Thank you, Mr. Chair, for having us.
Members know that PollutionWatch is a joint project of my organization, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and Environmental Defence, and you have before you our various roles within those organizations. I will say only that as our individual organizations, we've been heavily involved in the process of the categorization of the domestic substances list since 1999, when the process began, and environmental groups were instrumental in achieving the degree of participation that did result in that process right from the beginning.
Needless to say, we think the results and what to do with them are extremely important, and we will expand on that this morning.
We'll begin, then. And I should say that there are a number of premises Mr. Graham and Mr. Lloyd began with that I would really like the chance to refute as strongly as possible, but I don't have the time to do that now, so I look forward to the chance to do that as you ask your questions and we have a chance to respond to them.
The rest of our presentation will be presented my colleague, Fe de Leon, who will discuss her experiences with the categorization exercise, and Aaron Freeman will address the matter of the definition of “toxic”.
I should say that I understand two representatives of the Pembina Institute for Appropriate Development, as well as Professor Linda Collins of the University of Ottawa's faculty of law, are coming to address the toxic issue next Tuesday as well. So I don't want to steal their fire.
On the topic of the DSL, we have Fe de Leon, who is a researcher at CELA.