Health Committee on May 7th, 2009

[Marie Adèle Davis]

Thank you very much.

To respond to your first comment about the timeliness, I think timeliness does matter. The quicker products found to be dangerous to children and youth are off the market, the better. For me, if in that period of time even one child is saved an operation for a perforated bowel, then it was worth getting that product off the market.

Certainly we would look forward to working with Health Canada around the regulations to make sure that speed is of the essence in taking action, but more importantly in informing parents. We would look at all the different mechanisms that are available out there to inform parents about products that are unsafe for their children. As I said in my closing remarks—and I'm trying to go relatively quickly, to give my colleagues a chance to speak—there should absolutely be money in the action plan for surveillance.

We have not heard from our members that they are seeing cases of lead toxicity in children and youth. But on the flip side, we have had a proposal to do surveillance, to look at heavy metal toxicity in children and youth through our surveillance program, and we have not been able to find the funds to do it. So for me a very important component of the action plan, the regulations, is that we have money to do surveillance quickly and effectively, to be able to feed into the system.

[Judy Wasylycia-Leis, NDP, Winnipeg North, MB]

Let me interrupt you there, on that particular point.

In fact, we know that Health Canada has already, through its own research, found heavy metals in children's face paints exceeding the government's own proposed impurity limit. So here's a case where we have the surveillance, but we don't have anybody willing to act on it, because they won't do what Aaron Freeman and others are recommending, which is to look at the substances within products, to look at those carcinogens and products that cause trouble in terms of reproduction and all the rest—phthalates, cadmium, lead, bisphenol A, whatever—products for which we already know there's enough science to say there's a problem.

Why wouldn't we take some steps in this bill either to list them outright as prohibited or to put in place a mechanism to get at them a lot more quickly than leaving it up to government to take its merry time, whenever it gets around to it? Don't you think we should be a little more assertive at this time?

[Marie Adèle Davis]

Just by way of correction, when I talk about surveillance, I am talking about surveillance in the children and youth, looking at actual health effects rather than the product. The Canadian Paediatric Society is not an expert in products; we're experts in child and youth health care. Anything that can take products that are unsafe for children and youth off the market more quickly and inform parents would be welcome.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Davis.

I'm sorry, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

We'll now go to Mr. Uppal.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for coming, and thank you for your overall support of this very important bill.

As a new father for fourteen months, I've been out looking at all the different products and buying some things and also trying to do some research here and there where I can. However, you rely on the big stores to help you out on that as well.

I'm going to start off with Safe Kids Canada. How will Bill C-6 promote the objective of safety of children, for children of today and tomorrow?

[Pamela Fuselli]

Unlike what is currently available, the new bill takes a precautionary approach overall. But the general prohibition component of the bill is also very useful for us. The power to recall products, as in the example of the baby walkers, is fine for larger manufacturers who are willing to engage and voluntarily recall products from the shelves. That doesn't take the product out of circulation altogether, because there are other mechanisms.

The power to recall from the government is one thing we were very pleased to see in the bill. In addition to that is the inclusion of the manufacturer in the bill; it puts the onus on them when the product is being designed to think about the safety of the people who are going to be using the product. Right now, it's simply the advertising, importation, and sale.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Can you tell us a little bit about your working relationship with Health Canada? Were you involved in consultations on this bill?

[Pamela Fuselli]

Yes. As I said, we've been working with Health Canada and the federal government since about 2003—Safe Kids Canada has, not me personally. The organization has a good working relationship with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada around injury prevention issues. We were involved with the consultation on legislative renewal, as well as with the two different bills that have come before this. As I say, we've been involved with baby bath seat consultations.

With this year's Safe Kids Week campaign, we are working with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada to look at how we can coordinate and collaborate on the information we put out to parents, but also to professionals, so that when they're dealing with the public, if we are not getting to them directly, the professionals who are dealing with the community have the information they need.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

That's great.

Turning to the Canadian Paediatric Society, I know you also mentioned the magnets and the walkers. How does Bill C-6 help to ban those products faster than the current regime?

[Marie Adèle Davis]

Pam mentioned the case of baby walkers, which the Wal-Marts, the Zellers, and the Bay banned, but for which there was a whole sub-market, if you will, on the corner of the street, through garage sales and so on. Having legislation that will lead to more information being in the media and more information being on our website or the Safe Kids Canada website will just help to alert people who may sell them that it is illegal to sell them, and as I said before, it will alert parents that these are products that are not safe.

I can't emphasize enough my agreement with what Pam said during her presentation: that parents will believe that if something is for sale in Canada, it is safe. In the case of the people who were selling that back-to-sleep product and saying, right on their box, “will keep your baby in the position recommended by the Canadian Paediatric Society”, they are going to believe it's safe.

For me, what Bill C-6 does, especially by giving the government the power to pull things off the market very quickly and then to work with us to inform consumers, to inform health care professionals, is just get the word out.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

How is your relationship with Health Canada, and have you been involved in consultations?

[Marie Adèle Davis]

We have been. As opposed to me, we've been sending our actual experts in injury prevention, people who work in pediatric emergency departments and actually have to treat children who are injured because of these products and, in some cases, inform parents that their child has passed away because of an injury sustained due to one of these products.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

As a new parent, I know you mentioned a couple of times making sure that parents are aware of which products are safe or not safe. Is there a way right now that would be simple for parents to look around their house, see some toys or some products, and find out if they're on a banned list of some sort?

[Pamela Fuselli]

Yes and no. On the second part of your question, how parents can look around their own homes to see if things are safe, we recommend that parents get down at the level of the child and see the environment from their world perspective. Kids are living in environments that are built for adults' use, not their own, necessarily. As a result, we really need to be cognizant, as parents, of the cognitive and physical developmental stage of our children and what they are most likely to get into, or what kind of abilities they have.

Looking at recalls, obviously Health Canada puts out advisories. We in fact do the same thing with the Health Canada advisories. We try to get that out, by and large, on websites, media advisories, or any kind of tool that will reach the broadest number of the population to spread that information.

[Marie Adèle Davis]

One of the things we would do, for example, because we know physicians are very well listened to, especially by new parents, is to work collaboratively with the College of Family Physicians of Canada on something called the Rourke Baby Record. It actually prompts people who are providing primary care to children to ask parents, “Do you have a wheeled baby walker in your house? You should get rid of it.” We do this because we know the doctor will be listened to. We have them ask questions--and I know this bill doesn't cover it--around things such as car seats, around strollers, and to reinforce the safety message.

As well, we've recently published a book called Well Beings. It's a health care guide for day cares, because 70% of children in Canada spend at least part of their preschool time in day care. There are extensive chapters in there around injury prevention, as well as what child care providers can do to ensure a safe environment in their child care facility.

We also published a parent book and have lots of brochures, as does Safe Kids Canada, so there are a lot of mechanisms to get the information out. As I said before, we have a Facebook page now, and that's because we figure that's where a lot of young parents are going for their information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Davis.

We can now go to Dr. Bennett. We'll go now into the five-minute round, our second round; five minutes for questions and answers.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thanks very much.

Thanks to you all. It's always such a pleasure having such pros appearing before us who already have the amendments written, so we can't thank you enough.

I want to follow up a little bit on what Aaron was saying in terms of what it takes to be green, green labelling. In terms of banning labelling, all of those things, and in terms of what we want consumers to know, I wonder whether you think there should be something in the bill that actually bears a proper green light, a “This is okay” kind of labelling that allows people to very quickly go to the shelf and pick what's safe.

Is that what you were referring to, Aaron, that is in California and Europe? And that would need a committee that would decide what is allowed to carry this green light kind of thing.

We've talked about bringing traffic light symbols in for food--stuff that's good, stuff that's bad, stuff that's debatable. Is there a way we could move to something simpler, like to what Claire has seen on her eraser board stuff? Do we have good evidence that if two or three things come together, it could be that two and two makes five in terms of the way it affects the body? Do we have a process for saying, if you have this and this and this, it goes tilt in the body, as opposed to simply listing all the mean and nasty things that are in it?

[Aaron Freeman]

The kind of green light, red light labelling you're talking about with respect to a global harmonized system is more a product warning than a green or red light for the product. We haven't really talked about a “Good Housekeeping seal of approval” label.

I think the move toward a global system of labelling makes a lot of sense. Following Europe's interpretation of GHS, this would make a lot of sense for Canada. Having one label instead of three or four would help matters. You'd have one label saying there was a problem, and then you'd describe it—reproductive toxin, carcinogen, whatever.

As to the other part of your question, I think what you're talking about is synergistic effects. We understand what one chemical or another does, but we don't really understand what they do together. Our understanding of that is very poor. We have some isolated examples, some isolated studies, but part of the problem is that government's not really in the testing business. Since about 1995, we've gotten out of that business, and we rely primarily on industry data on a per chemical basis.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

In the global system, if they're not yet working on the green light piece, is that something Canada could do? Could we experiment with a system where people could go into a store and know from the label--say, a green maple leaf--whether it was safe? This way you wouldn't have to read all the fine print and add up all the micrograms.

[Aaron Freeman]

Absolutely. That's California's approach.

In respect of the GHS, first of all, we need a deadline. Second, we need a much broader range of chemicals and products covered.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

All these things have various definitions. But is there any process in Canada that now allows people to call their product green?

[Aaron Freeman]

There's eco-labelling. There's a whole range of eco-labels out there.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Is it enforced?

[Claire Checkland]

It's fairly restricted. The products that have eco-labelling are available to government employees and offices of that type. They're not widely available to the average consumer. The program could expand, of course. But in respect of the types of labelling that we're recommending, if we had more information about what was in products, we might be pleasantly surprised. At present, industry doesn't need to tell us what's in any products, except foods and cosmetics.

I've been trying to tell industry for a long time that they should let us know what's in their products—especially if there's something we need to be worried about. We're all going to have loved ones who come down with an illness—loved ones who never smoked, who ate well and exercised. We're going to wonder what caused it.

Eco-labelling is an interesting system, and it can work in some cases. I think this system, though, is a better one, and there is global action to adopt it. Canada is just waiting for the United States. If the United States was moving faster, we would be moving faster too. Europe has moved on it. Europe has established timelines—they will put a label on products so that people will know about them. In most cases, we hope the label won't even be on products, because the products will be safe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Ms. Checkland.

Ms. McLeod.