Environment committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for your kind invitation. I'm delighted to appear in person before you today on behalf of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, if only because I've just come from a meeting of our deputy ministers com

Environment committee  I would argue that without the collaborative approach from the federal-provincial-territorial ministers of government, we would not have achieved the 2009 Canada-wide action plan for extended producer responsibility, which was begun by ministers collectively in 2000. The developm

Environment committee  In part it is. The responsibility for the collection aspects of CAP EPR have been in most cases delegated to municipalities through provincial power. The intent of extended producer responsibility is to impose the responsibility for the life cycle of a product on the producers. T

Environment committee  In fact there is a report. It is going to be published, I would estimate, within three weeks, and it will show that every province and territory either has or will have by that deadline the appropriate regulatory or legislative requirements in place to enable EPR programs for the

Environment committee  I assume that means besides money.

Environment committee  It's one-third of the funding, and that's been the practice since 1964 when the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment, then resource ministers, was created. It's been a very long practice. Environment Canada plays a very important role. The environment itself is an ar

Environment committee  We just completed a five-year review. The results are going to ministers and will form part of the background for their discussion in September.

Environment committee  Lessons learned is the exercise that we're going through right now. From the people I've spoken to, some of the reasons for Nova Scotia's relative success have been the regionalization of their landfills, the ban on organics and recyclable materials into the landfills, and an abs

Environment committee  I'm aware of a number of those. They don't necessarily work with us. I think Norampac, of Cascades, is an excellent example of one of those industry leaders. I mentioned a number of other companies in particular sectors that are doing all sorts of innovative things. Some of the

Environment committee  I'm not aware of the range of data we have. Through CCME we've done some initial work, related to biosolids, on identifying key contaminants of concern. That's generated a list. I'm not conversant with the range of data beyond that.

Environment committee  Certainly.

Environment committee  We have not done any recent work in that area. We prepared, I believe in the mid-nineties, voluntary guidelines for the management of biomedical waste. Since that time, if memory serves me correctly, both the Canadian Standards Association and Health Canada have superseded those

Environment committee  I would have to defer to my technical working groups on that.

Environment committee  I don't know what information there is. I will look for it, and if I have any I will certainly table it with the committee.

Environment committee  I wouldn't characterize it as looking at pharmaceutical waste. The last significant work we did that involved pharmaceuticals was through the development of the Canada-wide strategy for the municipal wastewater effluent, which resulted in the federal regulation you heard about, a