James Bezan

[Aboriginal Affairs, May 18th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, in my riding, as in the ridings of many other members, native friendship centres provide a valuable resource to thousands of aboriginal Canadians who live off reserves in our cities and towns. The 116 centres nationwide are places for people to meet and places for young aboriginal people to learn from their elders.

Could the Minister of Canadian Heritage please tell this House what measures the government has taken to ensure friendship centres are adequately funded?

[Agriculture, May 17th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, yesterday, at the agriculture committee, the CEO of the Farmer Rail Car Coalition said that if the government had given its fleet of hopper cars over to the FRCC it would have had to charge a lease fee to farmers. He then said that with the FRCC plan there “will be some increased cost to farmers”.

Could the transport minister tell the House if the government's decision to keep the hopper cars means any increased cost to farmers?

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the member's comments about keeping our infants and youth free and clear of coming into contact with pesticides. I am a farmer and I grew up on a farm. I have children on the farm. There is no doubt that there are times when we have pesticides in the yard, when we are spraying equipment, getting ready to go to the fields. However, it is inherent upon me, as the father, to keep my children away from those situations and ensure that we handle the chemicals properly as well as ensure that we handle our clothing properly as the member alluded to earlier. Often someone would walk into the family home with pesticides on their clothing, so we ensure we take the proper precautions to protect our children.

One concern I have with the motion is it is rather lengthy. It has a preamble, then conditions and further conditions tied to it, which virtually make the motion redundant at the end of the day. I believe we are going to present some new regulations this year, with the pesticide act, which will accomplish a lot of the concerns raised in the motion of the NDP.

I am curious as to whether the NDP is prepared to wait until those regulations come forward to make the decision on whether to go ahead with the intent of the motion. As well, a few comments were made today by some of her colleagues that alluded to the fact that for the moment we were talking about cosmetic use of herbicides and pesticides in residential areas. Is there an underlying reason here that the NDP also intends to go after agriculture and the forestry industry in the use of pesticides and herbicides?

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, as the hon. member for Winnipeg North knows, we have to have regulations to make an act come into force. The regulations will deal with a lot of the issues that she is talking about. I really believe that once we bring to power the act with the regulations, a lot of the concerns that are being raised by the NDP will be addressed. That, in concert with the efforts being made at the various provincial and municipal levels, will deal with many of the concerns which have been raised in the House today.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that within Health Canada the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has the ability to properly screen and oversee the use of pesticides and herbicides in agriculture and for residential use for that matter. There is no doubt that we are protected as citizens. The scientists and specialists are very vigilant in their evaluation of the products that we are using in food production and also in our homes and residential areas.

I am really concerned about this motion. It is not giving us a chance as the new government to bring in the Pest Control Products Act which passed in 2002 and bring forward those regulations and implement that act in 2006.

The NDP motion also steps on the toes of municipalities and provinces which have the ability to implement their own regulations. This is such a paternal motion that it is going to take away powers from the provinces and municipalities. There is the possibility of future problems down the road for agriculture. I am quite concerned about that.

[Business of Supply, May 16th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Battlefords—Lloydminster.

I would like to take a few minutes to describe a major development in the regulation of pesticides in Canada. The new Pest Control Products Act was given royal assent on December 12, 2002. It will be brought into force by an order that will be made by the government once key regulations to support the new act are in place. The act will be proclaimed as soon as possible this year, 2006.

Fundamentally, the new act does three things: First, it supports the strong health and environmental protection practices currently employed by Health Canada; second, it makes the pesticide approval or registration system more transparent and accountable; and third, it strengthens the post-registration controls on pesticides.

I will describe each of these areas in more detail. First, the new act strengthens the health and environmental protection provided by the existing act. In order to legally sell or use a pesticide in Canada, the pesticide must first be reviewed and approved or registered by Health Canada.

The new act formalizes important and current risk assessment concepts to protect vulnerable populations. These concepts include the consideration of: different sensitivities of major population groups, including infants and children; exposures from all sources, including food, drinking water and domestic use of pesticides; and finally, cumulative effects of pesticides that act in the same way.

These concepts also apply an additional margin of safety to protect infants and children from risk posed by pesticide residues in food and when pesticides are used in and around homes and schools, and take into account government policies such as the toxic substances management policy.

While new in law, these provisions do not change current practices. They do, however, make visible to the public the fact that these practices are and will continue to be in place and, therefore, will help to enhance public confidence in the regulatory system. This is a clear benefit of having these provisions in the legislation.

The second thing that the new act does, as I mentioned earlier, is to make the registration system more transparent and accountable. This is the area in which there are the most fundamental changes to the existing act. The new act definitively opens up the regulatory system to allow meaningful participation by stakeholders and the public.

The new act does this in the following ways; with access to information. The new act defines two categories of information: confidential test data and confidential business information. All other information is considered non-confidential information under the new Pest Control Products Act and thus will be publicly available. This includes information about the status of all registered pesticides, the applications received by Health Canada and whether the registration was granted or denied, the re-evaluations and special reviews that are underway and, very important, Health Canada's detailed evaluations of the risks and value of registered pesticides. All of this information will be made available through a public registry, electronically whenever possible.

Confidential test data that are generated by companies and provided to the PMRA will be accessible for examination in a reading room.

The only category of information that will not be made available to the public will be confidential business information. Confidential business information is defined very narrowly in the new act. It includes financial information, manufacturing processes and methods for determining a product's composition and formulants that are not of health or environmental concern.

The identity and concentration of formulants that are of health and environmental concern will be made available to the public on labels and material safety data sheets and through the public registry. A list of formulants and contaminants of concern has already been published.

The public will not be the only ones to benefit from this increased transparency. Under the new act, confidential business information and test data can be shared under certain circumstances with federal, provincial and territorial regulators, regulators in other countries and medical professionals, as long as the information is kept confidential.

This is in addition to all the other information that will be available to them through the public registry. This will make it easier for Health Canada to cooperate with other regulators. This is fundamental to smart regulations.

Under the new Pest Control Products Act, it is mandatory to consult the public before a major registration decision is made final. Major registration decisions include any decision to grant or deny an application for full registration of a new active ingredient or a major new use and any decision to maintain, amend or cancel a registration following a re-evaluation or special review.

The mandatory public consultation process and the public registry will make a great deal of important information available to the public. The public will have access to summaries of the evaluations done by Health Canada scientists which form the basis for proposed regulatory decisions before they are finalized. After a pesticide is registered, the public will have access to the detailed evaluations via the public registry and they will also be able to view the test data on which the evaluations are based. These provisions will support informed citizen participation in the pesticide regulatory system.

The new act also strengthens accountability to Parliament and the Canadian public by requiring that comments received during the mandatory public consultation periods be considered in the final decision to register a pesticide. There is also a requirement for Health Canada to publish its policies, guidelines and codes of practice, among other official documents.

Finally, the act requires that an annual report by tabled in Parliament.

I mentioned at the beginning of my comments that the new act does three main things. The third is to strengthen the post-registration controls on pesticides.

Registration does not confer unrestricted rights respecting the marketing, sale and use of pesticides. On the contrary, the registration includes detailed instructions on how the pesticide must be used in order to comply with the law known as “conditions of registration”.

There is also a continuing responsibility to ensure that the risks and value of a registered pesticide are still considered to be acceptable. This is done through a re-evaluation or special review. The new act strengthens the existing provisions for these programs, notably by requiring re-evaluations of pesticides to be done 15 years after they are registered and by providing the minister with the authority to take action if a registrant fails to provide the data needed to conduct re-evaluations.

The new act provides the authority to remove products from the market or modify their conditions of use upon completion of or during a re-evaluation or special review.

The new act specifies that in determining appropriate actions during re-evaluations or special reviews the precautionary principle must be taken into account. In other words, if there is reason to believe that a registered pesticide is posing threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent adverse health impact or environmental degradation. This would allow rapid interim action be taken to prevent ongoing exposure to the pesticide while a more detailed scientific review is undertaken. Once the review was completed, that action would be continued, modified or rescinded depending on the results of the review.

Another important feature of the new act is that it includes provisions for mandatory reporting of incidents, that is, new information indicating that the health or environmental risks or the value of a registered pesticide may no longer be acceptable. Regulations will be needed to specify the information that must be reported and the timeframes for reporting.

Information provided through incident reporting could identify the need for a special review. Under the new act, special reviews can also be triggered by information received from other federal or provincial departments, a ban in another member country of the OECD or a request from the public. In the case of a public request, there is discretion as to whether or not to initiate the special review and policies will be developed to guide this decision.

Before closing I would like to reiterate that the new Pest Control Products Act will strengthen Canada's already stringent safeguards against the risks to people and the environment from the use of pesticides. Canadians will have access to more information and new opportunities for input into major pesticide registration decisions. A modernized, strengthened and clarified law on pesticide regulation will create a regulatory system in which all Canadians can have confidence.

[Government Accountability, May 11th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals have avoided accountability at every turn. They funnelled taxpayer money to Liberal campaigns through ad scams. They blew over $1 billion on a useless gun registry. They even lost $1 billion in HRDC. After all that, they then threatened to cut funding to the Auditor General.

Could the President of the Treasury Board tell us how he plans to ensure accountability in spending taxpayer money?

[Interparliamentary Delegations, May 10th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1) I have the honour to present in the House, in both official languages, the report of the Canadian delegation of the Canada-United States Interparliamentary Group respecting its participation at the National Governors Association Healthy America Forum at its winter meeting that was held in Washington, D.C., February 25-28, 2006.

[Justice, May 5th, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to be part of a government that takes crime seriously and is going to deal with violent and repeat offenders with tough minimum sentences.

I am very disappointed with the Liberal member for Mount Royal who is flip-flopping on commitments he made just a few months ago. He is now attacking the Conservative government for wanting to crack down on crime and introduce minimum sentences that he used to say he supported.

On November 25, the last day of sitting before the former government was defeated, the member for Mount Royal put forward a bill doubling minimum sentences for gun crimes. The former Liberal justice minister is even offside with his own former leader who said that he agreed that there should be increases in punishment and that “there is no difference of opinion in that area”.

I cannot believe the hypocrisy of these Liberal members. After a deathbed conversion during the last election to get tough on crime, they are now once again going soft and are willing to neither deal with the criminals nor protect our communities.

[Norad, May 3rd, 2006]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for her great presentation and the hard work she has always put in on the defence committee and in recognizing the contribution that the armed forces make on behalf of all Canadians.

I think the Norad agreement and the chance to renew and expand it is a great opportunity for Canada. It is about putting Canadians first. It is about protecting the interests of Canadians first and foremost. The member definitely laid that out eloquently in her presentation.

There has been some debate tonight, which I find rather peculiar, surrounding the whole issue of whether or not we should even be having the debate, that somehow or other it is wrong. I think it is great that we are actually having this opportunity to have input from parliamentarians on a strategic agreement like this. It is something that Canadians have asked for and something our party has stood for: wanting to make sure there is an opportunity for parliamentarians to talk about this. I would like to hear the comments of my hon. colleague on this matter.