Environment Committee on Dec. 11th, 2006

[Kathleen Cooper]

First of all, lead itself is toxic under CEPA. CEPA doesn't then regulate lead in products, and in these products in particular. We have addressed this problem under the Hazardous Products Act. After six years of talking about it, we came up with a regulation that made, in my mind, a completely artificial distinction between children's jewellery and jewellery in general. The only thing that was regulated under that regulation was jewellery marketed to children. First of all, there are other things that aren't jewellery, like key chain fobs. The one I have here is 535,000 parts per million.

The regulation under the Hazardous Products Act addressed perhaps 1% of the problem, in my opinion. The stated reason in the regulatory impact analysis was that to go beyond the regulation of jewellery for children would constitute an unfair economic hardship to the costume jewellery industry. That makes my blood boil, because what's being valued there, what's being decided there, is children's health versus an unfair economic burden to the costume jewellery industry. It's an absurd balancing act. The notion that a distinction can be made between jewellery marketed to children and a key chain fob or a necklace marketed to me as an adult is absurd. I will still have the lead on my hands from handling this, or I may have a necklace on. I'm sure you've seen women holding a baby, and the child will put her necklace in its mouth. Or you give your keys to a child to distract them. So the notion of making that separation is absurd.

The other thing was the previous question about what has been done. In Health Canada, there's a lead risk reduction strategy. Again, it took ten years of talk to put this together to address this, and this is just one example. There have been many other examples of lead in consumer products, such as in the zippers on children's clothing, in sidewalk chalk, in crayons, etc. The last time I checked was about two months ago, but this lead risk reduction strategy is still a draft on the website. That's all it is. It's a discussion paper. It's a suggested risk reduction strategy. It's not regulatory. The only regulatory approach to any of this, after nearly fifteen years of talking about it and seeing these products on the market that contain a substance that is CEPA toxic, is one regulation dealing with, in my opinion, 1% of the problem.

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

Mr. Chairman, do I have any time remaining?

Ms. Cooper is touching on some very broad issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You have one minute left.

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

What steps is the department taking to resolve these issues and move forward?

[Paul Glover]

As I said, I don't have this information with me. I will forward my response to the committee through the clerk.

I'd prefer to provide a comprehensive response on all of the actions the department has taken on lead, and where further opportunities might be available. I regret to inform the committee that I'm not in the position to speak to the details about lead and the department's actions today, but we will respond through the clerk.

[Kathleen Cooper]

Just as one more brief comment, I use lead constantly. I can't get away from lead. My brother-in-law calls me Lady Lead. I've been dealing with lead for 25 years. I'd really like not to have to anymore, but I really just use it as an illustration of the broader problems. This is a problem, obviously. I think to myself that if we can't get lead right, how are we going to get all these other toxic substances right in consumer products? That's why I keep hammering it home, plus everybody knows about lead. I just want to point out that we have to get it right on more than just something we already know a great deal about.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Ms. Cooper, I just wonder why they would use lead. It must be more expensive than plastic. Why do they use lead?

[Kathleen Cooper]

Lead is dirt cheap. Lead is incredibly useful. It's malleable. It has a low melting point. It's really durable. It has all these properties, which is why people have used it for over 2,000 years. It's really cheap, and it's probably coming out of your old computer, my old computer, and computers that are being recycled by children in China, Korea, or wherever. It's a circle of poison. It's like the pesticide circle of poison, but it's just a new one. I can't verify that, but I'd like to.

I think Kapil wants to talk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Okay. We are way over time, but I think we do have the time.

Mr. Khatter, and Mr. Glover, very quickly.

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

Just quickly, we're always talking about substitution and reasonable alternatives; zinc is a reasonable alternative for lead. It's a little bit more expensive, and the regulatory impact analysis statement says we could substitute all of this—all of this stuff could be made up of zinc—but they don't want to put that burden on a foreign costume jewellery industry.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Glover.

[Paul Glover]

Not speaking about lead, but to the second point of Ms. Cooper's presentation, that lead is an example where CEPA can play a role, I would like to point out to the committee that this is what we're beginning to do. In the example Ms. Cooper raised, that the actions weren't sufficient or didn't go so far as to deal with deca-PBDEs, CEPA has traditionally dealt with ingredients in the industrial sector, and PBDE is an ingredient now being dealt with as no longer acceptable in finished products. So the departments are beginning to use CEPA as a tool to take a look at ingredients in consumer products.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Bigras.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Further to the $300 million announcement, the department presented a file to us on Friday containing a report on the issue of child safety. My colleague Luc touched on this matter earlier. Ms. Cooper spoke at length about the lead problem and it's clear that young children are especially vulnerable.

You stated in your press release that henceforth, the same stringent evaluation process - you use that word in your press release—will apply to existing chemical substances introduced between January 1, 1984 and December 31, 1986. Do these stringent evaluations include genetic neurotoxicity tests?

[Paul Glover]

I'd like to give you a somewhat longer answer, but the short answer to your question is yes.

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

Will all products, both old and new, undergo genetic neurotoxicity tests?

[Paul Glover]

No, because it all depends on the substances and the possibilities.

We will not submit every substance to exactly the same test.

Each substance cannot be evaluated the same way.

We will look at where the literature leads us to believe the health endpoints are, and we'll follow those appropriately. We will make sure that we consider vulnerables, whether aboriginals, seniors, children, and look to the specific vulnerabilities of different populations.

We try to find the most vulnerable population groups for the purposes of our evaluations.

The evaluation will be based on the most vulnerable population, and the assessment follows the science, which leads to the different types of health endpoints. If something is...cancer in the liver and there's no evidence that it leads to developmental issues, we wouldn't go there. So we follow the science.

We follow scientific methods.

[Kathleen Cooper]

That's understandable, and I grant you it's necessary to do that. The difficulty, particularly in the example you mentioned, developmental neurotoxicity, where there are impacts on the developing brain, is that we know so little, and we need to know a great deal more. The numbers of children with learning or behavioural problems in this country are very high; we're talking about 25% of children with one or more learning or behavioural problems. You cannot make a relationship between those statistics on neurological development in children and the existence of chemicals in their environment and the fact that some of them are suspected in developmental neurotoxicity. You can't; there's not enough evidence to make that link.

But if you put those two things side by side and you see that children are exposed to suspected neurotoxins and you see those kinds of numbers in the child population, to me, that's a red flag. It says, look more closely here. And when you have an approach, a regulatory evaluation approach, that says we follow the science, the difficulty is that if there isn't the science already there and you therefore don't require it, you could be missing something extremely important.

So that's why my organization and organizations in the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment have made the recommendation that the core testing requirements be expanded to not just look at genotoxicity and carcinogenic cancers, but also to expand the battery of required core testing to include developmental neurotoxicity, so we can get at the problem. This is a way of prioritizing where you look, to go for the areas where large numbers of children are potentially affected.

[Paul Glover]

Very briefly, to complement that response, under CEPA, Health Canada is required to conduct research on endocrine-disrupting substances, which is a long scientific way of saying those things that have developmental impacts. The department does attempt to do that and does acknowledge and concur with the witness that this is an area in which the science is still evolving. It raises more questions than it answers, but we are attempting to answer those questions, and we do conduct research in this area.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bigras.

We'll go to Mr. Ignatieff.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

I did want to come back to the lead issue.

Again, I appreciate the earlier answers, which said that you needed to give us a written answer. But can we do it as a hypothetical? That is, how would you react to the possibility of the materials use approach proposed by Ms. Cooper as opposed to a product approach? Is that feasible? Is that doable?

[Paul Glover]

The short answer is yes. We would use different words, but I think the concept is the same. The challenge function launched on Friday is about having industry likely do with new substances what we would like them to do with existing substances, which is demonstrate to Environment Canada and Health Canada that they can use that substance in a way that does not cause harm to the environment or to human health, and that will include all the ranges. So some industries might be able to demonstrate that they can do that and others might not. That will allow us to target our regulations more efficiently.

The second thing is that the only way we will get through categorization and the timelines that have been imposed is if we move away from a substance-by-substance approach to look at classes or categories of substances and the industries that use them. So we will be looking at industrial sectors and strategies as well as at classes of substances that have similar chemical properties, and we will try to deal with those in groupings.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

A second question, in relation to the chemicals management plan, is about capacity. This is an ambitious plan involving assessment, regulation, and enforcement. And I just need to know whether it's possible for you to assess whether government currently has the capacity to deliver on assessment regulation and enforcement here or whether you're going to need substantial increases in capacity so this isn't just a paper announcement.

[Paul Glover]

If the member could clarify capacity in terms of dollars or expertise, the answer would be clearer.

[Michael Ignatieff, Liberal, Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON]

It's expertise, but it's about what enforcement capacity you currently have and what enforcement capacity you would have to scale up to in order to meet the new chemicals management plan outlined last Friday.