Evidence of meeting #49 for Health in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was pmra.
A recording is available from Parliament.
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
Mr. Rankin is a member of the Sierra Club. He actually got an email from me yesterday with a link. It was posted on our website.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Ben Lobb
Fair enough.
Mr. Rankin, I can assure you that this isn't a billable minute here. I haven't billed you here, so you have a couple of minutes yet.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
You're a very fair chair.
Transparency, putting the requirement for access to the data evaluation reports in the act, is a fundamental recommendation.
Then I was turning to the precautionary principle. Section 20 references that, but not, I think, globally. Your recommendation is that the precautionary principle be writ large in the statute, is that correct?
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
It is, absolutely, as well as that it be interpreted correctly. I believe that the PMRA interprets it backwards. The caution they take is to not offend the pesticide companies rather than to protect the public.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
The other concern you've raised in your testimony today relates to conditional registration. I think you indicated that there are some products that have been conditionally registered for 10 years, if I'm understanding you, and yet they still have outstanding scientific reports, toxicity reports. We heard this in the context of neonics two days ago. Surely that's a problem with the statute, not merely the administration of the statute, if you're allowed to have conditional registrations go on and on and on, where key data is simply not available.
Am I understanding what it is you think the act needs to be amended to reflect?
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
In fact, part of the reason for the change from agriculture to health was concern about issuing conditional licences, and the practice hasn't stopped. In the documents, when you do get them, the PMRA actually states exactly how many conditional licences are still outstanding. The problem is it's hard to tell unless you get someone at the PMRA to actually tell you. You can't go to the registry. You can't go to a website and find these things.
This shouldn't be allowed at all. If you're following the precautionary principle and you need any more information about a pesticide, then you shouldn't put it on the market until you have that information.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Indeed you've spoken today about 55 pesticides that, based solely on conditional registration, remain on the market.
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
There are 55 pesticide products, and these are just the neonicotinoids. They're basically different formulations of four or five basic pesticides. Often we're talking about exactly the same chemical with exactly the same condition, and we're still waiting for those things.
When we know that minute amounts of these toxins can do such tremendous damage, this practice should not be allowed until we are absolutely sure.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
The other recommendation you made at the end of your remarks was that the act should be amended to ensure that the need for a new pesticide be demonstrated as part of the approval process. You're suggesting that there be not only efficacy, environmental, and health requirements but also a justification for making this particular product available on the market. That's an interesting proposal.
Have I understood you correctly?
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
Yes, because we have so many chemicals in circulation now that, if we continue to add them, we will have continual problems. So if we're going to put forward a new chemical, we had better need it; there had better be a reason for doing so. If it's better at doing something than another product, then maybe that other product should be withdrawn, but we shouldn't keep adding to the total constantly.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
Would the citizen review committee be in addition to or in place of the advisory committee that exists?
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
It would be in place of it, because what we have now is an “in crowd”. There's no way for us to access it; it's just another old boys' club. You really have to experience calling up the PMRA and asking a few questions to realize just how patronizing they are to the public: we don't know anything and we should just listen to them. When you ask them for details, that's when they stop giving you information.
NDP
Murray Rankin NDP Victoria, BC
I would say that the last observation may be more a function of the people appointed and the administration of the act than of the statute.
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
It may also have to do with the fact that they are way understaffed. If you try to get information from them, there's one person in the PMRA answering all the questions—one person. We know that, because we've talked to him. There used to be four, but that number wouldn't have been enough either.
Conservative
Conservative
Eve Adams Conservative Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Thank you. It's a pleasure to have all of you here. Thank you so much for joining us.
Could you revisit your testimony for me? On the one hand, obviously, as you can imagine, we are deeply concerned—I myself as a mom and as a consumer—about what it is we put on the table and about what we put on the table in the most cost-effective manner possible. But I'm far more concerned about some of your other items: how we can ensure that the safety of what we put on the table is assured, and what more we could be doing to ensure that safety.
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
Well, we can make the process more transparent. We can make a statement in advance that we're not going to add chemicals to the environment just because a manufacturer wants to put that chemical on the market; that there needs to be a purpose for it and that there should be withdrawal of another thing. There should be a way in which, when we see that there's a problem, we can back out of it without it being a problem. With the structure and the way that decisions are made now, the regulatory agency becomes as defensive or more defensive of its decisions than the pest management companies.
Conservative
Eve Adams Conservative Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Could you walk me through that? Let's say that something is coming forward and that as consumers we'd like to put some concerns on the table. What happens at that point, and what recourse is there? What is the feedback mechanism at that point?
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
Our experience was when the European Union announced its decision on the neonicotinoids. We contacted the PMRA and asked them why Canada was not doing the same thing. When Mr. Aucoin was here, he said that they work with Europe and United States. Well, they do, until Europe makes a different decision, and then they turn away.
I was told that this neonicotinoid problem was isolated to a small area in southern Ontario and to a few isolated incidents because of the particular weather situation in 2012 and that this was the only problem; there were no other problems. But I very soon discovered that there are close to 1,000 studies around the world, all of them suggesting that we need greater restrictions on neonicotinoids.
Conservative
Eve Adams Conservative Mississauga—Brampton South, ON
Mr. Bennett, I don't want to have you lose your train of thought, because I would very much like you to continue responding to that question. But my understanding is that in southern Ontario it was limited to a few farms, and as the ministries and folks worked with farmers, they changed the way in which their properties received the pesticides. Part of it was in the mechanisms by which they delivered the pesticides; part of it was the over-spraying into surrounding areas; part of it was due to the wind direction. I received a litany of rationales, frankly, as to why it had spread beyond the particular farms that were supposed to be using the neonics.
My understanding is that at this point, after working with the farmers, after educating the community, the incidence of this type of over-spraying and its impacts has been decreased by more than 70%.
Is that your understanding at this point?
Conservative
National Program Director, Sierra Club Canada Foundation
The Ontario Ministry of Environment and Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs is putting restrictions on the use of neonic coatings on soybeans and corn, as they reject that industry portrayal.
The neonics are persistent. They get into the soil; they get into the water. There are studies in Ontario and in Quebec finding watercourses that are contaminated with neonics long after they should not be there.
What you have expressed is the popular way it's being expressed by the industry, but the 1,000 studies around the world all indicate that there are other problems.
Conservative