Public Accounts Committee on May 6th, 2010

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

What is the name of that committee?

[Karen Lloyd]

It's the committee on health and environment, but there's also the national advisory committee under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Whenever we're coming out with an assessment or a risk management action, we notify both those committees in advance and we consult with them.

We have meetings and we have a lot of conference calls and a lot of e-mails.

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

My other question is somewhat broader. Let's look specifically at substances like lead and mercury. Lead is currently number two on the international list of hazardous substances, and mercury is in third place. How do you explain that fact that we still have no strategy targeting those two substances in particular?

Could you tell us how the government disposes of computer equipment, given that cathode ray screens contain lead? So, what does the federal government do with its computer waste?

[Glenda Yeates]

I will answer the question about why these more dangerous chemicals don't have specific strategies. I wouldn't want to leave the committee with the impression that it was because they were being ignored in any way. In some ways, it's precisely because they were known to be serious risks, or known to be risks that we needed to tackle, that the tackling of them began often 30 or 40 years ago.

We have a number of individual procedures, a number of regulatory areas, which we have followed up on over the years in lead, for example, to tackle everything from gasoline to teakettles or solder in tin cans. We've gradually been working on those--

[Meili Faille, Bloc, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Yes, I saw that in the Commissioner's report.

However, my question is… You are federal government officials and, as such, you hold positions of authority in the different government departments. I would like to know how you dispose of computer waste in your respective departments. Also, how do you ensure that this equipment does not end up in the environment? Good practices begin at home. The federal government is a major user of computer products and systems, and I would like to know how you deal with this. If you want to impose certain practices on the industry and on a wide scale, you have to be able to explain how you operate yourself.

[Glenda Yeates]

I appreciate the question. The Department of Health does not do the enforcement for the Government of Canada as an employer or for the Government of Canada as a property manager, so I'm afraid that I don't have that information in terms of how the government.... As you say, we do the regulation overall, and the government is one of the entities that clearly has to respond to the regulations, just as a private sector company would.

I'm sorry, but I don't have that information. It's not something that the Department of Health leads for the Government of Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Merci, Madame Faille.

We're now going to go to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

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.

[Cynthia Wright]

I can start, and I'll allow my colleagues to add to it.

You're quite right that many of these things are ubiquitous in products. That's why we are working on this regulation to deal with, for instance, the content of mercury in products. We envision this regulation becoming a standard to which we can add other substances so that we can quickly regulate these other substances that contain hazardous products.

The second thing we are working on--and we are working with the provinces on this--is what we call “extended producer responsibility”. Many of the provinces already have requirements that hazardous substances have take back programs, so that the substances go back to the manufacturer or are disposed of in a specific way.

We are now looking at whether or not there should be national regulations governing extended producer responsibility. There are also initiatives that municipalities and private companies are putting in place.

There are the two ends of the spectrum. One is preventing or reducing the amount of a hazardous substance in a product, and the second is dealing with the disposal of that product in a safe and sound manner. With respect to things like computers, there are now places that do collect and disassemble them in Canada. Sometimes there are actually valuable minerals that can be recycled and reused. That is now happening in Canada.

There are also standards for avoiding shipping offshore without proper assurances that it's going to be disposed of properly. For the Government of Canada, Public Works governs that, but it is in response to the regulations and instruments that we're putting in place.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

As my colleague said, there have been some significant steps taken. Those need to be recognized. For example, mercury emissions are down by 90%. The concern seems to be that when these substances are coming in from other countries, our faith in some of the importers isn't likely to be really high, because they will do whatever it seems to take to get the product into our country.

This leads me to a question with regard to what the AG has talked about and that is the attention paid to the adequacy of departmental actions. Regarding enforcement efforts and the ability to recognize a risk without having to go through some sort of complex process, if there's a problem, how do we get to the point and what do we need to be able to do where we can get that product jerked off the shelf and put back and gone?

[Cynthia Wright]

That's one of the reasons why we're working with the United Nations Environment Programme to develop a binding instrument, because that would deal with sources and emissions from industry that are not yet controlled in some countries and that expose Canada through airborne sources, particularly our Arctic. It will also deal with reducing the demand for mercury in products, actually reducing it in products, and ensuring safe disposal.

[Glenda Yeates]

I would add that in terms of consumer products the ability to get them off the shelf and “gone”, as you say, has been something that we have been very concerned about. We are currently working with a very old piece of legislation, and we believe that we regulate using the powers that we have under that legislation. But under that legislation, we don't have the powers of recalls, for example, to actually ensure that we can take products off the shelves.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Should you have it?

[Glenda Yeates]

Yes. We believe that it is something we should have. That's why, in the proposed new Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, we had proposed that the department have the ability to do recalls. Currently we can only do them on a voluntary basis, working with industry. While that works in many cases, we believe that having a firm recall power, as was proposed in the former Bill C-6, would be appropriate.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Shipley.

We'll now go back to Mr. Christopherson for up to five minutes.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I want to stay on the issue of lead and mercury. To listen to all of you, including you, Mr. Commissioner, you would think that there may be a problem or two out there, but everything is okay and nobody needs to worry about anything. That's the impression I'm getting from all of you.

I focus on the commissioner. Your rather detailed defence of the ministry actions was noted.

I want to just put on the record here that we're talking about lead and mercury. I'm from the labour movement and we've been dealing with these things for an awfully long time. When I started out, my very first elected position in the whole world was as chair of my little shop's health and safety committee.

Anyway, Commissioner, your chart shows that of seven substances, three of them were listed in 1988 as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

Here are the potential hazards of lead listed in the commissioner's document:

High blood pressure, kidney damage, nerve disorders, memory and concentration problems, cognitive impairment and learning disabilities in children, difficulties during pregnancy, digestive problems, pain in the muscles and joints.

Lead poisoning noted in wildlife.

Mercury was listed in 1988 as toxic under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Its potential hazards include:

Permanent damage to the brain and kidneys. Damage or irritation of the lungs, stomach, intestines, and airways.

Mercury poisoning noted in wildlife.

This is what we're talking about. Again, everything sounds just fine up here, and yet I look at your report and listen to what you said this morning, Commissioner, and it's just not clear to me, because you're the one who said in your prepared remarks, “This”--meaning your audit--“underscores a key observation of the audit: despite progress, the risk posed by toxic substances such as lead and mercury still require active management”. You say, two paragraphs later, “The first relates to risk management strategies”.

I know that you basically said, “I don't know what you are talking about, Mr. MP”, and that I was all wrong and they were all right, but I'm just reading your words, sir. That same paragraph says: “While these strategies were in place for the 5 of the 7 substances we examined, they are still not in place for lead and mercury”.

So, Commissioner, I'm asking you, sir, is there a problem or not?

[Scott Vaughan]

Thank you very much for the question.

The reason we did this report is exactly to underscore that there is a problem. So my previous comment was not on the management, which is what this audit looked at; the previous comment was on the assessment part.

On the management part, the reason we did this report was for exactly the reasons that you've underscored right now. We picked a range of toxic substances that pose health and environmental risks, ranging from cancer to reproductive problems to development problems, particularly in children.

We know that scientists have known for years that children and infants aren't little adults, so exposure of even minute amounts of these substances can create significant, acute problems over the long term. Particularly for children, we pointed out several problems, including what we've discussed this morning: products that can be found on the shelves in Canada which exceed acceptable limits and therefore pose health risks to the most vulnerable segments of the Canadian population--children. That's the first point.

On the second part of this, Mr. Chair, if I may say so, I think the previous member's question on the issue of precaution is exactly at the heart of this question, and it is in the assessment and management process that the precautionary principle, in my understanding.... And these are complicated questions. When does the weight of evidence stop because there are some unknowns? And when you don't know, when do you then say that we can't authorize, license, or let these products or these exposure rates come to the shelves or expose Canadians to them?

That, I think, is an important debate and an important discussion, which the whole idea of the precautionary principle, from the Earth Summit and before, was intended to address. In the face of the risk of irreversible damages, you should err on the side of precaution. We do this in the business world. We do it elsewhere.

Finally, Mr. Chair, if I may, the reason we picked these chemicals, and the range of these chemicals, is that they last for a long time. They're persistent and they're bioaccumulative. On the risks related to long-term, low-dose exposure to many of these chemicals, we simply do not know the answer. But we do know that in Canada today, one to three or one to four adults will be diagnosed with cancer. We know that the Canadian Cancer Society has said there are many reasons for this, but one of them is environmental exposure rates.

That's just to underscore the reason we've done this audit and the reason we've had excellent cooperation, not only with the two departments but with many others, including NGOs we have worked with on this: because these are serious environmental risks and they're serious health risks.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Commissioner. That helps. That is a helpful contribution.

I have one quick final question. The management action plan status of September 4, 2009, under “Mercury”, says, “An integrated risk management strategy that contains clear objectives, performance expectations and timelines will be developed”. The deadline for completion was winter 2009-10. Could I ask where we are? Did you meet your deadline?

It also says, “The strategy will be brought forward for senior management approval by fall 2009 and will be made publicly available on Environment Canada's Web site by winter 2009/10.” Is that happening? Did you hit your targets there?

[Cynthia Wright]

Yes. We do have a draft of the strategy going through the approval process. In addition, we have taken an extra step of combining on our website all of the instruments that are in place and the instruments that are under development already, so Canadians can see that right now.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Both of these completions are done?

[Cynthia Wright]

We're on target for finishing both of those objectives.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

In the timeframe you promised?

[Cynthia Wright]

Yes. We're in the process--

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

We're already into spring 2010.