If I'm going too fast, slow me down. I'm obviously happy to answer questions after my presentation.
I mentioned earlier that some parts of CEPA are designed to codify in domestic law international obligations.
Slide 15 speaks to two of those situations, where we have a very comprehensive regime that limits disposal at sea, basically in line with the international obligations under the London protocol, which placed very significant limits on what can go into the ocean for disposal. It's largely only inert products, and then only when the government is satisfied that disposal at sea is the environmentally best or preferable option.
Similarly, we have an extensive regime that regulates and establishes a permitting regime for hazardous imports and exports in transboundary movements of hazardous waste and hazardous recyclable material.
These international regimes, however, are not static and get updated from time to time as new issues emerge. Since CEPA was last amended in a comprehensive manner, there have been two amendments to the London protocol, in 2006 and 2009, and we have not updated CEPA to keep track with and to codify those changes to the international regime.
Going to the next slide on water, I mentioned that in terms of regulating or restricting water pollution, section 36 of the Fisheries Act, which is a broad prohibition, is a powerful tool and is indeed the main tool that Environment and Climate Change Canada uses to restrict discharges into water. We enforce the prohibition, and we have regulations dealing with municipal waste water, effluents from metal mining, and effluents from pulp and paper.
However, we do have two broad sets of authorities to regulate water pollution. One is under the toxics provisions. We have developed a couple of fairly minor regulations under those authorities. Those are quite old. In the last decade or so, the main emphasis has been on the Fisheries Act.
In addition, the main way in which we use CEPA to address water pollution is that under CEPA we can regulate product content in a way that will minimize water pollution. The Fisheries Act has a broad prohibition on putting stuff in the water, but what we can do under some parts of CEPA is regulate product design and content. An example would be the phosphorus content in detergents. Again, rather than regulate how everybody uses their washing machines, we can limit the amount of phosphorus that goes into detergents at the product design and production level. Phosphorus is a problem in fresh water because it can generate excess growth of algae and muck up the ecosystem.
In addition, as my colleague mentioned, we have broad authority to establish guidelines, which has been done extensively, both from a health perspective and from an environment perspective, and in many cases jointly with provinces and territories, resulting in guidelines that are issued under the auspices of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
The final set of authorities I'll speak to are described on slide 17, and there are two. One is emergencies and one is the federal house.
Under emergencies, as the slide indicates, the government has authority to require the preparation of environmental emergency plans. We have a set of regulations that require the development of plans by a wide range of facilities that are using an extensive list of substances, the release of which could be problematic. There's a strong focus on prevention of pollution and on ensuring that potential sources of inadvertent release are well set up to respond to, manage, and mitigate those releases as effectively as possible.
In addition, scattered throughout the act are various authorities that essentially allow the Minister of Environment to intervene in the case of an emergency. The minister can require somebody who has been responsible for a spill or other kind of emergency to take action and incur costs. The minister can take action herself, or can compel the government to take action and then recover the costs of taking actions, which of course in some cases may be the most expeditious thing to do.
One technical issue we have is that in some cases you have an emergency; something gets spilled in the water, let's say. There's a bunch of things you could do, but you're not sure which one will work best. Ideally, if you're a scientist, you want to replicate the scenario in a controlled manner, which could mean putting a deleterious substance in the water. Even though you're doing the research for good reasons, that would violate the prohibition in the Fisheries Act for depositing deleterious substances.
Although we have a robust regime that allows us to respond to emergencies, we do have this challenge where in certain types of responses, we might be violating other statutory authorities. That is some kind of wiring that could be addressed in your review of CEPA.
As I noted earlier, we have authorities to address actions on the part of the federal house, although to date these authorities have been used quite sparingly. I think we have two regulations and one code of practice.
We also have a couple of other authorities that allow the government to take action to address specific sources of air pollution and water pollution that cause problems in a transboundary manner if, say, a facility in southern Ontario is causing air pollution and is affecting air quality in Michigan. These authorities have never been used. We have instead established nationwide regimes for water pollution under the Fisheries Act and air pollution under CEPA.
The final slide I'll speak to is the one with a bar chart. The main message is one that I've given to every new minister in the last 10 years and to our colleagues at Treasury Board.
With all excuses to our friends in other departments, like Transport Canada, I think Environment Canada and Health Canada are in a relatively unique situation from a regulatory perspective. The simple example I give is that no new mode of transportation has been invented in the last century. Of course we need to continue to update our transportation regulations, but we're not dealing with new modes of transportation. On the other hand, from an environmental protection perspective, we have not yet assessed all substances that are in use in Canada. Inevitably, we're going to find more that need to be managed. Inevitably the government, regardless of its colour or stripe, is going to decide that in some cases, regulations are warranted, or at least some kind of intervention is warranted.
Similarly, we're starting to implement the federal, provincial and territorial air quality management system that contemplates the federal government setting baseline requirements for numerous air pollutants.
Finally, of course, lots of potential action on greenhouse gas could be taken by the federal government. There are a lot of issues that have not yet been fully understood, assessed, or managed.
You see this growth in this chart. What I'm suggesting is that regardless of the particular predilection for intervention or non-intervention by whatever government is in power, we're likely to see a need to intervene on additional issues over time.
One other point I'd make is that this chart significantly understates the level of activity. This counts discrete initiatives, discrete instruments. A lot of what we do is to amend regulations. I gave you the example earlier of the prohibition of various substances regulations. It's one regulation that covers—I don't have the exact number with me—about a dozen substances. As we identify other substances that need to be essentially prohibited, instead of promulgating a new regulation, we'll add that substance.
Similarly, we regularly update the regulations that address air emissions and vehicle emissions from, for example, light duty vehicles. We're remaining in lockstep with our colleagues in the United States. Each time it's not a new regulation, so it doesn't count in the bar chart here, but it's a significant new activity undertaken by the two departments that adds an increasing level of protection to Canadians and the environment.
With that rapid and broad tour of the statute, I'll stop. As I said, we're both happy to answer any questions that you might have now or in subsequent sessions.