Environment committee  Rarely does this occur.

Environment committee  Just to be clear, I think what you're getting at is that CEPA deals with regulated communities that are dealt with by other departments. There are many mechanisms to ensure that Health Canada and Environment Canada are not at cross purposes to Transport Canada or Agriculture. In CEPA 1999, there is an authority to recognize that other acts have functions like CEPA in reviewing new substances before they come to market and doing an assessment.

Environment committee  Maybe a couple of points. On recall, as Paul said, there has to be violation of a regulation. You could also use the interim order provisions to put in a regulation, if it was something that we just discovered was problematic, and then use recall powers on that. To be clear, there are regulations dealing with products.

Environment committee  That's correct. Each jurisdiction has to put them in place with their own instruments in their own jurisdictions.

Environment committee  No, they're not mandatory in the sense of being enforceable regulatory standards.

Environment committee  They were signed by ministers, so there's certainly a political commitment, but you couldn't enforce a Canada-wide standard; you would have to have the jurisdiction put in some sort of tool to enforce it.

Environment committee  Certainly the federal government implements them. Most of its commitments were in the area of fuel and vehicle regulations, negotiating an agreement with the United States for them to reduce ozone into Canada, and also some product reductions.

Environment committee  I want to clarify that the dioxin and furan laws for pulp and paper are under CEPA. There are complementary laws that address some of the other non-chemicals under the Fisheries Act.

Environment committee  No, it's a CEPA law.

Environment committee  Yes, to clarify, there are four provinces that don't have that equivalency: B.C., Manitoba, P.E.I., and Quebec. However, officials from the Quebec government assured us that they are in the process of reviewing their legislation and that under the new legislation it will be easier for a citizen to request an investigation.

Environment committee  No, what I was saying is that it was with respect to the Canada-wide standards. There's probably been less consistent activity across the country in the attainment of the particulate matter and ozone Canada-wide standards. The Canada-wide standards are not all the same. Some of them are very clear, end-of-pipe, if you will--the emissions that are allowed out of stacks.

Environment committee  It is that kind of standard. For instance, it is the release of particulate matter per unit produced or per tonne of emissions from various industrial sectors, and those kinds of standards. So the intent was that provinces would do that. To date, most of the provinces have not done that or have not done that evenly across the country.

Environment committee  We can use CEPA in many cases, but there are some limitations. For instance, if you wanted a trading regime to support the emissions reductions, there are some limitations in CEPA in terms of the kind of trading regime, particularly, that would relate to the best one for air particulate matter and that would harmonize with the United States.

Environment committee  Yes. The other thing that Bill C-30 does is make it clear to authority that we think is already there that you could recognize--as Ms. Cobden called it--an equivalent outcome regime. Most provinces don't actually have regulations; they set permit standards. So as long as their permit standards have the same effect throughout their jurisdictions as the federal standards, we think that would legally meet any equivalency requirements.

Environment committee  There is one area that the governments have identified in the issue paper. CEPA is designed as a national piece of legislation to set standards that are the same from coast to coast to coast. First nation groups would fall under those national regulations and standards. But there's another part of CEPA that allows the federal government to set regulations that mimic provincial laws and regulations with respect to environmental protection, and that's part 9 of CEPA.