Evidence of meeting #32 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.
Policy Director, Ecology Action Centre
Yes, but it's healthy scepticism. Environmentalists are healthy sceptics. We've learned to be healthy sceptics. Often I think the human race is a little too arrogant when it develops new technologies. We introduce them first and then try to patch up the damage later. What we're trying to say here is to be very careful because once the genie is out of the bottle, you can't get it back in again.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thanks to the folks here. Hi, Mark.
The problem with going last is a lot of people have already asked the questions I had.
Mr. Bacon, you talked about reformulated foods, and I know there are no GM pulses. Can you tell me what a reformulated food would be? You have “improving nutritional outcomes or values”. It sounds a lot like it's genetically modified, but maybe you could give me a bit of extrapolation on that.
Chief Executive Officer, Pulse Canada
I'd be happy to. I'll use the example of a slice of bread. A major Canadian company and many small ones have come out with a bread that now includes pulse flours, rather than just wheat flour or multiple cereal flours. Canadians are supplying a major bakery in the U.K. with both wheat and pulses for a reformulated bread.
I'll give you some quick numbers. Pulses' protein levels are 24% or 25% to wheat's 12%. When you start adding 20% or 30% pulse flour to bread, you increase the protein content, increase the fibre content, and change the glycemic response so that blood sugars aren't spiking as high. Reformulated foods are really foods that are healthier and more nutritious.
I want to add another element. Sixty per cent to seventy per cent of non-renewable energy use on a farm is related to fertilizer production, transport, storage, and application. With investments in science and technology in Canada, we have pulse crops that do not require nitrogen fertilizer. As legumes, they can take atmospheric nitrogen. So in combination with this reformulation to improve nutrition content, we have lowered the environmental footprint of these food products. I think this is a really exciting area.
Most of the calories consumed in the world come from cereal crops. If we look at adding pulse crops and improving the nutritional content and reducing our environmental footprint, it's going to be a combination of looking at reformulating our food and educating consumers to make smart choices that will allow us to make an enormous gain in the environmental impact of food, which accounts for about 30% globally of greenhouse gas emissions.
If you want to look at what I think is the exciting part of low-hanging fruit, to change the environmental footprint of food—not agriculture but food—we need to start looking at the food consumers are eating and the messages we give them to make informed choices. That's what I meant when I talked about reformulated food.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
Thank you. I'm glad I asked you that.
Mr. Boyd, nice moustache, the second nicest one I've seen today.
You spoke of substitution. You said to eliminate and replace, and then you spoke about Sweden. You mentioned that Sweden and the EU are successfully using a substitution replacement procedure, and that CEPA should include a substitution clause. Can you give us some specific examples of successful chemical substitution in Sweden or the EU?
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Certainly. Just to take one off the top of my head, Sweden was the first country in the world to prohibit the use of polybrominated diphenyl ethers, which is a horrendously long chemical word. It's a family of brominated flame retardants, which causes a wide range of adverse effects on human health when humans are exposed to it.
Sweden was the first country in the world to ban the use of PBDEs in manufacturing and also in products. This raises a point we haven't discussed here today. Canada just last week completed a very drawn-out regulatory process for PBDEs, under which we have now banned the three major groups of this chemical compound, but our regulations, unlike the Swedish regulations and the European regulations, continue to allow the use of PBDEs in consumer products. These are flame retardants that are added to things like children's pyjamas, mattresses, televisions, and computers. It's to reduce their flammability.
In Sweden and the European Union, they have used the process of substitution to find alternatives that are less toxic and less dangerous, and they have completely eliminated the use of these PBDEs. That's an example of how substitution can work in a very important fashion.
As a related note, when we're talking about a risk-based approach versus a hazard-based approach, one of the problems we've encountered with the risk-based approach is that our science is constantly evolving. We are learning that substances like lead and benzene and PBDEs are actually more harmful to human health at lower concentrations than we previously determined. With a risk-based approach, you're having to respond over time and are continually lowering the amounts in which you'll allow exposures. With a hazard-based approach, you flip that around and you just don't allow it unless it can be proven safe. It's a more expeditious way of dealing with these toxic substances.
Liberal
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
Substitution is a great spur for innovation.
The reality is, we have to find chemical substitutes that are safer, that are greener. In places like Sweden, the European Union, and California, which are leaders in chemicals management, they have created whole new industries called green chemistry. They're finding the alternatives. It's really phenomenal, an economic boom, so part of the clean tech future of Canada should include a very prominent green chemistry sector.
Liberal
Darren Fisher Liberal Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS
The environment and the economy go hand in hand. Sorry, but I hear that somewhere every day.
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
That's right.
I also haven't mentioned, when you look at the cost benefit analysis of these stricter environmental regulations, what you find is that the costs are dwarfed by the health benefits. In the United States, for example, they estimate that full implementation of their very strong Clean Air Act by 2020 will have an annual cost of approximately $65 billion, but it will have an annual benefit in terms of the health benefits of over $1 trillion. On average, they are seeing about a 30:1 ratio of benefits to costs for air quality standards in the United States.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte
Okay, we have a chance, if everyone is willing, to do another session of six minutes each. I think we can do that.
We'll just follow the same format, if Ms. Duncan wants to go ahead and take it.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
I have just one quick question.
Both Mr. Butler and Dr. Boyd talked about the right to participate and gain access to information, and so forth. However, something has occurred to me. When we talk about environmental impact assessments, it has become the norm where impacted communities or first nations seek costs so they can hire the appropriate experts, so they can review and make proposals, yet for the review of toxins, it isn't included in the legislation.
I'm wondering if either of you would think that we should start having provisions as well in CEPA, where there is notice of potential to.... Where the citizens want to trigger a review of a chemical, or the government has announced it is going to be reviewing a toxin, potentially to ban it, there would be the potential, or at least the power with the ministers of health and environment to actually provide costs so that you can provide independent experts.
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
That's an excellent suggestion.
The flip side of that is also something we haven't spoken about, which is a consumer's right to know the hazardous substances in consumer products. The European Union has a comprehensive system. California has a comprehensive system. There is a harmonized UN system for labelling of hazards in consumer products. I think that is a really important addition to CEPA.
We've talked about consumers and the possibility of consumers misunderstanding, but if we actually had information on the packages, that would really help people make informed wise choices.
Policy Director, Ecology Action Centre
The short answer to your question is yes.
I mentioned that I found CEAA, compared with CEPA, to allow for much more public participation. My problem with CEAA is that the EIS is developed by consultants hired by the proponents. I'm trying to figure out a way during the CEAA review for a truly independent scientific document to be the basis of the review.
It's interesting that with CEPA, though, we actually did have some relatively good signs coming out of DFO, but they were largely ignored by the regulating department. To actually get the bigger environmental assessment, we had to go through freedom of information. We should put transparency and the importance of science—of independent science—on a much higher pedestal than it is right now.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
Thanks.
We look forward to having you both here when we review CEAA.
Liberal
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
I have a question for Mr. Boyd.
You're promoting an amendment to CEPA to allow for the imposition of pollution taxes. I understood that the power to tax already exists.
If the Minister of Finance chose to impose a tax, he could do that. Am I wrong?
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
No, I don't think you're wrong. Certainly, the Constitution gives the federal government broad taxation powers.
I think the specific issue of pollution taxes may be one that Environment Canada has encountered some resistance to, so that's why I'm suggesting it be made explicit in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. It may be confirming something that already exists, but that's not the understanding of at least some officials in the department.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
If the government did go forward and tax pollution, that pollution presumably is pollution or emissions of toxic substances that are presently below the maximum thresholds. Is that correct?
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
That's right.
Conservative
Ed Fast Conservative Abbotsford, BC
These are thresholds that were established based on current science, presumably on the impact of these emissions on human health. This tax, presumably, would be layered upon the existing carbon taxes that are already in place across the country, or implied carbon taxes when you look at jurisdictions like Ontario and Quebec. So we have the carbon taxes in place, or carbon pricing, then we have pollution taxes layered on top of that. In some cases the same companies that are already paying the carbon tax are paying also a pollution tax. You can see the escalating burden that we're now imposing on companies across the country. I'm just concerned about the balance, with the environment and the economy going hand in hand, what impact it does to shift that balance.
Adjunct Professor, Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, As an Individual
I think that's a fair question, Mr. Fast, but if you look at the fact that all of our industrialized competitors, the United States and European countries...in the case of the United States they already have pollution taxes. European countries are dealing with both carbon taxes and pollution taxes. The basic principle behind pollution taxes is that we know these substances are causing externalities. They're having impacts on the environment. They're having impacts on human health. The purpose of the pollution tax is to internalize those externalities.
In Canada, we're literally discharging billions of kilograms of toxic substances into our air, into our water, into our soils, on an annual basis. A pollution tax, if it has been calibrated correctly, should be based on the toxicity of the substance, and then applied on a per kilogram or a per tonne basis.