Environment committee  Exactly.

Environment committee  He's a former Supreme Court justice. He wrote the Hydro-Québec decision on behalf of the Supreme Court in 1996. That is pretty much the seminal case on CEPA at the Supreme Court level in Canada.

Environment committee  For a former Supreme Court justice, the language was quite strong. I think he was quite clear that there is a significant danger that this would attract litigation. He noted that the court was deeply divided on the case, and there are serious international and interprovincial con

Environment committee  If you look at our detailed recommendations, which have already been circulated, there are two areas in which I think citizen participation could be significantly improved in CEPA. One is the citizen action provisions. This allows private citizens to enforce certain provisions of

Environment committee  I can go through a couple of the chemicals that are on the list. I should clarify that 300 were what's called CNAP, or certificate of new application process, where they've essentially said these aren't in the market at relevant levels. If you want to reintroduce them into the ma

Environment committee  For this batch of chemicals, yes, they've put in place a version of that principle.

Environment committee  I'll clarify. On the first batch of 500, they've done something called significant new applications for 300 of those. So for 300 of them, they've said they're, in effect, no longer in the market. If they want to be reintroduced into the market, they have to go through a separate

Environment committee  I don't think it's fair to say that they are not in commerce. Maybe we can get a more technical definition from the officials. My understanding is they are no longer significantly in use in the ways that they were in use when they were first listed.

Environment committee  The categorization exercise began after CEPA 1999 came into force, and there was a statutory deadline for them to complete that process by September 14 of this year, which was achieved.

Environment committee  Or on Friday?

Environment committee  Well, that was the government's response to the categorization exercise. They took action on a number of the chemicals, but 500 of the chemicals that are in that list have been identified through the categorization process.

Environment committee  There is an interplay between the two...there is and there isn't. The announcement is a significant step forward in that it takes 200, in particular, of the most harmful substances that have been identified through the process and it puts them on a track toward regulation. That's

Environment committee  I'd like to briefly address two other issues outside of our formal recommendations that have been raised by the witnesses. This committee convened two sessions dealing with the term “toxic” in the act. In one of those sessions, I raised concerns that changing the term “toxic” in

Environment committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. To both you and members of the committee, I'd like to commend the work that the committee has done on CEPA so far. I think that work has been very comprehensive. I very much appreciate the efforts you've made to ensure that a broad range of perspectives is b

Environment committee  Yes. I'll respond to Mr. Vellacott's question and perhaps explore an area where there may be some common ground. When I suggested that other international conventions and regimes use the term “toxic”, I was not suggesting that their definition of toxic is identical to the defini