Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. We are very pleased to be before you today to assist you in your consideration of this bill. I would like to begin by spending a moment on the important issue of blue-green algae and the role of phosphorus in its growth. We know

Environment committee  I regret to say that in fact in this instance our consultations have focused on actually putting a standard in place and more of the technical aspects around that, such that we have not explored on an economic basis this larger real issue you are describing.

Environment committee  Yes.

Environment committee  Yes. Perhaps my colleague from Justice Canada could respond to that.

Environment committee  We have pretty good information on that matter. It's a question of moving to a secondary treatment for municipal waste water, which is in line with what this national standard would be proposing. This secondary treatment would probably allow us to reduce phosphorous entering into

Environment committee  I meant that 40% of the phosphorous coming into the system would be removed through secondary treatment. If there were an augmentation, even beyond the secondary treatment, then there are ways to reduce the amount of phosphorous in the effluent leaving the plant by up to 90%.

Environment committee  There are technologies that will go a long way toward doing that, yes.

Environment committee  As described in the notice of intent, the areas that we are examining for regulation include laundry detergents. They are already in CEPA, but at a percentage of 2.2% by weight phosphorous. This proposal would lower this to 0.5% for laundry detergent. There is also the dishwashin

Environment committee  I'm afraid I have not completely understood the question. I did not, in my presentation, identify the concentration in lakes themselves or in waterways.

Environment committee  Perhaps I misspoke. We were talking about the regulation of municipal waste-water effluent that would set a standard for treatment. It would reduce the amount of phosphorus, among other substances, that would be entering any waterway.

Environment committee  The regulation we are talking about here would fall under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Part of this act deals with nutrients very specific to cleaning products, and that is the area we are considering regulating at this point.

Environment committee  I might respond first to this question. This is an initiative that the federal government, with the provinces and the territories, is undertaking under the auspices of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. So the objective is to jointly develop common standards,

Environment committee  My understanding of the strategy that accompanies these standards is that it will be phased in over a period of time, so that a municipality, for example, would need to be making investments to meet these standards ultimately. I know there are interactions or conversations betwee

Environment committee  Based on the consultations we've undertaken so far, we believe there can be a significant reduction in the concentration of these detergents and cleaning products to considerably less than they contain in the marketplace at this time. When we put forward a regulation like this,

Environment committee  The industry has indicated that if they have suitable time to identify alternatives that are safe and effective, they will undertake to comply.