Evidence of meeting #24 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 chemical.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Mike, you had asked a question before and kind of left her to answer it.
Liberal
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Yes, it was about alternatives assessment. I think alternatives assessment is definitely important in getting bad actors out. I note that under part 5 of CEPA, for example, a bunch of flame retardants are bundled together to allow assessors to figure out which alternatives are better than others, given the fact that we have flammability standards requiring those flame retardants. What I caution against is over-prescribing alternatives assessments. We don't want to replace one chemical with another that provides a useless function. For example, we often require a hazardous property for a chemical that has to provide durability.
Can you not hear me?
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, As an Individual
The whole scope of alternatives assessment needs to be cast very broadly. We want to know whether we need that function at all before we just replace one thing with another. That was my caution with respect to alternatives assessment. Cast it broadly.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Thank you.
To take it back to Ed Fast's question earlier, how would you prescribe that we perform that assessment?
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, As an Individual
I would get people together to discuss how to move that assessment forward. I don't have the best answers now, but I know that a lot of people are working on it. In the U.S., the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine came out with a large report on alternatives assessment. So other people have considered it. It's time we did something similar.
Liberal
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Toronto, As an Individual
Avail ourselves.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
Right, if you could provide a written response to my question, it would be greatly appreciated.
Mr. Khosla, you mentioned earlier that industry wouldn't be opposed, in principle, to a life-cycle analysis being performed. Do you think that industry would be more favourable to a life cycle that would create a hybrid of risk-based and hazard-based approaches as a way of looking at chemicals so that we do fully operate under this precautionary principle?
Executive Director, Industry Coordinating Group for CEPA
I've been very clear that we support a risk-based approach and that any assessment of alternatives should occur within such an approach. That tends to happen as a matter of design. It doesn't happen every time, but when it's important enough, it happens within the risk- management discussion.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
A hybrid-based approach would provide more certainty in how we approach chemicals and what we do with them once we have uncovered data that shows what the outcome of those chemicals could be once we know how they affect the environment and human health. Do you not feel that industry would be willing to consider that type of approach?
Executive Director, Industry Coordinating Group for CEPA
There are so many ifs in that statement that I'm not sure how to answer it. If you apply a risk-based approach, you can consider both hazard and exposure. Applying a risk-based approach does not mean you cannot consider hazard. You can.
Executive Director, Industry Coordinating Group for CEPA
It's a matter of the weight you assign to it.
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
There was a question I wanted to ask earlier, but I'm going to throw it aside right now, because a couple of very interesting points have come up. I would like to thank Ms. Diamond for rattling my mind when she started talking about public places such as arenas.
A number of years ago when I was a mayor, I built a new sports complex in northern British Columbia. It was two hockey rinks surrounded by an indoor speed-skating facility, which was number two in Canada, and above that was a walking track. I remember that the contractor kind of screwed up and didn't quite get the dimensions right for an international speed-skating track, so they decided to change the foam.
They came up with a derivative of one foot of foam that was as good as the three feet of foam that the international committee required. It was for people doing 80 miles an hour around a corner if they lost control. He said that the one foot would now do what the three feet would do.
I remember a consultant I had hired sent him a simple question. He said, “Fine, but bring a dozen sheets, put them on the ground, jump from the third floor, and prove to us that the product is going to work”. They went back to the drawing board. It was a very interesting scenario in which science told us it was going to work until we asked science to prove it, and they backed out very quickly.
Mr. Khosla, you talked about the change that we saw in CEPA and you said that you feel we're working very well with industry and with CEPA. We talked about the vulnerable population out there. I have foam all around this arena, and the top has a big rubber track that people walk on. How will we use those recent inventory updates that tell us the current status of substances and stuff like that in the Canadian commerce and the likely exposure scenarios?
Here is where I'm going. You as industry develop a product for the market. CEPA gives you and works with you for the guidelines. You then sell the product to what I'll call a developer in the best scenario, who then places it in a structure, a building, or a vehicle, or whatever he is going to do. Is there a responsibility and does industry take responsibility—and you're the first line— to ensure that the users down the road...? I think this falls in with what Mr. Lickers was saying about people down the road and how they're going to be involved with that chemical or the substance that may be in the building. Asbestos is a prime example.
Executive Director, Industry Coordinating Group for CEPA
There is a substantial transmission of information down the line. It's not complete, but it does happen through material safety data sheets. There are transmissions of information down the line to major customers, which many major suppliers engage in.
Also, in the new substances area, there is a requirement for information to be transmitted to customers down the line. I think CEPA built that in for new substances, because early on that was where we tended to focus. It's with the CMP that has been broadened over the last 10 years or so to look much more at existing substances. The question of how information for existing substances can best be transmitted is something we do need to look at.
The conference that we have has a significant focus on that exact question, because you can only submit information that you can receive, and much of what we receive comes from outside of the country. So the awareness of CEPA outside of Canada matters a great deal.
I think the bilateral discussions we're having with the U.S. on supply-chain communication are going to be very helpful to us. There is also the fact that President Obama has on his table, as of yesterday I think, the new Toxic Substances Control Act replacement, which is heavily influenced by what we've done here in Canada. Significant parts of CEPA have been evaluated within that act process.
I think all of that is going to help us to get the attention of offshore suppliers in particular and to get better information. So this is something we're all very interested in to help make a better process.
Liberal
Conservative
Jim Eglinski Conservative Yellowhead, AB
I just want to ask, is there a due diligence for industry and government to make sure that information gets out further? I am talking about the general public.
Executive Director, Industry Coordinating Group for CEPA
There is certainly a lot of effort in that area, absolutely. There is a great deal of effort being expended in that area.