Public Accounts Committee on May 6th, 2010

[Cynthia Wright]

That's right. We're in the approval process of the strategy.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I'm sorry: “approval process”? I'm sorry, ma'am. It's either done or it's not.

[Cynthia Wright]

It's in a draft and going through the final approval.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Okay, so it's not done yet, and since we're into the spring, how can you tell me that you met the completion deadline?

[Cynthia Wright]

Well, I think we were flagging that there are two aspects to it. There was one that the commissioner was getting at, which is communicating what you're already doing and what instruments are in place. Then, as I explained, there's pulling that all together in the strategy. So we have done the pulling together of all the instruments that are in place and the strategy that will talk about any future additional actions, as well as what we already have in place.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I still don't know whether that's a yes or a no, but okay.

Thanks, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you, Mr. Christopherson.

Just to follow up on that, Ms. Wright, you say that your toxic substance list is up and running now. It lists the various toxic substances...?

[Cynthia Wright]

I was speaking specifically about mercury, but we do have already on the website all of the substances. For each substance, you can now go in and find out what instruments are in place. Specifically for mercury, you can go in and find a summary of the risks and what instruments are in place. We do have instruments in place that we are managing and monitoring for all sources of mercury.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

But has that been a recent development?

[Cynthia Wright]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Because that didn't exist last week, but it exists today, or yesterday.

[Cynthia Wright]

I think it was April 1, but it did not exist at the time of the audit. I think that's what the commissioner was saying. We have many, many instruments in place. We have strategies for specific types of sources, but we don't have one overarching strategy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

And you did have a website, ”Management of Toxic Substances”, as well as the “Toxic Substances Research Initiative Secretariat” website. Those websites have expired. They don't exist.

[Cynthia Wright]

The toxic substances research initiative has expired, but on our website for Environment Canada, on the Green Lane, if you now type in “mercury”, you will get the list of initiatives that are in place and under development.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Okay. Thank you very much.

We are now going to go to Mr. Kramp for five minutes.

Mr. Kramp.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Might I just express a sincere level of thanks to all of you for coming here today? Like many of my colleagues, I don't believe there is a greater service that we as parliamentarians can perform than to advance the role of health and safety and the protection of Canadian citizens.

As such, both the departments and the commissioner play a significant role in bringing that to our attention, because we cannot prepare or propose legislation or resolutions unless—building on Mr. Lee's comment—the information is accurate and timely. We would emphasize that fact, and I think that's very important, but I can tell you that we certainly appreciate the effort you are making. In particular, of course, we certainly appreciate the dramatic improvement that we've seen in the chemicals management plan, both the establishment of that and the results of that. I would echo Mr. Young and say that I'm very, very pleased to see this.

I have a particular concern that I would just like to build upon. It's the comment made by the commissioner when he mentioned long-term, low-dose exposure. I'd like to direct my question to our health officials with just a little bit of history on this.

Twenty-five or more years ago, I was in municipal politics in a municipality that was affected by mercury in the Deloro Smelting situation. There was mercury contamination and arsenic down through the entire river system, and obviously a very abnormally high level of concern for serious illnesses or afflictions due to the toxins, as presented by our medical officer of health at that particular point.

I asked that medical officer of health at an open meeting that was held then what process she had in place, or what studies, that would give us, if we were bringing this under control, the long-term low exposure that was going to stay. At that time, her response was, “We are undertaking that study and we will have answers for you”. It's 25 years later. I still don't have an answer to that.

Are there long-term low exposure studies under way with regard to these toxins? If so, what are the results? And if not, why not?

[Glenda Yeates]

Thank you for the question. I'll begin the answer, and then perhaps my colleagues will want to add some details.

But there is absolutely a need for ongoing studies to understand the long-term impacts. It's one of the reasons that we believe the biomonitoring program that has been started is so key, because now we can actually, with the assistance of working with Statistics Canada, which has significant expertise in statistical analysis and monitoring.... Canadians have proven to be quite willing to come forward and be part of these biomonitoring samples where we actually take blood levels and other samples that we can test and thus look in the long term at exposure. So I think we have a very new and quite important mechanism on an ongoing basis.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Is this initiative regional, local, or national? I'd really like you to extrapolate a bit more on that.

[Glenda Yeates]

Thank you.

It is a national initiative, but there are a number of sites across the country. There are pilot sites at various points so we aren't just gathering information in one part of the country, for example. They are distributed across the country.

For example, we also have a program to work with first nations communities, because we know that we have some specific risks. We want to follow up and make sure that we can augment our information from the national study to understand whether there are specific risks in those communities.

We also know that, particularly with mercury, historically there have been some challenges for Inuit people because of some of the exposures in the Arctic. So we have a particular protocol called the northern contaminants program, in which we work with INAC and others in the community, with the territories, and with the aboriginal groups in the Arctic to make sure that we can have an ongoing mechanism to examine and look at that particular population, where we know from the research that there are specific issues.

[Daryl Kramp, Conservative, Prince Edward—Hastings, ON]

Just because I'm running out of time, I'd like to slip over to our MOE officials. I was involved in the retail sporting goods industry, the outdoors, and the fishing organizations. During that particular time, the fishing was basically stopped because of the contamination and the high levels of concentration in the fish for mercury and that.

We were told that it would probably never be cleared over our lifetime, so to be prepared for it, yet three or four years later, an all-clear was given. Please square this box for me. It's our understanding that somehow, someway, we've reduced this mercury contamination by 90%, according to the reports. Yet if 95% of the toxins come from outside our borders, how did we achieve that? Were they that successful internationally? I just don't understand those numbers.

[Cynthia Wright]

I'll try. Essentially what the 90% reduction means from sources within Canada, so industry products manufactured and used in Canada...so that has come down substantially. We always start with a pie that shows all the sources, so if you will, the pie is now quite small in Canada. Exposures in Canada have gone down overall, but when we look at how Canadians and the environment are still being exposed, it's that 95% of the exposure they're still facing comes from outside Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Shawn Murphy]

Thank you very much, Mr. Kramp.

We're now going to go back to Monsieur Dion, pour cinq minutes.

[Stéphane Dion, Liberal, Saint-Laurent—Cartierville, QC]

Merci, monsieur le président.

I don't think we should conclude this meeting without addressing the situation of our populations in the north of our country. And the report confirms what we know: that they are particularly exposed to lead and mercury. Mercury is likely to become worse. I'm not sure of what you just said. I think the level of mercury around the world is increasing. This will affect Canada, that being only because India and China will double their consumption of coal over the next two decades.

I would like to ask the two departments: what are your strategies to protect these populations since they are particularly exposed to lead and more and more mercury?

[Glenda Yeates]

I can begin on the mercury side in particular. We do share the concern that has been raised in terms of the findings, because recent biomonitoring has found concentrations of mercury in some of the Canadian Inuit populations. We have found some evidence that these may be decreasing, but we certainly want to continue to be vigilant.

That's the reason we have $4 million per year between our departments for a northern contaminants program, not all in Health Canada, but led by the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. That's where we monitor on an ongoing basis and understand whether the risks are increasing or decreasing. Once we have the information about what's happening, we can then target our responses appropriately.

We very much appreciate the risk in the Arctic and are working very hard with our other colleagues and with the territories and the groups on the ground, the aboriginal groups and others, to make sure that we have an active program to understand the risk and that then allows us to target our efforts to respond to it.

[Cynthia Wright]

I think the member is quite right in that the issue is going to be the increased industrial activity, particularly in Asia, and that's why work has started under UNEP. Specifically, negotiations will start in June of this year and are aiming to conclude in 2013. The objective would be a binding treaty on all parties to reduce all sources, including industrial emissions that would be subject to long-range transport, which is what is really affecting the Canadian Arctic. It will deal with industrial emissions, products and that sort of thing, including waste and disposal of mercury-containing products.

The other area that's relevant to some of the other substances the commissioner discussed is the Stockholm Convention, which aims to reduce pollutants of an organic pollutant nature internationally, recognizing that those are also subject to long-range transport and are affecting the Arctic.