Thank you.
As Fe and the other witnesses have noted, the achievement of the categorization exercise is no insignificant accomplishment and one that is unique to Canada. However, as Fe has intimated, it's really only the beginning of the really important steps that have to follow: the processes of further screening those substances, then ultimately taking regulatory action on them.
I have a very short list on your outline of what we would like to see done with those. I won't go into great detail on them, because they are outlined in a number of places: one, in a submission of PollutionWatch to your committee that we submitted last June, and also in two letters--actually three--one in June to the two CEPA ministers and to the deputy ministers, and another letter to the same two ministers that we sent on Friday and that I sent to this committee earlier this week. I'm not sure whether it has been translated, so I'm not sure whether you have it before you today. But the gist of that, apart from the substance of precisely what action we would like to see taken on the various substances, is that it's essential that the content of the lists and the results of categorization be given to the public.
We would urge, therefore, that the committee write to the ministers and ask when that will happen, and/or ask for the ministers to appear before you to answer that question. As Fe said, this list is twenty years old. There is not a lot of new data on those substances and it's time for action to be taken on them.
There are other more specific recommendations, which you'll see in that letter when you receive it, if you haven't already, and in our submission as well.