Environment Committee on Feb. 23rd, 2016

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

It seems to run counter to the precautionary principle. The commissioner's audits in 2003 and 2008 criticize the PMRA for using lengthy conditional registrations that permitted pesticides to be used without confirming one or more aspects of their risk or value. Would you agree that created a situation that allowed users to become dependent on a pesticide that might ultimately be found to be unsafe?

[Julie Gelfand]

Yes.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Do you have any thoughts or recommendations on what should be done about the pest control products that are conditionally registered now?

[Julie Gelfand]

I think that's a great question to ask PMRA. What are they going to do with the ones that are out there now?

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

That's on the record then as a follow-up for us.

I know you're not in the business of policy recommendations, but you can't fault me for trying.

I'm wondering if you have recommendations or thoughts with respect to changes to the regulations that have enabled conditional registrations to ensure the PMRA's commitment is permanent.

[Julie Gelfand]

Could you repeat the question?

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

With respect to changes to the regs that have enabled conditional registrations, in order to ensure that the commitment is made permanent.... How can we make sure that there can be no future conditional registrations?

[Julie Gelfand]

That would be a question for parliamentarians to make a decision on as opposed to the commissioner.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

I think my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Cullen.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Commissioner, and thanks to your team.

Let me get to the NEB for a moment. How important is it that the public has confidence in the regulator over these pipelines? Is public confidence important in a regulator?

[Julie Gelfand]

I think it's a generally accepted—I was going to say philosophy, but that's not the right word; I'm thinking in French. It's generally accepted that most people would like to have confidence in the regulator.

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

I'm wondering, if we had a regulator, say of airline safety, and an auditor came in and found that their tracking system for safety was outdated and inadequate, what kind of confidence would that inspire in the travelling public to get on board an airplane?

[Julie Gelfand]

I didn't audit that, so it's difficult for me to respond to that.

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

A philosophy that's based in your audit and the way that a regulator works is that the burden of proof is not on the public to prove a pipeline is unsafe. The burden of proof is on the proponent to prove that it is safe. Is that fair?

[Julie Gelfand]

It's the regulator who would decide ultimately if the approval condition or the deficiency that has been identified, the safety regulation, is being properly followed.

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

In order to build the pipelines when the government issues a permit, those conditions that you talk about are placed upon it. They're not optional conditions. Is that correct?

[Julie Gelfand]

That's correct.

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

In order to have the licence to build and operate a pipeline, you need to meet those conditions.

[Julie Gelfand]

Yes.

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

In half the cases that you looked at, the regulator had no idea if those conditions were being met.

[Julie Gelfand]

That is correct. In half of them they were able to tell us.

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

If 50% got us through school, that would be great, but it seems like a very low bar.

What I'm tracking back to is that when we see accidents happen, significant accidents happen, and then there's an audit of sorts that comes in after the fact.... I'm thinking the gulf spill; I'm thinking Kalamazoo. One of the things that is consistently pointed out is that there were conditions placed upon the company that the company simply didn't meet. If the regulator doesn't track those conditions, does this not set us up for future accidents, so-called accidents?

[Julie Gelfand]

Our audit looked at whether or not the companies were tracking their approval conditions and whether or not they were following up on company deficiencies, and we found that in 50% of the cases they were and in 50% of the cases they were not. Regarding the cases where they were not, it was everything from the company corrective action not being provided, to the board not following up to tell the company that it was doing the right thing, to no final conclusion by the board as to whether or not they had met the deficiency, to missing documents. It definitely is a concern when the regulator is not able to satisfy the auditor that they are properly tracking, and it potentially does increase the risk.

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

Right. Not only does it increase the risk, it decreases the confidence. Confidence in all of these conversations is important because the risk is real when transporting material over long distances, over waterways and things that people care about.

I want to move over to pesticides just for a moment. I've tried to understand through reading your audit whether it is still possible or even likely that there are harmful products that are being sold to Canadians without the knowledge of the seller or the consumer. Is that a scenario that is still possible today? These conditional registrations, these nine products that have been sitting out there waiting.... You noted in your audit in several cases that harmful products were still being conditionally kicked down the road.