Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise here today to speak to the motion that my NDP colleague, the member for Halifax, has put forward calling on the government to take immediate action to designate microbead plastics as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999.
Such a designation would allow the federal government to regulate, phase out, or eliminate the use of microbeads in products used or produced in Canada. Certainly, federal government action needs to be taken on this issue.
The timing of this motion is particularly appropriate as we are just two days past World Water Day, a day set aside to recognize that clean water is essential to life. This ought to be obvious to all of us, and we ought to see this simple truth reflected in the way we govern—that is, through the conservation and protection of our water resources.
However, it is clearly not obvious to the Conservative government. It is clearly not reflected in the way it governs. The Conservative government has in fact dismantled Canada's environmental protection laws, allowing polluters to threaten our fresh water supply, with no regard for the cost this will impose on us and those who follow us.
Let me say proudly, at the outset of my comments on this particular motion, that the NDP believes that Canada needs a national water policy to secure the principle of water as a human right and as a public trust. We need comprehensive strategies to protect our water resources, mechanisms to monitor and assess the implementation of these plans, and accountability mechanisms to ensure that water is indeed protected.
This issue of protecting our water resources, and this motion before us specifically, is an issue of particular relevance to my riding of Beaches—East York. My riding sits on the shore of Lake Ontario, which is of course one of our Great Lakes. There are many threats to our Great Lakes, many things we must do to help preserve them. They represent, after all, 95% of North America's surface fresh water and 20% of the world's surface fresh water.
Let me take a moment to thank my NDP colleague, the member for Windsor West, who serves as our party's Great Lakes critic, for all his advocacy for the health of our Great Lakes and, by extension, for all of us who live in the Great Lakes basin.
The Great Lakes have a unique biodiversity and are home to more than 3,500 species of animals and plants. They have for centuries, and continue today, to sit at the heart of the North American economy, providing livelihoods and sustenance to millions.
It is the case that concentrations of microplastics in the Great Lakes, particularly downstream from major cities and in the sediments of the St. Lawrence River, rival the highest concentrations of microplastics collected from anywhere around the world.
There is reason for this, of course. More than 40 million people live on or near the shores of these lakes, and microbeads are small, manufactured plastic beads that are used in consumer products such as facial cleansers, shower gels, and toothpaste. These are products we use every day, oblivious to the environmental consequences of these beads they contain and the environmental damage that these beads cause when they make their way into our water systems, rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Microplastics are consumed by a variety of marine life, including fish harvested for human consumption. They can cause asphyxiation or blockage of organs in marine animals. Chemical pollutants tend to accumulate and persist on microplastics. Microplastics absorb water pollutants and toxins, including PCBs. When ingested by wildlife, the toxins bioaccumulate and become more concentrated as they move up our food chain.
The motion before us proposes to put microbeads on the toxic list under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This would then allow the federal government to regulate, phase out, or eliminate the use of microbeads in products used or produced in Canada. Section 64 of the act defines a substance as toxic if it is entering or may enter the environment in a quantity or concentration or under conditions that:
(i) have or may have an immediate or long-term harmful effect on the environment or its biological diversity, (ii) constitute or may constitute a danger to the environment on which human life depends, or (iii) constitute or may constitute a danger in Canada to human life or health.
Clearly, microbeads meet this test.
Under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, both the Minister of the Environment and the Minister of Health are responsible for developing a list of substances that must be assessed in a timely manner to determine if they are toxic or are capable of becoming toxic. This list is known as the priority substances list. The act requires that substances on this list be assessed within five years of their addition to the list. Environment Canada and Health Canada have a legal obligation to then determine if these substances are toxic as defined in section 64 of the act. Toxic is defined in terms of the risks these substances pose to the environment or to human health, as described earlier.
Around the world, this kind of action has already been taken or is under way. At least 21 companies and major corporations around the world that produce or carry cosmetics and personal care products containing microbeads have made some level of commitment to eliminate or phase out microbeads in their products. Colgate-Palmolive, Johnson & Johnson, Lush cosmetics, and The Body Shop are all part of the initiative to get microbeads out of their products and out of our water systems.
Governments are responding as well. The Dutch parliament is promoting a European ban on microplastics in cosmetics. Just next door, in the United States, Illinois banned the production, manufacture, or sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads as recently as June 2014. State legislatures in California, Minnesota, New York, and Ohio are considering following suit. The Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, a binational coalition of over 100 mayors, is calling on companies to phase out the use of microbeads by this year, 2015. The mayor of Thunder Bay and the chair of that initiative said:
The Cities Initiative calls on regulators and companies to do the right thing and get microplastics out of personal care products and out of the Great Lakes.
We hope for all-party support for this motion. I would acknowledge some positive noises from my colleagues across the way in their response to this motion. There is, of course, nothing in the history and conduct of the Conservative government to date to suggest that its prospects are good. This is a government at war with the environment, as evidenced by its degradation and/or elimination of legislation intended to protect and conserve our environment, most obviously, in this circumstance and context, the Navigable Waters Protection Act.
It is evidenced by an unrelenting assault on science-based government departments, which includes cuts of over $3 billion and 5,000 jobs from science-based departments, including scientific research positions and programs for monitoring air, water, and wildlife. It is evidenced by the government's unrelenting attack on Canadians and Canadian organizations that are active advocates for our environment through such initiatives as its Canada Revenue Agency audits on environmental NGOs and the inclusion of matters related to the environment and environmental infrastructure under Bill C-51, the anti-terrorism act.
Finally, it is evidenced by the government's insistence that the economy and the environment stand in opposition to one another, as if the health, sustainability, conservation, and protection of our environment have nothing to do with the quality of our human life on this earth and on our standard of living. On this very topic, there is the historical reluctance to deal with this issue, and indeed, there is the denial of the issue by the Minister of the Environment, who, in response to a letter from the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative, suggested that this is a waste management and disposal issue that should be referred to the provinces.
However, we live in hope. Canadians live in hope of swift action on this issue so that the issue of microbeads can be dealt with for the benefit of our environment and all life that shares in that environment and depends on it for its survival.
