Environment Committee on Oct. 24th, 2006

[Cynthia Wright, Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment]

As far as I know, there is not. In Canada, we base ourselves on a certain equation, since we estimate that 2% of factories produce chemical products. But we have not done any studies as such, as have been done for the REACH approach.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

The principle of virtual elimination, according to the industry, represents a burden and a cost that are unacceptable to it. Have you made an estimate of the costs of applying this principle?

[Cynthia Wright]

We have not heard the industry complaining about the burden that adopting regulations would represent. To clarify, let us say that there are not as yet any regulations associated with REACH. However, if, under the CEPA, it becomes necessary to put regulations in place, we will of course have to consider the costs, benefits and alternative substances. Up to now, though, as far as substances that are the subject of virtual elimination, such as dioxin and furan, go, we have estimated the costs and we are approaching the limits [Editor's Note: Inaudible].

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

I think that the witnesses Mr. Stack and Mr. Benevides wish to say something, but only 30 seconds remain.

[Derek Stack]

I'm simply going to point out that encouraging and requiring substitution actually brings us upstream for pollution prevention instead of end-of-pipe controls.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Merci.

Mr. Cullen.

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

Thank you, Chair. This is a place I wanted to start.

In trying to compare this to other regimes, it seems that under the regime we have in Canada right now we're looking at end-of-pipe solutions, at what happens when something's released. Is there a list available? Does the government make a list available to the companies of a certain number of chemicals that you simply can't use in your manufacturing process?

[Gordon Lloyd]

Right now that list would be what would be scheduled on the toxic schedule in schedule 1 after they'd done a risk assessment, if they decided that banning that chemical was the risk management approach to take.

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

How many chemicals are on that list?

[Gordon Lloyd]

I'd rather let the government people answer that.

[Steve Clarkson, Director, Bureau of Risk and Impact Assessment, Department of Health]

I think, Gordon, I'd have to correct you. The list of toxic substances is not a list of banned substances or prohibited substances. We do have under CEPA, though, the prohibited substances regulations, which set out those substances that are prohibited from use in Canada. And I'm sorry, but I'd have to go back and check the number.

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

Are we talking tens, hundreds?

[Steve Clarkson]

No, tens, maybe ten to twenty.

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

So what's curious to me--and this is something I'm trying to understand from the witnesses--is knowing the vast number of chemicals out there that at the bare minimum achieve the definition of “toxic, persistent”--bioaccumulative is another consideration--why does the government have so few chemicals available on a list, or something to prescribe, to stop the actual use of the chemicals in the first place rather than trying to remedy the effects of those chemicals once they hit the environment?

Forgive my naïveté on this. I don't understand why we would allow them in the production, or not prohibit them is probably a more correct way to say it, and then have these extremely complicated, onerous processes for the companies and the government to then go through to try to then pull them back out of the system, if we knew in the first place that they're quite toxic, and harmful, and persistent to human health? Are we going about this the wrong way?

[Jim Houston]

I think, again, it's a part of a legacy problem, plus what is also going on presently in the environment. At the point in time when a number of these things came up with virtual elimination, there was also a major study done in the United States called EDSTAC, which went through a whole process to look at hormone-disrupting chemicals. That process we didn't have in Canada, but we followed that very closely. And I think it's a case of we continue to learn after the fact. Right now in the Great Lakes, the amounts of PFOSs, fire retardants, are reaching much higher, elevated levels. Some of the science is now showing there are effects showing up. But again, it's after the fact.

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

So it seems to me then that the basis of the precautionary principle is not applied to the way we go about using chemicals in industry, because in the scenario you just pointed out, we've learned about PFOS afterwards. The application of the precautionary principle, under the most broad definitions, would have allowed a more cautious approach to permitting this chemical into the ecosystem.

[Jim Houston]

I'm not sure when exactly it was developed as a chemical, but in fact maybe the precautionary principle wasn't even around at the time that particular chemical started to be used.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

Mr. Benevides, and then Ms. Wright wants to say a few words right after that.

[Hugh Benevides]

Mr. Chair, the question was whether we're headed in the wrong direction. I think the spirit of our comments today is that we have the tools to take action, as evidenced by the list of...I have nine here--and Ms. Wright informs me that it's now ten--on the list of prohibited substances. Clearly, with a list of nearly ten, we need to have some kind of change in direction, and it's those additional provisions that really mandate us in a different, more aggressive direction for all the reasons we've heard today that we're advocating.

[Cynthia Wright]

We've been focusing on the virtual elimination discussion today around releases, which is generally associated with the substances already in use. I just want to remind members that the virtual elimination concept, or the prevention of releases of persistent biocumulative toxic substances also applies to the new substances program. So that's the prevention, and it's been in place since 1994.

We also used the same concept in environmental assessments and a number of other policies related to contaminated sites and other things like that. So this policy drives more than dealing with the releases.

I know you're also familiar with the categorization exercise, and one of the purposes of that exercise was to identify what further substances we should be focusing on to prevent--

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

You'll forgive me any concern with having so few, if no, chemicals listed on the virtual elimination list to rely on that particular tool.

I guess this is a question to the committee at large. It seems there's a lot of backdoor clauses built into CEPA to allow the politics to interfere with the science. The process of actually getting something on the virtual elimination list, just by the evidence, the fact that there's nothing there--one proposed, of all these thousands of chemicals.... Certainly the intuitive person says there must be more that we certainly just don't want in our environment.

I have a question for Mr. Weiner. I've seen a number of reports around the Great Lakes in terms of point source. I know you can't comment specifically on CEPA. How do Canadian sources stack up against our U.S. counterparts around the Great Lakes in terms of the amount of toxic emissions that are going on? Has the IJC ever done a study as to total emissions on a national basis?

[Joel Weiner]

No. We're a binational organization and we looked at the Great Lakes as an integrated ecosystem. Data like that are available. There are release inventory data published in the United States and in Canada, and we utilize those data for the production of our own analyses and reports.

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

So let me turn to Mr. Stack, then.

I seem to recall testimony from you before, comparing Canadian and U.S. companies. There's a perception, certainly, in the Canadian public that Canada is just a cleaner place, that we do better by the environment, that we pollute less than our American neighbours.

[Derek Stack]

Well, I don't think that perception is entirely fair. We have one-tenth of the population, or even less, so on a net basis, no, that's not in fact true.

I would actually point out that in the testimony I was referring to a report by PollutionWatch, and since some of them are on the panel today, it's only fair to hand that question over.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mario Silva]

For the witnesses and also for the members of the committee, perhaps you could try to address the remarks through the chair. It makes things a lot easier and then I'll know whom to point to.

Mr. Benevides.