Bill C-298 (Historical)

Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act

An Act to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999

This enactment requires the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health to make, within nine months after the coming into force of this enactment, a regulation to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts to the Virtual Elimination List compiled under subsection 65(2) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

Perfluorooctane Sulfonate Virtual Elimination Act

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

moved that Bill C-298, An Act to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed.

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure today to again debate this bill . I am very proud to be here. The bill represents an important step in protecting the health of Canadians and our environment. Bill C-298 seeks to eliminate from our environment a chemical that poses a threat to the health of Canadians.

With a few minor amendments in committee, the bill passed with unanimous support before prorogation. I look forward to its passage in the House of Commons with similar support this time around.

PFOS is one of a larger class of chemicals known as PFCs. The full name for this particular chemical, PFOS, is perfluorooctane sulfonate. As members can hear, it is a mouthful. These chemicals are mainly used in consumer products for their non-stick, stain repellent and water repellent properties. PFOS itself is used mostly as a stain repellent in various consumer products as well as in certain industrial applications.

This chemical is used in rugs, carpets, fabric, upholstery, clothing, food packaging and certain industrial and household cleaners. Other applications include firefighting foams, hydraulic fluids, carpet spot removers, mining and oil well applications, and metal plating processes such as chrome plating.

PFOS was in Scotchgard products made by 3M. 3M voluntarily stopped using PFOS in 2000 at the urging of the U.S. EPA, citing the health and environmental dangers posed by the chemical. That is interesting. It is very rare for an industry to actually stop using a product before it is banned by the government.

PFOS has been studied by many countries and international bodies that have concluded PFOS is a threat to human health and the environment. It is more persistent in the environment than both DDT and PCBs. All of the studies have shown this consistently.

It is also persistent in the human body. In fact, it takes at least eight years for it to work its way out of the human body. Even if we eliminated PFOS from our environment immediately, it would take eight years, on average, for our bodies to get rid of half of the PFOS in our system.

In April 2004, Environment Canada and Health Canada completed their own assessments of PFOS and came to essentially the same conclusion. There are four basic questions that we need to ask when deciding whether a chemical poses a sufficient risk to human health and the environment such that it should be regulated.

First, is the substance inherently toxic? That is, does it pose a health risk for humans or wildlife? Second, does it persist for long periods of time in the environment without breaking down into harmless compounds? Third, does it bioaccumulate? In other words, does it become more concentrated as it moves up the food chain? Finally, is it used widely enough or in such a manner that there is a serious risk of human exposure?

Unfortunately, PFOS meets all of these criteria.

Bill C-298 seeks the virtual elimination of PFOS from our environment. Virtual elimination has a specific meaning under CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, which is laid out in section 65 of the act. It means that the substance cannot be released into the environment at any level or concentration that cannot be accurately measured using sensitive but routine sampling and analytical methods. Essentially, the chemicals should not be entering the environment at any level that is detectable using the best commonly available measurement techniques.

Other countries have already taken action to protect their citizens and their environment from exposure to PFOS. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, banned the use of PFOS in 2000. With the exception of a few very specific applications, other countries have since moved to ban or severely restrict the use of PFOS.

Sweden has proposed a global ban on the substance under the Stockholm convention on persistent organic pollutants, sometimes called the POPs treaty. The POPs committee is now moving forward with its consideration of PFOS to decide if it should be included under the Stockholm treaty.

PFOS belongs to this list of resistant organic pollutants banned under the Stockholm treaty, but in the meantime we need to deal with it here at home. We simply cannot allow Canada to lag behind when it comes to protecting human health and the environment. We must act now, not later, to protect Canadians from exposure to PFOS. That is the objective of this bill. I hope that all parties and all members will support the bill.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, in the last session this bill was successful at all stages and went through committee. I believe there was an amendment at committee. Could the member assure the House that the nature of the amendment was not substantive to the purpose of the bill?

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, there was a friendly amendment. It does not change the bill. The bill has the same impact that it had before. As I said, the amendment was a friendly one. We sat around the table and discussed it. Actually, I think it improves the situation.

My understanding from talking with experts in this field is that there are many chemicals in our environment. This is one of the most persistent and one of the worst ones that we are dealing with.

I thank the hon. member for his support and the support I have received from members of the House. Before Parliament prorogued, there was unanimous support for the bill to pass at the other stages. I hope the same will be the case at third reading.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we have similar bills sitting at the environment committee right now that deal with a whole range of other chemicals.

As the member just mentioned, the number and range of chemicals that we are now finding have some sort of deleterious effect on human health is broad. We heard from government officials from Health Canada and Environment Canada. Oftentimes there are not the budgets nor the capacity to deal with the sheer number of chemicals. That industry is constantly evolving. Mr. Speaker, allow me to digress for a moment, but it is similar to the doping scandals we see in sports, where the creators of the chemicals make new ones quicker than detection systems and screens can be put in place. There are constantly new combinations and new innovations. Generally speaking, these are for consumer products.

I wonder if the member has any thoughts on the ways that we could apply a larger and broader screen to enable government to actually do its job, which is to protect citizens from harms of which they could not possibly have any knowledge. This is going to come up again and again. There are literally thousands of chemicals that we are interacting with on a daily basis and which are affecting us in negative ways. There is no real capacity on the government side to put measures in place. I wonder if she could comment regarding what we need to do in this country to make things a lot better and safer for Canadians.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that there are some 3,000 chemicals which are very bad for the environment and are considered to be carcinogens. Of those 3,000, my understanding is that the government has brought it down to a smaller number that the departments are trying to analyze to fast track. The reality is there is a very large number.

We have all been exposed to this chemical for quite some time. Obviously it has been affecting our health for the last number of years.

I would suggest that under our environmental plan, when we talk about climate change and all its consequences, all of these things are interrelated. It is impossible to take them apart. When we deal with the environment we have to specifically ensure that we allocate sufficient funds for the enforcement of CEPA and for the analytical work that needs to be done on the chemicals that are remaining, so that we can very quickly start banning them and adding them to a list for virtual elimination.

The hon. member is absolutely correct that we need to move faster. The process is much too slow and it takes far too long. When I came across this chemical, I took the opportunity to act on it as quickly as I could since both Health Canada and Environment Canada had already said that it was a dangerous chemical and met all the conditions, but nothing had happened to that point. I thought I would take the opportunity to at least get one of the worst offenders off the table. Hopefully we can move on the rest of them quickly.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Wetaskiwin, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is with pleasure that I rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-298, the perfluorooctane sulfonate virtual elimination act.

The bill seeks to add perfluorooctane sulfonate and its salts to the virtual elimination list under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I am pleased to say that the government supports the bill as it has been amended.

Let me explain what the government is doing to protect Canadians and their environment from PFOS and related chemicals and why we are taking action. The departments of the environment and of health undertook an extensive environmental assessment of PFOS, its salts and its precursors, which concluded that PFOS is persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic under CEPA, 1999.

PFOS has been detected in many wildlife species worldwide. Field evidence has identified high concentrations of PFOS accumulating in the liver and blood of fish-eating mammals and birds in the Canadian Arctic far from known sources or manufacturing facilities. PFOS concentrations in polar bears are higher than any other previously reported concentrations of other persistent and bioaccumulative chemicals. Current levels show that some wildlife organisms such as polar bears and some bird species could be near or at levels of effect and could be harmed by current exposures to PFOS

Since the government concluded its scientific risk assessment in the summer of 2006, the government has acted quickly and taken very strong action to prevent the risks from PFOS and its salts and certain other related compounds. These actions address a broad group of approximately 60 known substances in Canada and approximately 120 known substances internationally.

On December 16, 2006 the government published the proposed perfluorooctane sulfonate and its salts and certain other compounds regulations. These regulations propose to prohibit the manufacture, use, sale and import of PFOS and related substances, as well as products and formulations containing these chemicals.

Temporary five year exemptions have been proposed to allow the use of firefighting foams and the sale, use and import of fume suppressants used in the metal plating sector. These actions will prohibit the vast majority of historic PFOS uses immediately and allow for the orderly transition to alternative products for critical applications.

In the case of firefighting foams, the five years will allow users to replace their PFOS containing products without compromising fire safety. For fume suppressants used in metal plating, the five years will allow for the development of alternative formulations. Alternatives to PFOS in this application currently do not exist and we want to provide a phase-out period so that emissions of other harmful substances are minimized.

In comparison with actions taken by other international jurisdictions, the Government of Canada's proposed regulatory approach represents the most comprehensive action to manage PFOS, its salts and other compounds.

We will also conduct environmental and human monitoring domestically to ensure that our objectives are met.

In addition to domestic regulations, the government will also work with international partners to manage the global concerns surrounding PFOS.

Canada is engaged in multinational efforts to address the risks posed by this substance. For example, Canada is actively leading in technical and policy discussions relating to the proposed regional and global restrictions on PFOS. Such restrictions would be taken as a result of the nomination of PFOS to the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Protocol on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution and its nomination to the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants.

Furthermore, Canada is actively engaged at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forums to share information and promote action on these chemicals. Canada will continue to engage our international partners in global action on PFOS to complement our domestic policy. Supporting these efforts is critical to addressing the long range transport of PFOS into the Canadian environment.

In terms of monitoring, the Department of Environment and the Department of Health are also committed to research and monitoring of PFOS and related chemicals. This research is to ensure that the actions being proposed are making a difference in the Canadian environment and among the Canadian people and to generate relevant information on current and emerging risks associated with these chemicals.

In December 2006 the government announced its chemicals management plan which included significant resources for research and monitoring. The plan, a comprehensive strategy to manage chemicals in Canada, includes a major investment in research and monitoring. The work under the chemicals management plan, which has already been started, will help inform the government and the public on the effectiveness of the PFOS regulations and help to ensure new and emerging risks are identified.

Allow me to read a section on PFOS under our chemical management plan:

The Government of Canada published a proposed order to add PFOS to the List of Toxic Substances under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 on July 1, 2006. A proposed risk management strategy has also been published. This strategy outlines the Government of Canada's proposed actions to prevent the re-introduction of PFOS into the Canadian market and address the remaining uses in order to reduce or eliminate releases of PFOS into the environment.

At the same time, with the significant reduction in global PFOS production that began in 2000, exposure sources have been reduced and may eventually be eliminated. Since some PFOS production is known to still occur globally, the Government of Canada is continuing to work with other countries to encourage reduction and, eventually, elimination of PFOS manufacturing. Proposed regulations addressing PFOS are expected to be issued by the end of 2006.

The government has acted in developing actions on PFOS since the conclusions of the environmental assessment were finalized in July 2006.

Under the current regulatory process established by the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, a proposed regulation or control instrument must be developed within 24 months of proposing a substance to be added to schedule 1. Once proposed, the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health have a further 18 months to finalize the regulation or instrument. Typically, this would result in a period of 42 months, or three and one-half years. The government is well on its way in accomplishing this for PFOS in under one and one-half years.

In conclusion, we are pleased that the environment committee was able to amend this bill to make it something that we can support.

We are committed to taking action against toxic substances. This is just further proof that this is indeed a government of action. We are cleaning up the environment for the sake of the health of our environment and for the health of all Canadians, particularly the most vulnerable in our population.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-298, an Act to add PFOS to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

I would like to make it immediately clear that we are in favour of this bill, which aims, as I said, to add PFOS to the list of substances for virtual elimination. First of all, what is PFOS? The principal applications for PFOS and its precursors are for water, oil, soil and grease repellents for use on surface and paper-based applications, such as rugs and carpets, fabric and upholstery and food packaging, as well as use in specialized chemical applications, such as carpet spot removers, surfactants such as detergents, hydraulic fluids, mining and oil-well emulsifiers and other specialized chemical formulations.

In Canada, there is no known manufacture of perfluorinated alkyl compounds, including PFOS. Approximately 600 tonnes of perfluorinated alkyl compounds were imported into Canada. PFOS represent only a very small percentage of the total amount of perfluorinated alkyl compounds currently imported into Canada.

What are the effects of PFOS? According to the available data, PFOS penetrates the environment in quantities or in conditions that may immediately or in the long term have a harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity. The presence of this product in the environment is chiefly due to human activities, and these inorganic substances do not occur naturally in the environment.

As our colleagues said a few minutes ago, we know that as early as 2004, the government announced in Part I of the Canada Gazette that it intended to add PFOS to the list of toxic substances and recommend its virtual elimination. The notice invited comments from the public for a 60-day period. Unfortunately, to date, schedule 1 of the Environmental Protection Act has yet to be amended to include PFOS. One might think that the government had heard from industry, asking that the government defer adding it to the list.

The real question we have to ask ourselves in studying this bill is why it took two years for the government to see the importance of adding this substance to the virtual elimination list. In the meantime, many people continued to have access to this substance, even though it is very clear that it has a harmful effect on the environment and biological diversity.

One has to wonder whether this long delay was due to a lack of will on the part of the administration, which was certainly under pressure by the industries concerned to delay designating PFOS as a toxic substance. It is unacceptable that this delay should be considered standard or due to red tape. It is indeed unacceptable to take nearly two years to restrict the use of a substance proven to be harmful. It is the federal government's duty to ensure that, once they have been assessed as harmful, substances are regulated without delay.

I would also like to mention phosphates in dishwasher and laundry detergents that are still available in our grocery stores. Why is the government taking so long to ban these phosphate-containing products when everyone knows that they are the main cause of a phenomenon that is affecting over 160 lakes in Quebec: cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae.

As everyone knows, on May 12, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development passed a Bloc Québécois motion to force the government to adopt regulations banning products containing phosphates. Unfortunately, all summer, the government turned a deaf ear to a majority of parliamentarians demanding this ban. During that time, more of Quebec's lakes than ever before have been contaminated.

I would like to assure my colleagues that in the next few days, the Bloc Québécois will introduce a bill in this House to ban dishwasher detergents that contain phosphates. We hope that the government will pay attention this time and support the Bloc Québécois' bill, because this is a huge problem. Many other countries, such as Switzerland, have brought in regulations to address this issue.

We have to act now to protect our lakes and rivers. We also have to ensure that parliamentarians have a political arena in which they can introduce strict regulations to fight the degradation of our environment and our ecosystems.

In closing, I am pleased to support the member for Beaches—East York's Bill C-298. However, it is appalling that the government has waited more than three years to act on this issue even though it had access to all the studies at Environment Canada.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate this evening. This subject raises a number of major issues.

For New Democrats, this is a very straightforward issue, while the resolution is complicated. There are certain roles for industry and certain roles for government, which are called into question with respect to the bill put forward by my colleague. Many Canadians assume that the products they purchase and the foods they put on their tables for their families are safe.

Over the last number of months and years, time and time again only through news reports have Canadians learned that not only are the products they purchase for themselves or their children in stores not safe, but the very food they put on their tables has been exposed to an increasingly wide range of chemicals, which government is either incapable or unwilling to screen properly to understand what the effects are in humans.

Oftentimes, we have done research on certain chemicals. In doing that we look to industry to find out what actual tests have been performed and what type of longitudinal studies have been conducted to know what the effects are over a certain amount of time. We have found that there have been goldfish and small lab rat tests done on a single dose basis over a 24 hour period. Those tests satisfy many of the regulations now on the books in Canada. Clearly and intuitively, we know that this is no longer sufficient. The complexity and diversity of the chemicals now being included in the Canadian food system and product lines are far beyond the capacity of the laws as they are now written.

We recently went through a major review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The review found that many parts of the act, while good in principle, were wanting in detail and that government after government in succession had not put in the resources required to keep Canadians safe.

There is a fundamental principle that the bill attempts to address in the specific, which applies to the general. The fundamental principle is one that has been known for a great many decades. It is called the precautionary principle. Very simply, when there is evidence and suggestion of the capacity of harm through the introduction of a chemical or product to Canadian society, we need to take a precautionary approach and not introduce it until the evidence is strong and overwhelming that it will not cause harm.

The problem for governments, and this applies to governments of all political stripes and persuasions, is that the investment required to properly apply the precautionary principle to the overwhelming number of chemicals being introduced is significant. We cannot simply throw a small amount of money at this or the odd department section and hope that is enough.

Oftentimes in the environmental movement there is a tendency to want to fearmonger, to bring forward doomsday scenarios. However, in this case, when it comes to chemicals affecting our well-being and health, Canadians are increasingly concerned about the exposure to themselves and to their families, and both the Minister of the Environment and Minister of Health clearly know this. New Democrats feel that fear is well placed.

The role of industry is not to do this. Too often we have deferred to the private sector to take on more and more responsibilities that were previously held by government. When it comes to protecting the health and well-being of Canadians, it is simply not the role of the private sector to do this. Its role is clearly stated in almost all other constitutions, which is to maximize profits for shareholders or whatever the arrangement may be in other cases. The role of government is to protect the citizens it endeavours to represent.

In this minority Parliament, as in the previous one, we have an opportunity to shift the debate when it comes to protecting Canadians from these chemicals. We have the opportunity to shift the debate to strengthen our ability to apply and effectively use the precautionary principle and other principles that would better strengthen the confidence of Canadians when they purchase food or products for their families.

PFOS, the chemical we are dealing with specifically, is one of the most notorious. This is the grand lesson of unintended consequences, where a chemical is developed in a lab to perform a specific duty, whether it is to prevent food from sticking to cookware or to prevent flames from catching on clothing, but that duty oftentimes also enables a chemical to have very serious and harmful effects.

We have seen this time and time again, whether it was the fight against agent orange or the fight of the whole slew of chemicals that followed after that. We realized that when there was one and only one intended use for a chemical and there was no proper study of what was caused by that chemical, the effects were long reaching. We are still dealing with it today.

Canadians are living with the ill effects of agent orange, agent purple and others and have not been properly compensated by previous governments or this one. It was never the intention of government or the military, in this case, to cause any harm to Canadian soldiers or workers, of course, yet lo and behold, after many years there is a list of horrifying health effects. It is very difficult to read through the literature and not be properly braced with the issue. The fact is that governments for too long have failed Canadians and for too long have limited studies.

Right now we are dealing with another set of chemicals called phthalates, softeners for plastics. These softeners, while they enable plastics to be softer and more malleable, also disrupt endocrines. They are a chemical that goes right to the base of the genetic system. They cause a whole range of horrifying diseases and predicaments, particularly for young people. While they soften plastics in a fantastic way, they cause these other effects.

For too long, studies were limited. When Health Canada and Environment Canada went through the study around these phthalates to say whether or not they were safe to enter the Canadian system, they limited their studies so that they would not actually apply the study to consumer products. These phthalates existed in plastics, children's toys, nail polish and lipsticks. That is where our concern lay with these very products.

When officials come forward, they say they did a study that lasted three years, x number of dollars were spent on it and they feel confident. However, we have to dig below that. Lo and behold, when we do, we find out that they limited the focus and scope of the study to such a point that the answer was predetermined. Of course it would safe, because the wrong question was asked.

Within Parliament we need to start to ask the right questions to get at the root of what it is that we are after, which is to ensure that anything introduced into the Canadian market or system, any food produced here and brought to our tables, has been passed through rigorous study so that we know there will be no unintended consequences. This is oftentimes portrayed by the chemical manufacturers and other industry representative groups as something that would harm Canadian industry. I would argue the exact opposite. Bills like this actually protect Canadian industry and Canadian jobs from the lawsuits that are pending.

It also puts Canadian law in sync with what many other jurisdictions in the developed world do. Right now Europe is going through an extensive review of its entire chemical regime. More than 15,000 chemicals are being brought into the study. The regulations that will be coupled with this study are going to be serious and will prevent Canadian companies from selling to the European market.

We see this at the state level in the United States. Many states have taken the lead and have brought forward a number of prescriptive laws that say one simply cannot introduce these products if these chemicals are present. Lo and behold, Canadian manufacturers are marching along pretending, almost with their heads in the sand, and hoping these laws will simply not apply to them. The truth and the reality are that in a global environment, in an internationally competitive market, we simply cannot produce products that are going to be restricted in the markets of over 300 million people. It is an ignorant approach, it is the wrong approach, and ultimately it hurts Canadians.

The last point I will make on this particular set of chemicals and the broader condition is that there is a certain amount of externalization of costs that we do not properly catch in our natural market forces: the real cost of this part of business.

Climate change is oftentimes taken as the debate for this. If a company is able to operate its business with its known costs, with the lease of its building, the pay for its employees and the products, that is fine, but there are often costs associated with pollution that our system as it is currently structured does not catch. Who ends up catching them? The public. The public system ends up catching these serious and significant costs. In this case, it is the health effects. It is the lost hours of work and productivity. In the case of climate change, the costs are enormous. The numbers keep running and running, but the government refuses to even do a study to consider what the cost to business might be of the effects of climate change on our industry and our nation.

We think this is irresponsible. Internalizing these costs, making the full cost of doing business appropriate and responsible, is better both for the businesses and for society at large. It is time that we evolved in this place and in other legislatures across the country and considered the full cost of doing business with a full understanding of what the effects are on Canadians, to make for a better environment and a healthier Canada.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate the member for the bill. Members may be interested to know that this bill was first debated at second reading on June 16, 2006. It has been a long time. It is also interesting to note the position of some of the members who participated at the time and how this has evolved.

Before I get into that, I want to mention that we have some new rules that have changed with regard to what happens to private members' bills after prorogation. We may want to look at them again. It used to be that when we prorogued, all private members' bills died and then members would have the opportunity, if they wished, to move that their bills be reinstated in the same form. That allowed a member to say, “Mine is not going anywhere. I want to try something else, otherwise I am locked in”.

This way, they are all deemed to have been put at the same stage they were at when we prorogued, but they go back to the beginning of that stage. In this case, we are going to have three hours at report stage and third reading instead of the normal two.

It is kind of an anomaly, but this bill, when it was in the last session of Parliament, had received the unanimous support of this House at report stage. In fact, it is an indication, with that kind of support of the House, that we should move a motion to deem it passed at third reading and referred to the Senate. We need to deal with this because we are talking about a health bill. It may be under the environmental umbrella but it is a health bill.

If I could talk to the health minister about this, I know he would agree. I just wanted to quickly add to the record that this substance, called perfluorooctane sulfonate, referred to as PFOS, is currently not regulated in Canada and it is very prevalent in our society in repellants and all kinds of things. It is also detectable in certain products like rugs, carpets, fabric, upholstery, et cetera.

The whole idea is that this is a chemical that is biocumulative. It means that one can build up an amount of it in one's system. The research is done on animals. We have a zoologist in the chamber who spoke for the government earlier and explained that we have the science to detect this.

The interesting thing is that we have now come to the conclusion, as a consequence of the member's initiative, the good work by the committee, the debate and the support that has been generated, that we are here today with a bill that will pass this chamber, that will go to the Senate and, I hope, will get speedy passage because it is a health bill.

Here is the contribution I would like to make in terms of a new contribution to what has already been said. It has to do with the position that was taken back on June 16, 2006, by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of the Environment. I know the gentleman. He is a good member. He works hard and knows his stuff. However, as the parliamentary secretary, he needs to consult with Health Canada and Environment Canada and they pretty well let him know what the state of the union is.

If anyone has not read the speech, I happen to have it here. First, the member announced that his party would not support the bill. Interestingly enough, Health Canada has done the same assessments and the assessment concluded:

The revised assessment concludes that PFOS is a persistent biocumulative and inherently toxic substance in the environment. Furthermore, the revised assessment concludes that PFOS is entering the environment in concentrations that may have a harmful effect on the environment. These conclusions have not changed from the initial draft assessment. Canada's conclusions are also in agreement with the assessment decisions and actions of other countries.

The assessment goes on to read:

The revised assessment states that PFOS meets criteria established under section 64 of CEPA 99. In examining the risks posed by this substance to humans, it was concluded that concentrations of PFOS do not currently constitute a danger in Canada to human life or health. The final science risk assessment should be published shortly.

On June 16, 2006, a year and a half ago, the same department said that it did not pose a risk. However, after more work was done and a few people started talking about this stuff, the same data, the same information, and Health Canada now says that it is a problem. It now agrees. There has not been any new research. It is still the same data but Health Canada now has a different opinion. In the first place it was not a significant risk and now Health Canada says that it is a risk and that we must deal with it. The United States and a bunch of other countries have dealt with it.

I do not know whether other members share this, but how is it that Health Canada can have both positions on the same data and the same conclusion? There is an inconsistency here. It raises the question about whether or not there was a problem in making that initial assessment back when the parliamentary secretary spoke to the House and presented on the basis of the opinion of Health Canada in consultation with Environment Canada whether this was a problem.

I think we should ask Health Canada to please explain why its position was wrong when this bill first came forward. This is actually quite a success story for Canada and for the member who introduced this bill because it has created the necessity to have some informed debate, to go to committee and to hear from the experts. In fact, we have now identified other areas in which some similar problems need to be looked at.

What this whole process has really exposed, and it is the contribution I care to make to this debate, is that we may have a problem within Health Canada in terms of the manner, the procedures and the due diligence it does in making recommendations and giving advice to the government and to government members who will stand and have no personal knowledge but will rely, to their detriment, on information they were provided by departmental officials.

I believe it calls for an inquiry by the minister to look at the details and find out who wrote these and on what basis they made that recommendation and put the parliamentary secretary in a situation where he would be giving information that clearly sustained the argument that was made by the members in debate and then through a committee, which is that we have a problem here and the best thing to do is to pass the bill and put it on the list because it is a health risk to Canadians.

I am pleased to have consulted with other members because I now know that other substantial research is going on and that the science is such that we will be able to protect the health of Canadians even better because of the improvements in our research abilities, particularly with animals, to determine other health risks potentially harmful to Canadians.

I thank the member again for her excellent bill and congratulate her on a bill that will become law in Canada.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to be able to rise in the House today to speak on Bill C-298, An Act to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.

As a member of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, I was pleased to be able to work with my colleagues to make this bill something that we can all support, and I am particularly pleased that we were able to strengthen it.

I appreciate the comments made by my colleagues on the environment committee about this bill. My assignment to the environment committee was one of the first bills I was able to get out of there, and that was a pleasure for me.

Bill C-298 seeks to add PFOS and its salts to the virtual elimination list under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. I am pleased to say that we are taking serious action on toxic substances.

As my colleague, the member for Wetaskiwin, mentioned earlier, our government introduced its chemicals management plan in December of last year as part of our commitment to taking strong action to protect Canadians and our environment from the possible harmful effects of chemical substances.

We invested $300 million in our chemicals management plan, a plan that will maintain Canada among the foremost leaders in chemicals management internationally. That plan was well received by both industry and environmental and health groups. We are now implementing it.

I will quote briefly from that plan. It states:

Chemical substances are everywhere around us—in the environment, our food, clothes, and even our bodies. Many of these chemical substances are used to improve the quality of our lives. Most of these chemical substances are not harmful to the environment or human health. However, some have the potential to cause harm, in certain doses, and should only be used when the risks are appropriately managed.

[Our] Chemicals Management Plan will improve the degree of protection against hazardous chemicals. It includes a number of new, proactive measures to make sure that chemical substances are managed properly.

We felt that PFOS was one of those substances we needed to take action on, and that is what we did. In fact, one of the first substances to receive our attention under that plan was PFOS.

My colleague has just explained why there is concern over this substance and what the government is doing about it domestically and with our international partners.

Bill C-298 has an important purpose, namely to recognize that PFOS is one of those substances that should be virtually eliminated, because it can persist for long periods of time in the environment, and it can accumulate in food chains. Substances with these characteristics are among the highest priority substances in our chemicals management plan.

As PFOS is a high concern substance for which the weight of evidence supports the conclusion that it is both persistent and bioaccumulative, the government supported the idea that it should be added to the list.

However, there were some issues with Bill C-298 as it was originally drafted. That is why the government proposed a series of important amendments.

The original bill would have not only required the addition of PFOS to the virtual elimination list under CEPA, but also have the costly development of an ineffective approach to pursuing the objective of virtual elimination. The government therefore could not support that original wording.

To understand this more fully, it is important to understand both the requirement that would have been put in place, and the principle route of entry of PFOS into the environment.

PFOS was used in formulations of stain and grease repellents that were applied to all kinds of fabrics such as carpets, jackets, sofa covers, just name it. As members heard from my colleague, it was also used to make firefighting foams more effective and to suppress fumes in certain industrial applications.

The wide variety of highly diffuse uses meant that PFOS was entering the environment from thousands of very small sources. However, since it is a commercial substance, intentionally added to things, we have the ability to stop it simply by putting in place a regulation that says we will not manufacture, import, sell or use the substance any more. That is what we have proposed to do under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, and we expect to finalize that regulation this year.

The bill would have required the government to develop and publish a level of quantification for PFOS. A level of quantification refers to the lowest amount of the substance that can be detected using sensitive but routine chemical analysis methods.

The bill would have required the development of a regulation concerning the quantity or concentration of the substance that may be released into the environment either alone or in combination with any other substance from any other source or type of source, a type of regulation sometimes referred to as a release limit regulation.

In the case of commercial substances like PFOS, the problem is it can be very difficult to define and regulate the sources of release. When considered in the context of our proposed regulation to prohibit the substance in Canada, it really adds no value. Indeed, by prohibiting the production, import or use of PFOS, we will be acting to eliminate potential sources of the release.

I would add that requirements to develop limits of quantification, or LOQs as they are called, or release limit regulations are not specific to this bill. CEPA contains similar requirements to publish LOQs and develop release limit regulations for substances that are put on the virtual elimination list.

However, the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the same committee that considered this bill, has also produced its report on the five-year review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

In that report, the committee specifically identified these requirements as problematic. PFOS is a case in point. Moreover, the committee recommended that the act should recognize that prohibition regulations are an option toward achieving the objective of virtual elimination. We are proposing just that in the case of PFOS.

At committee, the government therefore proposed several important changes to the bill. We still wanted to put PFOS on the virtual elimination list, but we did not want to create obligations that would waste taxpayers' money or complicate the regulatory environment with ineffective regulations.

Therefore, we proposed amendments such that the bill will still require the government to put PFOS on the virtual elimination list, but without the requirement to publish a level of quantification, or develop a release limit regulation.

Another important amendment we made was to make sure that the bill addressed the same substances the government had identified as priorities through its scientific risk assessment. The risk assessment identified PFOS itself but also several related compounds, which are salts of PFOS as toxic, persistent and bioaccumulative. Bill C-298 therefore was amended to address PFOS and its salts.

Finally, CEPA put the onus of implementing virtual elimination on both the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health. We therefore proposed an amendment to this bill to make sure that both ministers were identified in this case, both for consistency and because in principle in the long run these persistent and bioaccumulative substances may be of concern to both people and the environment.

In conclusion, we are pleased that the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development was able to amend this bill, to make it something that we can support. We are committed to taking action against toxic substances, and this is further proof that this government is a government of action.

I also want to take this opportunity to thank the member for Beaches—East York for her efforts in working with the committee to implement amendments that allowed the committee to successfully get this bill through.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, not quite a year ago a number of our members of Parliament, in fact the Minister of the Environment, the Minister of Health and members from each of the parties were asked to take part in a study. They were tested to see what sort of dangerous chemicals there may be within their bodies.

A number of our colleagues from past sessions have been noted in the House when they have tragically succumbed to the terrible illness of cancer. Once these members had been tested, we waited to hear what sort of results would come forward. We found out that in fact there was a veritable cocktail of chemicals in the members' bodies.

That is why it is so encouraging and we should congratulate the member for Beaches—East York. She has zeroed in on one particular chemical. There were a number of chemicals found in the members' bodies, and from that we can extrapolate that these are chemicals most Canadians probably have within their bodies. However, she has zeroed in on one which is not that well known, PFOS.

The name itself does not appear to be all that insidious, but there was a time when DDT did not sound all that insidious either, or PCBs. Yet we do know that PFOS, in certain ways, has characteristics that are even more dangerous.

Let me read the full name, perfluorooctane sulfonate. Not only is it bioaccumulative, but it is also inherently toxic. We also know that it takes eight years to eliminate just half the amount of PFOS that we have in our bodies, if we were not to accumulate any more into our bodies during that eight year period. In fact, it has characteristics that are even more insidious and dangerous than DDT or PCBs.

As was mentioned by some of our other colleagues, we find PFOS everywhere, in upholstery, in carpets and in food packaging.

Let us just think. What sort of danger are we exposing Canadians, especially those most vulnerable? Children crawling on carpets, or adolescents, as they were unwrapping that hamburger at the local hamburger joint. They were potentially poisoning their systems because in the past PFOS was used in the wrappers that were used for hamburgers.

What are the consequences? Testing on animals has clearly demonstrated that PFOS causes breast cancer, liver cancer and thyroid cancer. In fact, it is quite dangerous and suppresses the immune system.

[The Deputy Speaker, Bill Blaikie]

I am sorry to interrupt the hon. member, but the time provided for the consideration of private members' business has now expired and the order is dropped to the bottom of the order of precedence on the order paper.

It being 6:55 p.m., this House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m., pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 6:55 p.m.)

The House resumed from October 24 consideration of the motion that Bill C-298, An Act to add perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) and its salts to the Virtual Elimination List under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, be read the third time and passed.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, let me take this opportunity, and it is an opportunity that very few of us in this House sometimes take, to congratulate, to honour and to pay homage to our colleagues who in fact do good work in this House. It is too easy for us in the House to criticize one another, but there are many of us who do good work on behalf of Canadians and on behalf of people across this country.

One of these of course is the hon. member for Beaches—East York who has an illustrious career both in defence of immigrants and refugees across the country, and of women's issues along with her care and passion about the environment.

One of these bills that she has introduced, her private member's Bill C-298, is such a bill. I would like to lend again my support and also to congratulate her and to pay homage to her for her long career of service to Canadians and to people across the country.

I am pleased once again to have this opportunity to speak on the issue of perfluorooctane use, specifically with respect to Bill C-298 introduced by my colleague, the member for Beaches—East York. This bill would add perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, to the list of chemicals on the virtual elimination list.

As I have done previously, I believe it is important to recognize the very real dangers of PFOS. The fact is that it never degrades and in fact this substance accumulates in the human body. Chemicals like PFOS are toxic to our bodies and to our environment. The government needs to take the action of supporting Bill C-298 as a necessary and prudent beginning.

Having served as the vice-chair of the environment committee, I heard a great deal of testimony on important environmental issues, including the need to expand the virtual elimination list. During my time on the committee, it was also obvious that the government will say and do anything in order to avoid taking real action on the environment.

While in opposition, the Conservatives called the Kyoto accord a socialist plot and fought against it publicly while disputing the signs of global warming. It is therefore not surprising that the Conservatives have cancelled successful and efficient environmental programs like the one tonne challenge.

The government claims that these programs were wasteful, despite the fact that the opposite position was taken by the independent Environment Commissioner. The government considers any investment in fighting global warming wasteful because it really does not consider global warming a problem. This is clearly a disconnect not only from what we on this side of the House know to be true but what the vast majority of Canadians know to be reality.

The Conservatives like to pretend that they are taking action on the environment, when in reality all they are doing is producing more hot air. In fact, they are on their third failed environmental plan since they have taken office. Moreover, when the House of Commons committee, including Conservative members, drafted a real and effective plan for the environment, the government did everything it could to obstruct the bill from becoming law.

How could it possibly get worse? Now we see the government has taken its environmental denial tour on the road. During the Commonwealth summit in Uganda, the Prime Minister was given the shameful credit for having derailed a plan that would have created binding targets.

What was his reason for this? The Prime Minister says it is because the plan did not include China or the United States. It is interesting to note that it was a Commonwealth meeting and neither of these two countries are even member states.

The Leader of the Opposition, indeed the member for Beaches—East York--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Nanaimo--Alberni is rising on a point of order.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this act involves a chemical and its use in Canada, and the preparation of an enactment to make that chemical unavailable in Canada. I would ask the Chair to challenge the member on the relevance of the Commonwealth Conference, China, and other nations related to climate change, which seem to be unrelated to the matter at hand today.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I thank the hon. member for Nanaimo--Alberni for his point of order and I am sure that the hon. member for Davenport will come back to the point in short order.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I certainly will. In my earlier remarks I talked about when I was the vice-chair of the environment committee. My colleague should be aware that CEPA is a very important regulatory body and that this is not one of the chemicals that needs to go through a CEPA review.

Therefore, there is the relevancy of the environment committee, what we do about the environment, what action the government wants to take on the environment and its failure to show leadership on issues that affect global warming. This is all relevant to the issue of the environment. Bill C-298 is also about that. It is one piece of the larger pie on how to deal with environmental contamination and issues that affect our health.

Bill C-298 is a meaningful step forward. I am honoured to speak in support of the excellent bill introduced by the member for Beaches—East York and I encourage all members to support it as well. We are talking about our environment, our health, our future and that of our country.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to enter the debate and to speak to Bill C-298, which is a very important act. Bill C-298 is an enactment that would require the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health to make, within nine months after the coming into force, a regulation to add perflurooctane sulfonate, or as the member before mentioned, PFOS, as it is sometimes called to save the tongue a little twisting, and its salts to the virtual elimination list compiled under section 65(2) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999. The act may also be cited as the perflurooctane sulfonate virtual elimination act.

I am pleased to say that the government supports the bill.

The government is committed to taking strong action to protect Canadians and our environment from the possible harmful effects of chemical substances. That is why we announced, in December of last year, a new $300 million investment in the Government of Canada's chemicals management plan, a plan that will maintain Canada among the foremost leaders in chemical management internationally, and a plan that was well received both by industry and by the environmental and health groups. We are now implementing it in earnest.

One of the first substances to receive our attention, under the chemical management plan, was perflurooctane sulfonate, or PFOS. There is concern over this substance and what the government is doing about it domestically and with international partners.

When Bill C-298 was introduced last year, the government had not yet announced the chemical management plan or its proposed actions on PFOS. I therefore congratulate the member for Beaches—East York for bringing this issue forward. The bill has an important purpose, to recognize that PFOS is one of those substances that should be virtually eliminated because it can persist for long periods of time in the environment and it can accumulate in food chains. Substances with these characteristics are among the highest priority substances in our chemical management plan.

As PFOS is a high concern substance for which the weight of evidence supports that it is both persistent and bioaccumulative, the government supports the idea that it should be added to the list. However, as Bill C-298 was originally drafted, it would have not only required the addition of PFOS to the virtual elimination list under CEPA, but it would also have required the costly development of an ineffective approach to pursuing the objective of virtual elimination. The government therefore did not support the original wording of the bill.

To understand this more fully, it is important to understand both the requirement that would have been put into place and the principal route of entry of PFOS into the environment.

PFOS was used in formulations of stain and grease repellents that were applied to all kinds of fabrics, carpets, jackets, sofa covers, name it. It was also used to make firefighting foams more effective and to suppress fumes in certain industrial applications. This wide variety of uses meant that PFOS was entering the environment from thousands of very small sources.

However, since it is a commercial substance, intentionally added to things, we have the ability to stop it simply by putting in place a regulation that says we will not manufacture, import, sell or use the substance any more. That is what we have proposed to do under CEPA. We are expecting to finalize that regulation this year.

The bill would have required the government to develop and publish a level of quantification for PFOS. A level of quantification refers to the lowest amount of the substance that can be detected using sensitive but routine chemical analysis methods.

The bill would also have required the development of a regulation concerning the quantity or concentration of the substance that may be released into the environment, either alone or in combination with any other substance, from any source or type of source, a type of regulation sometimes referred to as a release limit regulation.

The problem is in the case of a commercial substance like PFOS, it can be very difficult to define and regulate the sources of release. And, when considered in the context of our proposed regulation to prohibit the substance in Canada, it adds no value. Indeed, by prohibiting the production, import or use of PFOS, we will be acting to eliminate potential sources of its release.

I will also add that requirements to develop limits of quantification or release limit regulations are not specific to this bill. The Canadian Environmental Protection Act contains similar requirements to publish levels of quantification and develop release limit regulations for substances that are put on the virtual elimination list.

The Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, the same committee that considered this bill, has also just produced its report on the five year review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In that report, the committee specifically identified three requirements as problematic. PFOS is a case in point. Moreover, the committee recommended that the act should recognize that prohibition regulations were an option toward achieving the objective of virtual elimination. We are proposing just that in the case of PFOS.

At committee, the committee therefore proposed several important changes to the bill. We still wanted to put PFOS on the virtual elimination list, but we did not want to create obligations to waste taxpayer money or complicate the regulatory environment with ineffective regulation. Working carefully with the member for Beaches—East York, we developed amendments such that the bill would still require the government to put PFOS on the virtual elimination list, but without the requirement to publish the level of quantification or develop a release limit regulation.

Another important amendment we made was to ensure that the bill would address the same substances the government had identified as priorities through its scientific risk assessment. The risk assessment identified PFOS itself, but also several related compounds, which are salts of PFOS, as toxic, persistent and biocumulative. Bill C-298 therefore was amended to address PFOS and its salts.

Finally, CEPA puts the onus of implementing the virtual elimination on both the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health. We therefore proposed an amendment to ensure that both ministers were identified in this case, both for consistency and because in the long run these persistent and biocumulative substances might be of concern to both people and to the environment.

I am pleased to say that the government supports the bill and will be very pleased to see this compound added to the virtual elimination list. It will improve the environment for Canadians and will take this substance virtually out of circulation, out of the bodies of Canadians and out of the environment, which will be good for all of us.

[Bill Siksay, NDP, Burnaby—Douglas, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have this opportunity to speak in the debate on private member's Bill C-298, the perfluorooctane sulfonate virtual elimination act that was developed by the member for Beaches—East York. I want to thank her for getting the issue on the agenda.

It is very important that we have looked at this particular chemical that exists in our environment and has, I believe, been misused over the years. It is a very serious issue. I am glad we have made some significant progress on virtually eliminating it or that we will be moving to that shortly.

It was interesting listening to the member for Nanaimo—Alberni who talked about the process that the committee went through in working on this bill, some of the compromises and give and take that was made to this legislation to make it possible to gain support I gather in all corners of the House. Certainly, we in the NDP are supporting this legislation. I think that shows the kind of work that can be done in the House of Commons on legislation.

I wish that we had been able to muster that same kind of non-partisan cross-party effort on the big environmental bills of our day. It would be great if we could bring back the clean air and climate change act that had that same kind of cooperation through committee. Every party was allowed to bring its ideas to the table. The final document, the rewritten bill, reflected the ideas of all political parties in this place. Sadly, the government has refused to put it back on the agenda.

While we are making progress on this very specific chemical, we are missing progress on that very important and large piece of work on climate change that all Canadians recognize as crucial. It is going to be a sad day if we do not make progress in this Parliament on that big issue.

I also want to mention that Bill C-298 is similar in its intent and work to one that we passed last night at third reading, another private member's bill, Bill C-307, from the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, the phthalate control act, which also sought to limit the use of a particular chemical that was harmful to our environment and to our health.

I think we have been making progress again on some very specific issues but it is too bad we cannot get the big issue of our day, the climate change issue, back on the agenda of this place and make some real progress there.

With regard to the specific bill before us, it mandates the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health to make regulations that would keep the release of PFOS into the environment at a very low level where the substance actually cannot even be accurately measured. That is what it means to be put on the virtual elimination list. It is not being eliminated virtually, but it is going to be removed enough to a point where its presence in the environment is negligible. That is a very important step to take.

It seems that PFOS is one of those substances that seemed like a good idea at the time. It was a very popular substance when it was first introduced. It was used in many fabrics as a stain resistant substance, usually as a stain repellant. It was used in rugs, carpets, upholstery, clothing, food packaging, cleaners and in firefighting foams. It was used in very many places across our society. It was thought to be inert at the beginning.

Few tests were ever completed on the chemical's effects on people and wildlife and on the environment, but recently more testing has been done and it has been shown to have some very serious problems. For instance, animal testing was done. It was shown to be a carcinogen. It did cause certain kinds of cancers and damage to the immune system. That was an important step forward where we realized some of the harm that could be caused by PFOS.

This led, I think in the year 2000, to the Environmental Protection Agency of the United States banning the substance. It said that continued manufacture and use of PFOS represented an unacceptable technology that should be eliminated to protect human health and the environment from potentially severe long term consequences. I know as well that Environment Canada and Health Canada agreed in their own studies and work on PFOS.

We also know that PFOS is bioaccumulative. It does not disappear; it persists in the environment once it is introduced there. That is a very serious consequence of the use of this particular chemical.

Environment Canada and Health Canada stated in the Canada Gazette:

PFOS has been detected throughout the world, including in areas distant from sources, and in virtually all fish and wildlife sampled in the northern hemisphere, including Canadian wildlife in remote sites, far from sources or manufacturing facilities of PFOS and its precursors.

We know that it is a very difficult substance to eliminate now that we have introduced it into our environment. We know that its health effects are very serious as well. It is persistent, it is bioaccumulative and it is toxic, all good reasons why we should be eliminating its use in our society.

This is a very important step to take. I gather from reading the original speeches by the member for Beaches—East York on this that there are proposals to eliminate this substance globally. Sweden has proposed a global ban on PFOS as part of the persistent organic pollutants treaty, which is being discussed. I hope that Canada, given the steps that it seems we are about to take with it, will strongly support Sweden in those efforts because it is an action that needs to be taken.

We need to act quickly on this. Originally it looked as though it could take years for this to take place, even if we took the actions suggested in this legislation. We need to make sure this process is expedited so that PFOS is eliminated as soon as possible and not allowed to continue to do the harm it does to our health and the environment.

This bill points out some of the difficulties with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and how hard it is to get a harmful substance on the virtual elimination list. We are acting seven years after the Americans acted on this issue, which shows that our mechanisms are much slower, even though our own agencies such as Health Canada and Environment Canada conducted their own studies that showed the importance of taking this step.

I hope this bill will also improve our ability to react on other chemical substances that we should be concerned about for our health and the environment. I hope that this will be part of the review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act so that we can make sure this weakness in our legislation and in our approach can be cleaned up and improved.

I am hoping that we are taking an important step. It sounds as though we may have unanimity in this place, as we did last night when we voted on final reading of Bill C-307. Everyone in the House agreed to that similar measure going forward.

As I conclude, I would still like to challenge members that even though we are making progress on these very specific chemical compounds, we must also make progress on climate change and greenhouse gas emissions. The best way for us in Parliament to do that would be to bring back the legislation that was worked on in the first session by all political parties, where all the ideas were brought to the table and a new piece of legislation was written. We need to get that back on the agenda of the House of Commons. I would urge the government to do that without delay. If we leave this Parliament without having moved in a significant way on climate change, we will have missed the important opportunity to do something significant for our environment and the citizens of Canada.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I am about to recognize the hon. member for Beaches--East York for her right of reply and once she has spoken, that is it.

[Maria Minna, Liberal, Beaches—East York, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to have placed before the House Bill C-298 on the virtual elimination of perfluorooctane sulfonate, PFOS, as we call it. Also I want to thank all members of the House for their support of this bill. It is indeed a good feeling that, hopefully, one of the bad substances will be eliminated.

I concur with the hon. member who spoke earlier that it would be wonderful if the government would bring back the larger bill, the climate change bill, which all parties worked on prior to the prorogation of the House. This would allow us to address the overall problem of climate change in a more aggressive manner together. Members of the House have to work together because otherwise we cannot succeed.

In this particular case the interesting thing to note is that 3M, which is a private corporation, stopped manufacturing this product quite some time ago, having acknowledged a problem with it very early on. Sweden has called for a global ban on PFOS for some time now. As mentioned by other members, the reason is very clear. This is a very toxic chemical. It can cause breast cancer, liver cancer, thyroid cancer. It also affects the immune system and other things.

Because of its harmful effects and the levels currently found in our environment, Environment Canada and Health Canada recommended in October 2004 that the substance be defined as toxic and scheduled for virtual elimination from the environment, but that had not happened. I brought this bill forward because in the intervening time not a great deal had happened.

As I said, not only Sweden but the United States Environmental Protection Agency has called PFOS an unacceptable substance that should be eliminated to protect human health and the environment. Environment Canada agrees. Therefore, there is no reason to delay. Environment Canada has also determined that this chemical is inherently toxic and that it stays in the environment for extremely long periods of time. The tests have been done and the verdict has been in for some time.

This bill has received international attention on the issue of harmful chemicals. It is our hope that PFOS will be added to the Sweden Convention on Prohibited Organic Pollutants. We hope that the government will actually pursue that. It is very important that that happen.

We have worked closely with Canadian environmental groups in drafting this bill. There is a great deal of support for it in the House and elsewhere.

An Environmental Defence Canada report released in June 2006 reported on the testing of five Canadian families, the parents, grandparents and children, for the presence of 68 toxic chemicals. This illustrates the urgency of the situation as there are many others out there. PFOS was found in every participant in the study and the children had higher levels than their parents. Children are more vulnerable to the effects of toxic chemicals because their bodies are growing and developing rapidly. This is extremely troubling.

Bill C-298 protects the health of our families and wildlife and helps to clean up our environment. I am pleased to see that this is one chemical which hopefully will be eliminated.

However, I would also urge the government to bring back the larger bill that all parties had agreed to prior to the summer break and prorogation so that we can actually address in a more aggressive way the whole climate change issue. In the process we could also address more quickly all other chemicals that are still in the system and have not yet been dealt with.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The question is on the motion.

Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the third time and passed)

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I would ask that the House see the clock as 6:30 p.m.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.