Mr. Speaker, I want to speak a few moments on this very proactive piece of legislation.
I commend the NDP member from Acadie—Bathurst for bringing in a piece of legislation which is very proactive and tries to protect the most innocent in our communities, young infants that may be susceptible to disease when they are exposed to some of these chemicals. So I say I commend the member for bringing it in. If nothing else today, we are discussing and informing certain parents of new children, babies and infants, that there may be a health threat.
One of my workers and his wife have a new baby. I am sure anybody would want to know of any possible health threats to their new child. I am glad the member brought it to my attention and I am glad we are discussing it in the House of Commons.
I am a little surprised at the government's approach. I cannot believe that the government would not be proactive as well and want to give this advice to anyone who may be at risk. We are not asking for any new huge piece of legislation. We are not asking the government to cause the manufacturers to invest huge amounts of money to change machinery and that type of thing. We are simply asking for legislation that would force companies to put on their packaging that something contains a chemical that may be dangerous to a child.
The government approach reminds me almost with what we did on the smoking ban. We could never convince the tobacco companies or convince governments that smoking was hazardous to people's health. Eventually when there were enough conclusive studies done, we used to put on the packages that smoking might cause cancer and other illnesses. We have long passed that stage now. We say yes, it does cause cancer. It is proven that if you use cigarettes as directed, they will most certainly kill you. It is a known fact and now it is accepted.
Why would the government not want to support labelling these toys so that maybe somewhere down the road some family does not have to go through a tragedy simply because we did not have all the studies on time.?
As I say, I commend the member and I am a little bit surprised at the government's approach to this. Much has been said about the studies that have been done throughout Europe, so I will not bother to repeat it. Albeit they may not be conclusive, but there certainly is an element of risk. There is an element that these things can cause problems, otherwise they would not have banned these chemicals in certain parts of Europe.
Even in Canada I understand under our Canadian Environmental Health Protection Act that phthalates are still registered as a toxic or carcinogenic substance. If in one part of Canadian law we have it registered because it is toxic and carcinogenic, why can we then not make sure that manufacturers put it on children's toys so it can be seen?
Those are my comments. There is no need to repeat what has been said. I think it is an excellent piece of legislation. Anything that we can do which is not going to cost taxpayers a lot of money or not going to cause any great deal to the manufacturers and will give some added protection to parents of newborn children I strongly support. We in the Conservative caucus will very strongly support this proactive legislation.