Environment Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[Joel Weiner]

Here, in Canada, the costs are covered by the federal Department of the Environment with the Province of Ontario; and in the U.S., by the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in collaboration with the States.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

All right.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

There are still two minutes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

The second question is for Mr. Stack.

You mentioned in your report that there are a lot of organochlorine compounds in the water of the Great Lakes. We also see that, on the list of chemical products in Annex 1, there are a lot of organochlorine compounds.

In your opinion, to what extent does the pulp and paper industry contribute to that, and what about the chlorine that comes from the filtration and purification plants?

[Derek Stack]

I'm sorry, I cannot answer that question on the spot. I couldn't break down those 362 for you, where they're coming from.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Do you think that there is an effect?

[Derek Stack]

An educated guess would be yes, but I would have to do a little bit of research to answer that question more accurately.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

There is still one minute remaining.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Ms. Wright, what is the dirty dozen?

[Cynthia Wright]

I have a list that I can give the committee. These are substances found in the Toxic Substances Management Policy of 1995. There are 800 pesticides, in addition to dioxin, furan,

polychlorinated biphenyls and HCBs--that's hexachlorobenzene--and that's a contaminant in chlorinated solvents.

I can provide you with the whole list, if you like.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

You have done very well: four questions in four minutes, that is fantastic.

Mr. Vellacott.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Before I go to my main question, this one intrigues me a bit, in the fact that the definition of virtual elimination applies only to substances released as a result of human activity. Could you give me a bit of background in terms of why substances must be released as a result of human activity rather than being found in nature? Is it that we don't deal with that in any way, or that it's a different matter altogether? I don't know if a departmental official wants to respond to this.

[Cynthia Wright]

We do take action on substances like mercury, which are present in the environment both as a result of human activity as well as naturally occurring. The wording in the act, focusing on those primarily from human activities, was to recognize that you wouldn't be able to virtually eliminate substances that are released as a result of naturally occurring events like fires, or naturally occurring phenomena in soils and things like that. It was more a translation of policy into legal terms.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

So we try to address that nevertheless, but not by way of this virtual elimination....

[Cynthia Wright]

Correct, using our other powers under the act, primarily the regulation authority under section 93.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

The other question then--

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

I want to give Mr. Benevides an opportunity to respond, then I'll come back to you later.

[Hugh Benevides]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's to identify the somewhat problematic language of determining, as is required.... It's the same provision, paragraph 77(3)(b) that I referred to earlier, “determining that the presence of the substance in the environment results primarily from human activity.” I think that's probably impossible to determine. I think that question is different from the question, is the substance a naturally occurring one and is it present in the environment? Does it enter the environment or is it present in the environment and did humans release it?--that question is different from whether it “results primarily”.

I simply point out that it would be very difficult to determine whether and how it results primarily from human activity, so it's a problematic phrase.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

I don't think there's much disagreement around the table here that we need to act faster in terms of the addition of substances to that virtual elimination list, since we have not had great progress there. But how do we do that in a manner that ensures that the listing and the regulatory limits are based on sound science? If we want to get there faster, maybe we have to get down in terms of the LOQs and so on, or remove that factor. How do we do it while we still make sure it's based on very sound science?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Mr. Benevides first, and then we'll go to whoever wants to speak after that.

[Hugh Benevides]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Before getting to the sound science part of the question, I appreciate the question because it's an opportunity to make it very clear that we believe the virtual elimination list, while perhaps it should be retained in the event that it can be used, is not the approach that should be taken. Rather, the substance that has been proposed for virtual elimination but that still hasn't made it on the list has made it on the list of prohibited substances under the prohibition of certain toxic substances regulations. The evidence from that shows it's a way that can be made to work, whereas we would not continue down that path of the VE list, including for the reasons around level of quantification that we've recommended. That's again why we're proposing to refocus on the overall purpose of VE rather than all of this focus on the level of quantification question.

[Maurice Vellacott, Conservative, Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, SK]

Mr. Chair, then maybe I'll reframe it slightly. Would others agree that because of the level of quantification, we just dismiss it as virtual elimination, that particular approach, and go to another approach? Would that be the consensus for others as well?

[Gordon Lloyd]

If the government wanted to do away with the virtual elimination approach, we wouldn't object, but I think that when you operate a plant and maybe have dioxins coming out of your plant operations, virtual elimination and LOQs and the architecture in here, I believe, make sense. It parallels the way the Stockholm Convention deals with this in its annex C for unintended releases.

I think the real problem occurs with the issue of trace contaminants in products. We've heard a number of people indicate there's an issue with that. We've heard the government say their preference would actually be to deal with that issue through section 93. As I noted in my submission as well, it makes more sense and is more parallel to the Stockholm Convention. They have a separate annex that treats products differently from the way they treat releases.

I think the architecture does make sense and is consistent with the Stockholm Convention for plant releases. Now, if Parliament wants to get rid of that, we aren't going to object, but there is some usefulness in having the goal there of continuing to do as well as we can to continuously reduce emissions like dioxin.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

We'll allow Mr. Cullen to be the last speaker at the committee, because we have only a few minutes left after that and we have to discuss our next meeting, which is next Thursday. I'm also at another standing committee at 11 o'clock.