Public Accounts Committee on May 6th, 2010

Evidence of meeting #13 for Public Accounts in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was health.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Chapter 2, Risks of Toxic Substances of the Fall 2009 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

MPs speaking

Shawn Murphy
Stéphane Dion
Meili Faille
David Christopherson
Andrew Saxton
Derek Lee
Terence Young
Bev Shipley
Daryl Kramp
Earl Dreeshen

Also speaking

Scott Vaughan  Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Cynthia Wright  Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Glenda Yeates  Deputy Minister, Department of Health
Karen Lloyd  Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Department of Health
George Enei  Director General, Sciences and Risk Assessment, Department of the Environment
Brian Gray  Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
Jim McKenzie  Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada

10:50 a.m.

Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment

Cynthia Wright

I just want to underscore that we do take this as an important area and we are actively continuing to manage these substances, older substances as well as the newer ones.

I just want to clarify.... I know that I left Mr. Christopherson a little confused in terms of where we were at on the action plan. What we did was that we added an extra element to it of collecting.... The commissioner made the point that Canadians can't find out today what's going on and what we're planning to do. So we added into our action plan--it's not reflected in the details of where we're at--to put that information together on the website. We have completed that, but that delayed us on the integrated document that pulls it all together, which will come out shortly.

10:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Shawn Murphy

Again, thank you very much.

I just want to remind everyone that the committee of course will be writing a report on this hearing and that report will eventually be tabled in Parliament. Again, I want to thank everyone for the meeting.

I remind everyone that there is another meeting starting at 11 o'clock, so I would urge everyone to vacate this room as soon as possible.

The meeting is adjourned.