Evidence of meeting #23 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was children.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Science Adviser, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.
I was just wondering, Mr. Warawa, if you would forgo the crease in your pants if you knew it was going to affect your grandchild.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
That's the point. If I'm holding my grandchild.... And so, education has a very important role in this, as we realize that what we have on affects those who are vulnerable and growing. That's a good point.
Researcher, Canadian Environmental Law Association
You suggest a really good example of where we need to insist on safer alternatives to the kinds of chemicals that you mention. In fact, there are safer alternatives to accomplish the same objectives, maybe not quite so creased but maybe we could live with that, and at the same time erring on the side of caution and preventing exposure to those kinds of chemicals that we're increasingly finding are persistent, and toxic, and should be banned in many cases.
Director General, Safe Environments Programme, Department of Health
On a point of information, Mr. Chairman, because it was brought up, the amendments proposed to CEPA through the Clean Air Act do deal with products and indoor air, so it would allow the department to take a look at products that emit air pollutants. At this point in time, Health Canada issues guidelines on the built environment or indoor air, so when the committee looks at it--I understand it's been referred here--I'm sure that will be part of your debate.
Professor and Director, McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa
I have three quick points, Mr. Chairman. They all relate to the issue of indoor air quality, which has been brought up by several people who have spoken.
First, it's clear that indoor air pollution is at least as big a problem as outdoor air pollution. The levels can be higher, the population health impacts can be equally great, and we do spend the bulk of our time indoors.
Second, how do we go about addressing indoor air as a risk management issue? It's quite different from outdoor air. We can't set Canada-wide standards for indoor air, because there are local micro-environments that would have to be handled each uniquely, and who would be responsible?
But there are two approaches, both of which have been mentioned. One is to focus on products that would release contaminants into indoor air. Gas stoves for cooking that release a series of gaseous pollutants would be another example, beyond..... What's the name of the compound that creases your pants really nicely?
Director, Policy, Environmental Defence Canada
It may be a PFOS, but we don't know.
Professor and Director, McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa
We can focus on the products, and as Mr. Glover mentioned, we can also establish guidelines.
I'm pleased to observe to the committee that Health Canada has reduced the guideline for concentrations of radon in indoor air from 800 becquerels per cubic metre down to 200 becquerels per cubic metre. Radon is the second leading cause of lung cancer after tobacco smoking, responsible for some 10% of all deaths. That kind of action on the part of the department I think is another vehicle that we could use to address indoor air quality issues.
Conservative
Luc Harvey Conservative Louis-Hébert, QC
I have two minutes and ten seconds left. First, I want to thank you for coming at such short notice. I know you were only told about this meeting a very short while ago. I'm very happy we could meet today since this meeting would otherwise have been delayed until January or February. And as an election is possible, perhaps it wouldn't have taken place at all.
Mr. Spady, after the question on global warming, I noticed you raised your hand but you didn't have the opportunity to speak. I would like to hear you on this issue.
Principal Investigator, Department of Pediatrics, University of Alberta
Thank you very much.
I think there are effects of climate change that do affect children. For one thing, it's predicted that there will be an increase of rather unique or exotic illnesses that children can get because of the change in climate. We're going to have different forms of insects and rodents that can convey and act as vectors to cause illness.
But one other thing that I think is very important and hasn't come out with climate change is the likelihood of mental disorder or behavioural problems in children. I see this when we have the predictions of drought in the prairie provinces, lack of water. Even without the drought there's going to be a lack of water. There's going to be a much more anxiety-producing time for farmers in terms of their livelihood. For example, in Australia right now, which is having a very severe drought, the incidents of suicide among farmers has gone up dramatically. Suicide in anyone, but certainly your father or your parents, is going to be traumatic to a child. And I can see where we might have more of this sort of problem as time goes on, that we're going to have situations that children will have to deal with that will be quite difficult.
Allergy and Environmental Health Association of Quebec
Regarding the vulnerable population, it should not only be in the preamble, because the preamble is worth the paper it's printed on.
Also, the people who suffer from multiple chemical sensitivities, how do you deal with them? They're not mentioned in the vulnerable population that is on the PCPA, and they should be addressed, because these people--either they were veterans who went to the Gulf War and have been affected by chemicals over there, or people in their everyday life--are being affected. These people become isolated because they cannot stand any perfumes or any chemicals.
How do you address their problems?
Professor and Director, McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, Institute of Population Health, University of Ottawa
I had two points, if I could be brief. On the climate change question, Mr. Glover mentioned the link between climate change and air pollution, but I'd like to re-emphasize that. What you do to control the emission of greenhouse gases is probably going to result in a concomitant reduction in the release of traditional air pollutants into the atmosphere. And we have very well-established links between particulate and gaseous pollutants on children's health.
We've done studies in the city of Toronto that show that ozone and particles can have a big effect on urgent, life-threatening respiratory diseases for children under the age of two. So there is this close linkage between control of greenhouse gases and the reduction in traditional pollutants that impact appreciably on children's environmental health.
On the second point on how we handle issues like multiple chemical sensitivity, even though I've been a Canadian my entire life, I keep referring to work I've done outside this country with the U.S. National Research Council for six years, developing a series of volumes on acute exposure guidelines for highly hazardous substances. We've published guidelines for 60 compounds, a complete methodology for establishing those guidelines, a risk assessment methodology over a period of six years, and these are the most potent agents you might come in contact with on an emergency basis in your general environment.
In that risk assessment volume, we distinguished between sensitive subpopulations and hypersensitive subpopulations, primarily because people on the committee raised the question of multiple chemical sensitivity. And the question was how far do we need to go in protecting the population, because there might always be somebody who is exquisitely sensitive, so it would be very difficult to ensure the guidelines we were establishing were health protective.
The bottom line is the guidelines, if you look in the volume that describes how we did it. The acute exposure guidelines the committee established were intended to protect sensitive, but not necessarily hypersensitive, subpopulations.
That is just a point of experience from another related application.
Conservative
Liberal
Mario Silva Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
In doing a risk assessment and looking at the different exposures of different chemicals and substances, we always have to keep in mind that we're looking at one ecosystem, one world, and that what we do impacts on other communities and other people's lives, so that product Mr. Warawa mentioned he used for his pants will have consequences somewhere else down the line. So we can't deal with these issues in isolation.
Earlier in our committee, we had talked about the importance of precautionary principles and that's something we should always adhere to, especially as members of the committee looking forward to dealing with the whole CEPA review.
We've had a good discussion about the whole issue of vulnerable populations. As we review the CEPA legislation, how can we better protect and identify those vulnerable groups and ecosystems? How can we make sure it's in the legislation?
November 6th, 2006 / 5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Researcher, Canadian Environmental Law Association
I would like to relate what you've just said back to what we were talking about earlier. You said we can't deal with these things in isolation, nor should we continue to deal with only one chemical at a time in isolation from the real world exposure to the experience.
One of the benefits in the amendments to the Pest Control Products Act that can't be directly transferred to CEPA, but can be worked with--and we'd be happy to work on draft amendments, and in fact, guarantee we will send draft amendments to suggest for you.... One of the important changes in the Pest Control Products Act is to look at groups of substances with common mechanisms of toxicity and to aggregate exposure. That's one of the better changes that should be adapted into CEPA, to begin looking at real world exposures to multiple chemicals. We don't have the science to look at those that don't necessarily have common mechanisms, but it's a start and it's a matter of modernizing the risk assessment process under CEPA in a way we've already done with pesticides.
Science Adviser, Conservation Council of New Brunswick Inc.
Perhaps this is not the forum in which to do this, but we have been talking about risk assessment processes. I think for PBDEs, for example, which have been evaluated by some kind of risk assessment process, now that they're found in the breast tissue of women in Canada at rates higher than are seen in Sweden, it's hardly a ringing endorsement of the risk assessment process. Presumably that compound went through a risk assessment process, and now we're finding high levels in women in Canada. I think that whole risk assessment process has to be put into question.
Somebody mentioned the precautionary approach. In fact, there is a whole scholarly and academic and policy arena where this is being discussed, where they are looking at the precautionary approach or precautionary-based assessment versus the risk assessment process. It has very different premises and different methodologies. Perhaps we need to start looking at that and perhaps invite some kind of forum or conference on evaluating the implications of using a precautionary approach to these chemicals versus the risk-based assessment. That hasn't been done in Canada. I know it's been done in the U.S.
Imperial Oil Limited
I had a comment on the use of risk assessment for mixtures or groups of similar substances. I think cumulative exposure is an approach you can take on things like the organophosphate pesticides that have a similar mechanism of action.
I think, again going back to my arguments, that that's already being done by Environment Canada and Health Canada for things that have a common mechanism of action. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are being addressed as best they can be as a group, and dioxins and furans and those kinds of things. Sometimes the relationship, though, sort of falls apart. It holds up pretty well for dioxins and furans, but for PAHs it depends on the end point,sometimes, where it doesn't hold up quite so well for cancer and the effects on blue-green algae, and so on.
