Evidence of meeting #45 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
Could we look at how it's going to read in the English paragraph, please? It has “testing conditions, test procedures and laboratory practices to be followed for replacing, reducing or re-”. Is that “remeasuring”?
I'm looking for clarification on the final version when we replace line 23 on page 10.
January 30th, 2023 / 12:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
The clerk can confirm, but I believe the intention is that the third “re-” is “refining”, so it would read “to be followed for replacing, reducing or refining the use of vertebrate animals”. That is the sequence that has already been adopted in other amendments that the committee has already discussed. The concept of “replacing, reducing or refining” is just repeated here.
12:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Does the English wording of the amendment need to be changed, or is it somehow understood or...?
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
12:10 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Mr. Chair, if Mr. McLean is interested in doing some kind of subamendment to take out the word “refining”, he will note that NDP-14 did remove that word, so he would have my support in that if he's interested.
12:10 p.m.
Conservative
Greg McLean Conservative Calgary Centre, AB
I will leave that to the NDP to modify if they would like to do so.
12:10 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
Given what I would say is the temperature of the room, my guess is that it wouldn't pass, so I will leave it be.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay. We're now voting on G-10.
Shall G-10 carry?
(Amendment agreed to: yeas 11; nays 0 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
G-10 carries. Therefore, NDP-14 cannot be moved. We'll now go to G-11.
Go ahead, Mr. Duguid.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With regard to paragraph 67(1)(e), the government side proposes to revert to the original text of the bill as introduced. If enacted unamended, the Senate ENEV committee amendment also risks undermining the risk-based approach to chemicals management under CEPA and the CMP—the chemicals management plan—more broadly. I would place that amendment on the floor, Mr. Chair.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I understand the government's concern about changing from “highest risk” to “highest concern”, but I think that in addressing this, taking out the specific references to “carcinogenic, mutagenic” and “toxic to reproduction” does a bit of a disservice, especially given the testimony we heard earlier about explicitly referencing these pieces.
I propose a subamendment, keeping the change to “the highest risk” but reading “classification of a substance as a substance that is carcinogenic, mutagenic, toxic to reproduction or poses the highest risk”.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It would help if you had a copy written down for the legislative clerks.
12:15 p.m.
NDP
Laurel Collins NDP Victoria, BC
I can email something. It's very similar to the language that this is replacing, except for the “highest risk”.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We'll just take a moment here.
Do you need us to wait before we debate the amendment? No?
Go ahead, Mr. Duguid.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Mr. Chair, in light of the subamendment that has been proposed, I wonder if there are some reflections from officials on both the amendment and the subamendment.
12:15 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Ms. Farquharson and Mr. Moffet, who would like to reflect on this?
12:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
I'm hoping I can ask my colleague Ms. Farquharson to explain the way in which the bill as proposed already includes the concepts of, as I explained earlier, carcinogenic, mutagenic and toxic to reproduction.
12:15 p.m.
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Environmental Protection Branch, Department of the Environment
Sure.
Under subclause 21(1) with respect to subsection 77(3), after it's been determined that a substance is toxic, there's a part that says “Mandatory proposal”. It says if the substance is toxic and persistent and bioaccumulative, if it is a danger to human health and is carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction, or it is otherwise of highest risk, then it must be put on part 1 of schedule 1. For all three of those, that provision also says it's as defined in the regulations.
That's where you have the specific mention of CMR substances as being those that should be on schedule 1. That's CMR as defined by the regulations.
If you go to section 67, you see that section 67 about the regulation-making power. It says already that you can make regulations about characteristics of a substance. I want to make sure that I'm right about this. It includes substances that are carcinogenic, mutagenic or toxic to reproduction. This provision you're looking at right now is about the regulation-making authority for substances of highest risk.
Does that make sense?
CMRs are specifically mentioned where it says that you should put them on part 1. Then in this part about regulation-making authority, there are two subsections. One is about defining what CMR means and one is about the highest risk.
12:20 p.m.
Liberal
Terry Duguid Liberal Winnipeg South, MB
Then your argument would be that there is some redundancy in the subamendment?