I'd be happy to comment on that, not just as president of the CWTA but as someone who spent a bit of little time on public policy.
I think in the end we have to have institutions such as Health Canada that set the norm. We need to have institutions that will weigh the evidence and examine all of the evidence itself. It's not because a scientist somewhere comes up with one study that says one thing or another, that this should be enough to completely change everything that we have. I think it's important to have institutions and groups that will weigh scientific evidence that is peer-reviewed to examine what the risks are and what standards need to be set. Once those standards are set, then you have to expect industry—that I now represent—to follow the standards that are set.
The fact that there is a willingness to have ongoing studies is only normal because human knowledge never ceases and we have to have an evergreening process of understanding. What we see with the peer-reviewed international studies is that there's no reason to conclude that there are risks. But we know there are significant benefits and that must be taken into account as well.
We see this often in public life. We always want to find the balance. We always want to find the middle ground. What's the middle ground? Sometimes you may have people who believe that the earth is round and some who believe it's flat. The answer is not in the middle. You can't just say, “It's probably like an orange sliced in half: most of it is round, but some of it is flat.” That's not the case.
That's why it's important to look at the body of evidence, and the body of evidence is that this is safe. We must continue to examine it to see if there are other things that can be done to make sure that we protect public safety, absolutely. I think, in the end, institutions like Health Canada have that responsibility. We have to make sure that they have the resources to make that assessment, and then Industry Canada must make sure that industry complies with the regulations. Luckily for us in Canada, that's what we have now.