Evidence of meeting #23 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 technology.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Philip Jessop  Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual
Michael Burt  Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.
S. Todd Beasley  Founder, Technology Co-Inventor, Chief Operating Officer, Canadian Chemical Reclaiming Technologies Ltd.
Chris Bush  Operations Manager, KPD Consulting Ltd.
Kerry Doyle  President, KPD Consulting Ltd.

12:15 p.m.

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. Philip Jessop

My understanding is it's based on pure chemical and the impact of the pure chemical, and not on the mixture and not on the amount used. If you had a fertilizer that needs very little used but it's a bit more toxic versus one that's not quite as toxic but needs a vast quantity to be used, that is not taken into account in CEPA, in my understanding. In terms of life-cycle analysis, it would be taken into account.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you very much. I appreciate that.

Mr. Bossio.

June 14th, 2016 / 12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Once again, as everyone has said, thank you all for coming here today. It's great testimony and an interesting discussion.

Where to start?

Mr. Burt, although you say California is not a state that has a high degree of manufacturing, I think they'd probably argue differently. What about Massachusetts?

12:15 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

Michael Burt

That would be one that would be reasonably similar, although I must admit, I don't know their—

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

What about Ohio?

12:15 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

Michael Burt

I couldn't tell you about that state's manufacturing.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

They're both comparable. Ontario has 1,295 facilities reporting on the NPRI, and Ohio has 1,465 facilities, and yet Ontario's on-site air releases of carcinogens is almost double that of Ohio's, with 3.4 million kilograms versus 1.8 million kilograms. I wanted to point that out.

We've been talking a lot about risk versus hazards based assessment, and I like where Mr. Jessop is coming from, and even Dayna Scott, another witness last week, who had gone along the same path of it isn't one or the other. There needs to be a full life-cycle analysis that is done.

I'd like you to describe the process of looking at it from a risk versus a hazard based assessment that would be done in a life-cycle analysis. Would you agree with that?

12:15 p.m.

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. Philip Jessop

Of a product or a process?

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Okay.

12:15 p.m.

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. Philip Jessop

Thanks. If you're comparing the new technology to the old technology, what you do is take a look, and you calculate the emissions of every single chemical that's involved in both technologies, including making the materials needed for those technologies. Then you calculate all those chemicals that are involved, good and bad, and how much is going to be released of each of those chemicals into the environment during manufacturing or use, or whatever.

Then you ask how much ozone depletion that is going to cause; how much global warming it is going to cause; how much toxicity to fish is going to be caused. All of these different environmental impacts are calculated for all those chemical releases from process A and process B. Then you sum them up and ask in terms of global warming, which process is better; in terms of smog formation, which process is better. You have maybe 10 or 20 different environmental impacts and you compare which process is better, the old one or the new one. If on the bulk of that, the new technology is less impactful than the old one, then the new one is green.

12:15 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

Thank you very much. That was a great description.

Would you agree from a risk standpoint it's more evidentiary as far as post-consumption is concerned, in a sense, as introduced to the environment versus a hazard? In a full life-cycle analysis you want to look at both the pre- and the post-introduction to determine which chemical is going to be less of a hazard to the environment. Is that correct?

12:20 p.m.

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. Philip Jessop

Yes, sir, that's right. In a life-cycle analysis, you have to look at pre- and post-consumer. For example, if a—

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

I'm sorry to cut you off, but I don't have a lot of time.

You're almost looking at a cradle-to-cradle approach to chemicals and the introduction to the environment. It's great that we're looking.

Mr. Burt, one thing I have to say with Dow is that you're looking at things from a cradle-to-cradle standpoint as well.

Mr. Bush, Mr. Beasley, and Mr. Doyle, your testimony seemed to be heading in the same direction in how to take this cradle-to-cradle approach where we're taking the least hazardous approach to introducing these chemicals to the environment, but trying to minimize the impact of those that are hazardous.

Would you agree with that, everyone?

12:20 p.m.

Operations Manager, KPD Consulting Ltd.

12:20 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

12:20 p.m.

Professor, Department of Chemistry, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. Philip Jessop

I have one more comment. If a chemical is green and harmless, but making it is harmful, then that is bad. We have to take that into account.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

I would like to take it down to even a deeper level with one statement that was made by Mr. Burt, and that is, ”With the debate on endocrine-disrupting chemicals, we believe the science should continue to be developed by the risk assessors and endocrine disrupters continue to be considered in assessments wherever appropriate. There is no need to take special consideration of endocrine disruption into CEPA. The potential bioactivity”, etc.

What I would question you on this is, where there are vulnerable populations and marginalized communities, and such exposures during critical windows of vulnerability in assessments of cumulative exposures to substance and classes of substances, would you not say we need to take a more proactive approach at looking at those windows of opportunity and minimizing the toxic impacts they could have?

12:20 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

Michael Burt

Yes, we are in support of looking at the mode of transport when it comes to endocrine disrupters. We think the CMP and CEPA currently do look at the risk assessment. If there are vulnerable populations, then they should be taken into consideration when it comes to the risk assessment.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

The risk assessment, but what about taking a hazards-based assessment approach? Would you say that, if another body, a world body, through REACH or the EPA, finds that a chemical is hazardous and toxic, it should be mandatory that an assessment be done on that product immediately? That is one instance. On the other hand, where we start to see these indications, should a hazards-based approach be taken to look at where those vulnerable populations could be impacted?

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Mike, we are running out of time. We are overtime, so if we could get a very quick answer to that, in 30 seconds....

12:20 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

Michael Burt

First of all, I would probably say no. The issue we have now is that we have some jurisdictions that we are not aligned with when it comes to how they assess chemicals. Just because one jurisdiction says it is hazardous, that doesn't mean Canada should unilaterally also agree with that. We need to look at our assessment—

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

An automatic assessment....

12:20 p.m.

Corporate Director, Regulatory and Government Affairs, Dow Chemical Canada Inc.

Michael Burt

Well, we have a risk assessment process right now.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON

There are many instances where that fails.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

All right, let's see if we can pick that up in the next round of questioning, possibly.

We are moving to Mr. Eglinski.