Environment committee  Thank you for the question. I guess the issue originates with the 2017 report of this standing committee, in which it recommended that there be national ambient air quality standards developed under CEPA. The purpose of them, of course, is to address a half a dozen or so substances that are problems nationwide, lead being one of the primary examples.

Environment committee  Well, I'm looking at their submission, and the way it's framed, I don't think would be very helpful. I understand the intent, but it's not good enough. The problem is that it simply indicates that as part of the discussion about the implementation framework, there is a suggestion that there be specification of the actions that the ministers will take when ambient air quality standards are exceeded.

Environment committee  What we need to do is what we suggest in tab eight of our submission.

Environment committee  The short answer is, you need to make part 4, which is the pollution prevention regime, more robust than it is now. To do that, you should adopt our proposed amendments in tab three of our proposed amendments document.

Environment committee  Thank you for the question, Ms. Collins. There is already an obligation in section 71 of CEPA. It's an authorization whereby the minister may impose a testing obligation in particular circumstances. There's a second section, section 72, which provides an impediment to the minister requesting the testing.

Environment committee  This is a statute that gets amended once every 20 years. It's most likely that this statute will, in a material way, not be back before Parliament until some time in the 2040s. We've identified nine areas of concern with this statute, some of which go back to the early 2000s. I think it's incumbent upon Parliament to get right what's wrong with CEPA right now, because we may not have an opportunity to do so in 20 years.

Environment committee  Mr. McLean, thank you very much for the question. As you may know, there are already two challenges in the federal courts against the plastic manufactured items designation that's in effect pending the results of federal court cases. They were brought by an industry coalition concerned about that designation.

Environment committee  That can be made worse by sloppy drafting, which is what I think Bill S-5 is engaged in. I don't think it was a wise decision to eliminate, for example, the title of schedule 1, “List of Toxic Substances”. Number two—

Environment committee  I'm sorry, but is that a question to me?

Environment committee  I have no comment on whether the industry influenced the drafting of this bill. All I can tell you is, when I read the words of the bill itself, whether I find them satisfactory as a Canadian or not, and as a lawyer or not. In my respectful submission, I don't find Bill S-5 particularly helpful in addressing the issues that are in play in the year 2022.

Environment committee  Yes, I do. In fact, we've incorporated some of REACH in our proposed amendments, particularly, for example, at tab three, where we were engaged in expanding sections 56 and 60 of CEPA to better approach the issue of pollution prevention than is currently the case. As you know, sections 56 and 60 have both been opened up by Bill S-5, and those are the provisions we addressed in our proposed amendments to do that.

Environment committee  I think the short answer is that on the spectrum of statutes or regulatory regimes that address the issue of toxic substances, laws like CEPA and the American Toxic Substances Control Act are much more risk-driven than is the situation in Europe under REACH, which is much more hazard-driven.

Environment committee  Our proposed amendments dealing with not only our right to a healthy environment, but also the enforcement, or the remedy portion of that exercise, are also contained in our proposed amendments. We have a separate tab for that—I think it's tab two. There what we're proposing to do is that essentially we've adopted a number of suggestions from, among other places, previous standing committees—again, your committee—in both 2007 and 2017.

Environment committee  Thank you, Madame Pauzé, for your question. In our proposed amendments, we have a number of definitions for terms in Bill S-5 that are not defined. For example, “non-regression” appears in Bill S-5, and a number of other provisions or terms are identified in Bill S-5 but not defined.

Environment committee  Let me begin by an obvious fact. Number one, CEPA is an extremely complex statute, both scientifically and policy-wise. What's important for those who will be compelled to interpret it over time, whether that's the regulated community, the non-government organization community, the general public and also especially the courts, is they need to understand what is being pursued by the language that Parliament has used in any particular provision.