Health Committee on June 2nd, 2009

[Kathleen Cooper]

There is a danger of companies being in charge of the information supporting what they'd like to see happen. By the same token, there is a principle called “the polluter pays”. That's for emissions of pollution, but it's the same idea. When we regulate pesticides in Canada, the companies do the work. It should not be up to the taxpayers of Canada to pay for massive amounts of scientific investigations to evaluate millions and millions of products.

By the same token, we need people on staff who can professionally evaluate the information coming to them and look at the broader peer-reviewed literature and be able to make a decision based on that kind of public interest investigation.

On the one hand, it's a very legitimate concern, so you build in those. But think of the costs. Think of the amount of time and money for the government to have to do all of that work. It would be an obscene amount of money. And why should we--we, meaning the citizens of Canada, the Government of Canada--have to prove that something is safe? It should be safe before it comes on, and there should be literature to support that. And there should be that infrastructure within government to evaluate it and look more broadly than simply at what industry is placing before us. That's the approach we take with pesticides.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Does anybody else have any comments on that?

[Lisa Gue]

In general, I think we appreciate the way that this bill is structured so that it does put more of the onus on the manufacturers to ensure that their products are safe before they bring them to market rather than always putting government regulators in the position of catch-up, trying to demonstrate the danger. But it also relates to the point Monsieur Dufour brought up in the last round, that there does need to be an underlying capacity within the agency to enforce these provisions, and for surveillance and inspections as well.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I'm going to go back to the import again. I'm wondering if when you were reviewing the bill you saw any problematic areas with regard to the importation of products into Canada. Should the bill be amended somehow to make sure that it's a safer area, or to make it better?

[Lisa Gue]

I'll be brief so that others can comment.

The amendments I proposed that require the phase-out of priority categories of toxic substances and require their labelling, to the extent they remain in products, must apply to both imports and domestically manufactured products--anything that is placed on the market in Canada, to parallel the language the European Union uses. This should not in any way disadvantage domestic manufacturing. The idea is for a consistent standard across the board.

[David Skinner]

I can make a brief comment—and it goes back to a previous question as well—about what happens to products in international commerce and so on.

The resources the government would have to have to pre-approve every single possible product that would ever come on the market before it comes on the market would make that an impossible task. Recognizing that, are there any best practices globally for regulating products?

Every country seems to take a slightly different approach, but they all have the same outcome in mind. With that in mind, speaking from our world of health products, there are things called mutual recognition agreements whereby competent regulatory authorities talk to each other and build confidence that the systems they are using result in the same outcome. Therefore, they can have confidence in a product moving in international trade.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you, Mr. Skinner.

We'll now go to Mr. Uppal.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to get back to Lisa for a second. You said that there is really no substantive evidence that Proposition 65 is making Californians safer or healthier specifically because of Proposition 65. Do you think it's because there's so much information? People may have been almost turned off by it or just overlook it now or are overexposed to information. There's all this information, and then it's also a matter of what people do with it.

The example Ms. Cooper had was pretty good. It was just one issue; it was pretty concise. But if you had a number of elements in there, there would be all this information, and then what do you do with it? What do consumers do with that information? You can go to the Internet, but not everybody has the Internet. I know, as a new father, with our new baby, that on the Internet itself, and even in the books we're reading, there's so much conflicting information on there. There are all these experts, even doctors. When do you start feeding? When can they have honey? When can they not? When can they have eggs? When can they not? The information is so different. Where do consumers go with all this information?

[Lisa Gue]

Again, I guess I would come back to a comment I made earlier. I think the legibility of labelling is an important detail that Health Canada would be able to deal with in the implementation phase of this type of provision.

I think what's needed right now is a strong legislative mandate. There are examples, some of them positive, some that could be improved upon, in the case of Proposition 65, that Canada can look at to resolve some of those very issues.

In general, we know that there is consumer demand for this kind of information. Will everybody look at the labels? No. Will some people look to the labels? Yes. And I think the increased awareness has likely played a role in what California is now doing as one of the world leaders in promoting green chemistry solutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Cooper, did you want to make a comment?

[Kathleen Cooper]

I want to agree with what Lisa just said.

I think we're asking a lot to say that this one law makes Californians healthier. Making that kind of linkage, a cause-and-effect kind of analysis like that, would be pretty tricky to do. I think we know that it's enormously popular in California. And it has led to the kinds of innovations that have definitely contributed to that whole movement towards green chemistry in California.

On the issue of who to believe, I think there are ways people decide who they're going believe and which sources of information they're going to find reliable. Public health nurses across this country are getting the kinds of questions we've been talking about. Which product do I choose? How can I make better choices? That's what I was getting at in my remarks. People want more information so they can make those kinds of choices, and that's what this kind of labelling would provide.

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

It was mentioned earlier that Canada could become a dumping ground for some of these products. Is that happening elsewhere? Is that happening in other states, other than California? Do we know if that is happening already in other countries?

[Lisa Gue]

The reality is that where leading jurisdictions are prohibiting certain categories of toxic substances in consumer products, those manufacturers are looking for markets elsewhere in the world. So we know that in the absence of those kinds of restrictions in Canada, the products will be sold in Canada. We know it's happening by the absence of any regulation to prevent it.

If we were so lucky as to have effective labelling requirements, we'd be better placed to be able to answer that kind of question, because we would be better able to know what exactly is in Canadian consumer products.

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

I guess it's just the way you think about it. It sounds like we are this dumping ground, but do we have any examples of products we have that may not be as safe for us and that California will not allow in, where they're saying no? Where are these other jurisdictions?

[Lisa Gue]

Well, brominated flame retardants are a good example. All PBDEs have been banned in the European Union in electronics. Canada, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, has just recently issued a draft proposal to catch up with a similar regulation that will be in place in 2011. So we do know that today televisions are being sold in Canada that contain neuro-developmental toxicants suspected of causing cancer—decaBDE—and those same manufacturers sell televisions to the European market that don't contain those substances.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you very much, Ms. Gue.

We'll now go to Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Ms. Gue, you mentioned cumulative effects. I'm struggling with the question of how you would measure those effects. With the definition in the bill of danger to human health or safety, it clearly outlines and includes chronic adverse effects on human health in the bill already. I think everybody around the table would agree that covering both acute and chronic concerns is of the utmost importance to Canadians. What I am struggling with is understanding specifically.... It seems that chronic health hazards are already covered in the bill as I read it. So in the specific amendments you are proposing, how would they improve on the general prohibition and what is already there?

[Kathleen Cooper]

Can I respond?

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Sure, yes, please. Both of you would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Ms. Cooper, would you like to start with that one? Go ahead.

[Kathleen Cooper]

On cumulative effects, as I said in my remarks to begin with, we barely have the techniques to evaluate the cumulative effects of similar groups of chemicals. We're starting to do that with some pesticides. We've done it to a certain extent with smog-forming air pollutants. We don't even have the methodology to be able to evaluate the cumulative effects of many different chemicals, like the examples in the vacuum cleaner bag that I mentioned.

Given that scientific challenge that exists, people want to apply precaution; they want to reduce exposures, especially where they have the power to do so. The popularity of the cosmetic pesticide bans, first in Quebec and now in Ontario—well, first in municipalities across the country—stemmed from the recognition that exposure to multiple chemicals from many different sources was occurring and the desire to support initiatives that reduced exposures that are unnecessary. Those pesticide bans are popular across the country. They're very popular in Quebec and Ontario, where we've passed legislation like that. It's the same sort of thing here. People want to know so they can make choices. They can look at a cleaning product that has a whole lot of nasty chemicals in it, and they can look at another one, and they can choose that one because they don't need those chemicals; they choose not to have those. They're not asking for them not to be on the shelf, but they choose the alternative because they have the choice, and they have the information.

It's a way to be able to address the fact that we have so many exposures, and to give people some ability to take responsibility themselves and limit those exposures.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Ms. Gue, do you have an amendment you could propose that would improve on the general prohibition and what's already in there? The way I read it, the cumulative effects appear to be already covered in the bill the way it's written. Do you disagree?

[Lisa Gue]

I did mention in my comments—and I'd be happy to provide you with a copy of them—that the interpretation section of the bill specifically includes chronic health effects, which I believe is what you're referring to in the definition of “danger to human health or safety”. That's very important and is a clear signal of the intended direction of the bill. The disappointment is that there's no explicit provision for enforcing that intent. If we rely on the general prohibition, we don't have any indication from Health Canada. It's difficult to imagine how that could be effectively implemented to prohibit chronic health risks. It gives the government the tools to require incident reporting, but chronic health risks don't lend themselves to incident reporting, because they occur as a result of an accumulation of exposure.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I agree, but I think this gives us flexibility. We just heard from Ms. Cooper that there really is no way to measure all these cumulative effects. Has your organization looked at the cost to industry that would result if we put something like that in there? Do you have any estimations on what that cost would be? Has anybody looked at the cost to industy? Who would measure it?Would it be industry's responsibility, or would we have to set up a new government agency? Would we do it through CEPA? What would we do?

[Lisa Gue]

I think it's an acknowledgement of those complications that we are proposing a categorical legislative mandate to phase out cancer-causing substances and substances that are toxic to reproduction in consumer products. It would of course be very difficult and expensive to pinpoint exactly where every single exposure occurs. But we know that cumulatively there are devastating health impacts associated with these exposures. We know that to a large extent they don't need to be in products. So it would be a real step forward to signal a whole shift in direction that would move manufacturing away from those risks.