Environment Committee on June 16th, 2016

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

This is not a consultation question. The question goes to this: should the law require that government take into account the potential impacts of a chemical on an indigenous community?

[Dr. Henry Lickers]

I would say so.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Next up is Mr. Shields.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you to the witnesses who are here today. As always, I learn a lot more each day. It's really interesting.

The professor mentioned the adjectives being used. We've heard many scientists saying “sound science”, “true science”, “best science”, and “hard science”, and you're right: we're hearing those adjectives, and they don't help to resolve anything.

On the traditional methods for or knowledge about traditional indigenous species, last night I was reading stories in Canadian Geographic about Canadian government scientists collecting information. They were looking for small animals. They went out and set their traps just recently and couldn't find any small animals, and then said that they had all disappeared. The aboriginal person said to take them over on the other side of the hill, where they found a lot. So yes, that's there as well.

But to go back to the chemical industry, my sense is that you described CEPA as legislation that's successful. Could you expand on that?

[Amardeep Khosla]

Certainly, Madam Chair. I think I have some numbers here. To the end of 2015, of the 4,300 substances that were identified for assessment, about 2,740 were assessed.

I'm quoting government figures here. Three hundred and sixty-three were substances or groups of substances found to be toxic. That's about 13% or 14%. Seventy-six final risk-management instruments had been published for about 325 substances. That is an order of magnitude greater—or possibly two orders of magnitude greater—than you'll find pretty much anywhere else, and certainly more than we were able to achieve in the 20 years preceding the implementation of the CMP, so it is a huge achievement, I think.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Okay, you also talked about examples. You mentioned the knife, and I understand, but you also mentioned that it was just an example. You have other examples. You talked about success with this. Could you share some other examples?

[Amardeep Khosla]

I'll just remind you of a case that I think the Mining Association of Canada shared with you in their comments here. It was about copper. Copper is ubiquitous. It's necessary for any number of things, including the transmission of electricity, yet it does have some toxic effects. What does one do with copper when it is so essential not only for practical day-to-day things but also for certain bodily functions? You're not going to ban it. The main sources of releases, I believe, are animals and humans, so you can't really take drastic measures with those. You have to manage it. Taking a simple, hazard-based approach to management would lead you to make very black and white considerations on what to do, whereas a risk-based approach helps you to look at the areas where you're actually experiencing the problems, and then you can tailor your interventions to suit those problems.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

You talked about improvements to the CMP. I heard you the first time, but could you go back to it again and review the improvements that you would like to see in it?

[Amardeep Khosla]

These are actually improvements that the government has already made, and this is just as a practical result of having done all this work. We're the first country to have done it, so there have been evaluations of what has worked and what needs to change. We have started to see cumulative assessment being introduced into the CMP. It's not possible in all cases. It is in some, so for phthalates, for example, a cumulative assessment was done. The whole methodology was developed by the government. It was shared in workshops. Extensive input was provided. That was done without prescription. It was simply recognized as something that needed to happen.

The five-element assessment framework is the one that says if another jurisdiction has looked at it, we'll do a certain type of assessment, and there are five different levels of those assessments that come into play. It allows a very tailored direction of resources to the places that need the most effort. You don't just have one assessment approach for everything.

Then, at the practical level, this question of information from industry is a very expensive topic. We are 2% or maybe less of the global industry, so it's difficult for the tail to wag such a very large dog. We do what we can. We do the best we can on information, but the more we can provide the people we're asking the information from, with confidence that we actually know exactly what it is we want, the more likely we are to get it.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That goes to your point about the willingness to supply data. You're willing to supply more, but it needs to be the right data because of the resource issue—but you're willing to supply more.

[Amardeep Khosla]

Yes, if the case is made that it is needed for assessment purposes, and it's not just a blanket request for information, but that we take this and make it into discrete chunks of necessary information, I've not heard a single industry say no to doing that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Cullen is next.

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

There was a suggestion earlier by Professor Diamond to take a life-cycle approach to some of the toxins that we're talking about. Does your industry group have a position one way or the other on that?

[Amardeep Khosla]

I can't say that we have a position on it. I can say that over the years I've run into many conversations on life-cycle approaches, and they've generally been very supportive of the approach.

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

Professor Diamond, we heard from both Dr. Scott, whom you mentioned earlier, as well as an industrial agricultural group, about the different standards that we have here in Canada vis-à-vis the United States, or Europe, on some of these things. Dr. Scott testified that we have the lowest standards for bioaccumulation in the OECD. Is this something that your research has pointed to? Is that something you can confirm?

[Prof. Miriam Diamond]

Your question was with regard to bioaccumulation and Dayna Scott's comments about the threshold for bioaccumulation. That is an interesting case where the prescription that was written into CEPA, I think in the late 1980s, reflected conditions at the time. Our understanding of what can be considered to be problematic has been refined since then. Other jurisdictions have reduced the threshold for bioaccumulation. In CEPA, the factor of bioaccumulation is a factor of 5,000. In other legislation it is 2,000. I believe that's a case in which we need to update and use the best available science.

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

One of the recommendations the committee is meant to consider is that if a group like the OECD or one of our trading partners in Europe or the United States comes with new science, new information about something like toxicity or bioaccumulation, there should be some mechanism within CEPA so we can incorporate that new science rather than rely on something we came up with 20 or 25 years ago. Would you would support that recommendation?

[Prof. Miriam Diamond]

That would definitely be a recommendation, and it ties in with not being overly prescriptive of the actual numbers, but rather being prescriptive and saying that the best available science needs to be used. It's enshrining the principle of best science.

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

I have one last quick question for you. Then I would like to turn to Mr. Lickers for a second.

We also heard in testimony that even when a substance is deemed toxic under CEPA, companies are not compelled to act. I found that testimony a bit surprising, together with the fact that Europe instills a “no data, no market” strategy under REACH and some other provisions. Why does Canada not do this?

[Prof. Miriam Diamond]

That's a good question I can't answer. I can ask it, yes, but I can't answer it. There are things in CEPA that need to be fixed and that's one of them.

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

Mr. Lickers, with respect to this notion of bioaccumulation, we have also heard quite a bit of testimony about vulnerable populations: the very young, the aged, the sick, and first nations people, particularly first nations people who are connected to the land and eating food from the land. I represent northern British Columbia, and this is true for many of the people I represent, who, on some of the evidence, are shown to be more at risk for things like.... If we have worse standards for things like bioaccumulation, and people are being exposed to things like mercury and other toxins in their food source, should there be a stricter and stronger provision within CEPA with regard to specific populations rather than using some generic, standard Canadian of 180 pounds going to the supermarket?

[Dr. Henry Lickers]

It's one of the things we would look at favourably because the people who are most vulnerable for us are women and children within our communities. So to have somebody looking—it's like a principle in science. When you're measuring something's effect, you don't pick the hardiest to test it against, but you take the stage in life that's going to be the most impacted. You can protect that hardy guy, but if you kill off all the kids your species isn't going to last.

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

We've heard testimony that things like these flame retardants we've been talking about and some of the other toxins that we know can have huge effects, particularly on vulnerable populations—in utero, early childhood development.... Indeed, the government has banned certain of these toxins in water bottles, yet they still exist in other parts of the food supply. It seems to be the opposite of a holistic approach, where we're saying this stuff is so dangerous that we're going to make sure it's not in baby soothers and not in water bottles, but it remains in other products that mum ingests and goes into the child that way.

Is there a way within CEPA to start to look at the whole suite of exposure and how that impacts populations like the ones we've mentioned?

[Dr. Henry Lickers]

I go back to your concept of evidence-based stuff. If a compound is going to be tested and you test it for the strongest people in your society, then you're not fulfilling the testing requirement you want it to be, namely, safe. You should be looking at those who are most vulnerable. For example, you don't test a compound against eels because they can tolerate just about anything; but you test it against trout, a delicate creature, so your testing becomes much more rigorous.

I used one example from Health Canada and some of its risk analysis of compounds, and how it's calculated. For native people, we eat a heck of a lot more fish than that.