Health Committee on May 28th, 2009

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

The number of cancer cases has nevertheless increased over the past 50 years. They say that approximately one in three Canadians will suffer from cancer within the next few years. Isn't that a contradiction?

[Dr. Joe Schwarcz]

Yes. Cancer is an age-related disease, without a doubt. Average life expectancy is going up, so the absolute number of cancer cases is of course increasing. What one has to look at is the age-adjusted cancer rate, and the age-adjusted cancer rate is pretty well stable.

Some cancers have decreased. Stomach cancer has decreased dramatically. Some are stable, and others have slightly increased. The ones that are worrisome are prostate cancer and breast cancer, which, even age-adjusted, seem to show a slight increase, although not everyone agrees on that. There are also some childhood cancers that are increasing.

The question is, why is this happening? Is it because there are better detection techniques and now we are diagnosing these diseases where before we did not? Or is there something environmental going on? It's possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Schwarcz.

We'll now go to Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks very much to our presenters this afternoon.

I have one quick question to the Brain Injury Association, following up on my colleague's question.

You're aware that Health Canada is currently undergoing a consultation process where they are recommending that only ski and snowboard helmets that meet the CSA regulation will be able to be sold in Canada? You're aware of that?

[Richard Kinar]

Absolutely, yes.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Do you support that?

[Richard Kinar]

Oh, 100%; we truly feel that what we have developed is using new technology that is actually available to the manufacturers. They're refusing to do it without government leadership.

So yes, we absolutely know that, and we're 100% behind the new standard that CSA has developed.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Okay.

[Richard Kinar]

We're hoping to actually expand that to all sport helmets sold in this country.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[Richard Kinar]

You cannot have an injury prevention program in this country without offering a good-quality sport helmet.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

I'd like to ask a question to the deputy fire chief, if I could. He's been getting off pretty easily here.

I come from a household that has a fire chief and a fire prevention officer in it, so I've heard a lot of things about fire prevention and safety in the home. I've heard about the different aspects, and the horror stories they can come back and tell you about--the frayed wires underneath the rugs, the candles that have caused the house fires, and all those things. We were probably the first home in town to have flameless candles; the rest were all banned.

I know it's a very serious issue for anybody who is in the firefighting field because of the outcomes you see in terms of the safety hazards. I know that you are always concerned about the flammability of kids clothing, for example, and the standards. You also talked about the counterfeiting of different products.

Can you just talk a little bit more about the flammability issues in terms of kids clothing, the protections now, and how Bill C-6 may protect further? Then I'd like to hear a little bit more about the counterfeiting issue and how that would be improved with Bill C-6.

[Kim Ayotte]

On the flammability of clothing, there are some regulations that do regulate the flammability of clothing. However, with a lot of the clothing coming in from manufacturers from overseas, it's not always guaranteed.

I'm not familiar with, and I'm not here today to speak on behalf of, the enforcement capabilities of that. However, we do believe that Bill C-6 would provide greater enforcement capabilities for those types of manufacturing issues.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

So there is a need for a greater enforcement capability?

[Kim Ayotte]

I can't personally speak on behalf of what enforcement capabilities are out there right now, so I wouldn't want to make a statement on behalf of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs to indicate there isn't enough. I can only speak on behalf of what we see in the homes and the damage we see from these incidents. We see the burned babies, the electrocutions, and the damage. We are in favour of any legislation that will help prevent that. That's why we strongly support Bill C-6.

On the counterfeit issue, we see similar activities. Many times when we identify something that has been CSA-approved--for example, a light fixture or any type of appliance--when we do an investigation we try to identify what within the unit caused the fire. Many times we spend a lot of resources investigating these types of incidents because they've had tragic consequences. As a result we have uncovered several incidents where fraudulent CSA-approval markings have been on the products.

Unfortunately for the consumer, our method of sharing that information isn't very quick. We don't have a quick enforcement action to go out and ask for a mandatory recall of these types of products. We tend to use the capabilities of CSA and other types of testing, like ULC, to enforce it. But many times we're talking about months, if not years, before those dangerous products are either off the shelf or have been identified at their source and eliminated.

Again, any type of legislation such as Bill C-6 that could help provide a stronger, more immediate reaction instead of the delay we currently experience would be beneficial. We would definitely embrace it to try to protect our young children.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Ayotte.

We'll now go to Dr. Bennett.

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

Thanks very much.

I'm hearing support for the precautionary principle, which to my mind is that even though something hasn't been proven to be dangerous, it can't be deemed to be safe. We know there are many factors in lots of things, and for individuals being able to choose their own risk assessment, information is good. We know that even though something might have one small bit of carcinogen in it, if there were a similar product without it you might choose the other one. If all of a sudden you found that all the products on your shelf had Cs on them, you might decide to choose differently.

Patients and Canadians want to know whether things have salt in them or whether they have all kinds of other things that aren't carcinogenic. They just want to know what's in them. I'm still having trouble understanding what the downside is to letting Canadians know whether something that has been implicated in cancer in any way is in a product.

[Shannon Coombs]

My light went on. Do you want Dr. Schwarcz?

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to answer that question?

Dr. Bennett, to whom were you directing the question?

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

It's to that corner over there.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Why don't we volley it to you, Mr. Schwarcz, because I can see Ms. Coombs is begging you to answer that question. Thank you.

[Dr. Joe Schwarcz]

We come back to the issue that labelling has to be truthful and meaningful. If you put that C or that “carcinogen” on there, it implies that product is known by someone in some condition to be cancer-causing. If that is not the case, why would you be putting the C on it?

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

If it has been proven.... Take the example of the aniline dye industry, where all of a sudden it seemed that all the workers there were getting bladder cancer. In the rat studies it didn't show that. You can give rats all kinds of things. Rats live in sewers and have livers that scoop stuff up and destroy it in a better way than humans.

If something has been implicated in cancer anywhere and I'm going to choose which sunscreen I want, why shouldn't I have the right to pick the one without the carcinogen, the same as people are making choices about genetically engineered food? If they don't want to be part of this big experiment, they should have the right to choose something that doesn't have it in it. If you take that little carcinogen, that little carcinogen, and this one and that one, we don't know whether all ten of them might make your body go tilt. It's not the one product; it's the fact that in a buffet of products we are choosing for our kitchens, bathrooms, and under our sinks, people want to know. They have a right to know what's in the products.

[Dr. Joe Schwarcz]

One can make equivalent products--