Environment Committee on June 14th, 2016

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

I made it, barely, through second-year organic chemistry. There's no way I'm going to follow that particular line of questioning.

Professor Jessop, I have one quick question for you.

Do you see any value? I don't know if you have experience with the U.S. market, but there's been some testimony that's talked about trying to harmonize with some of the efforts being made in the U.S. When you talked about de-risking innovations and the scale-up challenges that we have in Canada versus the U.S., is there any value in our seeking some harmonization with the higher standards in the U.S.?

[Dr. Philip Jessop]

Absolutely. I think the best thing for industrial uptake of technologies is minimization of risk and minimization of legislative complexity. If we have different regulations in Canada versus the U.S., I think that will inhibit uptake of new technologies.

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

Thank you for that.

Mr. Burt, Dow has extensive operations both in the U.S., your home, but also in Europe as well. Is that true?

[Michael Burt]

That's right.

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

You work within the confines of the REACH program in the European Union. Is it less profitable, less innovative for you to work under the jurisdiction there?

[Michael Burt]

Obviously, we continue operations in Europe so it's a profitable geography for us. Our preference is to go with a risk-based assessment that we have here in Canada and North America. There has been a lot of talk about the REACH program, CMP, some of the other programs they have in the U.S., but I think most of the countries are now realizing that a risk-based assessment is the type of a process that—

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

One of the other principles, aside from the risk-based approach, is the no data, no market. We've heard from several witnesses, including the Mining Association of Canada, the Canadian Labour Congress, Dr. Scott, that the data available under the Canadian system is incredibly poor and that there are qualifications in Europe that you can't bring a product to market without sufficient data as to its exposure and the risk to consumers and the broader public. Would an increase in the data available to Canadian consumers provided by industry be of some benefit?

[Michael Burt]

Well, I guess I would take exception to the fact that they state there's substantially less data for products coming online in Canada. We see that a lot of the chemicals that are being introduced are being assessed quite appropriately.

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

Let me ask you one specific thing, though. We've heard through testimony that the Minister of Health can't demand data from companies. The Minister of the Environment can on certain things under CEPA, but that provision does not allow the Minister of Health, if there are health concerns raised about a product, to insist that data be collected from the industry providing that product. Would that be something that Dow would be open to considering?

[Michael Burt]

When we have new products that come online both in Canada and the U.S., we get multiple requests for additional data, sometimes from many different regulatory bodies. We try to adhere to those and provide them when possible. I'm actually not familiar if the Minister of Health could demand or not here in Canada.

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

There has also been a question about consistency through the marketplace. That water bottle you have in front of you I suspect is BPA-free.

[Michael Burt]

Yes.

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

Yet the soup, if you were to take a bowl of it, came from a can where the inside of the can was laced with BPA products. We ban it in bottles to prevent children from being exposed to BPA, yet the can of soup that mom or dad buys for them from the store still has BPA and the exposure happens. Should we not have a more consistent approach to these types of things, if we deem them toxic?

[Michael Burt]

It's all risk-based, how the BPA is being applied.

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

Sure.

[Michael Burt]

Typically, BPA in most products is harmless unless the element is being heated up. If you have a situation where you don't have any heating of the element, it's typically not released into the environment. One of the strengths about CMP and the Canadian legislation is that we look at how it's utilized, how it's risk-based.

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

Sure.

Dow recently lost a case in Louisiana on asbestos. You had to pay out a $6-million fine. There's a bit of a contradiction. This came up in testimony earlier as well, that when we're looking at toxics, looking at something like asbestos, where Dow and other companies have persistently fought the banning and use of asbestos in the workplace, it provides something of a contradiction to your earlier testimony, I suppose, about responsible care and, you know, we advise our children to look both ways.... We have a known carcinogen that remains in the Canadian marketplace continuing to do harm. I don't understand the company's stated goals of being more responsible, given its litigation record and its lobbying record against the EPA, for example, to continue to allow asbestos to be used in things like brake pads and other products.

[Michael Burt]

Once again, I guess I'll go back to the hazard versus risk discussion that we've had. Most elements on the planet are toxic at some level. Some are hazardous; some are carcinogenic. Dow continually looks at a risk-based approach with most of its products, so in some uses and applications we have scaled back many products, and in others we've continued to fight for their use.

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

As we go through this conversation, we're often looking for new recommendations on substitution policy. I find it a bit confusing. I don't suspect anyone around this table would want to move into a house if they were told there was asbestos in the attic. Someone could say that they used a risk-based approach and they feel it's safe. If given an alternative for my kids to grow up and work in an auto plant or in a mechanics' shop, between brake pads coming in made out of something other than asbestos, then I would suggest that they're fine to take that chance. I simply don't understand why we don't have better substitution and more urgency from companies like yours to simply acknowledge what we all know, that exposure to asbestos in any form would be something seen as undesirable, if not outright litigious.

[Michael Burt]

Most large chemical companies, Dow being one of them, continually look for substitutions of products. That's one of the things we do in our R and D: can we make it better, safer, faster, and less expensive? Moving forward, I'm sure we will continue to use that process.

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

Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

Mr. Fisher.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you very much to the witnesses today.

Kerry and Chris, when this committee was first formed, I said that the environment is our biggest challenge, but what a lot of people don't recognize, and you guys do, is that it's also our biggest opportunity: take an environmental issue, find a solution, create economic value, and provide jobs. That is equally true of waste water and sludge treatment as it is with mercury-bearing light bulbs and how you handle them at the end of their life. Find a solution, create economic value, provide jobs.

This is an amazing example of the green economy and things that we talk about in government all the time. I'm really interested in your inspiration for this, your struggles, how does something like this come about? Do you see that as a problem first and then as a possible economic opportunity?

Is this something you want to do? Do you want to green the earth? What type of struggles do you have when you're trying to do this? Is it finding markets for the pieces?

My last question for you folks would be, how can we encourage more companies to see this as an economic opportunity?

[Kerry Doyle, President, KPD Consulting Ltd.]

Madam Chair, first, I'd like to thank you for allowing us to present.

Manure isn't very glamorous.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!