Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to participate in the debate this evening. This subject raises a number of major issues.
For New Democrats, this is a very straightforward issue, while the resolution is complicated. There are certain roles for industry and certain roles for government, which are called into question with respect to the bill put forward by my colleague. Many Canadians assume that the products they purchase and the foods they put on their tables for their families are safe.
Over the last number of months and years, time and time again only through news reports have Canadians learned that not only are the products they purchase for themselves or their children in stores not safe, but the very food they put on their tables has been exposed to an increasingly wide range of chemicals, which government is either incapable or unwilling to screen properly to understand what the effects are in humans.
Oftentimes, we have done research on certain chemicals. In doing that we look to industry to find out what actual tests have been performed and what type of longitudinal studies have been conducted to know what the effects are over a certain amount of time. We have found that there have been goldfish and small lab rat tests done on a single dose basis over a 24 hour period. Those tests satisfy many of the regulations now on the books in Canada. Clearly and intuitively, we know that this is no longer sufficient. The complexity and diversity of the chemicals now being included in the Canadian food system and product lines are far beyond the capacity of the laws as they are now written.
We recently went through a major review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. The review found that many parts of the act, while good in principle, were wanting in detail and that government after government in succession had not put in the resources required to keep Canadians safe.
There is a fundamental principle that the bill attempts to address in the specific, which applies to the general. The fundamental principle is one that has been known for a great many decades. It is called the precautionary principle. Very simply, when there is evidence and suggestion of the capacity of harm through the introduction of a chemical or product to Canadian society, we need to take a precautionary approach and not introduce it until the evidence is strong and overwhelming that it will not cause harm.
The problem for governments, and this applies to governments of all political stripes and persuasions, is that the investment required to properly apply the precautionary principle to the overwhelming number of chemicals being introduced is significant. We cannot simply throw a small amount of money at this or the odd department section and hope that is enough.
Oftentimes in the environmental movement there is a tendency to want to fearmonger, to bring forward doomsday scenarios. However, in this case, when it comes to chemicals affecting our well-being and health, Canadians are increasingly concerned about the exposure to themselves and to their families, and both the Minister of the Environment and Minister of Health clearly know this. New Democrats feel that fear is well placed.
The role of industry is not to do this. Too often we have deferred to the private sector to take on more and more responsibilities that were previously held by government. When it comes to protecting the health and well-being of Canadians, it is simply not the role of the private sector to do this. Its role is clearly stated in almost all other constitutions, which is to maximize profits for shareholders or whatever the arrangement may be in other cases. The role of government is to protect the citizens it endeavours to represent.
In this minority Parliament, as in the previous one, we have an opportunity to shift the debate when it comes to protecting Canadians from these chemicals. We have the opportunity to shift the debate to strengthen our ability to apply and effectively use the precautionary principle and other principles that would better strengthen the confidence of Canadians when they purchase food or products for their families.
PFOS, the chemical we are dealing with specifically, is one of the most notorious. This is the grand lesson of unintended consequences, where a chemical is developed in a lab to perform a specific duty, whether it is to prevent food from sticking to cookware or to prevent flames from catching on clothing, but that duty oftentimes also enables a chemical to have very serious and harmful effects.
We have seen this time and time again, whether it was the fight against agent orange or the fight of the whole slew of chemicals that followed after that. We realized that when there was one and only one intended use for a chemical and there was no proper study of what was caused by that chemical, the effects were long reaching. We are still dealing with it today.
Canadians are living with the ill effects of agent orange, agent purple and others and have not been properly compensated by previous governments or this one. It was never the intention of government or the military, in this case, to cause any harm to Canadian soldiers or workers, of course, yet lo and behold, after many years there is a list of horrifying health effects. It is very difficult to read through the literature and not be properly braced with the issue. The fact is that governments for too long have failed Canadians and for too long have limited studies.
Right now we are dealing with another set of chemicals called phthalates, softeners for plastics. These softeners, while they enable plastics to be softer and more malleable, also disrupt endocrines. They are a chemical that goes right to the base of the genetic system. They cause a whole range of horrifying diseases and predicaments, particularly for young people. While they soften plastics in a fantastic way, they cause these other effects.
For too long, studies were limited. When Health Canada and Environment Canada went through the study around these phthalates to say whether or not they were safe to enter the Canadian system, they limited their studies so that they would not actually apply the study to consumer products. These phthalates existed in plastics, children's toys, nail polish and lipsticks. That is where our concern lay with these very products.
When officials come forward, they say they did a study that lasted three years, x number of dollars were spent on it and they feel confident. However, we have to dig below that. Lo and behold, when we do, we find out that they limited the focus and scope of the study to such a point that the answer was predetermined. Of course it would safe, because the wrong question was asked.
Within Parliament we need to start to ask the right questions to get at the root of what it is that we are after, which is to ensure that anything introduced into the Canadian market or system, any food produced here and brought to our tables, has been passed through rigorous study so that we know there will be no unintended consequences. This is oftentimes portrayed by the chemical manufacturers and other industry representative groups as something that would harm Canadian industry. I would argue the exact opposite. Bills like this actually protect Canadian industry and Canadian jobs from the lawsuits that are pending.
It also puts Canadian law in sync with what many other jurisdictions in the developed world do. Right now Europe is going through an extensive review of its entire chemical regime. More than 15,000 chemicals are being brought into the study. The regulations that will be coupled with this study are going to be serious and will prevent Canadian companies from selling to the European market.
We see this at the state level in the United States. Many states have taken the lead and have brought forward a number of prescriptive laws that say one simply cannot introduce these products if these chemicals are present. Lo and behold, Canadian manufacturers are marching along pretending, almost with their heads in the sand, and hoping these laws will simply not apply to them. The truth and the reality are that in a global environment, in an internationally competitive market, we simply cannot produce products that are going to be restricted in the markets of over 300 million people. It is an ignorant approach, it is the wrong approach, and ultimately it hurts Canadians.
The last point I will make on this particular set of chemicals and the broader condition is that there is a certain amount of externalization of costs that we do not properly catch in our natural market forces: the real cost of this part of business.
Climate change is oftentimes taken as the debate for this. If a company is able to operate its business with its known costs, with the lease of its building, the pay for its employees and the products, that is fine, but there are often costs associated with pollution that our system as it is currently structured does not catch. Who ends up catching them? The public. The public system ends up catching these serious and significant costs. In this case, it is the health effects. It is the lost hours of work and productivity. In the case of climate change, the costs are enormous. The numbers keep running and running, but the government refuses to even do a study to consider what the cost to business might be of the effects of climate change on our industry and our nation.
We think this is irresponsible. Internalizing these costs, making the full cost of doing business appropriate and responsible, is better both for the businesses and for society at large. It is time that we evolved in this place and in other legislatures across the country and considered the full cost of doing business with a full understanding of what the effects are on Canadians, to make for a better environment and a healthier Canada.
