Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have some questions here. I thought your testimony was quite compelling in terms of the effects of some of these chemicals on human health, and I think the last comment was rather instructive. I'm confused by the lack of urgency when governments around the world are dealing with what we have established are very harmful chemicals to human growth, particularly human male reproductive growth.
Without a deadline and in the jurisdiction you deal with, what hopes do you have? Without a deadline of eliminating, of banning, removing these substances from the human health environment, are manufacturers going to spontaneously come to this conclusion? DEHP and DBP seem like wonderful products. They soften plastics. They're very cheap. Mr. Khatter just held up.... I have another one from the sustainable hospitals project that goes through all the different uses of these chemicals in the hospital environment and then comments on all of the substitution options that industry can use. So I think the substitution question.... It seems strange.
The argument being presented to us today is that we know these things are dangerous, but we're not sure of the alternatives, so we should leave the dangerous ones in. I'm confused by that type of notion, particularly from a group like Health Canada.