Thank you, Chair.
The honourable member has put his finger on a challenge that we face in the department with respect to the development of a compliance and enforcement strategy for the wide range of things that are regulated.
This is done on a risk management basis. But things do change. We are sensitive to changes in public commentary, coverage of problems that we were perhaps not aware of, or advice from the commissioner and others in terms of the appropriate allocation of resources.
One of the areas of controversy in regard to acrylonitrile was the use of the pollution prevention plan, which is one type of mechanism used to address relatively unusual or specific situations. So you establish a pollution prevention plan, which we're authorized to do under CEPA, as one kind of instrument.
Another aspect of the acrylonitrile story is the reliance on provincial action to take measures within the domain of a province. There, too, the fact is that the federal government could take action, but we are frequently, if not continuously, working in collaboration with our colleagues at the provincial level. In that particular case, we believed that the action proposed by the Government of Quebec would be sufficient to deal with the issue.
With respect to the last incremental gain, I would say that in any substance or environmental problem where we have the responsibility and the authority to act, a number of factors are taken into account, including the nature of the threat posed to wildlife or the ecosystem, or Canadians' health. That remaining 1% may be very substantial if the exposures are significant and the toxicity of an agent is high. In another case, it may not be as significant, and we probably would orient our resources—without vacating the field—to other priorities representing greater threats.
We do accept the recommendations of the commissioner with respect to these regulatory issues. I think he has rightly pointed out gaps in the data consistency and thoroughness that have to underlie a robust risk management strategy, and we will be, and indeed already are, updating the data or information about the regulated community and the levels of emissions and so on in those areas he looked at, so that our risk management strategy can then govern the actions we plan to take over the course of the year through the compliance and enforcement work we do in the department.