Environment Committee on June 5th, 2006

[John Moffet]

Whether what's a fair comment?

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

I'd like to know whether people who wish to slow down the process--not because they're really interested in the science of it, but because they're stakeholders and want to delay the decision--have found in CEPA a mechanism for doing this, whereas other jurisdictions seem to be able to deal with it on a much faster basis. It seems that the science is overwhelmingly against mercury in this case.

[John Moffet]

I'm going to give an indirect answer, because I think it's important to differentiate between, on the one hand, what's in the statute and what the statute either requires the government to do or enables us to do and, on the other, how the government in the past and the present has actually implemented the statute.

To answer your question, I personally don't see anything in CEPA that impedes us from taking the kind of action that Bruce would like us to take.

Why haven't we? Fundamentally, I would argue those are political decisions. On the issue of federal leadership, the act gives us authority to address a wide range of issues. The extent to which we've chosen to exercise that authority has been, and will continue to be, a political decision. The judgment about whether we were right or wrong is not for me to say. What I'm trying to do is differentiate the statute and what it provides for from how it has been implemented.

Similarly, on judgments about how precautionary Environment Canada or Health Canada have been, I don't see anything in CEPA that impedes the departments or the ministers from taking precautionary decisions.

The comment on the department's emphasis on stakeholder consultations is a fair one. I think one can find that those processes--which are not mandated under CEPA, and which are an implementation decision--can at times become circular and lead to lowest-common-denominator types of outcomes. Nothing in CEPA requires them. Nothing in CEPA impedes the minister from saying she doesn't care what that process says, this is the decision.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Okay, back--

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Benevides has a question. Do you want to jump in right now?

[Hugh Benevides]

Yes, please. I note that mercury, at the time of the enactment of CEPA in 1999, was listed as number eight on the list of toxic substances, a clear indication that it's been there for some time.

The second observation is that we have a gap in those substances that were already listed at the time of enactment that don't fall into the timelines we have now. A substance that's added tomorrow will have some of the few timelines in the act for taking some action.

That's obviously the mechanical reason no action was taken, but of course Mr. Moffet is correct in saying this is the old answer of political will. Perhaps I was polite in framing the discussion about tightening discretion in the act, in terms of precaution, because it really should be addressed in terms of the lack of will to do that. This is why I was asking how we can change the act so that we can require action in more circumstances for substances like this.

[John Godfrey, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Is it a question of changing words like “may” to “shall”? Is it as simple as that?

[Hugh Benevides]

Of course. I'd let Bruce address that question in relation to mercury, because of the different situations, but I think for mercury switches.... The context is going to vary, but....

[Bruce Lourie]

I think that's right, and I agree with John's remarks that there seems to be something, in terms of political will, that's been lacking. But somehow that political will has been disseminated throughout the bureaucracy.

My goal over the last ten years was to figure out how we can get mercury out of the environment. So we would go to Environment Canada and ask, why can't we get mercury out of household thermometers? Most other countries are doing that. They'd say, well, that's a Health Canada issue--why don't you go talk to Health Canada? We'd go talk to Health Canada and they'd say, well, you know, as long as the mercury stays in that thermometer, it's not hazardous, so that's really an Environment Canada issue, once it breaks. So we go back to Environment Canada, and they'd say, well, we can't actually deal with that because we don't have whatever authority—which apparently is vested entirely in CEPA. So the question is if all the authority is in CEPA, why isn't it being used?

Unfortunately there needs to be some onus coming back to us as stakeholders from the government around why it isn't being used. I'm not a lawyer; it's not my job to figure out why it's not being used. I know it's not being used; that's clear. So I'm just trying to point out the many areas where it clearly should be used, and it's not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Stoffman, you wanted to jump in?

[Larry Stoffman]

I think what's glaringly obvious in Canada, compared to other jurisdictions—the U.S. and Europe in particular, but also Asia, where Japan might be another example—is a complete lack of focus, in that there has not been a policy decision and a political decision taken to say that for certain classes of hazardous materials we are going to restrict their status; we're either going to ban their use or we're going to have mandatory pollution prevention for those classes of compounds.

It's not difficult to determine which ones or who has done this elsewhere. They've done it on the basis of not being able to determine a safe level of exposure, or if so, it's fraught with uncertainty. Carcinogens are an example where that's been done in occupational health legislation for decades. We have some provinces in this country where in fact they require substitution for all of those. Mercury would be an example, if it's classified as a carcinogen or a reproductive toxin. You take certain classes of compounds and address those right at the outset, so you don't have a discretion to determine for every single thing under the sun, well, what's the political will here? Is there stakeholder consensus there? That's just a recipe for paralysis. In that respect, there is no direction in this country.

Mercury is an example of this. We all know it's a reproductive hazard. We also know it's a heavy metal, a terribly toxic neurotoxin, and I believe it's on the carcinogenicity list as well. So great, three strikes and you're out. But we don't have that law for mercury. Why not? The public is shocked; they assume we do.

For instance, in British Columbia, in the Okanagan—where I'm from—there are a number of teachers and students who are ill from mercury exposure because of broken thermometers in school labs. That's been a local event in the province, in the media, and so on. Why is this? People are shocked. The parents say, well, why are we using mercury in kids' labs? Of course they're going to drop them; they're kids. It makes no sense. We ban a few things from children's jewelry. We don't allow lead to be used in children's jewelry, but we have it in other stuff.

Whether there's political will or not—I agree that historically there hasn't been—we need to fetter discretion and free politicians from having to use political will on every one of these issues. Because you say, okay, for that class, as the Europeans or certain American states have done—genotoxins are an example.... Industry agrees with this; large portions of the chemical industry agree with this. Those are the people I work with. They say they agree to get rid of that stuff. But the political discretion has gotten in the way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

Mr. Lussier, I should warn you that I have a little grey box here that times you. So in case there is ever a dispute, I actually have the time.

We just went 12 minutes and 34 seconds—

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

But they were a great 12.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

They were a great 12 minutes.

Anyway, it's just to scare everybody.

Go ahead, Mr. Lussier.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

In accordance with the precautionary principle, smoking was prohibited in a number of municipalities and provinces. Then, pursuant to a Supreme Court judgment, the use of pesticides on lawns was limited in a number of Quebec municipalities.

What are we to think about water chlorination? We've known for many years that there are carcinogenic products and sub-products. Should we apply the cautionary principle to municipalities that use chlorination?

[Larry Stoffman]

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.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I wanted, more particularly, to know whether we should require municipalities that use chlorine to announce that their drinking water contains carcinogenic agents.

[Larry Stoffman]

There are. In New York State, I believe they do that. I know that Americans have drinking water legislation where they are required every year. Many of these are private providers. My sister used to live in New York, so I would see her report. Every year you would get a report on drinking water, and what heavy metals and what carcinogens were in it and at what level, whether this was above or below some limit and so on. So you're talking about a community's right to know. I think that the more the public knows then the better we can have an informed discussion of what precautionary measures to take.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

My next question is for Mr. Lourie.

Studies on mercury among Aboriginal people in the James Bay area were well advanced 15 or 20 years ago. However, from what I understand of your report, those studies were abandoned. Is that correct?

[Bruce Lourie]

There are still ongoing studies. I think it's more complicated in terms of the effects of mercury from hydroelectric dams and the effects on first nations. I think that's where we've actually had to make a huge health compromise, recognizing that the livelihoods and cultural livelihoods of people was at least as important as their health, or at least it was an aspect of their health. In fact, what's happened is in Canada we allow first nations to consume fish well above international levels of mercury because we don't want to compromise the cultural values.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

However, no more studies are being done. Isn't that correct?

[Bruce Lourie]

We probably don't need more studies. We know what to do. Right now, particularly in the north, we're seeing increasing levels not from the hydroelectric dams, but just from the active emissions of mercury from coal plants and other things.

The hydroelectric situation is somewhat distinct, in that there is a large amount of mercury initially, and then over time it declines. Hydro-Québec does a lot of research into that and have shown that over time it's declining.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

You still have three minutes.

[Marcel Lussier, Bloc, Brossard—La Prairie, QC]

I'm going to sell those three minutes to this gentleman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen.