I recall--I think it was in the eighties--there was a shipment of PCBs from the U.K. that came to Canada and I think when it arrived at the docks in Montreal there was so much protest they had to send it back. Certainly importing PCBs from the U.S. to Canada makes no sense, because they will just go to the place with the weakest regulatory environment and therefore the cheapest regulatory environment.
What they say in the U.S. is that while Canada can sometimes have very good laws, they're not really enforced, so it's still cheaper to do these things in Canada. I think that if they're being moved to Canada, there is a reason. If they're being moved to a poor community in Canada, then you know what the reason is--it's a cheap way to deal with the problem. They should deal with it at home.
I have a different attitude toward toxic pollutants from Africa, the poor parts of Asia, and the poor parts of Latin America, in that I am more sympathetic to them being returned to the countries that originally produced them, and in that the countries do not have the technical capability or the resources to deal with that. So that's a different question and it's more complicated.
But I would say that if there's a desire to move any type of waste from the U.S. to Canada, it's a money question and it's not the Canadian dollar and it's not the cost of labour. It's a money question, as there is expectation that the environmental controls will be weaker here.
My advice is to strengthen your environmental controls and your enforcement but keep out the wastes from other countries as well.
Thank you.