Health Committee on May 7th, 2009

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

Thanks.

There's another issue I've been working on, and that has to do with noisy toys. I was hoping this bill would have something that would change the decibel level. It's now 100. It's way out of line with other countries. Do you think there's a place in this bill to actually standardize this or bring in levels of noise that are more in line with what's reasonable and won't lead to deafness or hearing problems in kids?

[Marie Adèle Davis]

I'm not an expert, but I'd be happy to put you in touch with an expert. What is interesting is that we are giving a prize at our upcoming annual conference for what was considered the most useful article in our peer-reviewed journal, Paediatrics & Child Health , last year. It is actually on overexposure to loud noises. It doesn't necessarily deal with toys as much as with video games. If you would like, I would be happy to put you in touch with the author of that journal article as well as with any of our experts on environmental exposures in things like children's toys. But I'm not an expert.

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

Thanks very much.

Rob and Cynthia, you both have different amendments dealing with the same topic area. What's the difference between your two approaches?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

We only have 30 seconds, so you'd better decide who's going to quickly answer that.

[Cynthia Callard]

I'd say that the one proposal of the Cancer Society is vitally important, because it gives the government a belt and suspenders approach for the future. I'd say the one I'm proposing is vitally important because it'll change the tobacco products on the market tomorrow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Ms. Callard. I'm sorry about that.

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I wanted to go into this general prohibition a little bit further. Perhaps, Mr. Freeman, you could answer here because my NDP colleague has been talking about these dangerous chemicals in kids' products. I have a copy of the bill in front of me, and I'm looking at clauses 7 and 8. It actually says:

No manufacturer or importer shall manufacture, import, advertise or sell a consumer product that

(a) is a danger to human health or safety;

And then we have paragraphs (b) and (c), and clause 8 says:No person shall advertise or sell a consumer product that they know

(a) is a danger to human health or safety;

My understanding is that if that's the case, it's an immediate prohibition and there's no government discretion involved. So why would we have to add or change it? My reading of that would cover what you've been talking about here.

Perhaps I could have Mr. Freeman answer that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Mr. Freeman.

[Aaron Freeman]

Thank you.

There are a couple of issues around the general prohibition. I haven't gotten a clear answer on this, but we don't actually know how far beyond the general duty of care in common law this goes. This may simply be a restatement of the duty of care that manufacturers already owe under negligence law.

Let me assume for the moment that it goes beyond that. If it does, it doesn't answer the question about what happens when the duty is.... Well, there are a couple of questions unanswered. The first is how do we know, and we don't have mandatory testing requirements under this bill. So that would be a very important element to add, if you wanted to check whether manufacturers or retailers were actually complying with that duty.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

One of the things with mandatory testing--and simply to play devil's advocate with you right here--is that Health Canada was here and they said they could get down to the nanoparticles now. I had a cup of coffee and I know that at a certain level there are carcinogens in coffee; there are carcinogens in all kinds of things. I'm coming from industry--that was my last committee, and I did talk to industry, and they talked about these different labels and the cost to industry to start testing everything, because a government's not going to do it, if something has been generally found to be safe. I think there is a general understanding of most of these things.

If there are unusual chemicals in the product, as Ms. Wasylycia-Leis stated, it appears there's no government discretion--boom, it's gone. And that's where it changes from the old act to what we're moving toward, for that specific reason.

Even the labelling idea.... Again, I was on a committee where we did alcohol labelling, and if somebody's an addict.... We all assume labels are effective, but my understanding with smoking is that the public education part of it is a part of it as well. Somebody's who's addicted to smoking--and I have friends who are smoking--looks at the label, which is a huge label, and they say “Oh, what's this?” and they make a little bit of a joke out of it.

So how much should we put on industry to force them to do all this testing and labelling? That's why I think one of my colleagues from California wanted to know if we had any peer-reviewed evidence that it actually works, because as a government we're creating a new law. If labelling works, that's great, if you have evidence of that. But if not, maybe these other public educational things might be more worthwhile to put the resources into.

Perhaps you could comment. I know I said a lot there, but do your best.

[Aaron Freeman]

Sure.

In terms of the effectiveness of labelling, you might want to talk to some of the folks from the tobacco groups on this panel, where labelling has been very effective. And it has been quite effective in California. Does a label convince someone to do what they're supposed to do 100% of the time, or even 50% of the time? Probably not. The point is to give consumers enough information to make an informed choice, and I think consumers deserve that.

In terms of the thresholds, yes, we can detect at a nano level. Any prohibition that's regulated pretty much anywhere that I've seen, including Canada, has a safe use threshold, which is essentially.... In California, it's called a safe use threshold. Here, under the Hazardous Products Act, we simply define the level below which we're not going to be concerned about. It's a diminished threshold--

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Have you figured out the cost to industry, though? I'm going to be the devil's advocate here, because there are all kinds of products on the market. Just speaking from my history, some of these costs can be very prohibitive for mandatory testing for these things.

Do you have any data on what that would cost Canadian industry?

[Aaron Freeman]

We ourselves do testing of products and of chemicals in people's blood. I can give you the costs, but the costs are low. You can test a product for metals for well under $1,000, or a few hundred dollars.

The point here is that for most products they're not going to have to worry about the testing. Only products that contain carcinogens or reproductive toxins or CEPA toxins are--

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Excuse me, Mr. Freeman, but some people need to catch planes. Thank you.

I just want to have a minute to be able to thank every single one of the witnesses and presenters today. You're absolutely fabulous.

Ms. Callard, this is the first time anyone has ever brought such a product to my health committee.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Having said that, what you've said is very important to us. We look forward to seeing you sometime in the future.

To the committee, I just have to tell you that we're dismissed. You can catch your planes.

We are adjourned.