Environment committee  I'll make a couple of observations. First of all, both the REACH program and the obligation in CEPA to categorize and then assess categorized substances were designed to address the same issue. The issue is that, since the 1990s, most developed jurisdictions in the world have had

Environment committee  The answer is that it depends. The act provides that the minister may establish a board of review in response to a request. There are two or three types of decisions where if there's a request made for a board of review the minister shall establish the board. In most cases, howev

Environment committee  Under the current act it's happened once. A few years ago a former minister of the environment convened a board of review to look into an assessment decision, or to review an assessment decision regarding a certain chemical substance.

Environment committee  I think the answer is more of a Government of Canada answer. In budget 2016 the government committed a fairly significant amount of money—I don't have the figures off the top of my head—to address solid waste management and waste-water treatment facilities on reserves. For as lon

Environment committee  I would agree that the act doesn't define “significant”. However, I think that, as a matter of fairly routine statutory construction, and the fact that you have in two places in CEPA a reference to significant harm, whereas the term doesn't appear anywhere else, a routine statuto

Environment committee  I was describing the fact that CEPA says that any new substance that comes into Canada has to be notified under CEPA for an environmental or a health assessment. Then there is a fairly robust regime established under CEPA to allow us to specify what information has to be provided

Environment committee  Maybe I can step in. I can't speak to assessments or reports that have been done under Health Canada, and we may need to follow up on that. Mr. Morin has only relatively recently moved into the position, so we can't confirm. However—

Environment committee  May I just clarify? There are federal regulations regulating the emission of greenhouse gases—

Environment committee  I've got it. Just bear with me for a second. The regulatory impact assessment statement for those regulations does provide an estimate of the human health benefits of reducing greenhouse gases, including the possible indirect benefits from the reduction of mercury emissions. I'

Environment committee  I'm not aware of a list from CCME. We can certainly provide you with two things; one is a list of publications from the Minister of Health pursuant to sections 45 and 55.

Environment committee  Second, I think it would be appropriate to provide the committee with a list of the various risk management activities that the federal government has undertaken to reduce exposure to the emission of mercury and methyl-mercury in Canada.

Environment committee  And your last question was...?

Environment committee  We have a number of authorities to regulate air emissions. First of all, many air pollutants are on the list of toxic substances, so we have authority under part 5 of CEPA to use the full set of CEPA tools—regulations, P2 planning notices, guidelines, codes of practice, and trade

Environment committee  Again, I'll just speak briefly about that. I'm not going to give you a preference; I'll give you some considerations.

Environment committee  First of all, as my colleague explained, Health Canada, which assesses health risks, already does consider vulnerable populations. Of course, as members of Parliament, you may want to provide for more certainty that it will be done. Putting it in the preamble would provide some