Environment Committee on June 12th, 2006

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Have you ever, in the past, not only told a company that the product's use had to be restricted, but that it had to be withdrawn? Has that restriction, based on a final assessment, ever become a withdrawal of the product?

[John Moffet]

I think we're maybe confusing new and existing substance regimes a little bit. For a new substance, the substance cannot be used until we say so. So there's no going back and saying now you have to take it off the market. You can't put it on the market until you've gone through this process. So that's the new substance regime.

For the existing substance regime, we are explicitly talking about things that are in use. When we say here are the rules, the limit in which you can omit it or use it, or when we say you can no longer use it, then we're absolutely imposing a new obligation on an existing industrial or commercial process or use. And in some cases we're requiring that activity to cease.

[Bernard Bigras, Bloc, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

My second question is for Mr. Smith.

Your recommendations, including those on the importance of reducing pollution in the Great Lakes Basin, do not appear to include the polluter-pays principle. You recommend, among other things, allocating new money for the cleanup of sensitive areas in the Canadian Great Lakes.

Do you not think that, according to the principles of polluter-pays and businesses being accountable, those companies should participate in a fund in order to ensure that the polluter-pays principle is truly being enforced and that taxpayers will not end up being responsible for the negligence of certain industrial sectors?

[Rick Smith]

Yes, we certainly agree with the idea of “polluter pays”. That's one of the fundamental concepts of modern pollution legislation.

With respect to areas of concern around the Great Lakes, some of these are legacy areas. I believe there are 17 or so identified areas of concern on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes. As a nation, I think we've cleaned up one of those; I would have to check on that, but I think that's roughly correct. We have a poor record, to say the least.

In terms of pollution of the Great Lakes, I think we need to require polluters to pay to clean up their pollution, but the Government of Canada also needs to invest more. If you look at what's happening on the United States side, there's a huge bipartisan effort at the state level, in Washington, D.C.--I mean, billions of dollars on the table--to clean up the U.S. side of the Great Lakes. Again, why bipartisan support? I think--I believe I'm correct--that in Budget 2005, the federal government allocated $45 million Canadian to Great Lakes cleanup.

Regardless of how you measure it, whether it's political attention, political priority, money on the table, or engagement with the big polluters, the Government of Canada has not been doing its job with the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence basin.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Watson, please.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm finding some of the discussion very helpful. We're obviously getting down to problems of implementation. We've identified inter-ministerial management gaps; you've identified limited resources as being a challenge to implementation.

I have a few other questions here. In the “Bearing Point” report here, we expect that the domestic substances list will be completed by September 2006. It's a requirement of law; that's an outcome that is required within the legislation itself, if you will. Are there other requirements that we need to be putting into CEPA? In other words, are there other outcomes that should go into CEPA itself, and if so, can we be specific about what should be in there? I don't want to get into processes; I'm talking about specific outcomes and types of outcomes that should be in CEPA itself.

Anyone on the panel is free to answer that question.

[Paul Glover]

I think there are certain limitations with respect to how I can answer that question.

There is one thing I would like to point out to members in terms of our discussion today. We've had a lot of talk about ambient air. I would like to remind the committee, as it does its work, that we have one set of lungs; we breathe air, indoors and out; and we spend 90% of our time in a built environment. That is not to diminish the importance of ambient or outdoor air. We've done the studies that show the number of premature deaths attributable to smog and other bad air quality, and that on a bad air day hospital admissions go up.

At the same time, as we consider the importance of ambient air, we should be cognizant that it's one set of lungs. That bag you talked about opening up, that's in a built environment. We need to be very careful about the built environments and the pollutants and substances that we find in that area as well. They also have health implications, as we're seeing. We need to be careful about that as we move forward.

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

Mr. Watson, as you mentioned, the categorization process of the domestic substances list is just finishing. One of the things we can think about in terms of outcomes is what we are doing with the substances that have been flagged in that process as being the worst actors. We have substances that Health Canada and Environment Canada have now determined are toxic to humans and the environment, and that are persistent in the environment. In terms of outcomes that can be put in CEPA, we can think about the mandatory timelines for when we deal with those particular priority substances and what kinds of action plans we're looking for to make sure that with these real baddies--we're talking about 100 out of 23,000--something is done about them promptly.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

Regarding the terms of the surveillance we're doing, are we simply choosing the wrong types of surveillance? Should we be looking at something much different, or are we just using the data incorrectly? I guess I'm just looking at the construct of CEPA itself. Are we doing the wrong types of things? Should we be doing something different with respect to surveillance or monitoring or reporting, that type of thing?

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

I think we'd support Health Canada's position that bio-monitoring needs to be done, that there needs to be a better measure of the changes in chemical exposure reaching humans, in particular, in the environment in Canada. There is more in CEPA to establish environmental indicators than human health indicators.

At the same time, we don't want the wait-and-see approach—“Let's continue to do more research on these potentially toxic chemicals in people's bodies to see how they're going up or down.” On the ones we're seeing in people's bodies that we know are sticking around and are having a human health impact, we think we should be moving very quickly to eliminate them from our environment.

[Jeff Watson, Conservative, Essex, ON]

You're suggesting there's both environmental and human health “low-hanging fruit” and wondering whether those outcomes or targets should be in CEPA itself.

[Dr. Kapil Khatter]

Yes, and we're in the process right now of figuring out what that low-hanging fruit is.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Wellner.

[John Wellner]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On the issue of measures and what we might ask for, we talked earlier about the challenges of NPRI and some of the indicators we need to see in the emissions. One of the greatest challenges, and one that is essential to health, is the ability to transfer what the emissions are to the actual exposure, be it ambient or wherever the exposure may occur, and the human intake. We have still not managed that. If we could move to a measure where we could identify exposure, that would be great.

I think it was Mr. Smith rather than Mr. Glover who mentioned it, but there are indicators being developed, and one being developed by Health Canada that I think could be a very helpful tool has the acronym AQBAT. It's an air quality evaluation model of some sort that actually identifies a way to plug policies into atmospheric models, etc., to give us a more detailed understanding of what we're going to get out of particular policies. I think cross-party support for these types of initiatives will certainly help us have better health measures down the road.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Smith, if you would, be very brief. Then we'll go quickly to Mr. Cullen, and that will be the last question.

[Robert Smith]

Just in response to Mr. Watson, the only data collection activity I know of that's mandated by CEPA is the NPRI. There are clear shortcomings in that particular data collection activity, so it would be, I think, a shame if this review of CEPA didn't look at the NPRI in some detail and take into consideration its particular shortcomings as a data collection vehicle.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll keep this brief.

Mr. Glover, in one of your statements you talked about how chemicals go through the process while the clock is ticking, and if you don't finish and complete the assessment, they automatically default to having passed screening. Is that correct?

[Paul Glover]

We have a very specific timeframe at Health Canada and Environment Canada to assess new substances. The default is, I believe, 90 days—I would like to confirm that with the committee—at which point in time we have two choices: to render a decision, or indicate we need more time. Failure to do either of those allows the substance onto the market.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Could you present to the committee how many times since CEPA's existence a default has happened? Has it been zero times?

[John Moffet]

That's my understanding. We've never reached a situation where a substance went on the market we were not comfortable seeing go on the market.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

How many folks in each of your departments are specifically assigned to the assessment of new chemicals coming onto the market?

[John Moffet]

We'll have to get you that information.

We can all take issue with existing substances, but the new substances regime in Canada is held up as possibly the best in the world. The only country in the world that has legislation that automatically recognizes other countries' decisions is Australia; the only country they've recognized is Canada. So let me respectfully suggest that the real issue that needs to be focused on is the assessment and management and the prevention of risks from existing substances. That's where the challenges lie.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I'll take you at your word for that. I would also like to see the number of staffing people committed to this, and also, if it's possible, what that level's been like over the last ten years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Perhaps you could get that to the clerk, Mr. Moffet.