Environment committee  I think what was announced and what was just outlined is a good step forward. It's been a roller coaster of a weekend for a lot of reasons, so I'm not exactly sure, but I'm pretty sure--and Kapil has looked at it as well—that the timelines that have been suggested for this next round that Paul just outlined roughly correspond with the recommendations we've made to the committee to enshrine in CEPA.

Environment committee  I think there has been advancement in terms of enshrining the requirement to do that in the Pest Control Products Act. It's why we've suggested it in CEPA, to make it required. It has been departmental policy for several years to address vulnerable populations. The modernization of risk assessment approaches has been occurring over the course of, I'd say, the last ten years, to be fair.

Environment committee  I don't think there is enough. First of all, there isn't a regulatory framework that determines whether or not they should be there in the first place. There's an assumption in the public's mind that if something is on the shelf it's been evaluated and determined to be of acceptable risk, or safe and okay to be on the shelf.

Environment committee  The point I was making on lead is that it was grandfathered into CEPA as toxic. There wasn't even a need for an assessment report back in the early 1990s. We know that lead is toxic. My concern is not about overlap; it's about a gap when something is toxic under CEPA and this steady stream of consumer products can continue.

Environment committee  I guess it's a little bit of both. The Hazardous Products Act is 37 years old, entirely reactive, and product-by-product focused, all of which is very cumbersome and slow. The example of lead is what I use to illustrate that. As you know, we have identified in the last 15 years, especially the last 10 years, increasingly the fact that hazardous exposures indoors, where we spend most of our time, are originating from products.

Environment committee  Good afternoon. We've prepared notes that we'll need to revise slightly, and only slightly, in light of Friday's announcements. I'm going to talk about consumer products, and if there's time we'll get into the in-commerce list. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 gives the power to regulate toxic substances in consumer products and to make regulations controlling the import, manufacture, use, quantity, and concentration of substances in products, as well as for packaging and labelling.