Ah.
Evidence of meeting #7 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 mercury.
Evidence of meeting #7 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 mercury.
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Acting Director General, Systems and Priorities, Department of the Environment
--which gets to your second question.
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Chair, National Committee on Environmental and Occupational Exposures, Prevention Action Group, Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control
Yes, and—
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
I would ask the panellists to be brief here. We did agree on the time.
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Chair, National Committee on Environmental and Occupational Exposures, Prevention Action Group, Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control
So for certain health hazards that are presented by certain classes of compounds, I would suggest they need to be defined by what the precautionary principle means. It means that for those classes of compounds, we shall take the following actions: A, B, C, D. The debate is about what those actions are going to be. Right now, we don't even have the requirement to take any action. So whether it's labelling or banning or restricting, which are the lists of possibilities, then we need to have a discussion about what the list should look like for certain classes of compounds.
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President, Ivey Foundation (Toronto)
It would seem to me, too, that the number of times we have to go to cabinet or where there's a point that discretion is inserted, it really makes it very hard to implement the precautionary principle, because at that point it becomes a political decision, not a decision about the facts.
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Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
It's precisely because of the various stages in the act where we don't have tailoring of what to do and when, in respect of the most dangerous substances, that we need to be more specific about how to implement precaution. It doesn't mean, for example, plugging in that word “precaution” at every one of those stages, but being more mandatory at different stages. It's the tailoring of discretion, as I was talking about earlier, that would best achieve the more mandatory taking of precautionary measures throughout the act.
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Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bob Mills
Thank you.
I'd like to thank our panellists. I think it proves that we do have to have both sides at the table to make the round table work well, and we do need someone who will challenge you. We'll then get better answers and the committee will understand better. Certainly we've talked about that up here, and we'll make every attempt to make sure that we have that discussion.
In fact, I might go so far as to ask our panellists, if necessary, would you agree to come back when we do have that other side, if you will, in order to let us expand this a little further? I think it could be very worth while. Certainly you were excellent witnesses, but we do need you to be challenged a little more, because our job is really to try to sort all of this out, and only through all sides are we going to get that. So we'll certainly attempt to make that happen.
Our next scheduled meeting is Monday, when we'll be measuring success, which our witnesses will be focusing on. I think we've started that today, really, and the meeting could carry on from here, in again looking at where we're going.
Thank you.
We're adjourned.