Thank you.
I want to follow up a little bit on page 26 and exhibit 2.5: “Toxic substances are present in household dust”. Madame Faille raised an issue. It would appear that there is always a conflict between what consumers demand and what we are actually concerned about.
In this particular exhibit, you talk about the household dust that is present. It comes out of all sorts of things that we use, such as electronics and cellphones. There's been a concern about cellphones, about the transmission of their waves and brain cancer, and yet I think if you were to go around this room you would see that everybody has at least one of them. Yet because it seems to be a consumer demand, we as consumers will set aside--“well, it's not going to happen to me”--whatever the issue is.
One of the things that is not mentioned here is the example of the energy efficient light bulbs that we have. There are all sorts of statistics out there to suggest that the worst things you could actually have in your house are these energy efficient light bulbs, because of what they expel when they're on. And if they break, you don't want to be around them. The question is, are they disposed of in landfill sites? For most of them, there is no specific place for them to go; they get thrown in the trash, and when the trash goes out, that's what happens to many of them.
How are we regulating, in our risk management, the consumer demands that do not always seem to reflect the environmental concerns or the health concerns of Canadians? I guess that question goes certainly to the AG's office and to Health and Environment Canada.