Aside from that, if someone walking into the hospital with a child who is sick or a mother about to deliver a baby heard that DEHP is an admitted reproductive toxin and that there is exposure to DEHP through medical devices for which we have economic substitutes, and that there's a bill in Parliament that says we shouldn't do this, that we should use those substitutes where available, I think most Canadians would say to pass the bill.
I'd rather have the choice, when going into a hospital, to not have a reproductive toxin or toxins that are known. This has been presented by some here today as some sort of clash between environmentalists and the industry. I don't think the Canadian Cancer Society regularly calls itself an environmental activist, and yet it is supportive of this bill.
Again I appreciate the commitment and passion you all bring to this in wanting to rely on the science. When I look to rely on health concerns, I look to people like the Canadian Cancer Society, which has a deep and vested interest in this issue and no particular ax to grind.
When I look at the ability and availability of the 14 pages of substitutes—just to correct my colleague, Mr. Allen, it wasn't just 14 substitutes, but 14 pages of substitutes—available, clearly with a bill that allows a three-year extension window, and then another one that cabinet can allow if there's an economic hardship realized where there's no substitute available, one starts to wonder what the resistance is. Is this some sort of symbolic resistance to make sure that this doesn't become some thin edge of the wedge?
I'll put this to Ms. Axmith. The assessment we have so much faith in from Health Canada on BBP and DBP didn't include children's toys, didn't include breast milk, consumers products, and cosmetics. It would be rather like doing an assessment on smoking but not taking in any sort of respiratory evidence.
How can we look at an assessment that said this is not CEPA-toxic that is only going to study a narrow portion of the application to humans and say that study is a good study?