Madam Speaker, as my learned colleague said, I am the chief agriculture critic for the Canadian Alliance. I will be taking a bit more of an agriculture perspective on the bill.
The bill we are presently debating would enact the pest control products act. It is the primary legislation that would control the import, manufacture, sale and use of all pesticides including insecticides, herbicides and fungicides in Canada.
The bill was first introduced in 1969 and has not been significantly updated since that time. It is a positive note that the Liberal government has finally gotten around to updating the bill. In fact it has some potential to improve on the environmental aspects of the chemicals that we use at the present time.
The bill essentially would strengthen health and environmental protection, make the registration system more transparent and strengthen post-registration control of pesticides.
With regard to industry's reaction, the Sierra Club is not too happy with it and would like to see more of a complete ban on pesticides. I had the pleasure of hearing Sharon Labchuk from Earth Action speak in Prince Edward Island. The MPs from Prince Edward Island had better take notice of Ms. Labchuk's comments because the small land area that is in Prince Edward Island will be seriously affected by what the minister is saying, which is that this accidental spray contamination, as she would say, off the very field that it is being applied to will come under the intense pressure in Prince Edward Island. I will be interested to see whether those members from Prince Edward Island can support the full impact of the bill.
The Canadian Alliance certainly wants to examine the bill and in particular the minister's speech in which she talked about using the precautionary principle. She talked about the potential impact of chemicals, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
She then used a term that will take a lot of examination. She tried to define some kind of value. That will no doubt be the value of the bureaucrats and the value of the ministers and those elected officials at the given time in the future. Who knows whether the values they have could be to the extreme of saying that there should be no chemicals in use whatsoever.
The concern with this is that it seems like the government is moving away from science based decision making and moving into this quasi-philosophical method of assessing our chemicals and their impact on the environment and people. I think that is a dangerous thing on first blush.
The second question I posed to the minister, as she and her government move into this area of fuzziness, as it would appear to be, concerned the trade implications if the government were to use this as a non-tariff trade barrier to harass importers of foodstuffs into our country.
These are a couple of our major concerns.
I note that Mr. Lorne Hepworth, president of CropLife Canada which represents the chemical industry, said that most of the practices outlined in the legislation were already in practice. The industry has done a lot up to this point to make sure that not only are the chemicals and pesticides effective but that they are safe for the environment and safe for people.
The bill would require that it be implemented once it is passed and in a logical, efficient and effective way.
This brings me to the current operations under the director, Claire Franklin, of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency. It would not matter how good a bill the House passed with the way the PMRA is being run at the present time. From the presentation Ms. Franklin gave to the agriculture committee some time ago, there is little hope of seeing any positive legislation implemented in a way that will satisfy the industry, the farmers and the environmentalists because of the inefficiencies and the philosophical attitude of the agency which is not in keeping with the attitude of the majority of Canadians.
The mismanagement at the PMRA is costing farmers money because they do not have access to newer, cheaper and more effective chemicals. These chemicals are in use in other countries. Were they brought into Canada, we would have less toxic chemicals that are more effective, that is, the new generation. That is not happening on a regular or timely basis because of the department.
The minister has had quite the history in the House. The minister is presently in charge of Health Canada. We see that as the provincial budgets come down, all the provinces will be spending over 40% of their budgets on health care. It is the minister's responsibility that health care is becoming untenable.
We are still battling it out in the House over her Bill C-15B, the cruelty to animals legislation. Once again, as late as April 3, the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and many other common sense average Canadian groups which are trying to make the economy of the country work and people who are trying to have their families and businesses progress in essence were hung out to dry. This lowers my confidence in the legislation. I mentioned the precautionary principle and the definition of some kind of value and the term “potential impact”, as things that I am not sure the minister is really going to deliver as more effective or better for industry and for Canadians as a whole.
The rigidity of the PMRA's bureaucracy is denying access to those cheaper chemicals in other countries. The Farmers of North America Inc. is one group trying to import chemicals that are used just a few miles across the border. The EPA in the United States is probably much more strict in regard to its regulations, legislation and examination of chemicals than we are here in Canada. Our rigid ineffective PMRA will not let those chemicals come in. Maybe it is not because the officials do not want to; it is just that they are so bound up in their own bureaucracy and the system is everything and effectiveness is nothing. We are being hurt very badly by not having access to those better chemicals and getting rid of the ones that are toxic that could and should be replaced. We will see if the legislation actually does that.
The Canadian Alliance always has some solutions. In regard to Health Canada and the PMRA, we should work more closely with regulatory bodies in other countries. For example, the PMRA should accept data from tests done in other countries if the products will be used under similar conditions in Canada.
This would reduce the time required to move new products through the Canadian system. As well it would reduce the licensing costs for chemical companies and therefore increase the likelihood that they would apply for a Canadian licence.
At the present time our market is fairly small in regard to a lot of agriculture production and chemical use. As a result it does not necessarily pay to go through the full bureaucratic process in Canada of up to four years of evidence given to the government to try to get a chemical in that is licensed as safe in the United States.
The process for re-evaluation of older chemicals consumes a great deal of the PMRA's resources. There are about 7,000 chemicals registered for use in Canada at the present time. That was the last figure I saw. We have two problems. One is that the government is not putting enough resources into re-evaluating these older chemicals. I do not want my granddaughter, my children, neighbours or others to be hurt by chemicals that are no longer considered safe. In fact for many of these chemicals, if the PMRA were to get off its butt, we would have the new ones that are less toxic brought into Canada which would make things safer for the environment and for all of us.
The process for re-evaluation of older chemicals consumes a great deal of the resources. The efficiency of the PMRA would be dramatically increased if it would accept the data from recent pesticide evaluations done by capable regulatory agencies in other countries. The legislation fails to force the PMRA to consider scientific research done in other jurisdictions. Furthermore, the bill will force additional re-evaluations on the PMRA for all pesticides older than 15 years which will be reviewed automatically even if there is no reason to suspect that their toxicity or safety is in question.
The PMRA should only review existing pesticides if suitable and effective alternatives exist. That is a very important point. It needs to prioritize what it is doing in government. That way it can get at the real problem chemicals while not looking at the others. From what I heard at the agriculture committee when the director and others were making their presentations, this is certainly not being done.
The transparency at the agency certainly has to be improved. The bill does improve the transparency of the agency in Canada's pesticide approval process and I give credit for that.
As I said, the bill has the potential to do some good but with the PMRA's bureaucratic intransigence, I suspect it may not accomplish what it is intended to do. That will depend on good solid direction from the minister. That cannot be emphasized enough. To this point the previous ministers have not given that kind of good solid direction. Absolutely every presenter that has come before the committee in regard to the PMRA's activities has been critical of its operation.
I have indicated I do not have much faith in the minister being able to do the job. However, she does have the confidence of the Prime Minister to do it, so we will just have to see. As I say, a lot of us on this side of the House do not have much hope.
We have some additional unanswered questions with respect to the PMRA. Why does the pesticide approval process in the United States occur much faster than in Canada? Why has the PMRA failed to increase its acceptance of data from reputable scientific bodies from other countries?
The efficiency of the PMRA would be significantly improved if it accepted the data from pesticide re-evaluations. There is no evidence that accepting data on pesticide research done in other countries poses any threat to Canadian health and safety. Still the government has the philosophy and obviously has given instructions to the PMRA that it is not to be the case that those studies and scientific examinations can be admitted into Canada.
We would like to know what the environmental impact is of Canada falling behind in the licensing of new and more effective pesticides. I have outlined some of the concerns in that regard. Certainly the safety of the environment and individual Canadians is one of the big things.
The government is not going to take into full consideration the trade impact and how it will be used by the minister when we talk about the precautionary principle. The minister talked about the potential impact of chemicals without really having a scientific basis for it. She talked about values. Anytime a Liberal uses the word values, man, I run for cover just like most of my neighbours do. That is scary because Liberal values represent virtually no Canadian but it will be their values that they want to push onto the rest of us.
At the present time the Crompton Corporation is suing the Canadian government for $100 million. It claims that Canada had no scientific basis to ban the chemical Lindane.
The government up to the present has shown a great deal of incompetence in regard to the operation of the health ministry as it pertains to the Pest Control Products Act and also in regard to the regulatory agency that is supposed to protect Canadians and facilitate industry, agriculture and the quality of life for all Canadians.
Reports have indicated that the PMRA is 40% less efficient than other countries, particularly the United States and Australia. This is in regard to efficiency in getting pesticide applications through the process. During 2000-01 a total of 22 minor use registrations were approved by the PMRA. Eighteen were for food use and four were for non-food use. During the same period over 1,200 minor use registrations were approved in the United States. More than 500 were for food use and over 700 were for non-food use.
The fact is that our industry, our farmers and our agricultural sector are competing directly head to head with the United States on virtually every commodity, with the exception of peanuts and some of the things grown in the tropics. There is a lot of work to be done. Canada imports U.S. fruits and vegetables grown using new chemicals not yet approved for use in Canada. It seems somewhat illogical that Canada would accept produce grown with more chemicals used by U.S. farmers but would refuse to license the pesticides themselves.
With that I will conclude by saying that the minister's speech should give all of us cause for concern. We should examine her words very carefully. We should examine this legislation before we throw our support wholeheartedly behind it.
We know of the pesticide anti-chemical bias in the government as evidenced by some of the bills that have been brought forward. In particular the one that really bothered me and a lot of Liberals attempted to say that somehow genetically modified foods were dangerous and scary. That was brought forward by a private member from the Liberal side. It was not based on science. It was based on bunk.