Environment committee  Usually there are around 78 or 80 toxic substances at this stage, a few EA classes, and a few, like road salt, that are sort of in limbo.

Environment committee  I have a couple of comments on this. I think it's very important to understand that Environment Canada and Health Canada have actually applied an extremely high standard of proof in their assessment of the toxicity of substances. Indeed, in order for something to be found toxic

Environment committee  There are a number of things one could do to accelerate the process that I've hinted at. I've been told by Environment Canada officials that it involves something like 13 trips to cabinet to get to the point of regulating something under CEPA. So some thought could be given to re

Environment committee  In terms of the trade-off, there is a question of inconvenience and concern over perception versus the risk to the constitutional basis of parts 5 and 6. To me, that trade-off is pretty clear in terms of which side I would come down on. In terms of accelerating the process, ther

Environment committee  Some of the constituent products are on the DSL already, but some apparently aren't.

Environment committee  Okay. I think we would want to take this one under advisement. It's an interesting proposal, and there may be some advantages from a management perspective in terms of dealing with these substances so that they do undergo some sort of screen. The new substances notification proce

Environment committee  As I understand the proposal being made, it is essentially to treat these in-commerce products as if they had been on the domestic substances list. They would be treated like other commercial chemicals, therefore subject to the screening process, which is now approaching completi

Environment committee  I would point out that gaseous ammonia is actually on the list of toxic substances as well. It's not just ammonia in an aquatic environment. Indeed, the reason that gaseous ammonia was put on the TSL is that it's a smog precursor. What underlies that is in fact that one of the ma

Environment committee  I think it's somewhat more complex than that. Indeed, if one reads the PSL assessments, one finds in fact that the substances do have toxic properties. There are a number of different things that have been classified as toxic through the different definitions in the act, some of

Environment committee  To conclude, it's clear, in our view, that greenhouse gases meet the definition of toxic substances provided in section 64 of CEPA 1999. Indeed, in our view, no serious challenge has been mounted to that basic conclusion. The presence of greenhouse gases, criteria air pollutants,

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Mark Winfield. I'm the director of the Pembina Institute's environmental governance program. With me today is Dr. Matthew Bramley, the director of our climate change program. The definition of toxic substances under the Canadian Environmental P