Mr. Speaker, the government has been following the chlorine issue extremely closely. So far the government's policy has focused its regulations and control efforts on chlorinated compounds demonstrated to be toxic and on the processes that generate them.
Environment Canada and Health Canada have undertaken a science-based examination of 22 chlorine compounds and have shown 14 of them to be toxic either to the environment or human health.
We are determined to address this issue through the CEPA, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, a review that will start very shortly through the Standing Committee on Environment
and Sustainable Development of which my hon. colleague is the chairman.
Through the Great Lakes action plans and programs in place already and through close interaction with other countries, especially the United States, we need to establish strategies along with our neighbours to the south to reduce, prohibit and substitute for the use of chlorine and chlorinated compounds. The U.S. is now proposing a task force with timetables to establish a definite action plan that will define the ways to reduce, prohibit and substitute the use of chlorine.
Currently the Minister of the Environment is convening a consultation process of multi-stakeholders to do exactly this, to try and define an action plan to reduce, prohibit and substitute the use of chlorine. This action plan should be ready by the late spring of this year.