Public Accounts committee  I will answer the question about why these more dangerous chemicals don't have specific strategies. I wouldn't want to leave the committee with the impression that it was because they were being ignored in any way. In some ways, it's precisely because they were known to be seriou

Public Accounts committee  I appreciate the question. The Department of Health does not do the enforcement for the Government of Canada as an employer or for the Government of Canada as a property manager, so I'm afraid that I don't have that information in terms of how the government.... As you say, we do

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we do. I'll ask my colleague Karen Lloyd to answer your question more specifically.

Public Accounts committee  I would just support what my colleague has said about the precautionary principle. It is something that infuses our work as we go through the risk management set of criteria and as we look to the range of what appropriate tools or measures we should take. When we look at the im

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. We do in fact work with international partners and colleagues to share information and research findings. We very much appreciate that we are part of an international community and that these are typically questions that other developed countries are

Public Accounts committee  We certainly can assess the science in any way. We would presumably not just take a finding without doing our own assessment, but that does not in all cases mean redoing the science. We can review the literature, review the information, and use all of the tools and developments a

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I'm not aware of any, but I will ask my colleagues if they've had any dealings with the provinces on this question.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the question. I think it is part of the overall management approach, which the commissioner just spoke to, of setting out a very specific schedule of how we are going to address this very long list of thousands of chemicals. It was also made possible with

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the observation. At Health Canada, we certainly share the passion and concern for protecting Canadians. We feel that we have made significant progress. We actually believe that there are a number of steps that have been taken and appreciate the commissioner's comm

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for your question. We have, as I mentioned, undertaken this work. It has resulted in some chemicals having been declared to need further work and further risk management plans; in other cases, that was found not to be the case. I will ask my colleague, Karen Lloyd, who

Public Accounts committee  Yes.

Public Accounts committee  In terms of risk management actions on mercury, we are working very much with our colleagues in the Department of the Environment on the mercury issues. The updating of the regulations is something we are continuing to work on, and I may ask one of my colleagues to address...I th

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the question. We are currently conducting a toxicological assessment for lead. We have been working on this for approximately 18 months. We are anticipating that it will be released this current year, 2010, so we are on schedule to release it in that tim

Public Accounts committee  Yes, we do.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and members of the committee. Mr. Chairman, members of the Committee, it is a pleasure to be here today to discuss the report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. It's a great pleasure to be here and we'd like to th