Evidence of meeting #55 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 amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
I will outline the procedure we're going to follow today, so everyone knows.
Basically, Mr. Cullen has a notice of motion he wants to give us. Then we'll go to a brief explanation of what exactly has happened between then and now. And I'll let you know that I've been at the garbage dump all morning; however, I got back in time to let you know the gasification process is working fine and will soon be into production.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
No, I didn't.
Anyway, perhaps we could begin. Mr. Cullen, you have a notice of motion.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Congratulations on being gasified, Chair. That's good to hear, and I know we'll be talking more about this in the coming days.
I'll be tabling my notice of motion formally on Tuesday, but I wanted to give the committee notice that we'll be seeking to begin study on Bill C-377, which was initially designed as the post-Kyoto long-term targets, the bill by Mr. Layton, and trust the committee will study it and return it to the House post-haste.
The motion will be extremely simple and straightforward for committee members to read, and we look forward to the study of the bill, knowing that the committee has some things to study but not an overwhelming schedule, obviously, this spring.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Mr. Cullen, as soon as you have it in writing, could you get it to the clerk?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Then we can get it out to all members so they know what's coming. As I mentioned, we have arranged for some guests, for at least a couple of meetings in advance, and we'll get to that as soon as we can.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Yes, my suggestion is that even on Tuesday we take 10 minutes as a committee to look at our schedule again, depending on--
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
So I believe we'll begin.
I think we've discussed this. We'll begin by updating from Tuesday to today, and where we are in terms of the negotiations, if you want, and let everybody know more or less what has happened.
Mr. Warawa, perhaps I could begin with you, please.
Conservative
Mark Warawa Conservative Langley, BC
Thank you, Chair.
I appreciate the willingness of committee members to meet. I've met with representatives of the different parties and I think we have consensus on close to 90% of the issues. For some of the more benign issues, such as what do we call DEHP--should it be di(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate or bis(2-ethylhexyl)phthalate--I don't think that's contentious. But regarding Mr. Cullen's recommendations on defining phthalates, of having less than 0.1%, there are a lot of minor things that I think we've now got consensus on. Which statute should be managing it? Who's accountable? I think we're very close.
To get an overview, perhaps I could ask the department to explain, because what I've passed on to the department is what I believe is the consensus position, by talking to Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Cullen, and they've tried then to draft it into a form that I think properly represents a consensus position. If they could give us an overview, we might have a big picture of where we're going.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Sure, if we could get that overview, then Mr. Cullen might like to finish it off with his views of what has happened.
We'll go to the department first, then, please.
Sue Milburn-Hopwood Director, Risk Management Bureau, Department of Health
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
What I'd like to do is give you a bit of the architecture of what the government's amendments are. We've really tried to be very responsive to all the suggestions we've heard, so I'll give an overview of what is proposed here.
First of all, we are introducing a new clause 2 to deal with the definition of what would or would not be a phthalate, which is sort of a definitional-type issue.
Then we move on to the regulations section and we compare that with the old bill. The regulation section proposed--
Conservative
Liberal
Geoff Regan Liberal Halifax West, NS
Obviously for us it would be helpful, I think, if when we're looking at this document we received from the clerk, which has the various motions to amend, we knew which of these we were talking about. It would be a great help to us, apart from going through this.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Yes, clause 2 obviously is gone. We'll call that new clause 2.1, and then we'll go to clause 3, which is the regulations. I must apologize. Our clerk only got some of these amendments 10 minutes ago, and that's why there's a problem.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Even for anyone else who wants copies of these amendments, they are being copied right now. I believe there's enough for the MPs, but for no one else here.
The extras have just arrived.
Anyway, perhaps you could take Mr. Regan's comments into consideration, please.
Director, Risk Management Bureau, Department of Health
Please bear with me. I just got this myself, so I'm going to try to do a mapping between the proposed motions and the architecture that I am going to be dealing with. I'm trying to give an overview. We will get into each of these pieces, though, as we debate each motion. This is to be an overview of the government amendments.
Liberal
John Godfrey Liberal Don Valley West, ON
I'm sorry for all this stuff going around, but I received something called “modified bill”, which lays out all the things in sequence, and if people have that, as opposed to a series of individual....
Is that what you gave? The modified bill does lay it out in a way that incorporates all the changes, so you can compare one bill against the other as a package, rather than bit by bit.
You have that? I think that makes it a lot easier to work with.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
I don't have one either.
The source of this, I believe, Mr. Warawa, is the department's summary.