May I answer?
Thanks for the question. Yes, we should. As we said before, the precautionary principle is a form of risk management; it doesn't mean it only has one form--that you ban something. There are various responses you make within the context of precaution that can range from as little as labelling laws to as much as banning the use of a substance.
You're right. Quebec, I believe, has provincial legislation coming on line that will ban the sale of cosmetic pesticides to the entire public and every hardware store in the province. It's the most advanced law addressing that in the country, by far, of all the provinces. I think that's coming in next year sometime in Quebec. It's something that we noted in our best practices review should be looked at and taken up by other municipalities and provinces in the country.
With respect to chlorination by-products, obviously the chlorination of drinking water is an important thing in terms of infectious disease and controlling it, so you don't immediately say we're going to ban all chlorination of the drinking water. What you do is you look at what precautions have been taken elsewhere and what can you do in order to.... It's not a question of let's minimize the harm; it's can we do away with the harm if possible, and if not, can we minimize it?
For example, there are some Canadian companies that are world leaders in filtration systems that in fact are as effective as chlorination for reducing infection, the presence of biological organisms in drinking water. There are some European countries and some European cities that have taken this up, and those things should be promoted. If one had a federal strategy, you could.
In fact, when we talk now about the transfers of funds to the municipal levels--and this was in the news yesterday where this government is doing that--some of those funds should be tied to funding municipalities to in fact look at the costs of bringing in some of these advanced filtration systems in order to reduce chlorination of drinking water in our communities.
There's also ozone treatment as another example. These things cost money. Are they impossible to do? No. Has there been a will to do them? In some parts of the world, yes. In Canada, no. In fact, the irony is that there are Canadian companies that have led the field in developing those technologies.
So the Canadian government should say we'll subsidize a municipality to use that technology and we will inform the public that these technologies will reduce your exposure to bladder carcinogens. If the public knew that, they might be prepared at the municipal level to increase the property tax to pay for a municipal system as well, but we're not even having that discussion.