Evidence of meeting #5 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 cepa.
4:25 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
I can't answer that. I can give you some guesses, but I'd rather get back to you after looking at our data more.
It depends on the substance. If you look at the specific NOx charts, that didn't exactly happen in 1988; in some of the others, it did.
I'd rather get back to you with a more precise answer.
4:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Lloyd, if you do have other information, other members may want to have that. Please get that back to the clerk.
Thank you.
We will go on now, please.
Mr. Cullen.
4:25 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our witnesses.
I just wanted to touch on this graph for a minute. Do the companies that either left the CCPA or went out of business need to be factored in here? While we struggle with numbers and accuracy of the trends--and it's clear there's some sort of trend happening--can you provide us with this graph with those two factors included?
4:25 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
Yes. As I was trying to explain, we actually have done that.
I have a bigger graph in front of me that may be clearer. If you look at the graphs, starting at 2000, there's another line and that takes that into account. If you look, for example, on the NOx graph, it continues to trend down after 2000; it's not as dramatic a trend in the second line. It's similar on the VOC graph.
We backcast to 2000. As I said earlier, that was in discussion with stakeholder groups--how far back we do this. The feeling was that it was worth the effort to take it back to 2000. So we've addressed that.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have a question for Ms. Laurie-Lean.
You talked about the government cutting back on monitoring and reporting. How critical are those two aspects to your industry's level of certainty and the ability to invest?
4:30 p.m.
Vice-President, Mining Association of Canada
I wouldn't say it's necessary to our ability to invest so much as it is to have a well-functioning, long-term act and legislative structure. When there is no state of the environment reporting, the interpretation of trends and the interpretation of where we're going basically becomes subject to stakeholders. So it's my interpretation or some other activist's interpretation--we all have our little biases. Without that factual basis, it's very difficult to discuss. We can say that things are getting much better or we can say that things are getting much worse.
I think the state of the environment report, the indicators, and the overall focus on outcomes are important. We have had the frustrating experience of spending three years in a discussion of what instrument should be used without ever knowing what objective was to be accomplished. We found it very difficult to say what instrument should be used when we didn't know where we were actually trying to get to.
In that context, I think it would help the discussion and help our decision-making. How can you make the decisions if you don't know what it is you're trying to accomplish?
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you.
I have a question for Ms. Coombs.
I'm trying to understand the typical experience for a company when it's bringing a product onto the market, for example, a cosmetic that someone is trying to introduce. Can you describe the basic process they have to go through in order to be permitted to sell that on the market?
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
Certainly.
Actually, could I use a disinfectant? Those are the products that my members make.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
I am--a coalition--but I'm most familiar with the pre-market registration process for disinfectants.
In terms of disinfectants, for example, if I wish to use a new substance, truly new to Canada, I have to go through Environment Canada and apply for an NSN. That data package will be reviewed by Health Canada and Environment Canada, and I will be given an NSN number.
However, if I want to market a disinfectant, I have to have the end-use product, such as my can of Lysol, reviewed by Health Canada.
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
I would have to make a submission. Also, Health Canada has a data package that would be required with respect to the safety and efficacy of that particular product.
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
We would do the testing, but we provide the data that's required by Health Canada. They make a list of all the submission data that I have to provide to support the submission being reviewed and approved.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If this disinfectant has a toxin in it—by the classical definition of toxin, not the broader one that's under CEPA—something that's considered toxic or carcinogenic, what longitudinal studies do you folks go under? Is there a peer review process? How much do you and Health Canada know before a product is allowed on the market?
4:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
The substances that would be in the product would have to be on the DSL, the domestic substances list, as well; however, the end use of that product would have to be approved by Health Canada.
Our companies go through extensive testing to make sure the product is safe for consumers to use. All the testing is done on the various substances and the end-use product as well, prior to a submission being made to Health Canada. The product is not approved for sale until Health Canada has given its okay.
4:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
We've seen a number of cuts within Health Canada over the last five or ten years, particularly in this branch and some others as well.
Again, when you do those tests, is there a peer review process? Is it a submission of data? How extensive are those tests? Are they animal tests? I certainly don't expect it to be done on humans of any kind. How verifiable are these things?
4:35 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
I can certainly provide you with a list of the submissions for what we have to go through with the test data that we have to provide. It is quite extensive and Health Canada is quite rigorous in their review with respect to all the end-use products that they regulate.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Lloyd, on the question around toxins, there was some suggestion by witnesses who appeared before the committee last year, when the government was doing its strange mechanism around Kyoto and some other things, that the application of the word “toxin” has in a sense been redefined under Kyoto.
I know it's not common parlance to refer to carbon dioxide as a toxin, but for the purposes of the act, there was some suggestion that removing the word “toxin” would undermine the government's ability to actually use CEPA, as in previous Supreme Court challenges when CEPA was first being introduced. The government's ability to use that as a tool was mostly focused on the sections you referred to. Is there any threat of that actually coming to pass?
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
In the more detailed submission that we sent to the predecessor of this committee, we actually addressed that issue. I think you were all given a copy.
The point we made was that we strongly relied on the assurances by government lawyers, which I believe have been given to this group or the predecessor group and which we have also heard, that it would not be the case. In our submission on November 25, we said that before the changes that CCPA had suggested be made—and those were what I was talking about—it would be important for this legal opinion to be confirmed.
In putting forward our proposals, CCPA would not want to risk the constitutional authority of the federal government to appropriately regulate. I think that's an absolutely critical question. One would not want to gut the federal environmental authority by making that change.
My understanding is that federal lawyers have concluded it's not a problem, but I think that needs to be confirmed. We have certainly not spent the money in hiring an expensive law firm to come up with that, but it's our understanding of the federal legal opinion. Presumably, it's something that this committee will ask Environment Canada and Health Canada lawyers about.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have a further question on a different tack. When companies consider the introduction of a new product or the assembling of chemicals for new product, how is it that companies don't endeavour to hurt anybody with a product on the market and yet that inevitably can happen? When a product is introduced, it affects a population that it was not intended for, vulnerable populations, people with sicknesses, or children. How rigorous are companies when looking at the potential side effects?
The reason I was asking questions about the process to introduce a product to market is that oftentimes it can be a product meant for use on a farm. How do you get to the point of verification and knowledge to know that a product is truly safe? We've had experiences of companies introducing products, even medical products, and then finding out years later that there were unintended consequences of facing lawsuits and all kinds of other things.
4:35 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
I think companies go to great lengths in their research. They don't want to market something that, as you've said, is going to have problems, and they go to great lengths to try to avoid that.
We also have, for new substances, in Canada and in other OECD countries, the system I described earlier of companies providing data that the government feels it needs to confirm the assessment the company has already made, and the ability of the government to ask for additional data. I think that system is largely seen as effective.
I've been involved in discussions about chemicals management, both in Canada and internationally. Although there are issues on the margin of whether new substance notification requirements in Canada and elsewhere can be improved, I think the main focus is on the issue I described earlier of the chemicals that didn't benefit from that approach, that were there before it was introduced, what are sometimes called legacy chemicals or existing chemicals.
We need an approach to deal with that. That's one of the reasons that, in CEPA 1999, despite the huge amount of controversy over an awful lot of the provisions, there really wasn't much controversy at all over the sections that required DSL categorization and screening.
Conceptually that was something that the chemical industry, for one, and I think others as well, supported as a good idea, to try to figure out how we address that issue of chemicals, and other countries are trying to pick that up.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I have just one last question, Mr. Chair. I'll be very quick.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Cullen, you're over by a couple of minutes. Can we get it on the second round?