I see a repackaging of a whole lot of things that are already happening. That's my first take on what I saw was there.

Environment committee  You mean to create the authority?

Environment committee  You asked about PBDEs and indoor air quality and dust. I'm not sure what you're asking me, other than to reiterate the concern I had, which is the fact that there's a legacy problem. What we're finding in evidence from bio-monitoring, but also from evaluations of dust, is that many different products with PBDEs are breaking down very slowly, especially if they're exposed foam like this, and they're ending up in house dust.

Environment committee  I think the capacity has to increase, and obviously the announcement on Friday will increase it. We have to recognize that we're dealing with 50 years' worth of backlog from the 20th century, and that's going to take some time and some work and some resources. Look at the way pesticides are regulated, and even just the capacity in the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, where there are over 300 scientists dealing with 500 active ingredients, which translates into thousands of end-use products.

Environment committee  That's understandable, and I grant you it's necessary to do that. The difficulty, particularly in the example you mentioned, developmental neurotoxicity, where there are impacts on the developing brain, is that we know so little, and we need to know a great deal more. The numbers of children with learning or behavioural problems in this country are very high; we're talking about 25% of children with one or more learning or behavioural problems.

Environment committee  Just as one more brief comment, I use lead constantly. I can't get away from lead. My brother-in-law calls me Lady Lead. I've been dealing with lead for 25 years. I'd really like not to have to anymore, but I really just use it as an illustration of the broader problems. This is a problem, obviously.

Environment committee  Lead is dirt cheap. Lead is incredibly useful. It's malleable. It has a low melting point. It's really durable. It has all these properties, which is why people have used it for over 2,000 years. It's really cheap, and it's probably coming out of your old computer, my old computer, and computers that are being recycled by children in China, Korea, or wherever.