Environment Committee on Oct. 17th, 2006

[Kenneth Maybee]

I don't think you need much more conversation. We've been working on the CEPA file ever since its inception, and prior to that we were working on the Clean Air Act before it was harmonized into CEPA. I think what you do is get into a game running.

If I can make a point that perhaps is seldom made in chambers such as this, unfortunately when we talk about health, we talk about the black hole, which is illness. All of the dollars raised through the federal and provincial governments go to feed illnesses. We do not have time in our political process to talk about the urgent requirement for prevention, because we never know when the next election will be. So what we really have to do is start thinking about how we're going to tie these things together.

By 2020, the third leading cause of death in Canada is going to be chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. That's going to happen and we know it. It's a cause-and-effect relationship, so we have to start to work on prevention, so we can start building in those preventive strategies.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I sense the urgency in your voice, and certainly when you name some of those illnesses, it's a day-in, day-out nightmare for some folks.

I have a question about the listing of substances for Mr. Glover or Ms. Wright. There are 4,000 that have been identified and listed. A number of weeks ago, we talked about having a list of what those substances are. Department officials said they would present that list. Do we have it available? I haven't seen it yet. Maybe the clerk of the committee has it.

[Paul Glover]

My understanding is that my colleague John Moffet agreed to provide the clerk with the latest CD that was available, and I hope it has been done.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Great.

I have a question for Ms. McKay.

In terms of DuPont, I appreciate the words around commitment to sustainability and environmental stewardship. DuPont is often held up as a company that has had a mixed track record, to say the least.

What has been the worst experience that DuPont has had with a product in terms of its cause on the human health effects of Canadians? Has there been a really bad one that stands out as we shouldn't release that one?

[Judith McKay]

I would say probably tetraethyl lead, which was phased out quite some time ago.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

How long did it exist for? How long was it in the marketplace?

[Jack Soule]

It was as long ago as leaded tank gasoline.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

There is a fundamental question that you folks need to deal with, which is that the economics versus the potential environment or health effects is very difficult to balance at times. You didn't get into the business to protect the environment. You get into the business to make money selling chemicals or creating new ones and inventing new things.

This is my question. There was some hesitation toward government regulations and the pace of the regulating of some of the worst chemicals. Of the 4,000 that we now know as being listed, has it not always been the case that there's a natural hesitancy in industry to resist against regulations? I'm thinking of lead in gasoline, I'm thinking of cigarette smoking, I'm thinking of seat belts, where industry can talk about the difficulty in preserving an economic viability of a company versus a proposed health benefit to the general society. Are we not facing the same question again here in CEPA?

[Judith McKay]

I would absolutely disagree with that statement. Historically, that may have been the case many decades ago, but increasingly, companies like DuPont are realizing that environmental protection and good business are one and the same. We're not going to make successful businesses if they are harmful to health and the environment.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is there any type of a bond process that's been considered by industry? When a chemical is released, it seems to me, for some of the more detrimental ones that have caused some of the illnesses and tragedies, it is almost an externalization of cost for industry. Where a product is produced.... This, one day, will be history as well, and we'll look back and say that back in 2006 we didn't know much, and now we know much more. It's always the case. We're always learning.

Has there ever been a consideration of trying to internalize those costs of the risks taken by producing new chemicals that we're not sure will be causing future health effects, as has been pointed out by the Lung Association? Is there a way to capture those costs and really factor them into the products that you make?

[Judith McKay]

I think you're talking about contingent liabilities. They are very difficult to measure. Certainly we support using sound processes and grounding decisions in science, and we have a track record of when the science indicates that a product is unsafe, such as CFCs, our company takes a leadership role in ensuring that there's an orderly transition out of the product.

It would be very difficult to calculate contingent liabilities without information. When we get the information we act.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I have a question for Mr. Khatter around these 600 priorities.

I'm still confused. Government is patting itself on the back right now for having come up with 4,000 on the list, but with no action plan. The health of Canadians has not improved one iota from the listing. The actual process that we're looking for is the mitigation: what do we do with these 4,000?

You suggested a triage-type approach, going after the 600 worst. What is the resistance? Why not do that? A seven-year process for listing all these things.... There was extensive review. We have information. Why not search and actually mitigate the release of these chemicals in the environment?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Khatter, go ahead, please.

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

The deadline was September 14, and I think the problem still is that we're waiting for their real announcement about what they're going to do. We don't think there is resistance to Environment Canada or Health Canada's prioritizing substances. They have let us know in consultations that they do have a sense of which out of the 4,000 they want to tackle first, and that they do have plans to work on these substances as quickly as possible. We're still hoping to finally get an announcement from them on what that action plan is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Warawa, go ahead, please.

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will be sharing my ten minutes with Mr. Harvey, so could you let me know when I'm at five minutes, please?

I appreciate the witnesses. I think we've already heard some good dialogue, some good debate. My focus is going to be on the timeframes.

Mr. Khatter, I appreciate what you've provided to the committee in your recommendations. One critique is that having a briefing note along with this and receiving it before the weekend to have a chance to read it and prepare would have been helpful. But I appreciate your recommendations and the debate they've evoked.

I'd like to ask some questions of the Canadian Lung Association. First of all, I appreciate your being here on the Hill. You've met with many of the members of Parliament. You've shared with us your passion and the urgency of dealing with the health aspects of our environment. We agree that there are six million Canadians dealing with the health effects of poor air quality. They are the very reason we need to see legislative change, to give the government authority to deal appropriately with cleaning the air, to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, and to reduce those too.

In the brief that you provided--I think in the English copy it was on page 7, item 5--you talked about timelines. I haven't heard you make comment yet this morning about timelines. Could I hear your comments on those now, please?

[Barbara MacKinnon]

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss some of the details we had in our presentation for today, but which, in the interest of time, we didn't go over.

We have put down in our recommendations details for timelines for getting the substances to the list. I think, in fact, they concur very well with PollutionWatch's timelines. For example, we need immediate action to address significant danger. The ministers now have the power to act on that, but perhaps they don't use it as often as they should. One of our recommendations is that chemicals identified as persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic be placed on the CEPA toxic list immediately and be regulated within one year.

Chemicals identified as persistent and toxic, or bioaccumulative and toxic—in other words, these might be the top 500 identified by Environment Canada and the top 100 identified that have health concerns—should undergo a screening assessment within two years, and for those deemed CEPA toxic, there should be a management plan in place within one year, and the plan should be implemented within two years after that.

One of the things we think is very important--and I am alluding to a comment made by Mr. Teeter--is that while these plans are being developed, emitters should take voluntary action. In other words, we should not wait for the full plan to be developed. You can start to take action right away while you're assessing and determining the risk, in order to reduce some of these exposures.

Of course there are useful timelines that could be recommended after substances are put on this list, and we would hope that any regulatory process would proceed within reasonable timelines as well.

I think putting these timelines in CEPA tends to make us take action. We have to. They're in the act, so Health Canada and Environment Canada have to act on this timeline. Having those timelines in CEPA removes this whole process from the political system a little bit. For example, if you look at the undertakings of this committee, the process to review CEPA has had some hiccups because of elections. I would hate to see the review and the management plans of chemicals having similar hiccups, maybe based on a political system, whereas if you have the timelines in the act, those analyses and management plans continue despite what governments are doing politically.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You have five minutes, Mr. Harvey.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

I have a question. In fact, I have several.

I greatly appreciated all the other comments on product assessment over time — whether or not they should be put on the market, whether conditions need to be attached to their use. We have a categorization: products are categorized.

Will this work help accelerate the categorization of future products?

[Paul Glover]

I do not understand your question.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Categorization work has been done. When industry develops new products, will the categorization work helps speed up the process?

[Paul Glover]

For new products?

Yes, for new products.

[Paul Glover]

Because that has improved our database. It will help the process overall.

[Luc Harvey, Conservative, Louis-Hébert, QC]

That means that for new products, it might be possible to think that the process will be much faster than it was in the past.

[Paul Glover]

In general, yes. But my answer remains the same. It depends. In the situation, yes, it will help if the chemical product has a...

chemical makeup that is similar to another one we've already assessed. So if we've looked at something and it's similar, that helps us in terms of understanding mode of action and that kind of stuff. If the new things we look at are similar to things we've already looked at, it means we don't have to duplicate the work, we simply validate it. So it does help in that regard.