Evidence of meeting #22 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.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
I'll just ask one final question. If I have any time left, I'll pass it on to Mr. Amos after this.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Mr. Bossio asked my exact question, so he's obviously been peeking over my shoulder. If industry is approving the risk-based approach, how is it truly benefiting from maintaining the status quo? How big a kick would it be or how big a hit would it be to industry if we were to move to hazard-based approach?
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
I can't answer that part of it, but I think what they benefit from is the toxic substances staying on the market longer than they should be.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Okay. That's all I have, Madam Chair. I'll pass it over to Mr. Amos.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you. I'll move quickly.
Ms. Scott, to what degree do you think budgetary limitations have impacted the effective implementation? Setting aside the legal problems that you see with the structure and focusing on implementation, to what degree to do you think the challenges are budgetary?
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
I don't know. I think certainly in 2006, when the chemicals management plan was launched, it did seem that quite a lot of resources were put towards getting those screening assessments done in a much more timely way than such things had been done prior to that. I think, in many cases the shortcomings are with the act.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC
Okay.
In your recommendations 3, 6, and 7, you speak about “mandatory duty to assess alternatives”, “mandatory preventative or control actions”, and “mandatory substitution test”. The picture is fairly clear here: you're saying we need to shift away from a discretion-oriented statute. Can you speak more broadly to that theme of the necessity to give government, the executive, fewer options in terms of the implementation of the act?
12:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
As I explained, one of the options available in the act is to go through the very rigorous screening assessment process, find a substance toxic, list it on schedule 1, and then take a regulatory option that includes “taking no further action”. I think that's completely opposite to what Canadians expect. If this many resources are going to be put towards screening assessments and the answer comes out that a substance is toxic, people want to see mandatory action. That means that our exposures to this substance are going to decrease over time. I think they want government to be accountable to that as well. That might mean changes to monitoring systems and biomonitoring systems.
With the discretion that's built into it, CEPA is far enough removed from ordinary people's lives. All of you have said that, really. People don't follow this, right? They don't know that once BPA was found to be toxic, and that made headlines, that a couple of years down the road they had to check to see whether it was in their kids' lunch containers or not. That's why I think we need to lean towards these mandatory precautionary actions.
12:25 p.m.
Liberal
12:25 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I think Mr. Fisher put it well, because what we're asking here is whether CEPA is working, whether it is succeeding, where it is succeeding, and whether it is failing us.
Dr. Scott, the scenario I follow is this. A single mom goes down the grocery aisle, shells out the extra bucks for the PBA-free bottle, and in the same aisle grabs a couple of cans of soup for the kids. Is CEPA working in that instance? We all celebrate and we seek the better options for consumers, and consumer education, and all the rest, yet if something's listed as toxic, and “do nothing” is an option, then I'm confused by that. Something goes through that whole rigorous process and is found to be toxic to humans, and the company or the government has the option to do nothing? Who makes that—
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
The government does.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The government does? The government can say it has found this to be toxic; this is bad for anybody; we wouldn't want to expose any of our kids to it, and our recommendation is to do nothing?
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
Yes, that option is available in the act.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
The option to do nothing is available in the act. Okay.
Our average voter would say, “Well, why did we go through this whole process of doing something like banning BPA in water bottles if it's available in all the rest of...?” I was just looking at the American Medical Association's recommendation, which says that consumers should avoid things in cans like soup, meat, vegetables, meals, juice, fish, beans, non-meal replacement drinks, and fruit. They recognize that this encompasses almost all canned foods.
One of the frustrations we often have is that the pretense of consumer protection can sometimes be worse if it's not followed all the way through. I guess my question is how consistent the application of CEPA is in terms of the way the government has interpreted it.
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
That's a good question. You can tie this exact shortcoming that you identify with respect to the regulation of BPA to the fact that there is an exposure requirement in section 64. Basically what happened on the BPA assessment is that the evidence was good, quite strong, that at very low doses—and we're exposed to BPA at very low doses—those would be significant in the context of an infant because of the lower body weight, but those low doses wouldn't be significant in the context of a grown person. That was the finding from the risk assessment. What that allowed the government to do was to craft a risk management measure that focused only on baby bottles even though that fell short, as we mentioned, because those same infants are going to still be exposed to BPA if they are breastfeeding.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Right. Mr. Shields talked about this vulnerable population. If Mum is consuming BPA, we know what BPA can do. It will bioaccumulate. It will transition through to the fetus.
12:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, As an Individual
Yes.
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Okay.
Ms. Duncan, you mentioned in passing that we have no mercury regulations. That seems like a big—
12:30 p.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
What I wanted to say was that the biggest lack is of political will, and I'll tell you where the origins are.
First, I'm concerned that you don't just talk about consumer products, because this act is the only federal tool for regulating trans-boundary pollution and major toxins like mercury, lead, PAHs, and on and on, dioxins. These are important. These are huge sources of public health risk.
It used to be that, when major projects were proposed, the federal government would intervene. Then slowly it pulled out, and so now when major projects are reviewed in Canada, there is no federal presence. There is just an across-the-board lack of political will for the federal government to exercise its responsibilities under CEPA.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Obviously there is still a lot of interest in doing some questioning, and we do have some time. Would people like to extend the session? I'm looking at the time. We could do three minutes each.
I would like 15 minutes of your time to discuss a couple of things that have come up for committee business after the questioning, if you are all accepting of that. Are you guys all okay with 15 minutes?
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
