Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to have the opportunity to address the Group No. 4 amendments to Bill C-32, the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
I compliment my colleagues in the NDP on their motions which propose to add a definition of endocrine disrupters to the definition section of the bill. These substances are referred to in the information gathering section of the bill but are not in the definition section where it would permit the government to more directly identify harmful substances which are hormone disrupting substances that have very negative implications with respect to human health.
For those individuals who are not that familiar with hormone disrupting substances I would like to share some of my concerns. These substances have the capacity to affect the nervous system or immune system particularly of children yet to be born or in the early years of development.
The world wildlife fund, physician organizations and learning organizations have pointed out that substances such as DDT have hormone disrupting tendencies or capacities which have very negative implications on the development of children, their capacity to learn, their nervous system, their immune system and their hormone system. This NDP amendment is worthy of the support of the House.
I also applaud the efforts of numerous individuals within the committee who have advanced this subject. The original Bill C-32 which came to committee had no reference to hormone disrupting substances.
Through the collaboration of my Conservative colleagues, the member for Jonquière, the NDP environment critic from Churchill, the member for York North, the member for Lac-Saint-Louis and others, we were able to turn up the political tinderbox to ensure the information gathering component of the bill.
Canada is already a world leader in terms of studying the hormone disrupting substances on which the bill now has the capacity to gather information. Eventually we will be able to use that research to ensure that we are protecting human health in that regard.
We had a definition that was very similar to the definition in the NDP amendment. Some individuals would have us believe that there is an internationally accepted definition with respect to endocrine disrupting substances. That is not quite true. In fact the NDP definition that was passed under the information gathering section is essentially a melange, a blend of what the U.S. EPA actually approved and the Weybridge definition. Departmental officials with Environment Canada think this is a very workable definition for us to utilize.
Going back to the other definition known as the Weybridge definition, some individuals would advocate it as being the most internationally accepted definition. It is one that many countries have been exposed to, but by no means is there any consensus. The definition we have right now is supported by some environmental NGOs concerned about human health, so that is the definition we should go into as well.
There is another amendment which the Conservative Party will be supporting. Again I am referring to my colleagues in the NDP and their definition with respect to aboriginal peoples which is taken directly from the Constitution. We support that amendment as well.
We are looking at clarifying some definitions with respect to recyclable materials, endocrine disrupting substances and aboriginal people as outlined in the Constitution.
Those are the amendments I wanted to highlight in Group No. 4. Those are the ones we will be supporting. Again I applaud the efforts of my colleague from Churchill.