Evidence of meeting #18 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cepa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
We just want to mention that we have just sent around Mrs. Coombs' one-pager.
We start now with Mr. Eglinski, for questioning.
Just so that you all know, I use a little system. We have six minutes of questioning, and when you get within a minute, I hold up the yellow card and when we're out of time I hold up the red. I try not to interrupt, but I will be mindful of the times. Thanks.
Mr. Eglinski.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
Mrs. Coombs, would you care to elaborate a little more on your CCSPA ingredients disclosure program? Did you have support for this program from the other organizations, especially from industry?
President, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
CCSPA announced our voluntary ingredient initiative in 2008. One of the things we were looking for was to provide more meaningful information to consumers who were looking for information about the ingredients. So we launched this program, and then amended it in 2010 to increase its scope from intentionally added ingredients to preservatives, dyes, and fragrances.
We have had 100% adherence to the program from the members since its inception and we do regular audits of the members to ensure that they are complying with the program.
One of the modern flexibilities of the program is that we can provide the information to consumers either through websites, a 1-800 number, or on product labels. So companies have the option of doing one of those, or all of the above.
When we launched the program, we were very pleased to have endorsements and support from not only the Canadian Lung Association, the Canadian Cancer Society, but also the Canadian Institute of Child Health; the federal government of the day of Prime Minister Harper; and the Ontario provincial government of the day of Dalton McGuinty.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
You mentioned the three pillars: science, due process, and effective communication. I was wondering if you could just expand on that a bit and tell me what you do in your evaluation of these products.
Then after you finish, I wonder if Darren can give us a little bit of an idea too, because I think the two associations overlap a lot. There are many similarities.
So could you just elaborate a little bit more on what you actually do in the research and how far you go.
President, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
From the downstream user's perspective, Madam Chair, we are very engaged in making sure that the best science available is brought to bear in the risk assessments. As Darren alluded to, the substance D5 had a rigorous scientific review, and new science was developed and brought to that process. He can speak more to that point.
For us, we really want to make sure that the risk assessment and whatever goes out for comment is based on the best science of the day and that everyone has had an opportunity to comment, whether industry, through the draft assessments and processes, or other groups that are involved. I know that CELA and Fe have commented on almost every batch in the CMP process, CMP 1.
From an effective communications standpoint, we work very hard to educate not only our members, but our colleagues in the U.S. as well, helping them educate their members on the program so they can participate. We work with our members and their customers as well. We also work with the retail association. That is something CCTFA and CCSPA have collaborated on over the course of the program.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association
I am going to ask Beta Montemayor to comment specifically. He is a toxicologist by training and has worked in this field throughout his career.
Beta Montemayor Director, Environmental Science and Regulation, Canadian Cosmetic, Toiletry and Fragrance Association
I think risk assessment is a complicated process. It is not always easy to explain, but I will try to do that very briefly.
I think we mentioned three concepts that are always taken into account.
First, we look at the properties of a material. These are things like the shape. What is the form? What is the solubility? How is the substance going to behave on the basis of its chemical characteristics? Understanding that would give you an idea of how it is going to behave in the environment and in the human body.
We then look at inherent hazards. What is the potential that this substance may cause an adverse effect?
Then we take a look at exposure. When you look at exposure, you look at what the route of exposure is. Are you being exposed by ingestion? Are you being exposed by a topical application? Are you being exposed in the air? You look at what conditions those exposures happen under. You look at cumulative exposure.
In our products, we know that consumers use multiple products every day, so it is important to look not just at the substance in one product, but the substances in a multitude of products so that you understand the cumulative impact that has.
You look at sensitive populations. Are there groups that are going to be specifically exposed that you are going to want to make sure you adequately protect for?
Risk assessment, by its very nature, is very conservative. It uses worst-case assumptions. It allows for uncertainty to be addressed in terms of adding safety factors or uncertainty factors so that you can be sure that the outcome of a risk assessment is going to be conservative and adequately protective of even the most sensitive population.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
You both mentioned that we are leading most countries in what we are doing here. Do you work with the Europeans and the Americans and pass information back and forth? Is there co-operation between countries that have similar programs to this so that everybody is not trying to invent the same wheel?
President, Canadian Consumer Specialty Products Association
There are some differences in how the programs work. Industry does work collaboratively, I would say, on a North American basis. In my opinion, Madam Chair, the EU program is different because you have a registration process, which has been quite costly and cumbersome. I think there has been such an influx of registrations that the EU is having a hard time deciding what the priorities are.
What is different from our program is that the priorities were identified, and they went at it very systematically, so the ones that were considered to be the industry challenge, or identified as a high priority, were in CMP 1. It is a very different approach.
In the U.S., I believe they will be modifying their legislation, the TSCA. The U.S. EPA is looking at...the legislators are modifying it, so they will come up with a priority-setting exercise very much based on CMP.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you all for coming here today.
It's great to see you, Joe. It's been a little while. I hope all is well.
As Mr. Castrilli knows, I've been involved for the last couple of decades in fighting a mega-landfill from being built in our community. One of the reasons for that is the old landfill that is there has been contaminating residential wells and wreaking havoc on the environment.
We've had an incredibly difficult time to hold the company to account for that contamination in the environment, and it's because of the weak nature around drinking water standards. One chemical, in particular, that is in cosmetics, in solvents, and in many products that have been used by consumers is called 1,4-dioxane. There's no drinking water standard for it. We know it's a toxic carcinogen. We know no amount of it should be in anyone's water, but yet it's one of those chemicals that, once again, has not had the proper amount of regulatory oversight in order to virtually eliminate it from the environment so that the biocumulative effects of that chemical that ends up in landfills don't have an adverse impact on the environment and on human health.
Joe, maybe you can speak to this.
I don't know if it's a lack of resources for Health Canada to be able to do it, or if it's a lack of oversight that a chemical like this shouldn't be introduced to the environment in the first place, or a lack of, once again, substitution planning that enables this to happen in the first place.
Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
Well, thank you, Michael, for the question.
I think it's a combination of all the factors you mentioned. Our screening of substances is not what it should be. Once they're available commercially, our ability to control them is over-rated, and when that occurs our ability to ensure compliance and enforcement is not up to snuff.
I think all of those problems are embedded in CEPA as currently drafted. I'd add it's partially the fault of ineffective provincial environmental laws as well. But when you're talking about a substance as hazardous as 1,4-dioxane, the buck stops with CEPA, and CEPA has not been up to the task, I'm not going to say with respect to this particular chemical, because I'm not that familiar with it, but with respect to the release of toxic substances generally, as some of the data that we've provided to the committee demonstrates.
The levels of releases we are seeing with persistent bioaccumulative and toxic substances in the six-year period since the CMP process came into effect are not a recommendation for maintaining CEPA as currently drafted.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I'll just add salt to the wound. What we find is that many other jurisdictions in Europe or the U.S. have given CEPA a drinking water standard that we could quickly adopt, that does have a restriction that virtually eliminates this chemical, because they have readings of 0.3 to 3 ug per litre. Yet we don't adopt that science-based, factual evidence that's out there by other jurisdictions that we greatly respect.
Do you think we could also save a lot of money in research and data collection that we don't have the time or the resources for, just by utilizing many other jurisdictions' research?
Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
I agree with you.
In our material, we mentioned, for example, the situation with the application of the half-life for persistence in water that was applied during the categorization process. It's two to three times less stringent than some of the persistence criteria that we see in the Stockholm Convention, or applied by USEPA, or applied by REACH, among others There are instances where better work has been done elsewhere that could be adopted here, but it has not occurred in Canada.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Ed mentioned this earlier, as have previous witnesses, and I'd like to raise it as well. Is it not a big problem with the definition of “toxic”, in and of itself, that unless we have a definition that better categorizes a toxic substance...?
As anyone can say, yes, water, if you have too much of it, is toxic, because it kills you. But how can we establish a better definition of that to be utilized moving forward?
Counsel, Canadian Environmental Law Association
This was an issue in the last CEPA review, in 2005. Our organization suggested that the definition of what's “CEPA-toxic” under this statute makes the requirements extremely onerous in terms of—how shall I say—overcoming the hurdles that are provided by section 64 of the statute. It's one of the reasons why, though not the only reason why, there are only 132 substances on the list of toxic substances after a quarter century.
I think we have to become more realistic about what we will define as “toxic” for the purposes of regulation under federal law.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Next up is François Choquette.
Thank you very much for joining us today. Over to you.
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for your testimony. I apologize for missing your presentations, but I will still put a few questions to you.
The first question has to do with cosmetics and personal care products. The NDP worked very hard to ensure a ban on the use of plastic microbeads in those products. Those microbeads end up in the Great Lakes in very large quantities....
Do you have access to the interpretation?
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
Can I start over? I will go quickly, without repeating the preface.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
No, no, you don't have to rush. We'll start the clock again. We just want to make sure that the translation is working.
NDP
NDP
François Choquette NDP Drummond, QC
I'm sorry about this setback.
So I was saying that, for the NDP, the environment is of course very important. We are fighting to ensure that our waterways—the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River—are protected. A component of some cosmetics and personal care products, plastic microbeads, were used extensively in the past. The House of Commons unanimously adopted a motion to ban the use of plastic microbeads in cosmetics and personal care products.
As a cosmetics trade association, where do you stand on this issue? How is the transition done gradually? Perhaps you could also share your thoughts on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.