Environment Committee on June 5th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I think we can begin, and our other guests will join us.

I would like to welcome our panel today.

We're taking a look at the precautionary principle as it relates to our CEPA review. I would propose that we begin. We would ask our guests to give us no more than a ten-minute presentation of your views, then we will go to a round of questions—and as many rounds as we need to bring out the issue.

Our intention—and we have our Library of Parliament person, who takes diligent notes—is that at the end of this process we will come up with a proposal relating what our recommendations to the government on a CEPA review will be.

We'll start with the Canadian Environmental Law Association. Mr. Benevides, please.

[Hugh Benevides, Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Hugh Benevides. I am with the Canadian Environmental Law Association, or CELA, as I will refer to it in my presentation.

CELA is a legal aid clinic established under the laws of Ontario. We've been in existence since 1970 in order to represent the economically most disadvantaged in society who have needs related to the environment. As part of that mandate, we also engage in law and policy reform activities at the national, provincial, municipal, and international levels.

CELA, as you know, is also a member of Pollution Watch, which is a collaborative project of environmental defence. My colleague, Dr. Khatter, was here with you on May 10, I believe. As you know, we have a website, pollutionwatch.org, and we issue periodic reports, largely making use of the national pollutant release inventory data.

I wasn't certain, given the round-table approach that was anticipated, whether I would have the usual ten minutes, so I'll probably take up less with a few introductory remarks, all of which are tailored around the notion of precaution. Of course that theme is intimately tied to virtually all of the other themes in the act. I've tried to pay attention to that, given the theme today.

I begin by saying that implementing the precautionary principle in CEPA is a journey, not a destination. Having said that, I think it's fair to say that my community wants to travel faster and pass the signposts earlier. In going to the basics of precaution, environmental problems always implicate issues of risk arising because of something that's ever-present in life, including in environmental matters, and that is uncertainty. A precursor to risk is hazard. By that I mean the inherent danger of certain activities, or in the case of what we're dealing with in CEPA, the inherent danger of certain substances. Our vision for CEPA, in order to prevent harm, is to make sure we can eliminate these hazards before they can cause harm. This is at the heart of precautionary action. That means careful consideration and action before we embark on the manufacture and use of new toxic chemicals, which of course is an ethical obligation now reflected in international law. It's also an obligation respecting those substances that are already in use, those we now refer to in the CEPA regime as existing substances.

In respect of existing substances, the importance of the two departments' conclusions in September 2006, post-categorization, are very important. I encourage this committee to follow that process closely. I'll elaborate on that a little bit through the rest of my presentation.

There are several articulations of precaution in various treaties and laws. International law continues to crystallize not around any single one of these articulations, but around the spirit of precaution. As you've heard already in your scoping exercise, the administrative duties section, paragraph 2(1)(a), the preamble, subsection 6 (1.1), and section 76.1 in the current act all mention the precautionary principle explicitly. As a result, CEPA will be interpreted as mandating a precautionary approach. However, we would all be helping officials as well as the environment and human health if we considered during this review how to better articulate it throughout part 5 of the act and elsewhere.

The proposals that have been made by Pollution Watch for this review are intimately tied to and form part of a precautionary approach. That's that linkage among issues including precaution that I mentioned a couple of moments ago. Examples include placing a greater onus on proponents to provide data and information, and greater public involvement, beginning with requirements to make that same information available to the public sooner in the process and more robustly.

I have just a few themes that are all intimately linked to this larger theme of precaution this afternoon. I want to expand briefly on how earlier action could be taken at various stages, how we could be more precautionary, how we can be more preventive in our actions, and how we can protect the environment and human health as a result.

First is the categorization stage. The committee has heard and certainly we in the environmental community are aware that it's anticipated that roughly 4,000 substances will emerge from the categorization exercise as identified for further action. Technically those substances are those that exhibit characteristics of persistence or bioaccumulation and are inherently toxic. It's a considerable group that has at least two of those characteristics, inherently toxic and persistent or bioaccumulative, or there are those substances that have the greatest potential for exposure. So a large number of substances out of the admittedly much larger group of 23,000 are listed.

The act, as you know, requires a further stage called screening. We're very careful with the language because it's easy to confuse one with the other. On the screening-level risk assessment identified in the act, there are a number of questions that arise. For example, we're told that roughly 400 of those 4,000 substances are what we call affectionately, or not so affectionately, PBITs--persistent, bioaccumulative, and inherently toxic, exhibiting all three of those characteristics.

Pollution Watch, the organization and project we're involved with, says we should proceed as soon as possible to a virtual elimination with those substances. In addition, as a subset, or perhaps as an overlapping set of those substances, the two departments may propose the most immediate action on a smaller subset of these. On what basis will they do that? That's going to become clear in the coming weeks. For example, criteria like substances that are known carcinogens and substances that have known reproductive or developmental toxicity are those that are yet to be addressed. Regardless of which subcategory they fall under, we would also suggest they need immediate attention.

I'm raising these because this committee is in a fortunate position, or perhaps a complicated one, depending on how you look at it, because you're charged with reviewing the operations of the act but at the same time, as September approaches, we're coming to an extremely critical time in the life of CEPA 1999. There are a number of decisions the departments will make about how to proceed on those various substances. My suggestion is that the more the committee can involve itself in the questions as to when to proceed to screening, with which substances, at what speed, then Canadians will be better served.

I'll leave that area for now, keeping in mind that the theme here is that the speed with which we do carry on those steps for the different categories will define how precautionary we indeed are in implementing the act.

On the next subject, risk management, you'll want to ask what powers the government has to move now on whichever subset of those most dangerous substances. For example, in section 94 of the act is a provision that allows for interim orders to be made respecting such substances. I believe that provision has not been used yet in the six years experience of the act. For example, for the PBDEs, why has that provision not been used? Will they be used? Why, or why not? So timelines and the speed with which the government can and will act....

A second major category following the process, as it were, is resources. I know that in your scoping exercise with Mr. Moffet and Mr. Glover from Health Canada, this issue was raised. I believe the witnesses invited you to ask the minister about the question of resources. At this point, I would only say that the issue is so important, in terms of answering the questions I asked in the last few minutes about how fast on these substances. The core question is, do we have the resources to carry that out? Again, you're best placed to find out the answers, whether it's from the minister or some other source.

Third is the question of discretion and how to tailor it. I didn't get a chance to tell Mr. Moffet I'd be raising a couple of his points from May 15—and that I wasn't picking on him, or perhaps I am—but one of his comments was that CEPA was an enabling statute, and it doesn't actually require us to do a whole slate of specific actions. I think that's correct, and in most environmental statutes that's the case. Every decision in CEPA requires the precautionary principle be put into effect.

The question is, how can the discretion of the ministers of Environment Canada and Health Canada be tightened in those situations where the most urgent precautionary measures need to be taken? In other words, discretion is always a factor, but are there situations where it's most important that we narrow and tailor that discretion, and lean towards a more mandatory approach?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

I wonder if you might come to a conclusion now, please.

[Hugh Benevides]

My final comment, Mr. Chair, in terms of the categories I wanted to identify is that there are barriers to taking precautionary action, and you can see how that ties into my last theme, both within the act and within various policies and directives that government officials are required to follow. I'd be pleased to talk about that.

In addition, Pollution Watch has advocated particular provisions regarding the Great Lakes, and I wanted to raise that as an overarching theme as well.

Thanks, and we'd be pleased to answer your questions now and through the course of the review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you.

I think we'll have our presentations now.

I'd like to let members know we're going to have to leave at about four o'clock, but it should be a very quick vote.

If I could ask our guests to have an extra cup of coffee, we should be right back. It will be a very brief time that we'll be gone.

Mr. Lourie, could you please do your presentation? Then we may have to leave you briefly, and I apologize for that.

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Is it possible, Mr. Chair, to finish with the presentations, then hold off for the questions when we come back?

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Try to get both of them in?

[Mario Silva, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Yes, if we can.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We'll see if you can squeeze them into 15 minutes, as that's about what we're looking at.

[Bruce Lourie, President, Ivey Foundation (Toronto)]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll do my best. Just so you know, I've submitted a lengthier version of my remarks to the committee. I'll just try to highlight a few things.

Thank you for having me. I've worked for many years on toxic pollution issues in Canada, both as a consultant to government and industry and also working with NGOs. I ended up doing quite a bit of work on mercury pollution. What I thought I would do, rather than spend a lot of time looking at specific details of CEPA, is highlight some examples using mercury that might provide us with some direct understanding of how precaution is being used or not used. I thought too that it's very hard to comment on precaution without also commenting on pollution prevention, which I think is a related concept and also something that is fundamental to CEPA.

In the paper I've provided a number of pages of background of the history of the previous CEPA review, comments made by the Commissioner for Sustainable Development since that CEPA review, and some comments on the scoping paper we have before us for this review.

To summarize it very quickly, it really seems that not a whole lot has changed since the last CEPA review. The same kinds of remarks that were raised then are being made today, and the same kinds of criticism around inaction are really still present.

I would say they fall under four main themes, the first being a lack of federal leadership, the second being an emphasis on industrial or economic interests and decision-making above ecological interests, the third being a lack of science-based decision making, and the fourth being a failure to implement pollution prevention and precaution. It's very hard to separate these, but I'm going to touch on a few of those things.

I also describe in a little bit of detail the story of mercury, which is really quite interesting. Canada has a long history of undertaking research and being active globally on mercury issues. In fact, we were a leader approximately 35 years ago in doing mercury research and attempting to address mercury in Canada. Unfortunately, over the past number of years and particularly the past decade, we've really fallen behind. I've provided a number of examples of restrictions and regulations and product bans globally that have taken place, but have not taken place in Canada.

The reason I'm raising the issue of mercury is that it's one of the most well-studied toxic substances. There's little doubt that it causes harm. Yet in the past decade, unlike most of Europe, the United States, and many other industrial countries, we have not issued any regulations on restriction of the use or emissions of mercury.

I think, looking at it, that if we cannot restrict mercury use under CEPA and apply precaution and pollution prevention, it seems unlikely that there's any substance we'll be able to regulate effectively under CEPA. This is because mercury really is a bellwether for how we address toxic substances.

I don't want to touch too much on federal leadership and authority. Perhaps that will come up in your other panels. But I should point out that the issues raised around the term “national cohesion” in the scoping paper present some concern. I think much of CEPA really has devolved responsibility to other organizations, other parties, and other jurisdictions. In fact I touch specifically on the CCME and the Canada-wide standards process, which really haven't delivered on the kinds of restrictions and regulations we see in most other industrial nations. So I've described some of those issues.

One of the reasons, again, we look at mercury as a good example where the federal government should be taking action and should be exercising its authority is that it's a global air pollutant. There are interprovincial trade issues. It's imported from other countries. We've signed numerous global agreements. The primary exposure pathway is through fish, which is a federal responsibility. It's found in medical devices, which are overseen by Health Canada. The Canadian Arctic is particularly at risk, and many first nations in the north are living well above WHO mercury risk levels.

So with the fact that all those things apply to mercury, we know more about it than almost any other substance. Yet still, for some reason, in Canada we're unable to apply concepts like precaution and prevention in terms of developing even a national strategy on how we're going to deal with mercury.

Ten years ago we were writing that Canada had fallen behind the rest of the industrial world, and in the intervening years very little has happened, whereas I point out in here that last year alone there were 251 mercury-related bills in the United States. That's after several years of mercury product regulations throughout the United States. So I think there's certainly reason to be concerned about these things.

I'll touch briefly on pollution prevention. Pollution prevention is referred to in almost every federal document relating to toxic substances management. The CCME describes pollution prevention as our toxic substance management policy, CEPA, and for good reason: it's a simple and powerful concept. Basically, pollution prevention says it's easier to not put things into products than it is to attempt to control the release of the substances at the end of the pipe.

Again, if we look specifically at examples of how we've implemented things--and I touch on quite a few in here, but I'll just use one example, which is mercury dental amalgams--we still have about three million grams of mercury imported into Canada each year going into people's teeth. The response under the Canada-wide standards, rather than looking at pollution prevention--even though we have easy alternatives, even though more than half of dentists no longer use it--has been pollution control. We set up a voluntary guideline for putting a little trap in the drain in dental offices to collect the mercury. So that's not pollution prevention; that's pollution control.

Mercury switches in cars, thermostats, and thermometers are all examples where pollution prevention could easily be applied. Alternatives exist. They're cost-effective. They're simple.

Again, if we can't do it where we have alternatives, where it is cost-effective, and where we know what we do about mercury, then really we question how we can implement any kinds of measures under CEPA around substances where there is greater uncertainty.

That really takes us to the issue of precaution. As I'm sure you all know, the precautionary principle is a specific response to uncertainty. What we've seen over a number of years is an increasingly rigid application of risk management and risk assessment, but particularly risk management, to the point where I would say, in Canada, we're interpreting risk management the way most other countries don't. Wherever there is any kind of uncertainty, even the slightest uncertainty around whether it's an exposure pathway, an emission, or the ecosystem response, it's continually used as an excuse to not act. That's a serious problem, and that's where precaution comes into play.

So when we look at all those things together, the need for some leadership at the federal level, the need to use tools, such as pollution prevention, that are cost-effective, and the need to better to understand issues around uncertainty and risk...particularly we're still referencing this notion of sound science in the scoping paper and we see sound science referenced in federal documents. “Sound science”, if you read any of the literature on it, was a term created by industry deliberately to interject uncertainty and doubt into decision-making. So the fact that we have “sound science” still in our federal documentation suggests that we're really lining ourselves up with the kind of language that industry uses deliberately to undermine action.

I think it's problematic. I did a survey of about 30 people across industry, government, NGOs, the legal profession, and academics. The only people who thought sound science was a valid word were the people in government. Even people in industry recognized it as a deliberate strategy to delay action.

That touches on a particular point I have some trouble with.

To conclude, I think the CEPA amendments must address federal accountability and toxic substances management in Canada. We're relying too much on voluntary efforts and on other governments. We've got references to first nations and other federal mechanisms. Clearly, they haven't worked in the past; there's no reason to expect they will work in the future. I think the review must address mechanisms that assert federal regulatory authority to manage toxic substances.

On pollution prevention, we really haven't used the mechanisms under CEPA to implement pollution prevention, even in the most obvious and cost-effective cases. CEPA needs to somehow be strengthened so that, in this regard, explicit direction and authority are provided to Environment Canada to implement pollution prevention.

Finally, on precaution and risk, I would say that CEPA has not facilitated precautionary action at all in Canada, particularly with respect to substances management. Unless we can address the inherent barriers to precaution, particularly our rigid application of risk management and false concepts such as sound science, I really don't think we will get there.

Perhaps the federal government should require that Environment Canada and Health Canada prepare some kind of internal guideline on understanding and incorporating uncertainty. It may help guide decision-making. We need to make sure that uncertainty isn't used as an excuse for inaction and that we truly apply precaution.

Given a survey of most countries, I would imagine that CEPA would be probably one of the least precautionary pieces of legislation dealing with toxic substances.

I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Stoffman, we'll give you about four or five minutes, and then we're gone.

We'll actually give you seven minutes; the clerk says we can make it.

[Larry Stoffman, Chair, National Committee on Environmental and Occupational Exposures, Prevention Action Group, Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control]

If not, maybe we can finish it up when you get back.

Thanks very much for inviting me to present on behalf of the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control. I'm the chair of the National Committee on Environmental and Occupational Exposures, which works under the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control.

Approximately a year ago, in the fall of 2005, we made a submission on CEPA 1999 and made a number of recommendations that I believe the committee has had circulated. When I was asked to come today to address more specifically the precautionary principle, I understood why, in that it is really a principle that underpins any action--or inaction, depending on your point of view--on precaution with respect to environmental or occupational health concerns.

In fact, the application of the precautionary principle underpins all the recommendations we have made through the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control with respect to CEPA and with respect to control or elimination of known human carcinogens in our environment. We include in that environment, of course, workplace exposures, because we address both.

We targeted two areas with respect to a series of recommendations we've made to government, industry, other levels of government and labour, and other NGOs. Those two are pollution prevention programming, particularly with respect to identified and classified human cancer-causing agents; and disclosure of the presence, use, or release of those classified carcinogens in Canadian communities and in the Canadian environment.

We made the point that until you and the public have a clear understanding of what those exposures may be--the nature of them, and the nature of the risk--obviously policy decisions that need to be taken won't be understood or won't be supported. We have found that the more information the public receives in this area, the more they ask for public policy in health protection with respect to environmental carcinogens or, for that matter, carcinogens you find in consumer products and so on.

There has continued to be, obviously, a debate over how serious or significant this risk is with respect to environmental exposures, and there is always going to be a debate in terms of quantifying exactly what percentage of cancers in Canada can be attributed to environmental or occupational exposures. In fact, in a very useful and insightful document published a year ago on environmental carcinogens, Cancer Care Ontario noted that it's almost impossible to find unequivocal evidence of harm or cancer causation, particularly when you're looking at environmental exposures. That doesn't mean you're not going to find them; there is always evidence, but you're not going to find unequivocal evidence.

It went on to say that in spite of that--in fact, because of that--it was necessary to apply things like the precautionary principle to begin to control and eliminate a number of very significant and serious threats to our environment and our health with respect to environmental exposures. In particular they addressed things like drinking water chlorination byproducts, radon exposures, diesel air pollutants, certain pesticides, and heavy metals.

In other words, the point they made and the point we make is that it is possible to prioritize. We're not talking about 40,000 compounds that we must immediately address using the precautionary principle. No government is going to be able to do that, we're not resourced to do that, and people are going to ask how to prioritize.

One of the things we prioritized or classified was known human cancer-causing products. They are classified through the World Health Organization, and they are referenced in our legislation, both federally and provincially, in terms of not only the environment but in all the occupational health regulations as known human carcinogens to which there should be, if at all possible, no exposure at all. When you apply that to the environment, you're applying the precautionary principle in a certain way and in a focused way.

Again, many argue that there isn't sufficient evidence to do that. The way we put it is the opposite--public policy and primary prevention is driven by limited data and a necessity for precautionary measures. We cited as one articulation of that the European Union, the European commission's adoption of a definition of the precautionary principle.

You've heard it over and over again. Essentially it says that where reliable scientific evidence is available that there may be adverse impacts on health or environment but there is still scientific uncertainty about the precise nature or the magnitude of that damage, decision-making must be based on precaution in order to prevent that damage.

There are a number of other very serious scientists in the country who have addressed this as well. In Canada, for example, the CEO of Cancer Care Ontario, Dr. Terry Sullivan, in that Insight on Cancer review stated: “Governments may choose to go beyond existing evidence and be guided by a range of principles...”. He then went on to talk about the precautionary principle, citing that “the tradition of public health, a tradition which in Canada, through the Supreme Court, has given municipalities the authority to ban pesticides” is in fact a tradition of application of the precautionary principle.

Dr. Tony Miller, professor emeritus of U. of T. and a colleague of mine on our committee, put it in terms very much to the point. He said: “The potential penalties from not following this principle are that cancers that could be prevented are not”. That's pretty basic, and it is a fact.

Dr. Donald Wigle, formerly of Health Canada and now with the R. Samuel McLaughlin Centre for Population Health Risk Assessment, cited Horace Krever and the Canadian blood supply commission, who restated again that the precautionary principle means that:

Where there is reasonable evidence of an impending threat...it is inappropriate to require proof of causation beyond a reasonable doubt before taking steps to avert the threat.

In Canada there's not only a great amount of discussion on this principle, but I think there are two citations from the European Commission as well that are particularly informing to us. One is their statement that the application of this principle is in fact the “central plank of Community policy”. These are quotes from the EU documentation. One that I think is particularly germane is this one. It is “...in situations in which the adverse effects do not emerge until long after exposure”—

[Mark Warawa, Conservative, Langley, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, we have five minutes to get to the chamber. Considering the different abilities of people and walking speeds, I think we have to cut it off.

[Larry Stoffman]

I have a couple of minutes. If I can finish when you're back, that would be just perfect. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

That's fine. We'll let you conclude.

Yes, you can walk quite slowly. The tunnel is near here. If you can't make it in two minutes, you have problems.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

We will begin again, please.

Mr. Stoffman, I believe you were just finishing up.

[Larry Stoffman]

The greater the uncertainty, the more you need to take precautionary measures to address that uncertainty, which seems quite common-sensical to the average person. When you don't know what the problem is, you have to be careful. If you're not certain that there's no problem, you have to address it. It's only prudent to do so. In terms of public health policy, it's a necessity if one is to fulfill a mandate that the public expects to be filled.

I want to address two other things very rapidly, which obviously will be in the background during the whole debate on how one applies this form of risk management, and they are cost-benefit studies and the whole notion of sound or unsound science.

First of all, in terms of cost-benefit, you'll notice, if you do a review of precautionary principles, that sometimes “cost effective measures” is inserted into the definition, and other times it is not there. There have been all sorts of debates, some important, some not so important, as to whether those things should be inserted. Obviously, any government is going to look at that issue. However, it has to look at it within a certain context. And again, to quote from the European Union,

Examination of pros and cons cannot be reduced to an economic cost-benefit analysis. It is wider in scope and includes non-economic considerations. The Commission affirms, in accordance with the case law of the Court that requirements linked to the protection of public health should undoubtedly be given greater weight than economic considerations.

It went on to assert--and this is something the Canadian Strategy for Cancer Control, and in particular our primary-prevention committee, has endorsed and would like to see applied in all jurisdictions in Canada--that all class 1 and class 2 carcinogens, genotoxics, and substances potentially harmful to reproduction, including endocrine-disrupting chemicals, are of high concern, are not acceptable for daily intake thresholds, and require strict authorization before use.

That's the EU's position, and they have legislation or directives that have put that into place. There are a number of states in the United States that have also done that and have moved in that direction. Canada is probably lagging behind all those jurisdictions in taking proactive action for those particular classes of compounds.

The issue of science, and whether it is sound or unequivocal, is the last thing I want to address. Our committee is basically a tripartite committee. We have representatives from industry, from labour, from academia, and from government-linked institutions, such as WSIB. We're supported through Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. The Canadian Cancer Society and a number of its affiliates are a big part of the committee.

When we went to the strategy's governing council with a 100-page document and maybe two dozen key recommendations, the one thing they wanted to talk about was the precautionary principle. Even in that governing council, which primarily is health-scientist-based, there was uncertainty as to what that meant. We had to have a discussion, similar to the one we're having today, to talk about what it means. We're not talking about running around saying that we need no evidence before we act. We're saying that when there is potential for significant harm, you have to act, even if the evidence is not unequivocal. And you are always going to have a counter-argument--it doesn't matter what the issue is--for almost any substance of concern. The question is, when is it appropriate to act?

If we're to have a direction in this country as to how we're going to act, regulate with mandatory pollution-prevention planning. We have to look at certain classes of compounds that are out there that have been identified. We're talking about human carcinogens, for example, reproductive toxins, for example, as two clear classes of compounds that need to be addressed.

So when you see, day after day, a series in the Globe and Mail about toxic shock and what not, which I'm sure many people noticed during the last week, in fact those series were, if you looked at them carefully, focusing on those classes of compounds. That's where the Canadian public has the greatest concern. That's where precaution is most warranted, because they do have and may have significant long-term chronic effects that have not been fully documented yet. It's when you have that great degree of uncertainty and those very significant health endpoints that you need to act and not sit there and wait until all the evidence is in.

An example of the application of the precautionary principle in this country, which the whole country and all governments are now in support of, is restriction on environmental tobacco smoke. There's a placard in the back of this room about the workplace smoking law. I was looking at it during the break. That's an example of the application of the precautionary principle in the face of uncertainty and equivocal evidence. We all know there's a lot of evidence on smoking and cancer and other diseases, but if you were to ask any health scientist if is it unequivocal with respect to second-hand smoke, they'd say no, it's not.

A lot of people say I know my risk of dying of cancer if occasionally I walk in a room and some guy is smoking a cigarette may not be so significant, but on the other hand it is there, and people have died from that. So we've taken a precautionary measure, both in terms of policy and legislation, with that substance.

It makes no sense when we look at the fact that the very same substances that are in cigarette smoke are in a number of other applications with huge emissions in Canadian communities, as is documented under CEPA. The aldehydes, the formaldehydes, the polycyclic aromatics--not to address those and regulate them and require the same kind of pollution prevention planning that we do for second-hand smoke makes no sense at all.

Thanks. I'll end there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Moffet, do you have anything as a result of our witnesses that you'd like to add before we go to questions?

[John Moffet, Acting Director General, Systems and Priorities, Department of the Environment]

I think I'll be perfectly happy to respond to any questions. I think members are looking keen to get to the questions, and I'd be happy to respond to anything they have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Godfrey.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

What I'd like to do, in order both to help Mr. Moffet respond and also to give a chance to the other witnesses to pursue this example of mercury, which seems to be pretty well documented in terms of its dangers to the population.... I've got a couple of questions, which I would invite Mr. Lourie or any of his associates to comment on. Why is it, if we know so much about mercury, we haven't, in this particular case, applied the precautionary principle? That's the problem.

Secondly, is there also a question of timelines? Has that been an issue, there hasn't been enough pressure to get on with it? I'd like some amplification about how we haven't done the most elemental thing here with mercury, and then I'd like Mr. Moffet to respond to the answers provided by the other witnesses.

[Bruce Lourie]

I'll take a stab at it.

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

Sure, go ahead. It's your doctoral thesis.

[Bruce Lourie]

I think it's a good question. I think a lot of that gets back to what the decision-making processes are and where one would expect to have some sense of action in Canada. I think if you look at other jurisdictions that have addressed mercury, typically, once the problem is recognized and the evidence is presented, there's some mechanism to actually take some action. In most cases, it's federal governments in other countries. In the U.S., it tends to be mostly state governments. I think where there's some kind of recognized authority that has the evidence.... And really it gets to the issue of weight of evidence; weight of evidence is a big part of the precautionary principle.

So in Canada, first of all, we had to see evidence of emissions, and then we see evidence of transport, and is there evidence of deposition, is there evidence of biological uptake, do we have evidence of the exposure pathway? One by one, we required more and more evidence. Each time more evidence was required, typically those who didn't want to see action around mercury would ask for even more evidence. There was always uncertainty, there was always a lack of evidence, or in the eyes of industry a lack of evidence. So even though there's this overwhelming weight of evidence, it seems all I can really put it down to is the fact that we've created these risk management systems that basically don't allow us to take action. That's perhaps combined with the federal government's tendency to create national stakeholder processes where everyone needs to agree, like the CCME, which really hasn't worked.

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

I'd like to know from Mr. Moffet whether that's a fair comment.