Evidence of meeting #10 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was product.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Karen Dodds  Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health
Richard Aucoin  Chief Registrar and Director General, Registration Directorate, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health
Peter Delorme  Acting Director General, Environmental Assessment Directorate, Health Canada

9:05 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

I call this meeting to order.

We make sure that every six months or so we have the PMRA come in and give us an update on how things are going. So we have Karen Dodds, who is no stranger to the committee—I welcome you back—and Richard Aucoin is also joining us today. So I'll open it up to you to make a ten-minute presentation, and then we'll turn it over to the committee for questions.

9:05 a.m.

Karen Dodds Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, honourable members of Parliament and distinguished participants.

Thank you for inviting us to appear today to provide you with an update on the activities of the Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency since we last met in February 2007.

We have submitted to you today a report that outlines key activities of our agency, showing recent trends, and it provides updates on key issues involving the agriculture sector. Trends are presented for a number of activities, including new active ingredient registrations, minor use registrations, and review performance. Some notable agency successes are presented, including the approval of the first NAFTA-labelled pesticides, Canada's participation in global joint reviews with its Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development counterparts, and the introduction of a new policy for the registration of generic pesticides.

I, or my colleague Richard Aucoin, the Chief Registrar, would be pleased to answer questions on this material. I will take a few minutes to highlight some of the activities that have provided, and will continue to provide, benefits for Canadian growers while maintaining strong protection standards of human health and the environment.

One of our accomplishments over the past few months is the ongoing implementation of an improved system for registering generic pesticides. We consulted on and made improvements to our data protection policy as requested by grower groups and industry.

The primary goal of our new policy is to provide fair protection of the proprietary interests in data to encourage the introduction of new and reduced risk pest control products, while at the same time providing a predictable timely process for the introduction of competing generic pesticide products to the Canadian market.

I'm also proud to report that we've seen a substantial increase in the number of reduced-risk chemicals and bio-pesticides, which is indicative that registrants are seeing the benefits of registering new technologies in Canada, and that they're not deterred by regulatory requirements.

This increase has, however, slightly affected our ability to meet our review performance target of 90% for category-A submissions in the first two quarters of the 2007-08 fiscal year. Where we didn't meet performance standards, our delays were typically limited to under two months. However, in the same timeframe, we've registered more new active ingredients in major new uses in this fiscal year—that's the first half of this fiscal year—than all of last fiscal year.

New resources from the recent “Enhancing Access to Pest Management Tools” Treasury Board submission are expected to help resolve this drop in review performance, as well as contribute to our ongoing initiatives related to agricultural competitiveness. For example, we continue to work on key initiatives aimed at increasing the availability of newer, lower-risk pesticides for growers in Canada.

The minor use program, a collaboration between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Health Canada, as well as active-ingredient-targeted projects, such as Project 914, have yielded hundreds of new minor use registrations in the last year. Project 914 was piloted for three new active ingredients selected based on input from grower groups such as the Canadian Horticultural Council. To meet a six-month review timeline, we made use of the United States Environmental Protection Agency's data package and reviews for these same active ingredients. In 2007 these registrations yielded 479 new minor uses for growers from a wide range of agricultural sectors.

The agency is also involved at the international level on this issue, participating in the first Global Minor Use Summit in the fall of 2007. On the topic of international collaboration, we continued to work to address the areas where streamlined processes would benefit Canadian growers.

This is evidenced by recent successes such as the registration of three NAFTA labels, Canada's participation in the first ever global joint review of a new active ingredient, and the fact that over 40% of new active ingredients registered in Canada go through joint reviews or work-sharing with the United states or global partners such as Australia and Europe.

NAFTA labels allow the free movement of product across the U.S.-Canada border to the benefit of growers on both sides. Many other products have been nominated as NAFTA label candidates, including new products undergoing joint review. These activities provide Canadian growers access to new products at the same time as their competitors with a built-in price discipline mechanism, which was the preferred solution recommended and strongly supported by every grower association represented on the own use import task force in 2006.

This brings me to my next topic, the grower-requested own use import program, GROU. Since our last meeting in February 2007, and in keeping with the recommendation of this committee, we maintain growers' access to the OUI product ClearOut 41 Plus while implementing the new GROU. In a recent development, the manufacturers of ClearOut 41 Plus announced their intention to make available to growers the Canadian-registered version of their product, which has been registered since early 2006. Although they intend to distribute the product through one supplier only, the result is that growers will no longer have to apply for an OUI import permit in order to access this popular generic herbicide.

As for the OUI task force members' commitments, grower groups in the pesticide industry continue to collaborate on the growing list of available of GROU products. This program allows growers in Canada to import the U.S. version of a Canadian-registered product if it is available to their competitors at a lower price.

There are currently six approved GROU products, with an additional seven submitted for review. These products represent a wide range of uses and meet the needs of growers from across Canada in all commodity sectors.

The GROU nomination committee, made up of all key national grower groups as well as the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, is the body responsible for making submissions to the PMRA for consideration in the GROU program. This group has a number of additional priority products that are under discussion for possible submission to the program.

Finally, we continue to work on re-evaluating older pesticides using modern scientific standards. In some cases registrants are required to add new mitigation measures to their labels in order to satisfy today's environmental and health risk assessments. One example affecting the agriculture sector is the addition of buffer zones to older pesticides in order to protect environmentally sensitive areas and allow the continued registration of that pesticide in Canada.

These buffer zones can pose challenges to growers, and we have committed to work with grower groups and the provinces on buffer zone issues as we try to balance the goals of environmental protection and agricultural sustainability. For example, in March we'll be holding a workshop with stakeholders, including grower groups, to discuss buffer zone issues.

I would like to stress that our primary mandate is the protection of human health and the environment. The initiatives that we have undertaken are intended to provide our growers with the necessary tools to remain competitive in this increasingly competitive global market, while continuing to ensure that human health and the environment are protected.

We hope to continue the positive momentum that has been achieved over the past few years with the agricultural sector.

Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions.

9:10 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you, Ms. Dodds.

Mr. Steckle, go ahead for seven minutes, please.

January 29th, 2008 / 9:10 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON

Good morning, Madam Dodds. I thank you and Mr. Aucoin for appearing.

We have had many meetings with PMRA over the past number of years that I've been involved in this committee. If there is one agency that has probably been named as being a bit of a thorn in farmers' sides, it's the way PMRA has worked in the past. But I believe we have moved beyond that to a point where I see some progress, and this is possible today probably thanks to a lot of your work. I like to be complimentary whenever I can, and I think this is one time we ought to recognize the work done.

As Canadians we've always talked about the kind of work we need to do towards harmonization, towards getting products that are used in the United States also being allowed to be used here.

The argument that is always made is that if you can buy a tomato that's grown in California and it is grown under a different product label, which is not allowed here, yet we allow the tomato to come in, why wouldn't that be allowed here? We keep getting those arguments. We talk about labelling and that we need a better identity of Canadian product, and what does “Canadian product” mean.

We didn't come here to talk about labelling, but I think it all goes back to the argument that can be made by a consumer and certainly can be made by farmers as to why are we not more flexible or perhaps more in tune in terms of the harmonization of products.

I didn't have an opportunity to look at the report here, which just came, so I'm sure some of that material is there. But perhaps you could bring us up to speed and tell us where we were four years ago compared to where we are now. And I know what you're trying to do is to give us some progress reporting. Could you just bring us up to speed as to where we were, where we are now, and how much more quickly the system is working today than it did four years ago?

9:15 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

One of the chief advancements is the current practice of doing joint reviews with the United States. It's really in our favour to do that. With new actives, when they're undergoing joint review, the experience is that they're then introduced to both the U.S. users, the farmers, and the Canadian users, including farmers, at the same time with the same maximum residue limit applied for the pesticide.

And more and more, as I said in my opening comments and as you'll see in the report, we're undertaking these joint reviews. So that is helping to make sure that U.S. and Canadian farmers have access to the same pesticides at the same time.

Through projects such as 914, we've also worked to address some of the older products--not necessarily very old, just within the last number of years--where the United States registered products and they weren't brought to Canada, and we have then looked at those products, using U.S. reviews, and it's really expedited the timeline. So, as I mentioned, within six months we reviewed and registered these actives under Project 9l4, which resulted in hundreds of minor uses, which is very favourable.

Is there anything you wanted to add, Richard?

9:15 a.m.

Dr. Richard Aucoin Chief Registrar and Director General, Registration Directorate, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Just that there are so many other advantages to doing this kind of a work-sharing joint review approach.

We have, as Karen has pointed out, a history of working closely with the United States, but increasingly we're working in a global environment, so we are working with our global partners to see that these new technologies that come available for farmers are accessed around the world in a similar timeframe. That's very important, of course, for our Canadian growers' export markets to be able to use those chemicals.

9:15 a.m.

Liberal

Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON

That's a very important point. I kept referring to our American neighbours as the only people we have to be concerned about, but certainly when we talk about Chilean products, whether it's a Chilean apple or something from Brazil, we need to make sure all of these countries with whom we're trading partners also become compliant.

That is going to be an ongoing issue we're going to have to deal with. In the future we have to deal with the issue of this product that we now want to call “Canadian”, or what is Canadian, at least allowing Canadians the ability to identify what product they want to buy, whether they want to buy a Canadian product or whether they want to buy a product from offshore, from some other country.

On the question of own use permits, comparable to what we know as GROU, I realize we're moving in another direction, but do you see these programs as being complementary? I know some farmers want to see both these running in tandem. Could you see this happening, or have we moved beyond that point and do we need to look forward?

9:15 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

All the grower groups we've been in discussion with are very satisfied with where we are, not just with the GROU program but a number of the other recommendations made by the OUI task force, which includes things like the NAFTA label, where I said we have three approved NAFTA labels. Last year when I was here, we had just approved the very first one, and now three have been approved, with seven more under consideration and others still to come. It's the same thing with the joint review projects. They're very, very positive about those. GROU currently has six approved, and seven more are under consideration. The seven are nominated by grower groups, trying to make sure it's looking at different sectors, whether the horticulture sector or the grain sector.

From what we've been hearing from grower groups where we have representation on the committee that recommends the pesticides to us, they're very positive about GROU and the progress we've been making on other fronts as well.

9:20 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you.

Monsieur Bellavance.

9:20 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

Good afternoon. I am very pleased to see you again. First, I would like to introduce my colleague, the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, who is new to the Standing Committee on Agriculture. You are of course aware that agriculture is extremely important in the area she represents. Ève-Mary is now deputy agriculture critic for the Bloc Québécois. She now replaces Jean-Yves at this table.

Thank you very much for your evidence. We meet you about every six months. As Mr. Steckle said, we are noticing progress in some registration programs. But I was reading in the Library of Parliament document that the PMRA no longer examines requests about new products under the Own Use Import program. Can you explain that exactly?

9:20 a.m.

Chief Registrar and Director General, Registration Directorate, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Dr. Richard Aucoin

One of the commitments we made in extending the own use import program was to allow the existing products to be part of that program until at least June 2008. Our commitment was that we would then re-evaluate the program to see if programs such as the own use import program, the GROU program, and the NAFTA labels were meeting the needs of stakeholders. So we agreed to continue the ClearOut 41 Plus own-use import possibility until at least June of this coming year. That would take care of the 2008 use season.

9:20 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

I would just like to know why this is the only product presently being examined. Why has the PMRA stopped examining other products?

9:20 a.m.

Chief Registrar and Director General, Registration Directorate, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Dr. Richard Aucoin

We did have a large group of stakeholders who came to a consensus on the own use import program and there was a task force established. There was a general consensus that we would take this approach, that we would try to encourage the introduction of other products through the GROU program, that we would take more steps towards introducing NAFTA labels, labelled products that would allow many more products to move freely across the border.

Other recommendations were, for example, to implement a new data protection policy that would allow the introduction by other more generic companies, to gain registrations perhaps more easily in Canada for some of those same products that are currently registered in the United States.

9:20 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

We have a bigger concern with that program.

The first preoccupation was the issue of recycling of containers. Currently, in the Canadian marketplace, 70% or more of containers are recycled by a program that's maintained by industry. Industry obviously was not interested in taking on the containers from the OUI program, since they were getting no financial profit from the OUI program. We looked at the issue of container recycling and did some inspections on that, and the results were very poor. So it was very much a concern for the environment, what was going to happen with these used containers from the OUI program.

The other issue we had was that we had no way of maintaining knowledge over the state of the U.S. product and whether or not it was changing with time and losing comparability with the Canadian product, because there's no heads-up system to us as to changes in formulation of the U.S. product. We did have concerns for both health and the environment with respect to the formulation changing in the States and not having any notification of that in Canada because it's a moment-in-time comparison that was done to approve things under the OUI program.

9:20 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

How do we compare with the Americans? United States producers must pay recycling fees for the containers, I imagine. How exactly does their system work? You say that ours is not quite up to speed. What are you doing to make it possible to recycle the containers as efficiently as possible?

9:20 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

Under the GROU program we have worked with farmers, growers, and with industry. CropLife has developed a program whereby they will accept containers from the GROU program. Growers must pay an additional charge when they get their import permit. The cost was not negotiated by us, but between growers and industry so growers then have the convenience of just taking these containers back as they would with a Canadian registered product. The GROU product is looked after in that fashion.

Under the OUI product, in the States they do not have a container recycling program. Their rate of return of containers is very low. I believe it's about 20% compared to our 70%. They are now looking at putting regulations into place to try to increase their rate of return.

9:25 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

So our producers have to pay additional fees for the recycling.

9:25 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

For the GROU program, if they're importing product from the United States, yes, but remember, to want to buy the U.S. product there is supposed to be a significant price differential between a Canadian product and the U.S. product. Those who are nominating products for GROU should keep in mind whether there is still a good differential in price, including the container fee.

9:25 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

Since the rise in value of the Canadian dollar, have you noticed any narrowing of the price differential between American and Canadian products? Has there been an impact on prices?

9:25 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

Karen Dodds

Agriculture Canada has agreed to do some surveillance of prices and price differentials.

9:25 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

But up to now, there are no indicators or studies that show you that there have been any changes in that direction since the sudden rise of the dollar. Is that correct?

9:25 a.m.

Executive Director, Pest Management Regulatory Agency, Department of Health

9:25 a.m.

Bloc

André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC

OK. Thank you.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative James Bezan

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lauzon, you have seven minutes.

9:25 a.m.

Conservative

Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I would like to welcome Mrs. Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac who is now a member of this committee.

Thank you very much for your appearance this morning.

One of the things that caught my attention in your presentation: Our minister has brought me along trying to instill in me that our ministry is trying to put farmers first. Somewhere in your comments you mentioned you have quite a positive relationship with farmers, and my ears perked up. Can you expand on that?

We're trying to develop programs, of course with farmers' input, that are made essentially by farmers, and for the good of all the people concerned. Can you tell me how that relationship is working and expand a little on that comment?