Health committee  Good afternoon. My name is Kelley Bush, and I am the head of radon education and awareness under Health Canada's national radon program. Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for inviting me to be here today to discuss radon as a cause of lung cancer and to highlig

Health committee  We are already working with CMHC on the radon issue. Here is what is being done to remedy the problem. Canada Post has a program called smartmoves, or déménageur in French. Every time someone submits a change of address request, they receive an information kit on everything they

Health committee  Okay.

Health committee  We'd had the same guideline level since 1988. The original guideline was set based on available research on miners' exposure. It was only in the early 2000s that there was new pooled research that distinctly demonstrated that there was a risk at lower levels in a residential envi

Health committee  Absolutely. We did some public opinion research comparing where we were at the beginning of the program in 2007 to where we were in 2013, and we've definitely seen an increase from about 50% to about 65% in the level of awareness, and a significant increase from 4% to 25% with re

Health committee  According to the cross-Canada survey data that I mentioned earlier, it's estimated that across Canada 7% of homes have high levels of radon, but that varies quite significantly across the country. In Manitoba and New Brunswick, it was over 20%, but in every single province there

Health committee  I can speak to what Health Canada has done there. We have gone to make a presentation about the revised guideline, and we follow up on a very regular basis. It is the intent to have the Canada Labour Code harmonized with our current Canadian guideline. It's just been delayed. The

Health committee  No.

Health committee  I think Kathy would like to respond there.

Health committee  The way the building code works is that at a national level it's a model code. If it's adopted at the provincial level then it's enforceable. The large majority of the provinces and territories have adopted the codes related to radon. Several of them are now taking them and makin

Health committee  That is absolutely what Health Canada's looking at with the research we're doing, from two perspectives. From the perspective of the work that's being done to retrofit a home, is there an opportunity to build radon out in that situation? Secondly, with regard to what's being done

Health committee  The only thing I can add is that under the national radon program we have worked with the Canadian Real Estate Association, and they now do have guidance that they provide with regard to radon. Based on our discussions with other countries, such as the U.S., that have had a natio

Health committee  I'm not aware of any comparison like that being done within Health Canada. Smoking is definitely a bigger contributor. I think I should make that statement very clearly because we've worked with our colleagues on the tobacco side. With regard to a comparison, from an economic per

Health committee  I do have a colleague who is responsible for the technical operations side and all the research, so we are both the go-to. It takes a big group to run the program.

Health committee  When we get calls from members of the public who have tested their home and are concerned because they want to sell it but they've mitigated it, our response to them is that everything that we've seen in the U.S. in regard to what they can communicate is that they've addressed th