Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the
Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 23 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Wednesday, September 1, 1999
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources, to which was referred Bill C-32, respecting pollution prevention and the protection of the environment and human health in order to contribute to sustainable development, met this day at 8:40 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Ron Ghitter (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators, good morning. Welcome to our continuing examination of Bill C-32.
This is the last in our scheduled set of hearings, subject to further discussion by the committee. We have with us this morning a panel from the Salt Institute and from the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association.
Gentlemen, welcome. We look forward to your submissions.
Please proceed.
Mr. Al Hamilton, Chemical Business Manager, Sifto Canada Inc.: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you this morning as you consider changes to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Although I am the Chemical Business Manager for Sifto Canada Inc., I am here this morning representing our industry association, the Salt Institute.
Before I focus my comments on the proposed legislation, I should first like to tell you a little bit about our product, which is rock salt.
For nearly half a century, road salt has been the primary de-icing agent used on Canadian highways in the winter. During this time, both municipal and provincial governments have tested several other products, but a suitable replacement has not, to this point, been found; the other products either do not melt ice and snow adequately or they are simply cost prohibitive. Because of its unique properties, it goes without saying that if road salt ceased to be one of the major components of winter maintenance programs, many more lives would be lost on our highways in the winter as a result of dangerous driving conditions. In essence, the use of road salt allows all of us to transport ourselves and our families safely from point A to point B in the winter.
Besides jeopardizing the safety of Canadian drivers, unsafe or closed highways would also severely impact the economy, even for a one-day shut-down. For Canadian business people, the use of road salt allows them to transport the products they make and the products they buy safely and undamaged in the winter. For Canadian workers, it also allows them to get to work safely and in a timely manner. In other words, in the winter, road salt keeps our economy moving as well.
In our harsh northern climate, the use of some kind of de-icing agent is imperative. Over the last 50 years, it has been proven that salt can do this job safely and efficiently with very little or no damage to the environment if used correctly. Abrasives, such as sand, do not melt ice and snow and are deposited in catch basins and municipal sewers in the winter, requiring expensive clean-up in the spring. They also contribute to particulate air pollution, which is becoming an increasing problem in some of our cities.
With this in mind, I come before you this morning to tell you that the existing legislation fails to give politicians, like yourselves, the latitude to protect these lives. The new legislation only makes the situation more complex.
As you know, the federal government is currently assessing all 23,000 substances that are currently used by Canadian industry. Among these that are under assessment right now are road salts. This multiyear assessment was established under the current CEPA legislation and will continue uninterrupted once the new legislation is passed.
The object of this exercise is to identify, based on very broad definition, those substances that are toxic. That means they are injurious to plant, animal, human life or any combination thereof. Those substances that are found to be toxic will be subject to a variety of controls under the proposed new act, ranging from management and restriction of their use to virtual elimination of products that pose imminent threat to human life.
You will also know that a new provision of Bill C-32 allows citizens and governments to launch legal action against polluters in order to enforce the bill's provisions, which is a significant development in the enforcement of any environmental statute. Having reflected on this matter, I am sure that the architects of the proposed changes did not realize that both of these aspects of the bill could cause serious problems for both municipal and province governments.
In order to understand where the problems lie, you need to look at the evaluation process of substances itself. The review of substances elicits a black or white answer. A substance is either toxic or it is non-toxic; there is no in between.
Non-toxic substances are unregulated now and will remain so under new legislation. However, all toxic substances are lumped together, effectively stigmatizing them as being dangerous, and are therefore subject to a variety of controls. If a substance is found harmful to any small plant or animal species tested, it is given the same label as a substance that poses imminent danger to human life.
From your sessions with Environment Canada officials, I am sure you are aware that there are currently two priority substance lists, PSL1 and PSL2. Road salts are being assessed under PSL2, which makes them somewhat of a priority under the 23,000 substances that are out there. It is somewhat of a surprise to us, given the well-documented 50 years that salt has been used, the extent of the environmental work during this period, and the fact that there are active controls on the use of road salt by both municipalities and provinces.
Based on what is known today, the outcome of the PSL2 evaluation of road salt may result in a non-toxic designation. However, let me ask you: If road salts were labelled toxic, would it be possible for you to convince your citizens to keep using the same product that they used safely for the last 50 years? They would think there was something that we now understand about this product that we did not understand before, and something that made it unsafe. In reality, nothing would have changed, except the label.
Unfortunately, in politics, like in many other aspects of life, perception is reality to many.
The problem for Canadian provinces and municipalities is that it is politically unacceptable to shut down our highway system during the winter months. Provinces and municipalities want to protect the safety of their citizens during the winter. They also want to keep their businesses; stores, hospitals, and schools open in the winter. They depend on road salt to do that. You are the politicians. Some of you probably have experience in local or province government. You know that the citizens will not stand a shut down of our highways in the winter.
Studies in Finland show that improper winter maintenance caused the accident rate in that nation to go up 20 per cent in the winter. Studies in Germany and the United States determined that applying road salt cut the accident rate four hours after salting by 70 per cent to 88 per cent. That is lives saved; that is injuries prevented; that is kids whose school bus arrived safely rather than going into the ditch; that is heart attack victims who get to the hospital and receive the care they need in a timely fashion. This is not a theoretical concern; we are talking about real lives here.
Let us not forget about the impact of maintenance on the economy, as well. Last year, Standard & Poor's released a study that looked at the economic impact of poor winter maintenance on highways in Ontario and Quebec. That study revealed that a one-day shut down of Ontario and Quebec roads caused by a storm would translate into a combined loss of nearly $227 million in direct and derived wages, $103 million in provincial and federal taxes, and $86 million in lost retail sales. Again, these are predictable costs, not theoretical ones.
To complicate matters further, municipalities and provinces are strongly motivated to adequately salt roads during inclement weather by a recent provincial court decision. This recent legal decision has exposed local and provincial governments to suits initiated as a result of the "failure-to-maintain" case. I refer to the 1997 Roberts v. Morana decision handed down by the Ontario Court, General Division. In this case, the Ontario Ministry of Transportation was found liable for debilitating injuries caused to motorists because a section of 401 in Scarborough was not salted properly during a period of freezing rain. In its decision, the court ordered the Province of Ontario to pay $4.5 million in damages to the victim because of permanent injuries she suffered in the accident.
You can see the problem here. On the one hand, people can bring lawsuits against the province or municipalities if the roads are not properly salted. On the other hand, if salt were declared toxic, people could bring lawsuits against those levels of government for putting this toxic substance on the road. It is a Catch-22.
Canadians want to protect the environment. They also want to protect the safety of their citizens and their economic security.
Is there a solution to the problem? Yes, we believe there is. We do not propose that you rewrite the definition of "toxicity," even though we think it is too broad. We do not suggest that you interfere with or second-guess the scientists doing the evaluation under the PSL2 studies. We believe that the scientists who are engaged are competent. We believe they are working hard on this evaluation. Our concern is not with their scientific expertise but with the fact that scientific judgment is being substituted for political judgment in what clearly must, at the end of the day, be an intensely political decision.
A better solution we believe would be to empower the minister to act in the interests of public safety. What we propose is a minor technical amendment to the proposed bill, an amendment that would in no way alter the substantive policy objectives of CEPA. Rather, the amendment would give a third option to policymakers.
We are suggesting that, in addition to toxic and non-toxic designations, the new proposed CEPA be amended to create a public good category. This third category would allow the minister to balance human health and international economic welfare against whatever environmental impacts are documented for an individual substance. The minister could then allow certain substances, deemed essential to the public interest, to be properly used without being subject to virtual elimination by citizen suits or without being declared toxic.
To conclude, Mr. Chairman, a failure to place public safety first will result in unnecessary traffic deaths and injuries and will imperil the Canadian economy. The simple amendment that we are proposing will empower decision-makers to act in the overall best interests of Canadians.
Thank you for the opportunity to bring this important matter to you. For your reference, I have prepared some suggested language that I will table for the committee. I would be pleased to answer any questions you may have.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Hamilton. I was surprised to learn of your concern, frankly. In clause 93(b), the minister has the discretion as to the places or areas where the substance may be released. Thus, if the minister says it is toxic, and that is a matter to be determined years and years down the line, the minister can still say that you can put it on the roads under the existing legislation. Why do you need amendments?
Mr. Hamilton: First, I do not think it is years and years down the road. Salt is currently undergoing assessment under PSL2. Our understanding is that the decision will be out sometime around the end of this year or early next year.
Our concern is that the word "toxic" implies things to people that may or may not be correct. We think of "toxic" as meaning something that is imminently dangerous to humans. How will the general public react if, suddenly, a toxic substance is being applied to their streets? That is our concern.
The Chairman: You are concerned that salt will be declared toxic?
Mr. Hamilton: If in fact that is what happens, yes, we are concerned about the reaction. Of the 23,000 substances, salt is not likely be the only substance to fall under this category; other substances may also fall into a grey area between toxic and non-toxic. It is that grey area that we believe should be defined as a third category.
Salt does many good things. It saves a lot of lives in winter. It keeps the economy moving. In our experience, when a substance begins to be referenced as toxic, people will not look on it in the same manner.
The Chairman: We have heard from many witnesses that quantity is important. How much of a substance are people ingesting? How much will go into our environment? Some minerals and vitamins are necessary for human health. Regarding quantity, we know salt is toxic in large amounts so the quantities in use will face some judgment.
Mr. Hamilton: Salt is a naturally occurring element in the environment. We add road salt. You are right, anything is toxic if the quantities are large enough. The definition of "toxic" is very broad. We do not know the outcome of the evaluation. If someone could guarantee us today that there will not be a toxic designation on salt, then we might feel somewhat differently about this bill, but we do not now have that guarantee. We see potential problems for salt, as an example, but perhaps for other substances, too.
We feel the minister is in the best position to determine what is good for the Canadian public as a whole. It should be possible to create a third category into which he could put things like salt.
Senator Nolin: In Quebec, we have one road, roughly 15 kilometres long, that for the last 20 years has had no salt applied to it. They are testing that road. They are applying only sand, or crushed stone, or substances other than salt, and it is working; there have been no more accidents on that road than on other roads.
I am more concerned with your concern about civil actions by individuals. Please be precise. Are you concerned about the right to sue as contained in this proposed act or about any action?
Mr. Hamilton: No. As I understand the proposed act, people could bring civil action against the provinces and municipalities because --
Senator Nolin: No, let us look at clause 22. You are raising a valid question, but we will calm your concern if we can. An action can be brought by an individual against one person, the minister. Is that the clause that preoccupies you?
Mr. Hamilton: I think it would be subclause 22(2):
The action may be brought in any court of competent jurisdiction against a person who committed an offence under this Act...
Senator Nolin: What is an "offence under this Act"? Keep in mind that an offence cannot be charged retroactively. It is totally illegal to create a retroactive offence. So what kind of offence under this bill is preoccupying you?
Mr. Hamilton: If a substance were labelled toxic and it were being put into the environment, is it not possible for any citizen to bring a lawsuit against the province or municipality?
Senator Nolin: Do you mean for past actions?
Mr. Hamilton: I refer to going forward. Obviously, the citizen would have to prove in court that the lawsuit was valid; however, lawsuits could be brought forward.
Senator Nolin: Lawsuits are brought every day.
Mr. Hamilton: There could be legitimate suits and nuisance suits. Lawsuits could be brought against the provinces and municipalities.
Senator Nolin: If a substance has been legally useable for years past and is suddenly declared to be toxic, then a company or municipality could be sued by an individual because emission of that substance is an offence under this act? I do not think so. It is a valid concern, but we need a closer look. When you refer to an offence under this act, which one do you mean?
Mr. Hamilton: Part of our concern stems from the fact that once a substance is labelled toxic people will look at it differently. That has been my experience. A lot of concern would be raised about putting a toxic substance on the streets. There are those who would try to use this part of the proposed act to put pressure on municipalities and provinces to reduce the use of salt; at the same time, the recent court decision forces its use. We see a real conflict here.
Senator Nolin: I understand your concern.
Mr. Hamilton: I understand your point, too, senator.
Senator Nolin: We are talking about criminal action and penal law. The bill needs to be strict and to have a strict interpretation. We cannot have flaws. The bill needs to be precise. I understand your concern, but I do not agree with it.
Senator Cochrane: I think clauses 21(1)(a) and (b) will also cover that situation:
The Minister may discontinue the investigation if the Minister is of the opinion that
(a) the alleged offence does not require further investigation; or
(b) the investigation does not substantiate the alleged offence.
Senator Nolin: To trigger the right in clause 22 to sue the minister, you must first ask the minister to investigate an offence. If after a reasonable period the minister has not moved, you can sue the minister for not moving. If the minister investigates, you may sue if you do not agree with the reasonableness of the result of the investigation.
Mr. Hamilton: I understand that. I also understand that there are two ways that someone can go about this. A lawsuit can be launched against the minister, or the person can sue the entity they envision as doing the polluting, which, in this case, would be the provinces or municipalities.
I am not sure. You have obviously been through this more than I, but that is the way I have been reading clause 22(2). In this case, a person could go to the municipality, for instance, that is supplying the salt.
Senator Nolin: You still have to request the minister to investigate. It cannot suddenly appear unexpectedly.
Mr. Hamilton: If the substance has been through the PSL2 process and is labelled toxic, can a person then not go directly to the municipality and place a lawsuit against them?
Senator Nolin: Of course, for future action.
Senator Cochrane: I question a statement on page 1 of your brief, Mr. Hamilton, to the effect that, in the harsh northern climate, use of some kind of de-icing agent on roadways is imperative. You said that, over the last 50 years, it has been proven that salt can do this job with little, if any, environmental damage when used properly.
"When used properly," I think, is a broad phrase. I know that in my province salt has done terrible damage to our vehicles. The deterioration of our cars is just awful compared to cars in B.C., where some of the highways do not need salt. It is my understanding that sand is just as good as salt. It has been used in our municipalities and has been proven effective. I do not see any more road accidents when we use sand than when we use salt.
Mr. Hamilton: To answer your first question, some corrosion occurs because of the use of salt. Car manufacturers are doing a better job today; there is less damage than there used to be.
As with other things, there is some trade-off. There may be some long-term effects on vehicles; however, eliminating accidents and damage to vehicles as a result of winter road conditions is what we are trying to focus on. We are trading that off against some of the longer-term issues you are talking about with vehicles. If you look at the overall cost benefit, studies indicate that we are better off using salt.
Sand, unlike salt, does not melt snow and ice. Sand is an abrasive. Over the years, it has been proven effective and cost-effective to use salt. We do not believe that sand does the job as well. I think there are studies out there that indicate that.
Some tests indicate that as sand is ground down it puts particulates into the air, thereby adding to the particulate emissions in our cities.
Senator Cochrane: I disagree there.
I wish we were hearing from someone from the transportation ministries of the provincial governments. If so, we would be able to compare sand and salt in regard to what is happening with road conditions. However, I understand that we will not be hearing anyone from the provinces.
The Chairman: It is not planned at this point in time.
Mr. Hamilton: I will get you some information on that issue, senator.
Senator Hays: I want to confirm my understanding of your desire for a third category. It seems principally driven by trying to avoid the chilling effect of having salt called toxic. To some extent, I guess, that problem arises as a result of the way in which the bill -- and I raise this often -- is structured in terms of being based on the criminal law. Its thrust is to deal with toxic substances.
The current initiative is ambitious. In many cases, there are those who would say that it is not ambitious enough. However, this relatively ambitious project is attempting to analyze some 23,000 substances to determine whether they are being used safely now and are safe to use.
You have not had much of an opportunity to talk about the amendment you would like to see. In general terms, just so we understand it, it is basically not to interfere in any way with what the bill provides, but rather to have certain substances labelled differently.
Mr. Hamilton: Yes.
Senator Hays: The other thing I wanted to ask you about was the other two levels of government, municipal and provincial, in terms of the use of salt for safety reasons as a de-icing substance. Many jurisdictions regulate, but could you comment on the uniformity of regulation? Salt is not needed in areas where there is no ice; however, in provinces where there is ice, do you find that there is uniformity in the treatment of salt as a de-icing substance?
Mr. Hamilton: It has become more and more uniform over the years.
The Salt Institute has promoted a program called Sensible Salting. The idea of sensible salting is to not use more than you need, but to use the correct amount of salt for de-icing roadways.
Currently, most municipalities and provinces have guidelines in place for the people who actually spread the salt. There is a range, but it is a range that is much tighter than it was in the past. We believe that most people are doing a good job of it.
Senator Hays: Is it banned anywhere?
Mr. Hamilton: No.
Senator Hays: That is interesting to know.
Mr. Hamilton: Not that I am aware of, anyway.
Senator Hays: For those of us who are farmers, salt often helps us in composting our cars.
Senator Chalifoux: I come from northern Alberta, where there is a dry climate. Winter there is dry. The City of Edmonton has been looking at the salt situation for many years. A previous mayor in Edmonton chose not to use salt for one year and used sand instead. That did not seem to be of great benefit.
In the northern part of Alberta, and I am sure in the northern parts of our country where the climate is dry and cold, salt does not really help much. Currently, in Edmonton, I think they are using one part salt to four parts of sand, which is very good.
To make a blanket statement that salt is wonderful for all of Canada is not quite correct, given the different climates in this country.
I would like to get back to your concern and your amendment. I agree with Senator Cochrane regarding clause 21, but in clause 22, you must take the whole clause in context. It states:
(1) An individual who has applied for an investigation may bring an environmental protection action if --
-- and there is a big word, "if" --
a) The Minister failed to conduct an investigation and report within a reasonable time; or
b) The Minister's response to the investigation was unreasonable.
There is a lot of protection there for the person who may be sued. We have to look at the whole section rather than just part of it. Although I understand your concerns, I think that the bill, as it stands right now, addresses many of them.
Mr. Hamilton: I will spend some more time on this. Obviously, you have spent more time on it than I have at this point. I thought I understood it, but I will look at it again.
On your first comment, senator, I agree that salt is more effective in the eastern part of the country where the weather is warmer, the snow tends to be damper, and we get a lot more freezing rain. I recognize that where you live it is probably less of an issue than it is in southern Ontario and Quebec, the more populated areas in particular, where we get a lot of wet snow and ice in the winter. I appreciate your comment.
Senator Taylor: On a point of clarification, it is my impression that if something is on the list it does not necessarily mean that it is banned. The substances on the lists of toxics must be moved to another list to be banned. Therefore, just because salt is on the toxic list does not mean that its use is banned.
The Chairman: It still requires regulation.
Mr. Hamilton: I understand that there are different types of controls that can be put on, up to banning it. Our concern is with the toxic designation. I do not know whether it would ever be banned. That will probably not happen, but it would be looked at differently if that were to happen.
Salt is the not only substance that will fall into this category, so I would ask you to consider it for some of the other 23,000 substances as well.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Hamilton, for bringing to our attention something that we had not thought about before. Thank you for being with us.
Our next witnesses are from the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association.
Mr. Laurence Moore, Member of the Board of Directors and Manager of Environmental Programmes, Ontario Clean Water Agency, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association: Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, the Ontario Clean Water Agency serves about 250 municipalities in Ontario with both water and wastewater services. I am here with Duncan Ellison, head of staff of the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association, to bring the position of that association to this committee, and we appreciate the opportunity to do so.
The Canadian Water and Wastewater Association represents on a national level municipal non-profit agencies or organizations that provide those essential water and wastewater services. Altogether, we represent about 4,000 municipalities that serve 24 million to 25 million Canadians.
These municipal services, as many of you know, are already very strictly regulated at the provincial level as well as at the municipal level. Municipalities have no option but to operate the facilities in total compliance with provincial law. In fact, my job as manager of compliance is to ensure that we always do so.
We contribute to the development of regulations and the guidelines that often precede the regulations. Across North America, various water and wastewater utilities contribute about $36 million to research to continually improve the regulations and the science. Over the last 10 years in particular, there has been a high level of cooperation at the federal and provincial levels to harmonize the regulations across Canada and to continually raise the standard. Therefore, none of the standards are getting weaker. They are consistently getting stronger as our understanding of the science becomes better. We fully support the efforts to raise standards to ensure public health and to protect the environment.
Therefore, when we appear before a committee like this, we do not want to be seen as a group that is trying to weaken or soften standards. Our position is clear. We support the fundamentals of the bill to protect the environment. However, we have some concerns focusing on the same thing that virtually everyone else who has appeared before the committee has been concerned about, that being the process for listing toxic substances under the provisions of the bill. We believe that in this bill there are some real barriers to us successfully carrying out our duty to protect public health through the operation of our facilities. We are asking you to help us find a way of overcoming those barriers.
Like many of the other speakers you have heard, we believe that it is reasonable for Canadians to expect that, when a substance is declared toxic, efforts will be taken to save them from harm's way. The listing alone gives people that reasonable expectation. It is an unequivocal statement by the Governor in Council that the named substance is toxic.
The Canadian Water and Wastewater Association submits that there are two flaws in the process required by the bill. First, there is a failure to take into account that there may be health benefits from the use of a substance, as well as environmental impacts. Second, there is a failure to declare the levels of concentration or quantities that are of concern.
Without amendment, substances which in their normal uses have public health or safety benefits while in other respects may present an environmental hazard, or vice versa, are labelled as toxic under CEPA. In any case, no consideration is given to the concentration of those substances or the quantities that may be discharged.
In short, although it may seem counter-logical, there must be more than proof of toxicity to list a substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. In our view, it is not enough only to prove that something is toxic.
Municipalities expect new water or wastewater plants to serve them for 60 years or more. These plants require huge capital investment, often the largest capital investment in a municipality. These facilities can be modified and upgraded, but it normally costs a great amount of money to do that and those expenditures have to be weighed off against other uses that might have a greater public health or environmental benefit.
We work with our municipalities to make those investment decisions based on the best scientific knowledge. As I mentioned before, great effort goes into establishing that knowledge. Municipal governments look to the industry leaders, provincial regulators, and the federal scientific authorities like Health Canada and Environment Canada, for this advice. Therein lies our interest specifically in the provisions of the bill regarding the assessment and evaluation of chemical substances.
We submit that there are some substances that should not be listed or that, if listed, should be quantified by the levels of concentration or the quantity of concern. I think it is clear that, when a substance is declared toxic, it forever colours the character of the agencies and the organizations that use it. If we use a number of declared or listed substances, do we suddenly move from the side of protecting public health -- which is what we consider our sole job -- to being polluters of the environment because we emit toxic substances or we use a toxic substance in the very act of protecting public health? We are concerned about having to carry that taint with us.
For example, chlorinated municipal effluents were found by Health Canada not to be toxic to humans when the substance was evaluated under the first Priority Substances List. Yet, it was found to be toxic to the environment by Environment Canada. This is not a surprise. Chlorine kills things. Chlorine is toxic. As such, it was added earlier this year to the List of Toxic Substances. The problem we have now is that few members of the public really understand that chlorine is added to municipal wastewater effluent streams under provincial regulatory requirements to protect public health. There was a clear acknowledgement and a thorough risk assessment of the public health benefits of adding chlorine versus the potential environmental impacts of adding the chlorine to the effluents. That risk assessment was already done and, yet, here it is, it is listed now as a toxic substance under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act.
There are thousands of wastewater treatment plants across the country that use chlorine as a disinfectant. It was, for decades, the only effective disinfectant available and it kills all microbial risks coming from a wastewater plant. Provincial regulatory requirements often set out the minimum doses of chlorine -- not the maximum -- that we have to add to the discharge. They also specify the time of contact to ensure that you end up with a safe effluent.
It is possible to dechlorinate a chlorinated effluent. However, again, since there is no quantity provision in the bill, even if you dechlorinate, there is always a trace of chlorine, so no matter what you do, if you have added chlorine, you will have a toxic discharge. Let me discuss my own company. We have several hundred toxic discharges in Ontario. That is potentially a problem because they are no more toxic now than they were before, and, again, it is added only to protect public health.
There are some alternatives, to be fair. The most powerful recent one, and one that we use quite extensively, where necessary, is the use of ultraviolet radiation. You put tubes in the discharge, they emit powerful ultraviolet light, and that kills most organisms. However, there are trade-offs there. Those units use very large amounts of power, of electricity. In most parts of the country, that means burning fossil fuels, which, of course, contribute to acid rain, the greenhouse gas effect and so on, plus you must consider the cost of the power. Those tubes also contain significantly more mercury than a normal fluorescent tube, so you have to handle those tubes very carefully. Finally, you have to wash the tubes occasionally with very strong phosphate solutions, and I think everyone understands the impact of phosphate. Alternatives may not be better. We have firsthand knowledge of several situations where we put in a UV system, and it did not kill the microbes sufficiently, and we had to go back to chlorine, so it is not a solution in all cases.
The assessment process set out under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act does not take into account the possibility of net public or environmental health benefits in the determination of toxicity. Under the current and proposed regimes, the assessment process determines whether or not a substance is toxic to human health or the environment. If it is found to be toxic under either of these criteria, it is declared so. If it is found to be persistent or bioaccumulative, then it proceeds to the virtual elimination category. Otherwise, it goes into the risk-management phase.
The point in issue is that investment decisions may be provoked by simply declaring a substance to be toxic and the resulting pressures to do something about it. The expectation is there to do something, to demand why this effluent is still chlorinated?
It is important to note that the infrastructure changes necessary to accommodate or use a substitute substance or technology is likely to be very expensive -- billions of dollars across the country.
The CEPA process does not require the Governor in Council to declare what the concentration or quantities of concern are at the time of listing a substance on the List of Toxic Substances. That is despite the fact that these two essential quantitative sets of data have almost certainly been identified in the assessment process. They are therefore known but not shown. The only exception to this is when a substance is to be added to the list of substances destined for virtual elimination.
Let me give you a couple of examples. There is the example of Aspirin. In low doses, it is great for you; take too much, and you have a serious problem. We have another one in the water industry, the use of fluoride. Under municipal bylaws, we are required to add fluoride to the water. Everyone knows that fluoride is a toxin. At high concentrations, fluoride is definitely toxic. In fact, as a gas, it is terribly toxic. Of course, there is also the debate about using it in toothpaste. There is a huge public debate about the use of fluoride in water. It is not one of the substances under consideration at this point, but if it ever were to be tested under the system, it certainly would be declared toxic -- no ifs, ands or buts about it -- but for what net benefit? There would still be the discussion, yes, it has benefits and, yes, it is toxic. How do you propose to deal with that?
The same is true for many other substances.
The water in your glasses and the water in the bottles that we distributed is safe, clean water. It is totally fit for human consumption -- this is the water from Ottawa-Carleton -- and yet it contains within it a substance that is being considered for listing as a toxic substance. The substance that is in this bottle and in your glasses is a substance called chloramine. It is a combination of chlorine and ammonia that is added to the water to keep it sterile as it passes through the distribution system and through your tap, so that when it comes out of your tap, it is a safe product. It is not enough just to disinfect the water when it leaves the plant. You have to add chlorine or chloramine through the process. Chloramine will be declared toxic, so your water will be toxic -- not toxic to you but to the environment. If you have poured it on your lawn or put it in the Ottawa River, you are putting a toxic substance in the environment. Does that make sense?
It is for this reason that the Canadian Water and Wastewater Association is asking this committee to consider two sets of amendments to Bill C-32. The first is that the ministers take into account the concept of the net environmental and health impact in arriving at a decision to declare a substance to be toxic under CEPA. The second is to specify the concentration or quantities of concern at the time that substance is added to the List of Toxic Substances. Thank you very much.
Senator Hays: Thank you. You have asked for very extensive but not substantial changes, in terms of what I think the act already does, to the legislation.
I was thinking of the chairman's comments in response to the Salt Institute's concern and his comment about the bill's regulation of the use of substances that are found to be toxic. Again, I explain that the thrust of the legislation is, I think, sensitive to its constitutional base in criminal law and that is why you see it worded that way. It is difficult to change that and be confident that the act will fit within what the Supreme Court has said is the constitutional power that makes it possible for the federal government to do this.
You were here and you heard that comment about section 93. Could you respond in terms of why you think all of these changes would be necessary, given the fact that it is possible for the ministers to actually regulate?
Mr. Moore: I think you have heard enough from me.
Mr. Duncan Ellison, Executive Director, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association: I am the executive director.
I believe the concern focuses on the fact that this is the only act of the federal government that authorizes the Governor in Council to declare a product to be toxic or harmful without declaring the concentration of concern. If the minister were to say that chlorinated wastewater effluents at about 50 parts per million were considered to be of concern, municipalities then do not have to fight the battle. They would only have to demonstrate to their local concerned citizens, environmental groups, the Sierra legal defence fund and all of those other groups out there that their effluent is below the toxic level, or below the level of concern.
Regulation-making processes are very long. It can take years before a regulation comes in. The point is that in that time the people who are handling, using or discharging these substances are hung up on a hook. The Governor in Council, the highest authority in the land, has said, "You are emitting, discharging, handling a toxic substance. You are forever coloured as handling that." The scientific knowledge as to what the level of concentration or the quantity of concern is, is already there. However, the Governor in Council does not acknowledge it.
Senator Hays: I follow you. Some would probably accept this, but I am not one of them. The bill's intentions is not that the Governor in Council for Canada and the ministers of environment and health for Canada should start to deal with the issues you have just raised.
Municipal and provincial governments are the ones that will probably be regulating what you have just described. I do not think that the ministers of environment and health under this legislation or the government by Order in Council will start regulating every primary, secondary and tertiary treatment facility in municipal areas. I imagine that could happen, but I do not envisage it. I think the proper regulator of that would be the municipal authorities and the provinces.
The thrust of this bill is to identify chemicals that have the potential to harm human health and the environment, and having identified them, ensure that their release is regulated or prohibited. In fact, in some cases the chemicals would be eliminated, period.
I share your concern and I see where you are coming from, I think. I think that other levels of government will be involved, not the federal government.
Mr. Moore: The chlorinated municipal effluent issue was already very closely regulated. Where necessary, alternatives were already being imposed. For example, if you were putting an effluent into a trout stream, you would have to put in ultraviolet radiation because the chlorine would kill the trout. However, if it was going into the Great Lakes or the ocean, chlorine is the most effective method available. It is also cost-effective. Therefore, that regulation already existed. We have already found, simply by putting that on the list and having it advertised around the industry, that there is already increasing pressure to move off chlorine without necessarily looking at the risk assessment of the alternatives nor really thinking through management plans and such.
That has already happened for one substance. What happens when it hits chloramines? How will we keep the water sterile when it hits your tap if there is pressure to remove that from the water systems? Is it simply enough for a substance to be toxic for it to be listed or should something more be required? Obviously this is your decision. No one suggests that it is someone else's decision. Do you have to be shown more than that it is toxic to be listed? Do you have to consider the implications of declaring it toxic?
Senator Adams: A few years ago I visited the sewage treatment plant of a small town in Ontario. It is treating sewage differently using high-pressure water and air. It makes a kind of snow. Has that system been approved for health reasons? It may be okay for 2,000 or 3,000 people. How does that system work?
Mr. Moore: One municipality in Ontario uses a process called "snow fluence." It is actually quite a good name because it is basically making snow at a ski resort. The sewage goes into a lagoon. It is stored over winter, then runs through what is basically a snowmaking machine and it makes big piles of snow. It is very powerful because when the water crystallizes it kills the organisms. It is quite good as a sterilization technique, and of course after the snow melts the grass is great around that lagoon after the snow melts.
You are right. There are a number of good methods. You can also have an artificial wetland. There are a number of excellent ways of handling small quantities of sewage. However, sewage treatment plants, with the effluents going somewhere, is the only thing we have come up with so far for larger municipalities.
Senator Adams: A lot of communities do not have any treatment plants and the waste goes right into the sea. Between freshwater and salt water, it becomes polluted and goes into the wastes. Is this a little different between salt and freshwater and between waste going into the sea? It may be easier to pollute lake water and other freshwater than the sea.
Mr. Moore: I do not have much experience with salt water in Ontario. My understanding is that traditionally, yes, there has been a difference. Municipalities discharging into the ocean tend to have lower levels of treatment historically. However, I think that is changing significantly now and many are really putting the investment into high levels of treatment because they recognize the potential environmental damage and the public health impacts of low levels of treatment.
I think historically, yes, there have been higher levels of treatment. I think that in freshwater, pollution shows up faster. The potential pollution and public health impact is greater because, of course, you are also drawing your drinking water usually from the same water source into which you are discharging wastewater. Thus, it is very important that you deal with the sewage effectively so it does not negatively affect your drinking water.
Another thing to consider is that typically along the Great Lakes sewage discharges are be chlorinated only a kilometre or two away from our water intakes that we are also chlorinating to make them safe. If we cannot chlorinate those discharges, we are in serious difficulty.
Senator Adams: We use a lot of chlorinated water. Some communities have a system of running water where the water runs through the treatment plant and is chlorinated, but then it must be looped back to the lake to prevent the lines from freezing if there is not sufficient water usage. I am wondering how many times that water is being chlorinated. I know it only gets so much chlorine per gallon but does it get more chlorine every time it goes back to the lake and passes through the treatment plant again? How much chlorine is being added in total?
Mr. Moore: In these situations where potable water containing chloromines or chlorine is returned to the natural environment -- like in that situation of trying to prevent freeze-up or when servicing a water main -- it is well known that the fish will be affected by those chloromines or chlorine. We routinely de-chlorinate that water before it is released to the environment. In a very small community, where there is just a freeze-up problem, that may not happen. In an urban centre where water is being released, for example, if water main work is being done here in Ottawa-Carleton, the water that would flow into the Ottawa River is de-chlorinated first, before it is allowed to be released to the environment.
It has been recognized and documented for decades that such water can be hazardous to fish. Unless some reaction is observed, a small community probably would not take that action for such a small flow.
Senator Cochrane: Mr. Chairman, I am concerned that we will not hear from the provinces or municipalities on this bill. Do you know whether the provincial governments or the Canadian Federation of Municipalities have raised any of these issues with the Minister of the Environment?
Mr. Ellison: When the association became concerned about adding chlorinated municipal effluents to Schedule I, as proposed last year, the association formally filed an objection. The basis of the objection was that the concentration of concern should be indicated and pointing out that chlorination is done for public health reasons.
We copied that objection to all of the provincial ministers of the environment. The association received seven responses from provincial ministers. I can table copies of those letters; they do support the association's concerns.
Our concern indicated that such a listing would place municipalities that comply with the provincial requirements in contravention of a potential federal act with liability under that act for discharging a pollutant. One level of government would be accusing another level of government of being a polluter for following provincial requirements.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities in many cases steps aside and recognizes that CWWA is a national association of municipal agencies specializing in this area of water and wastewater. Our views were presented to FCM and they agreed with us that this was the case.
We still believe there are two flaws in this bill. The bill directs that a substance shall be added to the list of toxic substances if that substance passes through either one of the two gates. However, the bill does not take into account the possibility that, on one gate, there may be a benefit while there is a known impact through the other gate. There is no comfort zone for those who are handling the substance to have the Governor in Council, again the highest legal authority in this land, state that a certain substance is toxic but only above 50 parts per million, for example.
Until the regulations proceed in the secondary phase -- which can take years -- municipalities that may be handling such substances have their personalities coloured by the fact that they are declared to be potential polluters. That is the issue.
There are seven substances on Priority List 2, including chloromines, which are required under provincial legislation, as an alternative to chlorine, to disinfect potable water. Another one is ammonia in the aquatic system. We are tracking all of the substances through the assessment process.
What concerns us is the outcome of that assessment process. It is too late to speak once the Governor in Council has placed a substance on the list. Then 4,000 municipalities must potentially argue with 4,000 local environmental action groups or concerned citizens or anyone else who has seen a headline saying "Municipality X is discharging toxic substances into the environment." Why should 4,000 municipalities fight that public relations debacle when the Governor in Council could say, "Yes, that substance is toxic, but only above 50 parts per million," for example? Why not take into account the net benefits?
Senator Chalifoux: This bill relates to all of Canada. I understand your concerns. I come from the northern part of what we call the mid-Canada corridor. That corridor runs north of Edmonton and south of 60, all across Canada.
In our corridor communities, effluent falls into the lakes from which people drink. We have seen babies die from Shigella and diphtheria.
As municipalities, I understand your dilemma, but we must also consider in this bill all parts of our country, and we have a large country.
I am looking now at establishing a septic tank system for my family who live in the mid-Canada corridor. There have been many improvements in septic tank systems. We will go through that and end up with a nice pond, but not everyone can afford that.
I realize that chlorine is useful. We have used it for many years in our outhouses. This is where Senator Spivak raises the issue of costs and benefits. The cost-effective control measure in the bill will give the minister and the government the authority to look at costs. Everyone knows that chlorine is needed. You want it to be defined and itemized; however, the definition that suits your municipalities may not be okay for the northern parts of our provinces.
This bill must address the needs of all Canadians. Would your concerns fall under the development of cost-effective control measures, which is already included in the bill?
Mr. Moore: We have been working very hard on cross-Canada harmonization of standards. I mentioned that briefly in my remarks.
There is cross-Canada harmonization on the level of chlorine or chloromine in drinking water. Canadian drinking water objectives have been picked up by each of the provinces: some make regulations, some make guidelines. There is a clear standard. Everyone knows what it is, and everyone accepts it and uses it.
Senator Chalifoux: Not everyone. In some of our areas we have running water. We take our pail, run to the lake and fill it up.
Mr. Moore: We are talking about the municipal system. The exception is always private services. Private services typically do not chlorinate the water. People take the water the way it comes. They might have to do something with it. If you have a private septic tank, you are not discharging an effluent into the environment in any significant way. It is very small, so there is no chlorination. However, municipalities must provide safe water and a safe effluent. That is the situation in which we are caught.
You are totally right. We are only speaking of municipal services, not private services. That is why I mentioned the number of 24 million to 25 million Canadians earlier. A number of Canadians are clearly not served by municipal services.
Mr. Ellison: We are not concerned when the regulations may follow the listing of the substance as a toxic substance. We do know and we do appreciate the regulatory impact analysis process that has to be conducted. Our point is that this process, although being shortened by this bill, is still probably 18 months to two years away. In the meantime, the substance is declared toxic without any concern for the benefits that may come from the use of this substance or the concentration or quantity of concern.
We are municipal, not-for-profit public service agencies subject to provincial regulation, working in the interests of public health and environmental health.
Recently, the Sierra Legal Defence Fund evaluated and graded 21 municipalities across the country. One of the factors that was considered was the release of wastewater effluents. That is the problem we face.
We say that the Governor in Council has the knowledge. It is in the assessment reports. Please take that into account.
The Chairman: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentation.
I would now call upon the representatives of the Canadian Labour Congress and the Canadian Union of Public Employees to please come forward.
Mr. Hassan Yussuff, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Labour Congress: Honourable senators, I want to thank the Senate committee for the opportunity to present our perspective on the proposed legislation you are discussing today.
The Canadian Labour Congress represents 2.3 million union members both in public and private sectors across Canada. For the past 15 years, the CLC has played a major role in the consultation over CEPA, from the discussions of the Environmental Contaminants Act in the early 1980s, through the consultations that led up to the original CEPA in 1988 and the priority substances project, to the current consultation over revisions to the act. The CLC also played a part in the construction of the National Pollution Release Inventory and a major role in the development of the Notification of New Substances Regulations under CEPA.
The CLC position is based on our submission to the House of Commons Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development and the CLC National Strategy on Pollution Prevention in 1998.
The CLC is an active member of the Canadian Environmental Network Toxics Caucus Steering Committee and has worked closely with such organizations as the Canadian Environmental Law Association and the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy. We fully support the July 1999 submission of the latter organization to the Senate committee. In particular, we strongly agree with CIELAP's contentions on environmental harmonization in CEPA, on the role of cost-benefit analysis, on the residualization powers in CEPA, and on the definition of "virtual elimination" and on biotechnology. The proposed new CEPA is also weak on workers' environmental rights.
Pollution prevention remains our primary concern in CEPA, and we would urge the Senate committee to make major -- though not actually extensive -- changes in this area.
For a proposed act to be subtitled "respecting pollution prevention" and to commit the government to "implementing pollution prevention as a national goal and as a priority approach to environmental protection," a phrase you will find in the CEPA preamble, the result is utterly feeble and ludicrous to the point of fraudulence. Proposed Part 4, Pollution Prevention, is slight and insignificant. The scope of pollution prevention is limited, at best, to the 26 toxic substances on Schedule I, and the requirements of Pollution Prevention Planning, or PPP, are vague, optional, and non-enforceable.
The CLC submission argues that Part 4 cannot be fixed. We argue for a true national program on pollution prevention starting with pollution prevention requirements in the extensive federal workplace jurisdiction under Part 9, Government Operations and Federal and Aboriginal Land. We advocate a system of fees or charges on toxic chemical use, to be distributed among the provinces that adopt pollution prevention legislation that meets the federal standard laid down in Part 9.
In Part 9, there is already a mandate to implement pollution prevention and a PPP in the federal jurisdiction. However, more amplification of the federal program is needed. Part 4 of CEPA was timid and feeble because of political and constitutional constraints on the federal power. These constraints do not exist in areas under the direct jurisdiction of the federal government -- that is, those covered in Part 9 of CEPA. Part 4 cannot be transposed to Part 9.
The specific items of amplification are the following:
1. Pollution prevention and PPP are to be mandatory in federal work and undertakings -- that is, the federal workplace jurisdiction.
2. The proposed act must specify the contents, goals, and requirements of pollution prevention plans, including methods of pollution prevention and the technique of hazard assessment, as part of the planning methodology.
3. The proposed act must specify the requirements for the implementation of PPP and provisions for the enforcement and verification of pollution prevention plans.
4. Summaries of pollution prevention plans must be made public and complete plans must be made public, in case of non-compliance.
5. The minister shall implement the requirement of Part 9 within two years of the proclamation of CEPA, together with a list of chemicals to which PPP applies.
Currently, they are several lists of toxic chemicals that can be adopted -- for example, those on the WHMIS Ingredient Disclosure List, embodied in the regulations under the Hazardous Protection Act. The list contains about 6,000 toxic chemicals in industrial use. A short list of CEPA toxic chemicals is unsuitable and not required in the application of Part 9 of CEPA.
6. Proposed section 322 (ff), respecting economic instruments, should be changed to enable the minister to levy fees for the administration of a national pollution prevention program.
My colleague David Bennett will make further comments.
Mr. David Bennett, National Director, Health, Safety, and Environment, Canadian Labour Congress: I should like to draw the attention of senators to point 5 in our presentation, which is that "the Minister shall implement the requirements of Part 9 within two years of the proclamation of CEPA, together with a list of chemicals to which PPP applies."
We submit that this is the most important amendment that the Senate committee can recommend. This amendment would require the government to act in a meaningful way on pollution prevention and also to act within the terms of Part 9 of Bill C-32. This would require a change of mindset by Environment Canada, the idea that it would actually regulate federal works and undertakings. Environment Canada has the resources and the infrastructure to carry out such a program. That infrastructure exists in the form of the National Pollution Prevention Office. This amendment would be a significant change in direction for Environment Canada and would be one crucial way in which the proposed legislation could be made to protect Canadians and also, in a serious and meaningful way, implement pollution prevention according to the declared aims of CEPA that are already in the preamble.
I should like to draw the attention of senators to the other two documents that we have submitted in connection with this presentation. Our original presentation to the House of Commons committee, which is still valid, explains the limitations of Bill C-32 and why the program for the control of toxic substances would not likely be an improvement on the existing CEPA. Of course, the record of the existing CEPA over the past decade for regulating toxic substances that are of national concern has been abysmally poor.
There is also an explanation of why the federal government is so timid in its pollution prevention program, why the present Part 4 of CEPA simply will not work, why it is a pretence, and even a fraud. This provides the background of our contention that the government should shift its attention in pollution prevention from Part 4 to Part 9.
The second accompanying document is the CLC National Pollution Prevention Strategy. This underpins all the contentions we have made in connection with CEPA. Section 2 of that document endorses the federal government's definition of pollution prevention, saying, in effect, that the definition is correct even though it may require amplification and clarification, and this provides a good basis for the exercise of a pollution prevention program in the federal jurisdiction.
Section 4 deals with methods of pollution prevention. Depending on the will of this committee, the committee may wish to spell out the methods of pollution prevention that flow from the definition because in the current act a great deal of fuss is made over pollution prevention and the declaration of pollution prevention as a national goal. While there is a definition, there is no explanation of what pollution prevention actually means. I believe that the government, at the political level, has basically failed to understand pollution prevention. It has failed to understand the moves that have been made in very convincing ways in such jurisdictions as Denmark, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. Once an understanding of pollution prevention becomes real and is substantiated, it becomes much easier to define the requirements of pollution prevention under Part 9, federal works and undertakings.
Finally, section 6 deals with a technique known as hazard assessment. Hazard assessment is a well-established scientific technique for informing the discipline of pollution prevention. It explains the scientific underpinning for the realization of pollution prevention in the workplace. It is based on a long history of scientific expertise. It is very different from the controversial technique of risk assessment. Again, an understanding of the notion of hazard assessment will make pollution prevention effective in Canada's workplaces, which are the key to the success or failure of pollution prevention.
In conclusion, we urge the committee not to allow this bill to proceed without significant amendments. In the view of the Canadian Labour Congress, the best thing the committee could do would be to focus the attention of the government on Part 9, pollution prevention in federal works and undertakings.
Senator Spivak: Is hazard assessment the same as the concept of inherent toxicity?
Mr. Bennett: Section 8 of the CLC National Pollution PREVENTION strategy explains it in detail, senator. Hazard assessment systems do not calculate the effects on the environment or on human health. Many hazard assessment systems, although not all of them, rely on the notion of intrinsic toxicity so that you never have to consider exposure data or exposure calculations in order to do an effective hazard assessment to inform the pollution prevention program.
Senator Spivak: Am I correct that this is the scientifically accepted concept as well as the concept of risk assessment and management for some substances?
Mr. Bennett: Yes. There is a body of scientific knowledge that has an integrity at least as strong as that for risk assessment. The focus of hazard assessment programs has been in the past, for example, Washington University in the United States. The Government of Ontario, in its Candidate Substances Program, produced a very effective hazard assessment scheme to inform the decision-making over candidate substances. There have also been international schemes developed, mainly in Europe. It is a scientific technique that is just as valid as any risk assessment.
Senator Spivak: Why do you think the pollution prevention clause of the bill is so weak? Through deliberations in the agriculture committee, we have discovered that there is often built-in pressure from industry on senior managers and people who do assessments. It becomes a built-in culture of "what does industry want." I am curious as to whether any of that is reflected in the pollution prevention policy.
Mr. Bennett: That is a long and complex question, but I will try to give a short and simple answer.
Over the past two decades, environmental lawyers in Canada have produced very ingenious and convincing reasons the Canadian government can introduce a national program of pollution prevention to cover the whole country; all types of workplaces -- public sector and private sector -- in all the provinces and territories.
They are ingenious arguments and they are convincing. They fail to understand that, if you want an effective pollution prevention program, you must have a potential government presence in all workplaces across the whole country. The political reality is that the provinces and the territories will not allow that to happen; they will resist it. Even if it were offered as cooperative venture, the plain fact is that it will not be done.
In our view, it is a delusion to insist to the government and to this committee that you have a national pollution prevention program that can effectively be carried out under Part 4 of the existing CEPA. We say we cannot. This is a delusion.
Therefore, the federal government must do all that it possibly can to establish federal leadership in the field. It should demonstrate in its own jurisdiction that Part 9 could be done. The federal government should also institute fiscal measures in order to induce the provinces to conform to the same program.
This may sound unsatisfactory, but we have to bear in mind that we are a federal state. This is Canada. We are proposing the very best and most effective way of doing something. No amount of ingenuity on the part of respected environmental lawyers will persuade the governments of Canada that the federal government has a national mandate to effectively pursue pollution prevention according Part 4 of the act. It is a myth and delusion. As to business resistance, there is business resistance to everything.
Senator Spivak: Thank you. That is an interesting answer, one that, given more time, we might like to pursue.
Senator Taylor: First, I would like to compliment the Canadian Labour Congress for doing a great deal of work on this matter. I note that you are suspicious of big business, which is, of course, a very natural thing. I want to ask you quickly about your recommendation 8 on page 17 on the "National Pollution Prevention Strategy," which states:
The federal government should introduce a tax on those toxic chemicals defining the scope of the programme, as an inducement for businesses to reduce toxic chemical use and as a transfer payment to those provinces and territories meeting the standards set in federal workplace legislation.
That sounds like a pollution tax or carbon tax. Would you comment on that? Are you suggesting that we introduce a carbon tax?
Mr. Yussuff: We are recommending a tax to deal with toxic chemicals. However, I think to answer a political question, there is a carbon tax. It is incorporated in the gasoline tax. Whenever the government finds it necessary to increase that tax, it does so, and on a regular basis.
If you want to have pollution prevention, resources will be required to do the enforcement. You have to find some way to fund the enforcement. We do not think this is a bad strategy after all. Chemicals are hazardous and negatively effect human health. We must determine a way to bring in regulation and get the necessary resources in order to respond to what we are asking you to do. We think it is a necessary requirement.
Senator Taylor: Would you comment for those who would that say a pollution tax is really just giving the rich a right to pollute?
Mr. Yussuff: My colleague wants to ensure that I clarify this. It is a tax on chemical use. If you are not using the chemical, you do not buy the product, no tax will be levied. However, if it is to be used, it is necessary to recognize that most of these substances that we are talking about are toxic and have detrimental effects on workers as well as the communities of which we are a part.
Senator Spivak: How important do you think this proposed legislation is to the country and to your organization? How important do you think it is to make these changes?
Mr. Bennett: Since CEPA is a huge act, it must be of importance to the Canadian public. We pointed out various areas where the proposed legislation is an improvement over the previous act.
The thrust of what we are saying is that if you regard CEPA 1988 as a very limited success then you can ask the question: In what ways will the Canadian environment change as a result of Bill C-32? Our arguments have been that, despite all the work, despite all the talk, and despite all the amendments, the scheme of things will change exceedingly little as a result of this bill.
It would be an appalling missed opportunity if the government pushed through Bill C-32 as it stands. That would mean that the Canadian environment would come under the regime of the proposed legislation for at least the next decade. The net effect of all this work will be that there is not a significant change from CEPA 1988. The pretence that this bill inaugurates a great new era of pollution prevention is really, in effect, fraudulent. Do not do it.
The Chairman: We will now proceed with the CUPE delegation.
Mr. Peter Leiss, Chair, National Environment Committee, Canadian Union of Public Employees: Thank you for the opportunity to address the committee. As you know CUPE represents more than 450,000 members across the country. Many of them play an important role in the Canadian environment. We represent workers in water treatment, sewage disposal sector, the garbage collection sector, and the municipal enforcement sector.
Many of our members are responsible for enforcement of municipal bylaws that have environmental consequences for society as a whole. Garbage disposal and sewage treatment have a great impact on our environment.
We do recognize that there are some improvements contained in Bill C-32 that will enhance the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. We are encouraged that the principle of pollution prevention is recognized in this bill. However, the way the bill is worded means that this proposal will not derive the stated objective of the federal government to make pollution prevention a national goal.
We believe that with Bill C-32 the government has retreated from its commitment to make environment protection a top priority in Canada. The proposals in this bill are completely inadequate and amount to little more than political posturing by presenting them as a reform of CEPA. We support the CLC position.
In moving forward with this bill, the government has ignored the advice of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, has ignored the comments of the vast majority of environmentalists, and has ignored the wishes of the vast majority of Canadians.
Bill C-32 fails Canadians because not only does it fail to build on the current CEPA, it actually weakens a number of the present clauses. The current act has been through five years of review.
The parliamentary standing committee in their 1995 report on CEPA made nearly 100 recommendations on ways to improve the act. All the committee members endorsed the report. Environmentalists, labour groups, and other public organizations endorsed the proposal. The only opposition came from the business sector. One should never discount the power and influence of the business sector when it comes to this government.
The government opted to listen to industry. Consequently, we have been presented with this very flawed bill.
Our objections to Bill C-32 are profound. It is so flawed that we believe that it should be withdrawn and that we should begin again. This bill has turned environmental protection on its head.
We believe that it will make CEPA into a charter to pollute. The current act is inadequate because it cannot deal effectively with some of the major attacks on our environment, which is why it needs to be changed. However, we believe that Bill C-32 weakens CEPA even further. I want to highlight a number of our concerns.
Unlike the existing act, Bill C-32 will require a cost-benefit analysis to be conducted before taking precautionary steps to protect human health, safety, and the environment. Who does this benefit? Obviously, it is the very group that has been demanding such a change in the legislation. Big business interests mounted a fierce lobby to have such a clause added to the bill. It is obvious that industries are affected by any attempt of government to utilize the sections of CEPA and will contest every decision made by Environment Canada. They will use their power, their wealth, and their substantial influence with members of cabinet to thwart any attempts to clean up the environment. If they fail to convince government, they will then use the courts and mount lengthy challenges that the law has been improperly administered. They will tie up Environment Canada in challenge after challenge.
Bill C-32 reduces CEPA to the status of an inferior piece of legislation. Other acts of Parliament take precedence over CEPA. Any legislation that is passed to promote agriculture, trade, industry, or any other government priority will negate any action that would be taken by CEPA. For example, CEPA will not apply in the following areas: the regulation of toxic substances; the regulation of biotechnology; the regulation of fertilizers; the regulation of environmental emergencies; and the regulation of assessing new substances and products in the biotechnological sectors.
CEPA does contain stricter environmental protection requirements than most other acts. Up until now, CEPA was the senior legislation and superseded all other acts. Bill C-32 changes this. It wipes out large sections of CEPA by proposing that action taken under CEPA can only occur if other acts of Parliament do not apply. Most Canadians would think that this proposal is backwards and that the health of Canadians and the environment would be more important than the interests of corporations. Bill C-32 also ensures that CEPA will continue to permit industry to produce and sell all of its most toxic chemicals that have been inflicted on our globe.
The most persistent organic pollutants will continue to be manufactured. In 1993, this government promised that they would phase out these pollutants. Bill C-32 reneges on that promise by permitting the continued use of such substances. It will, in fact, be almost impossible, given the wording of Bill C-32, to show that any chemicals used in Canada must be eliminated. This concession has come after tremendous pressure from chemical producers.
Bill C-32 will permit cabinet to exempt newly genetically engineered products from being evaluated for their effects on health and the environment. The bill gives cabinet the right to exempt whole classes of genetically engineered products from assessments. These classes include foodstuffs, drugs, plants, animals, and fish. Cabinet is circumventing in favour of the biotech industry. Again, this follows a fierce campaign by the biotech industry to stop CEPA from regulating the use of biotechnology.
What are we to make of this and who is to benefit? This is such an unusual proposal. Where public health and welfare issues are concerned, cabinet is rarely given such powers. We must assume that the welfare of the biotech industry is of a much higher priority with this government than the welfare of the citizens of the country.
Bill C-32 proposes to do away with the principles of precaution. CEPA has been enacted to provide protection against the continued destruction of our environment. In the past, we have always supported the underlying purpose of the act. If these changes go through, that purpose will be drastically changed. The government will not have to take action against pollution unless it can prove that it will cost industry less money to clean up than it costs to treat people who are affected by the pollution. This is a clear charter to permit industries to continue pollution.
It sends a clear message to corporations: Profits are much more important than health and safety. This bill proposes that it is acceptable to make people sick, as long as those polluting can show that they will be hurt financially. To make matters worse, it is Environment Canada that has to foot the bill for doing the cost-benefit analysis. The ministry responsible for protecting the environment is being required to develop reasons not to take those precautions. Again, who does this benefit? Certainly not those who are affected. With this language in place, we cannot help but wonder how the government will ever be able to fulfil its commitment under the international agreement to reduce greenhouse gases. Once the government has actually determined the steps to be taken, it will then have to develop cost-benefit arguments as to why it should not be done. You can be sure that the government will be getting lots of information from industry as to why they should not be affected because of costs. We assume that on the benefit side the task will fall to Environment Canada. This is an organization that has already been stripped of one-third of its personnel. It is obvious who will benefit.
Bill C-32, together with the harmonization accord with the provinces, will provide those in society who are always reluctant to put the public good before their own with plenty of opportunities to avoid taking the steps necessary to improve the state of our environment.
Handing responsibility off to the provinces, knowing the tremendous cut-backs that have been forced on provincial environment ministries or departments, is reckless. Across the country there have been wholesale cuts as environment officers are laid off, their branches eliminated, and programs discontinued. These cuts extended further than the provincial level. We have seen staff cut from municipal environment agencies. We have seen conservation authorities decimated; and we have seen environmental groups that have had their funding vastly reduced. The federal government has led the charge with their massive cuts of more than 30 per cent to Environment Canada.
In addition, Environment Canada's authority to manage the environment has been undermined as responsibilities were handed over to other federal ministries who have completely different mandates, often mandates that were in conflict with the goal of environmental protection and improvements. Bill C-32 will not enhance Environment Canada's ability to protect our environment; it is better put to rest.
CUPE believes that the first priority for this government is to replace the cutbacks to Environment Canada and to re-establish their role as the lead ministry in environmental concerns. We believe that this should be done at once.
The majority of the changes in Bill C-32 are contrary to the wishes of the majority of Canadians. Polls have consistently shown that the public expects the federal government to take a lead in making improvements in the environment, not just to stop ecological damage but to take steps to improve and restore the ecosystems. These expectations extend to both national and international levels.
Bill C-32 does not move the federal government toward the environment goal of its citizens. For example, 82 per cent of Canadians believe that environmental law should be stricter despite government debt and cutbacks. Ninety per cent of Canadians are concerned about the state of the environment, with most expressing serious concerns about potential damage brought by global warning. Equally high levels of concern are expressed about Canada not meeting its international commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Seventy-eight per cent of Canadians believe that their children will experience great health problems because of a worsening environment.
CUPE believes that any government who beefs up environmental laws will receive a very large approval rating from the Canadian public. Not to do so will thwart the will of the people.
Past experience has shown that environmental improvements are always driven by stricter laws. This is borne out by past polls. These polls show that 95 per cent of organizations polled admitted that their number one reason for having environmental programs was to comply with regulation. Sixty-six per cent said they were motivated by the possibility that the directors of their organizations could be held liable for violations of environmental acts and their regulations. Only 16 per cent said that Bill C-32, if passed, will not move the improvement of the environment forward.
Almost as one voice, environmental organizations have been making themselves heard over this bill. They are all saying that the bill is so flawed that it should be sent back to Parliament for extensive changes. Like us, they believe this bill has little to do with progressive legislated changes to protect our environment but has more to do with legislative changes to protect industries and corporations.
Their message has been consistent. Environment improvements will only be driven by better environmental laws. They have developed draft legislation and presented it to governments. They have sat on committees and urged the adoption of better laws. They have lobbied and campaigned to make this globe a better and safer place.
This committee has heard from many of these organizations, both in person and through written submissions. We suggest that not one of them has congratulated the government on the great job it has done in moving protection of the environment forward. The government did not listen to them or to us. We urge you to do so.
The senators on this committee represent the last chance for this bill to be improved. It is a matter public health for Canadians and it is of importance globally. Multinational corporations increasingly are calling the tune where national government interests are concerned. We believe this is the case here. CEPA is being changed to suit corporate interests. These changes are detrimental to the health and safety of Canadians and to the environment as a whole.
We urge you to reject this bill and send it back to Parliament with instructions that a new and improved bill be reintroduced later this year. The new bill should contain all the amendments made by the House of Commons Standing Committee on the Environment and Sustainable Development. It should also contain the recommendations that labour has put forward today.
The Chairman: I am sure you would agree with me that the bill has a nice title.
Mr. Leiss: It does indeed.
The Chairman: The brief is clear on the position of CUPE. It is an interesting position. We thank you very much for it.
I take it there are no questions?
Thank you very much, gentlemen. We appreciate your input and your excellent presentation.
Our next panel is from the Canadian Institute of Child Health.
Dr. Eva Rosinger, Board Member, Canadian Institute of Child Health: Thank you for inviting our institute to address this important Senate committee. With me today is the immediate past chair of the CICH board of directors, Dr. Graham Chance, a physician and academic scientist who has devoted all his career to the health of children and who is very passionate about their well-being. Ms Sandra Schwartz is an environmental health specialist and director of environmental programs for the CICH.
I am a scientist and engineer, a member of the CICH board of directors and, until recently, the deputy director for environment at the OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in Paris. Before that, I was a director general and CO of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment.
For over 20 years, the Canadian Institute of Child Health has been acting as a dedicated voice for children to improve their health and well-being. We define "childhood" as extending from the fetus stage through infancy to the pubescent youth.
Since 1995, CICH has been investigating how children's health can be affected by environmental contaminants. We are considered the Canadian leader in children's environmental health. The ultimate goal of our Environmental Contaminants and Child Health Program is to ensure that children can grow up in a safe environment, in an environment that will not interfere with their potential to develop into healthy adults.
In our presentation today, we will not attempt to address the finer points of Bill C-32 but rather will highlight the specific needs of children in the context of environmental protection. Bill C-32, as it stands, fails to recognize the special susceptibility of children. We feel this is a serious omission; therefore, we will recommend a child-specific environmental protection component to the legislation and discuss the need for preventative action in light of scientific uncertainty.
We will outline in detail several specific recommendations. We recommend strengthening the preamble by including a clause recognizing the special susceptibility of children to environmental contaminants. We recommend that you reinstate into the preamble the original wording containing the stipulation of the need to phase out generation and use of the most persistent and bioaccumulative substances, as it existed after the House committee stage. We recommend strengthening the administrative duties clause by removing "cost-effective" from the definition of precautionary principle, as it existed after the House committee stage.We recommend that Part 3, specifically clauses 43 and 44, and Part 5, clauses 67 and 68, include the unique physiology and special susceptibility of children to environmental hazards. We wish to make a case why the Government of Canada should establish an office of children's environmental health protection.
I will start by addressing the special vulnerability of children. There are many factors that determine whether a child is born healthy and stays healthy into adulthood. Among them, influences from the environment rate very highly. Children are not just small adults. As a consequence of their developmental, behavioural and physiological characteristics, children, especially young children, are a unique segment of our population who are highly vulnerable because they encounter and process environmental contaminants quite differently than adults.
Children's ability to metabolize, detoxify and excrete many toxics is different from that of adults. Exposures at critical periods of development from conception to adolescence can result in irreversible damage to growing nervous systems, affect emerging behaviour patterns, cause immune dysfunction and have serious reproductive effects. If a toxic exposure occurs during critical growth stages, the affected system can sustain permanent damage.
In addition to developmental and physiological differences, children's behaviours often place them at higher environmental risks than adults. For example, many children commonly play on the ground or in soil, thus increasing their exposure to heavy metals, pesticides and other pollutants. Preservation of safe environments for all children is then not only the responsibility of their parents but also the responsibility of educators, of communities and, above all, of governments and policymakers.
Regarding Canada's international commitments, over the past decade Canada has signed a number of declarations and conventions relevant to children's health such as the 1991 Convention on the Rights of the Child and the 1998 Declaration of the G8 Environmental Leaders on Children's Environmental Health. By signing these international agreements, Canada has pledged to give priority to children's environmental health issues related to lead, drinking water, air quality, second-hand smoke, hormone-disrupting chemicals and climate change.
When Canadian leaders signed the G8 declaration, they agreed to establish national policies that recognize the vulnerability of infants and children to environmental contaminants and to promote research on this topic. They specifically committed:
...to make the protection of children's environmental health a high environmental priority.
Unfortunately, Canada has not lived up to many of these commitments and is falling behind other countries, such as the United States, in creating protective policies for children.
Why do children need special protection? Although exposures to some environmental hazards have decreased because of tougher health and environmental standards, such as the elimination of lead from gasoline, children continue to be exposed to toxic chemicals in air, water and food because current policies to not consider the fetus and child specifically vulnerable. Current standards were developed to protect adults, not children, and fail to reflect new information on children's growth and development and their resultant special vulnerability. Although there is an increasing body of research on the link between toxins in the environment and human health, much of that research has focused on the effects of adult occupational exposures to harmful chemicals and not on healthy child development. Research must be expanded to include a new focus on the special susceptibility of children to contaminants that they can encounter in the environment.
We strongly believe that the differences in the increased vulnerability of children to environmental contaminants must become an important part of environmental policymaking in Bill C-32. After all, this bill is about our health and is crucial to the future of our children.
I should like to address scientific evidence and political action. Most environmental hazards are identified and recognized only after they cause human illness or disease. It is true that we often lack strong the empirical evidence needed to establish beyond any reasonable doubt linkages between contaminants in the environment and health risks. One reason is the time lag between the beginning of the exposure and the appearance of illness. Second, there is no good understanding of long-term, multiple, simultaneous, low-level exposures. Consequently there is only limited understanding of the extent to which environmental hazards affect child health, since most forms of disease and illness are caused and contributed to by multiple factors.
Scientists keep finding significant and often permanent effects at surprisingly low doses. The lead story is an example of that.
We are also beginning to witness some of the direct and indirect impacts that the transportation, energy and agriculture sectors, to name just a few, are having on human health and global change. For these reasons, we urge this committee to consider the adoption of the precautionary principle in Bill C-32.
According to the precautionary principle, when substantial evidence of any kind gives us good reason to believe that an activity, technology or substance may be harmful to the environment or human health, precautionary measures should be taken, even if some cause-and-effect relationships are not fully scientifically established. In other words, scientific uncertainty should not be a reason for inaction.
The precautionary principle was endorsed at the UN Conference on Environment and Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro and has already been implemented in the regulatory systems of some European countries and the United States.
I should now like to make a few comments specifically on Bill C-32 and the precautionary principle. In the preamble, we recommend that the original wording be reinstated to stipulate the need to phase out the generation and use of the most persistent and bioaccumulative substances, as it existed after the House committee stage.
Bill C-32 largely ignores the origin of pollution and attempts to deal with subsequent effects. It is aimed at controlling and managing the use and release of pollutants rather than phasing out their generation and use. In other words, the bill mandates the use of a control device to recapture pollutants after they are produced or released rather than stopping them from entering the environment through eliminating their production or use. The latter is real pollution prevention and goes hand in hand with the precautionary principle.
As it now reads, Bill C-32 is based on the assumption that humans and ecosystems can absorb a certain amount of contamination without being harmed. That assumption is now being questioned, especially in the context of children's environmental health.
Under "Administrative Duties" in clause 2(1)(a) of the bill, we recommend that the original wording of the precautionary principle be reinstated without the inclusion of "cost-effective" as it existed after the House committee stage. "Cost-effective measures" should not be part of Bill C-32 because "cost-effective" assumes that some level of pollution and some risk to health are the unavoidable price that must be paid by some for the material benefits of modern technology to others. The precautionary principle, on the other hand, aims at progressively reducing the risk to health. It does not mandate some socially or economically convenient stopping point. We recommend that if "cost-effective" is used, it should be applied to matters affecting human health and cost of health care.
Now to Bill C-32 and children's environmental health. In reviewing Bill C-32, we ask this committee to consider amending clauses of the bill to include children's environmental health as follows:
In the preamble, we recommend that a clause be included recognizing the special susceptibility of children to environmental contaminants. The preamble should be amended by inserting a new statement:
Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the special susceptibility of children and the need to protect them by applying a margin of safety in future environment and health legislation.
In Part 3, under "Information Gathering, Objectives, Guidelines and Codes of Practice," clause 43 should be amended by inserting another definition of "areas that are accessible to children" to include at least homes, schools, daycare centres, shopping malls, movie theatres, beaches and parks, and then a substantive text should be included at the end of clause 44 as a new subclause (5) to read:
The Ministers shall conduct research or studies relating to a safer environment for children, including the following:
Identify environmental contaminants commonly used or found in areas accessible to children;
Create a scientifically peer-reviewed list of substances (environmental contaminants) identified under (a) with known, probable, or suspected health risks to children;
Create a scientifically peer-reviewed list of safer-for-children substances and products for use in areas accessible to children;
Establish guidelines to reduce and eliminate exposure of children to environmental contaminants, including an integrated environmental contaminant reduction program;
Create a right-to-know information kit for families, which should include a summary of helpful guidance, such as the list of substances that present health risks to children created under (b), the list of safer-for-children substances and products created under (c), the guidelines established under (d), information on the potential health effects of environmental contaminants, and practical suggestions on how parents may reduce their children's exposure to them;
Make all information created pursuant to this subsection available to federal, provincial, territorial and aboriginal governments and the public; and
Review and update the lists created under (b) and (c) at least every five years.
In Part 5, entitled "Controlling Toxic Substances," we recommend further amendments by inserting the following subclauses:
67(e) prescribe that all public areas accessible to children provide a safe environment;
68(d) correlate and evaluate all data collected or generated under paragraph (a) for child-specific susceptibility to the exposure to and bioaccumulation of contaminants present or released into the environment.
Honourable senators, such amendments to Bill C-32 addressing the environmental health of children would fulfil the commitment made by Canada on the international stage. Moreover, Bill C-32 would be the first official act in Canada to acknowledge the special susceptibility of children to environmental contaminants. To make that happen, we strongly recommend the creation of an office of children's environmental health protection.
Protecting Canadian children from environmental contaminants will require a strong political commitment. For example, in 1997, President Clinton signed an executive order aimed at reducing environmental health and safety risks to U.S. children. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA, established the Office of Children's Health Protection. The mission of that office is to make the protection of children's health a fundamental goal of all public and environmental protection efforts in the United States.
To protect Canadian children from environmental threats, we need similar child-centred protection strategies within our own Canadian structures. Amending Bill C-32 to include children's environmental health as we have proposed would be one part of such a strategy.
The addition of a clause ordering the establishment of an office of children's environmental health protection would be the second important strategy. Such an office of children's environmental health protection could be mandated, for example, to ensure that all current and future health and environmental standards protect children; to promote children's environmental health research and policy development and foster national and international cooperation on children's environmental health issues; to develop a new separate assessment of risks to children and to adults; and to establish guidelines to reduce and eliminate exposures of children to environmental pollutants in areas accessible to children.
In summary, Mr. Chairman, we strongly recommend that the precautionary principle become the basis for reforming environmental laws and regulations and for creating new regulations. Therefore, Bill C-32 needs the precautionary principle at its core. The amendments to the preamble and Part 3 and Part 5 of the bill, recognizing the special susceptibility of children to environmental contaminants as we have proposed, are essential to protect the health and well-being of our children. The creation of an office of children's environmental health protection would go a long way toward accomplishing those tasks.
We urge you to include these amendments in Bill C-32 or to recommend the development of new legislation addressing the protection of our most vulnerable population -- children. Thank you for the opportunity to present our thoughts and recommendations on Bill C-32. We welcome your questions.
Senator Spivak: Dr. Rosinger, on page 3 you say that exposures at critical levels of development can result in irreversible damage to growing nervous systems and affect emerging behaviour patterns. I am very interested in this particular aspect of your brief. I am sure that you are aware that hormone-disrupting substances are not being tested in Canada, although they are in the United States. Also, a very important class of products, the biotechnology products, is not included in this bill. They fall under the Canada Food Inspection Agency and may be subject to no assessment, certainly not with regard to the health of children.
I recently heard reports that, for example, the presence of hormones in beef and other substances has caused young girls to menstruate earlier, which has an effect on future rates of breast cancer and so forth. Many of the products that we might be concerned about with regard to children's health are not within the purview of this bill at all and are not under the purview of the Minister of the Environment.
Would you comment on that specific example and on the whole question of all the products that will not be in the act? Pesticides, for example, are regulated under the Pest Control Products Act.
Dr. Rosinger: I will ask Dr. Graham Chance to respond to the first part of your question and Ms Sandra Schwartz to respond to the second part.
Dr. Graham Chance, Past Chair, Canadian Institute of Child Health: Fifty years ago we recognized in the wildlife kingdom the adverse effects of pollutants in the environment. In the last 20 years plus, we have been able to say that this is now affecting children. You mentioned endocrine disrupters. We could talk about neurobehavioural disturbances and the immune system with regard to allergies and cancer. Endocrine disrupters specifically are of enormous concern. They are ubiquitous. The whole world is exposed to levels of them. Certain populations are exposed to higher levels. We already know that children are being affected by endocrine disrupters in the environment. Adults were affected, probably as children, and the results are being seen in adult life.
You mentioned early onset of menses. That is one phenomenon, but there are many others that we now recognize. We see increasing instances of childhood cancers, increasing instances of cancers of the reproductive organs in adults, and changes in the anatomy of children at birth, again most certainly related to the widespread distribution of these endocrine disrupters.
We specifically regard the bill as defective from the point of view of children, because if we protect children we will protect adults. If we agree that we are to protect the fetus and child, we will protect the environment automatically.
There are multiple contaminants in the environment, and we do not know the impact of multiple contaminants. Each contaminant is researched individually, but the effects of multiple contaminants are already in existence. Are these responsible cumulatively?
If we allow further contaminants in the environment, we will inevitably increase the access of these and the effects of them on children.
The aboriginal people in the North are a good example. We know that breast milk contains significant quantities of endocrine disrupters that affect neurobehavioural factors. If an individual child loses five points of IQ, that may not sound like too much but, but if an entire population base loses five points on average, what effect will that have? On one end of the scale, it will reduce the number of children with IQs greater than 130 by 2.5 times. At the other end of the scale, the proportion of children with IQs below 70 -- intellectually challenged by definition -- is increased by twofold. Therefore, when neurobehavioural development is impacted by an environmental contaminant, the shift is enormous and the cost to society as a whole is tremendous.
Senator Spivak: On this point, apart from the fact that many of these products will not be included under this bill, the other problem is the toxicity test. Many of these substances do not fit under risk assessment and risk management. They would be better looked at under hazard assessment or inherent toxicity, and that is not contemplated in this bill at all. That was taken out after committee stage.
I should like to hear your comments on these sorts of substances and the concept of inherent toxicity.
Dr. Chance: Toxicity tests regarding children's health have been of great concern over the years because for a long time such tests were directed at adult health. It is difficult to forecast long-term effects in the adult of childhood impact, especially of fetal impact. It is only very recently that the effects on the developing fetus have been carefully assessed. Behavioural testing especially has been and still is lacking. Neurobehavioural developmental toxicity testing has been lacking for a long time and the tests available at present for animals are still very crude. For humans, the tests can be much more searching, and indeed if we look at human babies as test creatures, we see that we are definitely affecting neurobehavioural development. Therefore, toxicity testing is an area of real concern which, as you say, is not adequately covered.
Ms Sandra Schwartz, Director, Environmental Programs, Canadian Institute of Child Health: Certainly, much of what we have looked at in the bill is not necessarily in regard to the residual quality of the bill, which is really what your question was directed to.
Senator Spivak: Yes.
Ms Schwartz: As an organization, our concern is more that this bill, because it is a federal bill for environment and health in Canada, will have, regardless of the residual quality of it, an enormous impact on how environmental issues are dealt with in Canada.
It is very difficult to tease out environment and health issues. They do come hand in hand. The bill addresses that in terms of recognizing that health and environment go hand in hand. In terms of the Pesticides Act and other acts that you have referred to, I am not as familiar with those acts as I am with this one.
In terms of endocrine disrupters and other substances that you have mentioned that may not be included in this bill, the inherent toxicity aspect potentially will deal with those issues. Let us look, for example, at endocrine disrupters/pesticides as a class of chemicals. There are pesticides that are on the priority list currently. Yes, they have been looked at by the Pesticides Act, and they do fall under the regulatory agency that manages pesticides, but, nevertheless, they have been looked at in that list of priority substances. I would doubt that there would not be other pesticides included in the list down the road. Therefore, it is difficult to answer that question based on the residual quality of this bill.
It is the belief of our organization that environment and health go hand in hand. Because this is a bill for environment and health, these ideas that Dr. Chance has raised and these realities need to be considered in this bill.
Senator Spivak: My special concern is about biotechnology products. There is no concept of inherent toxicity in this bill that will allow them to be looked at. They are going to be examined through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is a totally different thing.
Ms Schwartz: Our colleagues who presented as witnesses to the Senate committee have addressed the biotechnology issue at length. I would say that as an organization we would agree with much of what our colleagues from the health and environment communities have stated.
Senator Pearson: I have enjoyed your presentation very much. It is an extremely useful contribution to our discussion on this. I like your idea of a centre for studying children's environmental health. I think that could be within the Department of Environment. It would be an extremely useful thing. A lot of the issues around children and the environment are yet to be researched, as you have already said.
You may not have the answer to this question, but we live in a global environment and, although whatever we do in Canada may be useful, what we do here will still not deal with many of the global issues in the world, or, for example, even relate to the global impact of what is happening in Pakistan or the former Soviet Union, or wherever, in terms of what is transmitted globally. On my way here I was listening to a radio program about biological warfare and the fact that there are lot of toxins out there that nobody is controlling.
With that in mind, do you have any concept of the adaptability of children? I am extremely aware of the need to protect children, but in looking at the overall statistics on longevity over the last few decades it is obvious that those statistics have improved. Is that only due to medical advances or is there, inherent within the human species, a capacity to begin to adapt?
The kinds of messages we are getting are so scary that you might wonder: "Why have children at all?" But that is not what I am actually seeing in my own world of children and grandchildren. I am certainly not seeing any reduction in IQ. On the contrary, they are overwhelming me with their capacities in the new technological era. It is an odd situation.
Ms Schwartz: I will let Dr. Chance deal with the second part of your question. After that, I would like to address the global side of this.
Dr. Chance: I think that there is evidence that the brain of the young child can adapt. We know that the foetus is born with rather more neurons than needed and that they diminish in number in the foetal life. We also know that there is an ongoing formation of connections within the brain, trillions of them, which peak at around age three to five and, then diminish in number. If you think of it, the young child is perhaps potentially brighter than any of us.
Essentially, the fact is that there is some evidence of adaptability. Whether we are overwhelming that evidence of adaptability is a question I do not think we can answer. There is no question that in the last years as a consequence of many measures taken, there has been an increase in longevity.
Part of that relates to the recognition of one environmental toxin, which is a massive one: environmental tobacco smoke. Another one relates to the correction of adverse circumstances in industry. There are many factors, and I cannot go into them all, that have increased longevity.
The point that I am trying to make, that must be made, is that we are talking about tomorrow, the future. Aboriginal people talk about our having to think for seven generations ahead, as well as seven generations past. We are seeing the impact not necessarily of the adaptability of the human to toxins, but of the effects of all the measures that have been taken as a consequence of our past learning.
We now have new learning, and the new learning says that there are vulnerabilities that we have now to take note of. Perhaps, if we like to think of seven generations further ahead, we may then see a reduction. There are examples that we are already beginning to see. An increase in pre-term birth rate is occurring; it is not related to environmental factors, but it is occurring.
In some aspects we have peaked. Perhaps we have peaked in the ability to correct the adverse effects of the society that we have built, and we are moving into now recognizing that there are environmental changes that are taking place that are going to adversely affect us in the future.
Whether we like to face it or not, we have seen a fourfold increase in childhood asthma in the last 20 years. We have seen a 50 per cent increase in childhood cancer in the last 20 years. We have seen a reduction of fertility in the last 50 years. These things are having an impact, and they will continue to have an impact. Perhaps we have adaptability, but we are overwhelming it.
Ms Schwartz: I will expand a bit about what Dr. Chance was saying and then get into the question of global environment.
When we talk about adaptability, it is important to recognize that, like any other creature, we obviously will adapt over time. Whether that takes seven generations or one generation, we have yet to see. Part of the problem is that, currently, we do not know at what level the contaminants are having an effect or how much contaminant there has to be to actually see an effect. There are still many unanswered questions in this field.
Senator Pearson: That is why research is so necessary.
Ms Schwartz: How many canaries do we send into the mine before we actually move on this. Do we want to see a fivefold drop in IQ? Do we want to see another fourfold increase in childhood asthma over the next 20 years? These are questions that we need to address as a society.
In addition to that, when you look at the way risk assessment is done a question always remains. They want a margin of safety.
There is no doubt that that is taken into account. However, the question with toxicology is: How much of the contaminant has the toxic effect? Purely and simply, do you have one drop or 10 drops and does it have a toxic effect?
I would like to take that a step back and say that perhaps it has an effect now at 10 drops, but in 20 years maybe one drop will have an effect, because we may adapt in the opposite direction. There are many questions here that I think we are trying to answer, certainly in the research community.
In terms of the global environment side of what you were originally addressing, with Bill C-32 and other legislation that we come up with in Canada, we have a real opportunity, as a country, to show leadership worldwide. We may be a little behind some countries, such as the U.S., but we have also been seen as leaders in a number of other areas. Certainly, we have tried to address the issue of climate change by funding projects that deal with it on an individual level, and industry has tried to deal with it on a technological level. So we are moving ahead.
My suggestion, and I think my colleagues here would agree, is that in a bill such as this we really have an opportunity to advance the global agenda by showing leadership in environment and health legislation.
Dr. Chance: Essentially, for all the reasons that we have discussed, we feel that the precautionary principle is vitally important. As I read the bill, it does not seem to me that it is specifically directed to human health. It seems that in the preamble it is directed to cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. Again, clause 76(1) does not refer specifically to human health.
For the reasons that we have stated, we feel that the precautionary principle is vital to society as a whole and to children in particular.
Senator Hays: I agree with the thrust of your presentation in terms of children's health being a primary concern. However, the way I react is that that should be the standard. We should not have an act for children and one for adults. This bill should not be characterized as one designed to protect the health of children in terms of toxic substances, their release or their regulation. I accept your criticism of the way in which Canada looks after the health of children. However, I am wondering if the way to advance our standard is by trying to say that we have this standard for children's health and we have that standard for every one else's health. Surely, this act should be administered on the basis of the protection of children, taking into consideration their special vulnerability during formative years.
Senator Pearson referred to a special initiative being taken to ensure that this kind of legislation and related legislation serves our public interest by targeting the needs of children. I agree with that. However, as legislators, we have difficulty administering the act. This is something we should support and should do in terms of our child-benefits agenda. I am not so sure that we can legislate the government into doing that. It is a difficult thing to do. That is what you are suggesting.
I agree with you in terms of what you think should be happening. The way I am looking at the bill, I think you are right. That is the standard that the bill should come to. It should not be redesigned to come to that standard.
Dr. Chance: I agree with you, senator. One aspect that concerns me is that, if we, indeed, separate foetus and children -- we are talking about children in the broad sense, the foetus to the pubescent adolescent -- then what we are doing in a way is segregating off the foetus. Obviously, the foetus is within the mother. If we take the ethical view that we will separate the foetus and the child, then that creates difficulties. If we create an act that protects society as a whole, including the foetus and child, then that becomes much less offensive to me as regards women. If we take an act that protects the foetus but does not look at the mother, then it becomes an extremely difficult circumstance. That is of concern to me. I agree with you. For the safety of society, it should be with a specific focus that says that, if children are healthy, then so are adults.
Ms Schwartz: Senator Hays, I understood you to say that we are suggesting one standard for adults and one standard for children. What we are suggesting is that there is no act in Canada yet that actually states "children's environmental health" and "children's health protection" in terms of environment. What we are recommending to the committee is not that it be inherently stated in an act but that it be stated outright in an act. Environment Canada says that it is inherent in the risk assessments that they do, but if it is not stated outright, then we will have one standard for adults and another standard for children.
Senator Hays: I agree. We should state it in every piece of legislation that has to do with this.
Dr. Rosinger: Absolutely.
Senator Hays: Perhaps it should be the standard of every piece of legislation. Perhaps it should be in the Constitution. I am having trouble putting it in one place. If we put it here and it is not in the laws administered under PMRA, does that then mean that we pay attention to it here but not there? There is a danger in saying that children are important in terms of toxics, if the assumption is that they are not as important where we have not so stated.
Dr. Rosinger: We have to start somewhere.
Ms Schwartz: Senator, I agree with what you are stating. Your question is: Why put it into this legislation?
Senator Hays: Yes, that is right, when it should be a standard anyway.
Ms Schwartz: This is a step forward. This is to say that, if we put it into this bill, then future legislation will also include it. There is a review currently being done of PMRA and the legislation governing pesticides. That review is currently being conducted by the standing committee in the House of Commons. As these things are being reviewed, we can then start entering children's environmental health into them.
Senator Hays: I understand your point.
[Translation]
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I am very interested in this matter in particular. I would refer you to your paragraph on page 4:
[English]
We are experiencing unprecedented rates of infertility, learning disabilities, asthma, and cancers.
[Translation]
I am alluding to a problem our youth have today. All across Canada, doctors are prescribing Ritalin to children to keep them quieter and less excited in school. Does an organization like yours intervene in that kind of situation? You are interested in the environment, but the medical world itself has also created a problem.
In Quebec, you have the highest rate of tonsillectomies and appendectomies. These are direct intrusions on the individual. Is it the environment that is leading us to this kind of medical practice in Quebec? Did you intervene concerning asbestos in school walls which, it would seem, does affect children's health?
When you talk about the different impacts, whether cancer or others -- anyway, maybe we tie in asbestos to cancer -- do you isolate each cause where learning curve problems increase? A few years ago, people did not go to school so it was rather difficult to do this kind of comparison. At what level can you start tying in these matters with the environment? Did you conduct any studies? Could studies be submitted to our committee?
Here is another hypothesis: 25, 30 or 40 years ago, the rate of child mortality was a lot higher. Present practice in medicine means that children who show deficiencies at birth still survive today. They might have health problems because, in fact, they were premature babies. Everything is a matter of genetic heritage. If medicine had not reached the point it has today, those children would probably have died. They would not be part of our statistics. When you say the environmental aspect is very important -- and you can look at increasing rates of infertility, learning problems, asthma and cancer -- I can understand it is frightening, but can these things be specifically linked together?
You are saying that the question of the environment should be studied. Does your organization also look at the matter of intruding upon the health of children by giving them drugs that are not required or by making them undergo operations that are not required? You also have to look at the area of alternative medicine.
[English]
Dr. Chance: That is a very broad question. We tried to answer some of your questions essentially by looking at the role of the environment and other factors and the changing morbidity rates in childhood.
We know that certain environmental factors are playing a part here. We cannot ignore those facts; however, we cannot tease out the precise roles of many of these factors. In a very short answer, yes, we are concerned. Yes, there is evidence of rising attention disorders and behavioural disorders in society. How much of that is caused by the environment, in the broad sense, in which the child grows? How much of that is caused by environmental factors and environmental contaminants? For example, there is no question that lead and PCB ingestion lead to abnormal behaviour in children. That is shown without any question. But what role does that play in the overall picture, as opposed to the violence of parents, the unhappiness found in families, or the economic and time constraints on families? All those factors play a role; there is no question.
We are here today to focus on the environment and there is evidence that we must control factors in the environment that do play a role. Precisely the size of that role we cannot answer.
Ms Schwartz: One example is asthma, which has seen a fourfold increase. In the research community there has been debate as to the cause of that fourfold increase. One potential cause is more prevalent diagnoses than 20 years ago. Can better medicine explain a 400 per cent increase? We think not.
Is there a relationship between environmental factors and increases in asthma? We know asthma is exacerbated by certain environmental contaminants. We know that in the home, certain indoor air quality issues come into play. We also know that outdoor air quality can exacerbate the disease. We do not know what is accounting for the onset of that disease.
Quite a bit of research has been done looking for a link to outdoor air quality. Most researchers in the field would say outdoor air probably is not the cause. However, no one has concluded whether there is a link with indoor air quality. The U.S. currently has eight centres studying children's environmental health. Six of those are studying asthma. Many of those are also studying indoor air quality as a cause of the onset of the disease, as opposed to the exacerbation of the existing condition. So there is much that we do not know. More research is necessary to address how and to what degree the environment affects that disease.
Dr. Chance: We do know that some contaminants interfere with the generation of the immune system. Asthma is obviously a problem with the immune system.
Senator Adams: You have mentioned the aboriginal peoples. I do not know how much research you have been doing on the health of people living in the Arctic. Some problems are far worse for the aboriginal people than for people in the south. There is also a very high percentage of teenage mothers in the Arctic, as young as 13 or 14 years old.
We have passed legislation and enacted by-laws to slow down the smoking and the alcohol consumption in our communities. Our culture is a little different. We eat differently from the people down south. Sometimes we eat raw caribou or frozen caribou. We also eat raw fish. We wonder if eating raw meat or polluted meat might affect our health.
We have seen many studies done in our communities. Often the researchers go back down south and report to someone else, like the Department of Indian Affairs or some other agency, but they never really report back to the people in the communities.
Now that the Nunavut government exists, if any studies are done in the communities, especially on health, they should go to the local politicians and municipalities and share their findings. It should not go to Ottawa first. The people do not understand why nothing happens after a study is completed. Can you comment on that?
Dr. Chance: I have not done any research up north. I do follow the literature from the point of view of all children, aboriginal people included. I would agree that in the past it has been a fact of life that research has been taken by people from the south who report their findings to the south in order that they may get further personal advancement.
In fact, that pattern is changing. I hope it will continue to change. We are seeing empowerment within aboriginal communities. We are seeing aboriginal people being trained to do research within their own communities and, indeed, to get back with the facts to their communities.
There must be a very real concern that these contaminants are found in higher levels in aboriginal people and children. I mentioned that five point shift. If we saw a five per cent shift in a community, up or down, as a consequence of putting something right in the community, then we would see a big change for that community.
Senator Adams: Yes. Now, in fact, a lot of our people are beginning to stop smoking and drinking, and there is legislation for that purpose, because sometimes people should not be allowed to smoke or drink. We do have many by-laws for things like that.
Dr. Chance: We have to increase the level of concern somehow amongst our aboriginal people to show that they can influence their own future and their children's future with the correction of some of these problems. It is possible to do that.
Senator Cochrane: I want to thank you for all your work and your efforts on this issue, especially for the children of today and for the children right across the country. My background has been in teaching, and I have been amazed at the problems children are having. Today, there are more problems than we ever heard of years ago. For example, the incidence of autism is unbelievable; we do not know what to do with it. There is also asthma. Are some of your concerns being addressed by the Minister of Health as well?
Ms Schwartz: How should I start answering that question? To a certain degree, we do meet regularly with Health Canada. Rather than getting into a political discussion, I will say that our concerns are being addressed to a certain degree. Certainly, there is an interdepartmental committee currently between Environment Canada and Health Canada. The Health Protection Branch and the Policy and Communications Division of Environment Canada have meetings at which they discuss children's environmental health issues.
The difficulty that we have is with funding. Most of our funding for the environmental program at CICH does come from the federal government. It comes from Environment Canada and it comes from Health Canada. However, it comes in small pieces here and there.
There is verbal commitment to the issues by both departments, but it does not come out in financial terms. For example, we have been establishing the Canadian Children's Environmental Health Network, which is a network of organizations across Canada. In trying to establish this, we have had a number of international players interested in what we are doing, because they are developing networks internationally. We have had the federal government and the Minister of Health interested. However, it does not come to fruition in the financial side of it.
To answer that question, yes, we do speak to the ministers on these issues. We do speak to the staff, particularly in the Health Protection Branch as well as Environment Canada. The question is more on commitment to the issues and whether or not that commitment truly exists.
Dr. Rosinger: I would like to add to that. This issue of the Office of Children's Environmental Health is why we came with this idea, because we hoped such an office would promote the environmental health research and policy development as it pertains to children in an integrated fashion. We do not want to get piecemeal work from Environment Canada and Health Canada; rather, we hoped that the policy would be integrated into the future regulations and that it would take various aspects of children's environmental health into consideration.
We see this office as a vehicle that would provide co-operation both nationally, among the government departments and institutions, and internationally. Canada could take the leadership and provide the advice or the research that has been done in Canada to other countries, when so required or desired in international fora. That would put Canada back into the leadership position we were once in. Many countries of the world think of us as a leader in environmental health and quality of life.
Ms Schwartz: I would add to that. Environment Canada and Health Canada would not solely represent the office. It would also have the Departments of Justice and Transportation. It would be any of the departments in the federal system that have an arm's length, indirect, or a "right in front of your face," direct, association with children and environmental health.
The Chairman: Thank you all for coming. I echo the feelings of everyone on this committee when I wish you well and wish you success in your very important work.
I now call upon our last presenters, the Deline Dene Uranium Committee.
Mr. Andre, would you please proceed.
Mr. Leroy Andre, Co-Chair, Deline Dene Uranium Committee, Sub-Chief, Deline Dene Band Council, Deline Dene Uranium Committee: I wish to thank you for inviting us down to speak to you about this legislation. We are not going to speak to the bill itself; we just want to tell our story and to let you know what impact some of these issues have on our people.
As you know, I am the Sub-Chief of the Deline Dene Band and also the co-chair of the Deline Uranium Committee. I am also president of the renewable resources council. With me is Paul Baton, an elder the Deline Dene Band and a member of the committee, and Gina Bayha, who is also a co-chair of the Deline Uranium Committee as well as a past leader on this issue.
Deline is up in the territories. I do not know if you are familiar with Great Bear Lake, one of the largest bodies of fresh water within Canada. The people of Deline were very nomadic; as a consequence our history is mostly oral. We are not used to reading from books or writing notes down and dictating from them. Our history is a history of oral tradition. To put it simply, I am not very good at writing notes or making speeches from notes. Like my people, I talk from the heart; that is the kind of people we are.
The Dene of Deline have been nomadic people for thousands of years. The elders have always taught us to take care of the land. They tell us that the most important things for us are the animals, the land and the water. They talk about the environment as being the most important thing to the Dene. For thousands of years, it has been important to us to protect the land and to keep our culture alive. That is why we are in existence to this very day.
It was not that long ago -- about 1950, a little over 40 years ago -- that Deline was established. Until that time, we had lived a very prosperous life and had a very strong culture. Now we are forced into living a different lifestyle, which is a big change for a lot of the elders, like Mr. Baton.
However, what we really want to talk about here are the impacts that these contaminants have on our life.
As a leader from Deline, I can tell you that we are always having to deal with laws that are made down here. They have a very significant impact on the people of the North. Perhaps we are expendable, but as a people of the North, and living there, we have a great concern for our land and our people. Within the last month, there have been two deaths in our community, one from cancer and another from a rare heart disease -- one in a million, so I am told. We see people about 40 years old or 30 years old dying of cancer. Cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the territories and is a very big concern.
I have five children. If anything were to happen to me, they are still young. That is why, as a young leader, I am passing a lot of what I know on to them. The oldest is nine or ten. I have the same fear that maybe I do not have that much time left.
I will now hand things over to Gina Bayha. She will brief you on the mine, and then Paul Baton will have a few things to say.
Ms Gina Bayha, Deline Dene Uranium Committee: Our presentation today is on the ongoing impacts of uranium and radium mining that happened back in the 1930s to the Sahtu Dene of Great Bear Lake. We are still feeling those impacts today.
Radium mining took place in our area from 1930 to 1940. From 1940 to the mid-1960s, there was uranium mining. The Port Radium site is on the northeast end of Great Bear Lake, and we are presently located in a community right across from it on the west end of Great Bear Lake.
Before mining started in our area, our people travelled the land. We were a nomadic society, mostly a hunting and gathering society. We hunted the caribou and fished the lake. We would follow the animals on a seasonal basis. We never stayed in one place around Great Bear Lake. It is only recently that, because of outside pressures, we started settling in one community. A church was built and a school was established, but even up until the late 1970s the people did not really settle in the community. They still had their main camps outside the community, and they merely came back to the community, on and off, for supplies. So it is only recently that we have settled in one community around the lake.
That type of culture still is ongoing. We have our houses and homes in Deline, which is on the shore of Great Bear Lake, but we hunt all around Great Bear Lake. We do all our seasonal hunting and planning around Great Bear Lake. We travel extensively around Great Bear Lake, and we are still largely a hunting and gathering society today. That hunting is supplemented by seasonal odd jobs here and there for wages so that people can purchase their Skidoos and their boats to continue with their hunting and trapping.
Our story today relates to our experiences with the mining industry back then and how we understand it. Mr. Baton was one of the ore carriers and survivors of our experience back then, and he will tell you how he participated on a daily basis, and what happened and what he saw. Before he tells his story, I would like to briefly summarize and outline what actually took place.
In the 1930s, the ore deposit at Port Radium was first discovered on the shore of the western end of Great Bear Lake. It was one of the richest ore concentrates of radium and uranium in the world. The mine started operations in 1931, and it was at this mine that the ore was crudely sorted and bagged for shipment. It was at this mine that our Sahtu Dene were used as ore carriers -- referred to as coolies by others -- to transport ore from the site for transportation down south. It was during the mining that the men carried these ore sacks, containing raw ore weighing between 90 and 100 pounds, slung over their backs. They would start very early in the morning and finish at nightfall. They would do that day after day over the summer months and at different times during the winter months as well. The men were involved in transporting the ore from the Port Radium site, where the mining was taking place. Originally, it was only the radium that was transported.
The men would assist with some of the crude sorting and bagging of the ore into gunny sacks at the site. They would handle these bags physically with their hands and transfer them from the site on to large barges at Great Bear Lake. From there, they would travel 250 kilometres west on the lake to a site called Great Bear Landing at the mouth of Great Bear River. Great Bear River then flows into the Mackenzie River, which is the river that flows down south. The bags were unloaded on to the dock at the landing site. The men would then reload the sacks onto smaller river barges at the Great Bear River site, and they would travel with those barges.
Because Great Bear River is a shallow river, about halfway up the river the men would have to unload the barges onto a portage site and then load the sacks on to flatbed trucks and portage the sacks about 13 kilometres to a lower landing dock, where they would load them once again onto small river barges for the final journey up to the Mackenzie River.
At the point where the Bear River joins with the Mackenzie River, the men would still be travelling with the ore bags on these barges. They would again unload them off the small river barges on to the main huge barges that travelled the Mackenzie River. They would then transport the ore sacks all the way to a certain point -- exactly where we do not know. We know that it was shipped south.
In total, they had eight transfer points where there was direct physical handling of bags. The men tell us that during the time that the bags were transported, the bags would frequently break. Some of the men were hired solely to sweep off the dust. By the end of the day, the men would be covered with white dust. Their hair and clothing would be covered in dust by the end of the day. They would then, each day, return home to their wives and children.
What they would also do at that time, however, is that many of the men would take their families with them on the barges. Because of the hunting and gathering nature of the society back then, the women could not stay at home, trying to survive by themselves and raising the children by themselves. Thus, many of the men brought their families to some of the main sites. The families would live around there along with their husbands. The wives would be cooking for their husbands. They would be fishing right there at the base, which was close to the site. They would also hunt the caribou that were close by. All of their food was actually taken from close to the site area. The children would be playing in the site area as well.
The men would come home and they would be covered in dust. They would be interacting with their families once they arrived at home.
The women told us stories about how they would use some of these gunny sacks, those which were torn and left at some of the sites. They would put them together to make tents in which their families could live.
Sometimes, when the men would be gone for long periods of time, the women would also take some of the wood from the docks close to the outlying sites. They talked about something called green fire, which is the closest we can get for translation purposes. What they were talking about was that, when they would burn this wood for cooking fires, the fire would be burning green.
Many of our men also talked about carrying coins in their pants while they were doing the work, and at the end of the day, when they took out the coins they would be black.
Even though we are talking about the ore carriers, the women and children were also affected as well.
Paul will talk about how they experienced that part of their history. Our people never knew what happened at Port Radium. It was only very recently that we were finally told the story. We are very grateful that we have people like Paul Baton who recently started telling us the story of Port Radium. They told us many times that all of the waste went into the water. All of the waste during the mine operations from 1931 right until the 1960s went into the water. For young people such as myself, it was very hard to believe that that actually happened. Only recently have we discovered through research that tailings were being put into the water of Great Bear Lake and on some of the surface areas of the land on which we hunt and fish.
In fact, the area of Great Bear Landing is one of our famous fish camps and is still being used today. That is because we were never told that there were hot spots there. We were never told that this stuff could be dangerous to our health. That is part of what Mr. Baton is going to be talking about.
In terms of what is left at Great Bear Lake and how many tailings were put into the water, our research shows that there are 1.7 million tonnes of tailings sitting in Great Bear Lake. What do we do with that?
Over those 60 years that this substance has been on the surface and in the water, how has it affected us as a people? We are only 700 people in Deline. Out of that 700, probably 50 per cent are aged 30 and under. Most of our men have passed on prematurely.
We have done a documentary film entitled, "The Village of Widows." We have a community of widows who raise their children on their own and who have gone through a very hard time because the primary providers, the men, the grandfathers and uncles, have passed on prematurely. That has caused a major impact on who we are as Dene. We are still struggling to continue to be strong and to deal with these issues that are facing us today.
It is the grandfathers and uncles who pass on the teachings to the children. We do not have any one now. It is very unusual to have such young leaders as Mr. Andre to come to speak to an assembly like this. Part of that is because we no longer have the men who are traditionally supposed to be in those positions. It is very unusual to see a young lady such as myself speak to an issue like this that is so important to our people. We are very grateful that we still have people like Mr. Baton, who is still with us today and continues to tell his story.
Common sense tells us that we have been exposed over all that time. We do not know how the animals have been affected; we do not know how the water has been affected; we do not know how any of our waterfowl or our animals have been affected; we do not know how it has affected our health; but we do know that there has been an impact, and we do know that there has been no other development around Great Bear Lake but this mining industry.
I would like to turn the microphone over to Mr. Paul Baton, who will tell his story about being an ore carrier and how they were never told of the hazards of this substance when they were physically handling it.
[Mr. Paul Baton spoke in his native language.]
Mr. Bayha: Paul wants to thank you for inviting us to be able to tell our story. As tragic as it may sound, it is still good to have the opportunity to be able to smile and to share the story with people who are interested. He wants to tell the story of his experience back in the 1930s when he lived at the Port Radium site.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said he lived at the Port Radium site for over five years. While there, he worked on the Great Bear Lake barges and manually transferred sacks of ore from the Port Radium site. He was told the sacks weighed 120 pounds. He would sling a sack over his back and carry it onto the barge. Then he would travel with the barges on the 250-kilometre trek across Great Bear Lake to the Great Bear River landing site. Then he would go back with the barge and pick up another load. That is what he did for the duration.
His arms would frequently be red because the bags would be so heavy. He would also be covered with a lot of dust.
During the five years that he lived there, he saw the tailings being discharged right into the water. He said that all the time he was there the discharge into the water never stopped. The water was 10 to 15 feet deep at the discharge site and the volume was so great that it created a land bridge to an island that was quite a way out in the lake.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said they would start work at six o'clock in the morning and they would finish at one o'clock the same day. He said perhaps it is not worth mentioning but one day's work was worth three dollars back then.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said he was not working by himself. Quite a few people were doing these ore transfers. Some people were designated to go to different transfer points. Some men worked at the Great Bear Lake transfer point and some worked at the Great Bear River transfer point. Some worked further down the river.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said back then there was no machinery. Everything was done manually. They carried everything. If they wanted to move something, they had to carry it by hand. Every one of those ore bags was manually handled that way.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said that, back then, not only Dene people worked there. Some non-aboriginal people also worked there. Of the Dene men who worked there he knows of only one other survivor besides himself. That is Isidor Yukon who used to be a barge captain on the river.
The Chairman: How old is Mr. Baton?
Ms Bayha: He is going to be 85.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said that this has happened right in our backyard, right in our homeland. While the men were doing the ore transfers, they also had to provide for their families who were on the site with them. They would hunt and share some of their meat with the families and with the mine workers. Although he was there for that duration of time, he said no one ever told him that the stuff was hazardous to him.
[Mr. Baton spoke his native language.]
Ms Bayha: Following that, he stayed consistently at the Port Radium site right until 1940 at which time he and his family returned to the community presently called Deline. He went up the river because he needed work. He moved up close to the Great Bear River to help expand the previous portage road. That is what he did after he was at the Port Radium site.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said that, while he was helping to build the road, there were some army personnel at the same site, and one day one of them got sick and was told to stay at home that day and rest. Mr. Baton visited this gentleman, and they discussed things. Again, we have to understand that most of the men back then did not speak any English and would not understand English at all. The man was trying to explain to him what this stuff that they were transporting was eventually made into. He was trying to describe to him that this stuff was eventually made into a bomb. He was saying, "It is being made into a bomb and, if it is ever used, it will kill people." That was the gist of the information he received, but he did not even know what a bomb was. It was very hard for them to comprehend what was being said and what was being done with the stuff that they assisted in transporting south and why they were building this road so that they could transport more massive amounts to the south. That is what he was told back then.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said that it was the government, the Crown corporation, that had developed the mine and had taken this resource out of the ground and exposed it. They were the ones who were responsible for this, because they took this from our land and we did not even know the hazards of this material. He said, "I ask myself today, why did they not tell us that this stuff was hazardous to us and to our children and our future? It is not right. I often wonder to myself why we were not told."
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said that, up until recently, we had never heard of this disease, but that, recently, all we have heard is that the people dying in our community have been dying from nothing but cancer. That is why we are concerned. We are extremely concerned. We wonder about the animals, the environment and the water. We rely on these for our daily sustenance. We need to take care of them. We need to protect them, not only for ourselves but for the future generations to come. We also know and understand that, without these elements, we are nothing, we will no longer be a people, we will no longer survive. It is with this connectedness that we speak to you today. Without those things that we rely on for sustenance, we can no longer survive as a people.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language.]
Ms Bayha: He said he does not know how else to tell you how important this issue is for us. He said we are not a large population. We are the only ones who live around Great Bear Lake and we are very small in number, so, for us, it is a matter of survival. What will we do about this?
This issue is very important. That is why he is talking about it. He does not know how else to impress upon you the importance of how this historic mining activity has had that impact on our people, and we are still facing it today.
We will leave it at that for now, because we have taken up too much of your time already and we are available for questions if the committee has any.
The Chairman: Please tell Mr. Baton that his story is now recorded forever in our history in the archives of the Parliament of Canada.
Mr. Baton: Thank you.
Ms Bayha: Before we finish, we would like to also say that we drafted a report telling our story as told to us by the elders of the community. It tells of their experiences and their actual participation in the mine. It is called "They Never Told Us These Things." The community conducted consultations last year and developed this report. We only have one copy, and we will leave it with the committee.
Senator Adams: Thank you for being here today.
It is interesting that what happened 60 years ago is still affecting the people in your community. My information is that some of the pollution in and around your community is escaping into the Mackenzie River and affecting the people in that region of the country. I am concerned for the people of Tuktoyaktuk who live at the mouth of the river. Those people hunt seals and whales in the area where the river empties into the sea.
Has the government done an environmental study on how much of that radiation from the mining operations is escaping from Great Bear Lake?
Mr. Andre: That is another issue that as a region we also want to work on.
The main transportation route for the uranium was from Port Radium down to Fort Smith. We always have had a big problem with the government telling us that there is nothing wrong. They do their little tests and tell us there is nothing wrong, nothing to worry about. They say there are a few little hot spots here and there, but that there is no problem.
For the longest time, we have not trusted the government. We do not trust their reports or anything they tell us. When we see our people dying from cancer at an alarming rate, we have to ask ourselves whether the government is telling us the truth. There is a lot of mistrust there, and that is why we spearheaded this committee composed of our own people. They want answers. We have been asking for help from the government. Slowly, we are getting our message across. We are in a public forum here today, so maybe other Canadians will hear our story and assist us in some way.
Senator Adams: Mining started with the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs. That is a government department, not a private company, but it did that.
Mr. Baton is now 85 years old. I am 65 years old. I hope that if I reach his age I look as young as he does. He is healthy, although he went through much pressure with his friends dying of cancer. It is very emotional and very difficult.
The people who were affected by the radiation still have families alive today. Are you concerned about compensation for the families of the people who lived there when this happened? How does the community feel about that? It is bad enough to live up there without the effects of radiation on the people. Some of the elders are alive today who know what happened then. Not only should we be concerned about a cleanup, but we should be concerned about compensating the people whose families have been affected by this.
Ms Bayha: To backtrack a little, it has only been in the last year and a half that we started digging into this. The elders were saying that all this stuff was being discharged into the lake. At every gathering they had, they would talk about the illnesses they were seeing. Our elders would tell us about the changes they have seen over time. Mr. Baton continually told us that prior to the mining, people lived to 100 years of age all the time. It was normal, even though they lived in a harsh environment. They worked hard on a daily basis, both men and women, and they still lived to be in their hundreds. Culturally, he remembers that they would have to leave the old behind because they could no longer care for them. That is the way it was back then.
The families who lived at those sites are being affected, and you can see direct lines of how they were affected. We almost had to look for other traditional sites for hunting and trapping. People like Mr. Baton told us not to go close to those areas. They did not know why, but they felt that something there must be affecting us.
Those were our traditional camps and traditional sites. All of these areas have hot spots, but we were not told about them. It was only a year and a half ago, as a result of our own research, that we found information that, yes, tailings are there. Not only are their tailings, but there are all these hot spots.
The people did not know back then what they were handling. They were not told what the substance was. They were never told that this stuff could be hazardous to them. It was only a year and a half ago that they learned that the substance they assisted in transporting was used to build a bomb that eventually was dropped on Japan. No one knew because people did not speak English, read English or understand English.
We saw reports on the transportation at the ore sites, the spillage along the Mackenzie River, and these reports were done in the 1980s. Again, these reports never went back to the people in the community. They were never translated back to Mr. Baton and the people in the community so that they could comment on them.
The impact of the realization of what actually happened has now hit the younger generation, people of my age. I went to school, just like every other Canadian, and took social studies. I was never told that the bomb was made with materials from my backyard and from the area where I grew up. Both of my grandfathers are no longer with me. How will I carry on my identity and history to my children?
It is gone. There are very few people left in the community to do that today.
How do people react when they are first told of this? It is very difficult to accept, because it also points out the uncertainty of our future. There is not only that, but the very thing that sustains us and nourishes us on a daily basis is the land and water around us and the animals. If it is those things that we start questioning, then we do not have a hope of surviving in the future and passing these things on to our children.
That is exactly what Mr. Baton has pointed out. This is what identifies us Sahtu people of Great Bear Lake. This is how we live. It is not just about economic purposes. We gain our spiritual identity as a result of our relationship with the land. Without that, we have nothing else to hang on to.
The community is in almost a crisis situation. There are many young people with no teachers, with no visionaries, and with very few providers, but a lot of widows. You can see the impact that this has had.
Senator Adams: Does the mine still have ore in it or is it just polluting the lake? What is happening with the mine now?
Ms Bayha: What is left is basically a monument that talks about this famous mine that was there at this place and talks about the history of it. The area has been back-filled. Nothing has really been done about the discharge into the lake. It is still there as we understand it. Moreover, other lakes were used as garbage disposal sites. The land bridge that was built is still there. As far as we know, there was just some back-filling done with some of the ore that was on the surface.
Senator Adams: You mentioned 1.7 million tonnes of tailings. Is that in the lake or on the shore?
Ms Bayha: The majority is in the lake and some of it is on the surface land. That is just at the Port Radium site. We have not talked about all the other sites where there was spillage along the route. There was spillage at Great Bear Landing, which is right at the mouth of Great Bear River, which is another major traditional camping area for us, and there were spillages down the river. This report that was done in 1983, I believe, talked about the transportation route and all the ore spillages along the route. We have not even talked about that.
Senator Chalifoux: Mr. Andre, what was the age of those who died? Are these deaths still occurring? When was it first noticed that especially the men were dying? Of what were they dying?
In terms of your dialogue and negotiations with Indian Affairs and the Northwest Territories government, are they responding to any of this? What has been the effect on other communities? You say you go from Fort Smith right up to your communities along the Mackenzie. Have you done any research on the effect that it has had on those communities?
Mr. Andre: When the people first started dying, there were many elders who were misdiagnosed. A lot of the ore carriers were misdiagnosed with TB. That was the big thing. It was not too obvious in the beginning, but as Mr. Baton said, this cancer disease that we are talking about, we never heard about that stuff. Now, as time goes on, and as doctors diagnose people with cancer, we are hearing more and more that people are dying of cancer, whereas in the past they assumed it was TB or something like that. People died in the community after being very sick. You only have a nurse there. In fact, to this day there is only one health nurse in the community. They only diagnose people when it is too late and the cancer has spread too much in their bodies. That is another big problem.
On your last question about the studies and dealing with the government, it would cost millions of dollars for us to do any sort of study. We have been left with a bunch of bills. We are begging for left over pennies from people to help us pay for some of our research and work that we have done.
That is a big can of worms that the government does not want to open up. The government has tried, unsuccessfully. Last year, they divided the community. They found a crack in the community and just divided the people right in half. It was a divide and conquer method of approach. Learning from our mistakes and from government tactics, we are more united than ever.
This is an issue with which the government does not want to deal. It has a significant impact on not just Deline alone but on other Canadians all over who are affected by the same circumstances or the same situation. For years and years and years, the government has taken our resources from our land, making money from them but not worrying about cleaning up. You will probably hear about the Giant Mine in Yellowknife now. They say it will cost $250 million to clean it up. What happened to all the revenue they made?
My message for the Senate is that I do not want to see this happen again in this day and age. We have enough to deal with. There has to be some protection put in place so that there is a back-up plan for industry. They have to be accountable for their actions. We keep hearing about the Kyoto protocol. What has the government done about that? Are we reducing emissions or not?
There are many things to deal with, but the government is reluctant to deal with us or to deal with environmental issues.
Senator Chalifoux: In this bill, there is provision for organizations and governments to get money for different projects on research. That is in this new bill that we are debating right now. Maybe someone can help get that information to you in that section.
This is where I find it quite encouraging for us as aboriginal people to be able to access, finally, some of that money.
The Chairman: Thank you all very much for your presentation. We very much appreciate it. You have come a long way and we thank you and wish you well in very difficult circumstances. You certainly have been of assistance to the committee in our deliberations. On behalf of all the senators, I want to thank you very much.
[Mr. Baton spoke in his native language]
Ms Bayha: Mr. Baton wants to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak and for having the patience to listen to our story. He reiterated again, basically, that we are concerned because these tailings, the waste, the radioactive material that has been left behind, are right in our backyard and here we are still talking about it 60 years later.
He said he does not know how to impress upon you the importance of how we need to deal with this. Yet, at the same time, he said, we are still continuing to drink the water, eat the fish and the meat and everything, because we still live off the land. He points to the uncertainty of what will happen to us in the future. If you can assist us with in dealing with this issue somehow, we would be very grateful.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Baton, and thank you, Ms Bayha, for your interpretation.
Honourable senators, let us now move to clause-by-clause study of this bill. Before we do so, is there anything of a preliminary nature that anyone wishes to bring toward?
Senator Taylor: Maybe you should put on the record that there is a letter from the minister. Should we read it?
The Chairman: We have all received a copy of the letter and I will just present my copy to the clerk for the record, if that is satisfactory?
Senator Taylor: Yes.
The Chairman: Is there anything else of a preliminary nature before we commence the clause-by-clause study?
Senator Spivak: Mr. Chairman, as you may recall, I tabled a motion earlier in the committee, on Tuesday I believe, but I did not do so formally, because there was not a quorum here and, being very much a lady, I do not believe in surprise attacks. It was just after the minister said that he could live with the existing CEPA. I suggested that we rescind the closure motion that Senator Kenny presented earlier.
I should like to give my reasons why I think that should happen. This is a faint hope clause, you realize. However, I am presenting it anyway.
The Chairman: If I understand your motion, it is to reconsider the motion made by Senator Kenny.
Senator Spivak: That is right. I do not have that motion in front of me.
The Chairman: It is a reconsideration of that motion.
Senator Spivak: Yes. My objective is that that motion be rescinded by vote of committee, and I should like to give my reasons for that.
This is an extraordinary bill. It is extraordinary in many respects -- and in saying that I do not mean by any means to be political or partisan, because, when the bill came out of committee, members of all parties supported it: the NDP, the Bloc, the Conservatives, et cetera. So I repeat that it is an extraordinary bill, and it is one that, judging from my experience, will have a major impact.
The House of Commons had nine months in which to look over that bill. I was told that their committee spent 93 hours in looking over that bill. We have had about nine days, and we have not yet gone into the bill clause by clause.
I understand what the issue is. The issue is that prorogation is to take place. If that were not the case, I am sure that the members opposite might feel differently about looking at this very carefully.
In our consideration, I have to say, there are many areas that we have not covered. We have barely scratched the surface. For example, there are the regulations that have to do with the Canada Food and Drugs Act, which came out on July 3, 1999. We really have not had a chance to have officials of the Department of Agriculture here. We have not had the Minister of Health. We did not invite him, and I guess that was an oversight. I do not fault the steering committee, but we should have invited him.
We have a notion of adding a Métis representative to the National Advisory Committee. I would like to hear from officials on that issue. There was a very important point raised about the Indian Act and the lands and I would have liked to question the officials in DIAND as to the import of that.
I think it is self evident that a bill like this, encompassing so many other acts, will involve problems of a residual nature. I know they struggled over it in the House of Commons and I know how long it took in the House of Commons, but we are an independent body, or should be, and even if you do not all agree that there should be amendments, and I am sure you do not, at the very least we should give this bill the proper consideration.
This morning there were a bunch of different amendments that presented some new concepts. I must say frankly that I am not even ready to deal with those amendments that were presented half an hour ago. I am the kind of person who likes to take time and look over every coma. To be fair, we should not be giving ourselves that short a deadline. I could see having this ready by perhaps October 15, if we were doing a proper job of looking at these other things.
I am not sure that this will meet agreement with everyone, but I have to get on the record my sincere feelings about this matter. Surely, something that will have such an impact as this bill -- and we have heard the most devastating testimony, some of which was not heard in the House of Commons -- should be given the most thorough consideration possible. I do not impute false motives to anyone. I know everyone involved with this had the best of motives. I simply say that there needs to be a proper oversight.
The new minister has come into a situation not of his making. I will bet dollars to doughnuts that he has not examined the bill in the way the committee did at the House of Commons. He has not had a chance to do that in his new responsibilities. Perhaps if he had listened to that testimony and had been privy to that experience, he might have been able to do that.
Honourable senators, that is my feeling and it is up to the committee to decide.
The Chairman: Let us be clear on the motion the committee is being asked to consider.
Senator Spivak: I have not really thought it through.
The Chairman: It is a motion of reconsideration.
Senator Spivak: Of reconsideration, yes.
The Chairman: And it is to rescind the prior motion on the time limit put upon us so that we would report by October 15 to the Senate instead of by September 7. Is that what you are saying?
Senator Spivak: That is what I am saying.
The Chairman: Is there a seconder of that motion?
Senator Spivak: It does not need to be seconded.
The Chairman: As a reconsideration motion, I think it does.
Senator Nolin: You do not need one.
The Chairman: We do not need one in committee?
Senator Taylor: I would not see anything accomplished by it. The whole point of putting the motion in the first place was to have our committee work done in time for the recall of the Senate, which is September 7, 1999, in order to have the bill available for the further debate that we expect will go on there.
It is a highly contentious bill. The time that we have spent on it to see that there was no real injustice done to a segment of society is sufficient. Also, there have been repeated attempts during the summer to have meetings. As a matter of fact, the senator who has moved the motion could not come to a meeting. There is no particular point in going back, ploughing old ground, shall we say. Let us get on and look at the bill clause by clause.
The Chairman: Is there any further discussion, senators?
Senator Adams: If we go through the bill clause by clause, how much time do we have? Do we have half an hour, a day or two days?
The Chairman: We have until September 7, 1999.
Senator Adams: Do we have 90 days like the House of Commons had? That is my concern. In the meantime, I do not know exactly how many other witnesses may want to come who might have been left out.
If the bill is passed through the committee today but Parliament prorogues before third reading, the bill will not come back automatically but will die on the Order Paper. After prorogation, a bill must be reintroduced in the House of Commons. Some of our witnesses, perhaps a majority, did not want to see that happen. Some of the witnesses who oppose the bill probably would not mind.
Some people from the North are still asking me the meaning of Bill C-32. They want to know if Bill C-32 will cure their sicknesses and keep the pollution out of the food that they eat. To me it seems typical that this bill will not do any better for us than any another bill in the past 20 years.
We have heard from some of the native people about their lakes being polluted. I do not know if the passing of this bill will clean up those lakes or even prevent the pollution of more lakes in the future. For four years CEPA has been reviewed by the House of Commons. According to some of our witnesses, they feel they did not get a chance to speak in the House of Commons, and that we in the Senate could do a better job of listening. We are barely getting started and now we have to pass the bill. Obviously, we are not concerned enough about the public and the people who will be most affected.
Even if the government pushes this through, how will things be improved? We did not hear all the witnesses and I am concerned about that.
Senator Chalifoux: I have been sitting here listening to all sides. We have here two polarized segments of society with nothing in the middle. We will be damned if we do and damned if we don't, no matter which way we go.
In my experience from working on panels, we must look at all the evidence and not just at one side. I have discussed this very briefly with the president of the Métis National Council. They would rather see the bill go through now and then negotiate, because there are a number of issues outstanding besides their consultation.
We heard the Inuit representatives yesterday. I totally agreed with Jose Kusugak, when he said that Nunavut can represent their Inuit but they do not represent the Inuit from Labrador or Quebec or the other northern reaches. Those Inuit people also need an opportunity to be consulted.
I looked at this bill to the best of my ability. I have only been here for a little over a week. Another researcher from the Senate helped me with some of my concerns.
I see that this bill in its present form is flawed, yes, but I also see that this bill is better than the present CEPA. I checked that out. This bill is better on consultation and on enforcement.
I heard a radio program on CBC the other day. The Friends of the Old Man River have been able to challenge the enforcement in their area. During that interview, they said that if this bill had been passed by now, the enforcement officers would have had the ability to deal with the issues there.
As I have said several times over the course of these hearings, to me this bill is a living document. That is borne out in the requirement for a five-year review. We need not wait five years. We can start as soon as the bill is passed so that, in five years, everything is done. You do not start five years from now to advance a review. You start the minute it is passed.
We must consider industry. We must consider the "little people" living up in the territories. We must consider all Canadians. This bill, in its flawed state, is still better than the present act and it can still be improved as we go along in the review.
Senator Hays: I agree with Senator Chalifoux. She has made an important intervention. The committee has done some very good work in its last three weeks. This legislation will go into the Senate, even if Senator Spivak's motion is accepted, with the government pressing to have the legislation dealt with in an expeditious way. We have read in the paper, and I believe this is correct, that we can expect an early prorogation. That would match the government's practice in the previous session. October 15 would basically hike the bill into the next Parliament.
For that reason and the reasons stated by Senator Chalifoux, I am not in favour either of going with an open end or of dealing with the legislation until October 15.
I have other comments to make once this motion has been addressed, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Nolin: Senator Chalifoux, must we strike down all the testimony of the Métis people who appeared before us? They told us the contrary to what you have just said.
Senator Chalifoux: No, it was not contrary. Jody Pierce stated here that he came as a last ditch effort. They did not know until I told them about this bill. Even afterward he said that they had not had sufficient opportunity to review the bill. Definitely we need more consultation. We need to include the Métis in the bill, but let the Métis leaders do that. We have good intentions and we have real concerns, but I suggest that the senators who are really interested in this issue should work with those leaders to bring their views forward, rather than ours.
Senator Taylor: For the record, Senator Adams brought up a question about witnesses. The steering committee selected the witnesses. We did not turn down any witnesses. We bent over backward to hear as many witnesses as were complaining about the bill. We had a pretty full schedule. I do not recall anyone saying that any particular witness could not come.
The Chairman: In fairness, Senator Taylor, that was on the basis that this would be our first go at it. Senator Spivak has already raised other witnesses whom she would like to hear.
Senator Taylor: Those who came to our attention were heard here. If there is a whole crop of witnesses out there who have not been heard from, it because they have not yet written in.
Senator Spivak: With all due respect, I am sure that if there was not the issue of prorogation, you would consider the number of witnesses we have heard who have said that this bill is fundamentally flawed, and you would also consider the strange circumstance in which your experts on the House of Commons committee could not vote for the bill. Believe me, I know what it is like to vote against a government. I have voted against my own government in the Senate. It is not an easy task. You do it with a wrestling of conscience, because, naturally, you want to support the government. I understand those feelings.
I just have to say that the suggestion that we simply pass this bill and then fix it does not makes any sense. It is not my parliamentary experience. That may be all right if there are just a few little things to clean up, but there are fundamental flaws that need to be fixed here, not the least of which is that we have a key clause that is different in English and in French.
The convenience of the government is an important thing, but it is not more important than the public interest, and from my own point of view -- and I speak only for myself -- I think we ought to try to make a difference and act in the public interest.
I am certainly not hopeful that my motion will pass, but I must put that on the record.
The Chairman: Senators, that closes debate. It is moved by Honourable Senator Spivak that committee rescind its motion of August 24 respecting its date of reporting and hearing of witnesses and instead agree to report the bill to the Senate by October 15, 1999. Will all those in favour of the motion please so indicate by saying "Yea"?
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Chairman: Will all those opposed please say "Nay"?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Chairman: Does anyone want a recorded vote?
Senator Spivak: Yes.
Mr. Till Heyde, Clerk of the Committee: The Honourable Senator Adams?
Senator Adams: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Chalifoux?
Senator Chalifoux: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Cochrane?
Senator Cochrane: I am sorry, I am not sure what I am voting on.
The Chairman: You are voting on the motion of Senator Spivak.
Senator Cochrane: Yes. I want an extension.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Cook?
Senator Cook: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Ghitter?
The Chairman: Yes.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Hays.
Senator Hays: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Hervieux-Payette?
Senator Hervieux-Payette: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Lynch-Staunton?
Senator Lynch-Staunton: Yes.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Nolin?
Senator Nolin: Yes.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Poulin?
Senator Poulin: No.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Spivak?
Senator Spivak: Yes.
Mr. Heyde: The Honourable Senator Taylor.
Senator Taylor: No.
The Chairman: The motion is defeated.
Are there any other preliminary matters that anyone wishes to raise before we proceed to clause-by-clause consideration?
Senator Hays: Mr. Chairman, I do not know whether this will be welcomed or not, but I would like to raise two issues. The first is the timing of our meetings. We are coming on to mid-afternoon on Wednesday. We have two more normal working days this week, followed by a long weekend and the sitting of the Senate on Tuesday, with an obligation to deal with this by noon on Tuesday. There is nothing wrong with using all of those days, but I am wondering if there is some support for setting out what days we would work and what days we would not work, so that particularly those of us who live far away can plan accordingly.
The Chairman: I would suggest we wait and see how things progress this afternoon and then we can come back to that later in the afternoon.
Senator Hays: Very well.
The Chairman: Are there any other matters senators wish to raise?
Is it agreed, honourable senators, that the committee move to clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-32?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Shall the preamble carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Spivak: No. I have a motion of amendment, Mr. Chairman. I move:
That Bill C-32 be amended in the preamble:
on page 1, by replacing line 19 with the following:
"knowledges the need to phase out the generation and use of the"
It is the paragraph dealing with virtual elimination. My amendment proposes, of course, the wording that was in the committee of the House of Commons.
Mr. Chairman, this is a key portion of the bill. We heard from the people who came from Quebec with regard to the plant that will still emit PCBs, even if they are banned, and I think that situation highlights the exact dichotomy between the controlling of substances and allowing them to be emitted and the acknowledgement or the statement right here that we need to phase out the generation and use of substances.
Senator Taylor: On a point of order, when there are amendments, would it be possible to circulate them?
Senator Spivak: We are going to do that. I forgot about that.
The Chairman: It is being done now. Carry on with your discussion.
Senator Spivak: It would logically lead to amendments on virtual elimination in Part 5 of the bill to reflect the wisdom of the House of Commons committee, specifically to clause 65(3) with respect to achieving virtual elimination, and to the operational clauses of the bill, clauses 77(2), 77(4) 79(1), 79(2), 91(2) and 91(4).
The testimony we heard pointed out the difference between what the committee recommended and what is in this bill regarding virtual elimination, in that it is merely controlling the use of substances beyond a certain level of quantification. What the committee had in mind -- and this is also in the International Joint Commission report -- was that virtual elimination should be the goal and that steps should be taken towards that goal. Some industry representatives, of course, because of their feeling about certainty, et cetera, did not like this part and they lobbied to get it removed.
If this amendment were to be put in place, it would be consistent with the government's Red Book promise in 1993, which talked about phasing out the generation and use of. It would be consistent again, with Canada's obligation under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. We have a very important convention coming up, the Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty, in which, as we heard from various delegations here, it is important to have the notion of phasing out the generation and use of, because, otherwise, we will send a message to the world that, as long as you control the use and emission of these persistent organic pollutants, everything is fine.
That is exactly what was pointed out in the presentation made to us by Daniel Green, who said that dioxins, PCBs and furans will be emitted. Industry has said that they will capture them, but that may not be the case. We know what happens in that regard.
A most important convention is coming up in Geneva on persistent organic pollutants. This bill, then, has not only a national impact; it has an international impact as well. Canada is seen as a leader. Canada has argued for that in many other conventions. With respect to persistent organic pollutants, Canada's position has been to phase out the generation and use of those substances. I hope that does not change with the passage of this bill.
As you know, domestic law informs international law. Therefore, what happens in domestic law is key to international conventions.
We must realize that this would not impose arduous restrictions on industry, because it would be limited to a small handful of persistent bioaccumulative toxic substances, such as PCBs. Even then, in order for them to be eliminated -- that is, to phase out their generation and use -- economic, social and technical matters would have to be considered before release limits were set.
In this case, I think that industry concerns are overblown. As you can see, economic concerns often set the standard, but we are talking here about a handful of persistent organic pollutants. We heard from several organizations -- in particular, from the Canadian Institute of Child Health this morning -- about what that can do and how long that can take.
The preamble sets the foundation of the bill. The amendment would telegraph the government's intent that for the small handful of pollutants that everyone knows are no good for them, we will phase out the generation and use of those substances. We are then protecting health because this bill is about health. We are protecting the health of children, infants who are breastfed, and the people of the North.
Mr. Chairman, those are my reasons for the amendment.
The Chairman: I notice that what you have passed around has another amendment in it. I take it you will be coming back to that later.
Senator Spivak: Yes.
The Chairman: We are only dealing with the first amendment.
Senator Spivak: These are the preamble amendments. We are only dealing with one.
The Chairman: Is there any further discussion on the amendment?
Senator Taylor: I think the intention of the amendment is admirable, but I think it is covered already in the bill.
By a diligent reading of the bill, if "virtual elimination" is eliminated from the preamble, it would mean a massive change to the bill in at least half a dozen places to bring the rest of the paragraphs in line.
More important, you are worrying about the phase out. Clause 93 of the bill clearly gives the minister the authority to phase out the generation and use of a substance. In other words, virtual elimination does not stop the phasing out of a substance. Phasing out can be carried out, although virtual elimination means elimination down to a non-measurable quantity. As you heard from some of the industry, they were worried about that because they felt that non-measurable quantities will be measurable in a year or two or three. That is not your complaint. Your complaint, as I understand, is that we will stop or ban the phase out of a substance. Clause 93 clearly covers the phase out or total prohibition of a substance.
You also mentioned DDT.
Senator Spivak: I did not mention that.
Senator Taylor: We ban its import, manufacture or sale, so I think we are amply covered in the bill.
I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I think you are seeing a bogeyman that just is not there.
Senator Spivak: It is not I, Mr. Chairman, who sees a bogeyman.
The Chairman: Do others wish to debate this amendment?
Senator Spivak: All of these clauses having to do with virtual elimination were discussed over a period of nine months by the committee in the other place. Members of all parties felt that this was the way to go.
Of course, we are also talking about the operational part of virtual elimination. I am not even sure how those operational parts in clause 93(1) relate to each other, because we did not have a chance to go into that.
As well, as I mentioned previously, a convention on persistent organic pollutants is coming up. The impact of all those changes made at report stage in terms of the operational end of this is pretty substantial. As you know, that leads us back to clause 65(3), which was changed especially to ensure that the management and control of emissions would be the focus and not the phase out and generation.
With all due respect, Senator Taylor, I do not think you opinion is correct.
The Chairman: Honourable senators, may we have a vote? Would all those in favour of Senator Spivak's motion to amend that paragraph of the preamble please say "Yea"?
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Chairman: Would all those opposed please say "Nay"?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Chairman: In my opinion, the Nays have it.
Is there a desire for a recorded vote? No? Very good. Let us proceed.
Are there other amendments?
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I move:
That Bill C-32 be amended, at clause 2, in the English version, on page 3, by replacing line 24 with the following:
"postponing effective measures to prevent".
The object of this amendment is to eliminate the first part of the composite word "cost-effective," in other words "cost" and the hyphen linking it to "effective" and this, in both official languages.
Having read part of the testimony and discussions held in the other place over a very long period and having heard the witnesses ourselves, more particularly the testimony of a linguist, and not an environmental expert, I have come to the conclusion that adding this amendment, which comes at the very end of the process, in other words the reference to costs, alters the substance of the paragraph in which it is included.
My suggestion for amendment addresses a paragraph that speaks to matters of heritage and economy, setting aside all others.
People's health is not an economic matter. The intent of individuals is certainly not a matter of economics. Everything that has nothing to do with heritage, thus, which has monetary value, is excluded in the paragraph we have before us. That is why, having heard the expert on legal language yesterday morning, I want through my amendment to give this paragraph its full force. All effective measures will have to be taken into consideration, not just effective economic measures. The definition and the translation the legal language expert gave us is profitability. We shouldn't limit the effective measures referred to in this paragraph to profitability alone. That is why I have proposed this amendment.
Senator Poulin: Mr. Chairman, many senators remember that about a decade ago, all private and public enterprises started identifying their emissions. The two key words used to define emissions were "efficient" and "effective." At that time, in French, there was no word to translate "effective" because for "efficient" we had the word "efficacité."
I still remember the discussions going on at meetings -- both in the private sector and in the public sector -- about finding an appropriate word to translate "effectiveness" and "effective measures." There was a non-public consensus that established that "efficient" meant "everything having to do with time" and that "effective" meant "everything having to do with cost."
I understand that Senator Nolin finds that there is duplication when we say "cost-effective," but I do not think that's a valid reason to amend a whole bill. I am quite comfortable with the legislator's intent. It is very clear that they are committing to adopting the precautionary principle which means that where there is a risk of serious or irreversible damage, the absence of absolute scientific certainty must not serve as a pretext to delay the adoption of effective measures, which imply costs, with a view to preventing the degradation of the environment. I do not see any real problem here.
[English]
Senator Spivak: We have had a jurist and a linguist tell us that the expression "effective measures" has no indication of cost in it, and that for a measure to be effective, in English it has to be "cost-effective"; but the French expression "mesures effectives" means that the measures might be not at all cost-effective. They might cost more. This is what the jurist-linguist told us. That is also the opinion of Luc Gagné of the law and government division.
Senators, as you know, French is not my first language. Mr. Gagné said that the most appropriate French equivalent to the English words "cost-effective" is "efficient." Another witness also said that the best would be "au moindre coût" because there is the element of cost. As it stands, there is absolutely no element of cost in the French at all.
How will you administer that? Which version will you take? One is just "effective" and might cost a lot more, and the other is "cost-effective," which has to mean that it costs less.
Senators, there is another problem that I hope you will allow me to bring up. It is that there is no definition of "cost-effective." We went through this. I am sure those who sat here the whole time will know that. However, there is absolutely no definition of "cost-effective." In whose opinion is it cost-effective? Is it more cost-effective for industry? Considering all the time this bill was worked on, you would think they could have got that one point right. It is an egregious error. You cannot deny that. It is an error that needs to be corrected.
If we were not under the gun as to a timetable, we would correct it. On the face of it it is absolutely plain that you cannot equate "cost-effective" with "effective," if effective might mean you have to spend more money.
Senator Hays: It is interesting that the proposed resolution of this apparent discrepancy is to change the English version, which I think makes the arguments about the meaning in French not worth pursuing. Thus, I will not do that. I concede my lack of expertise here.
I am convinced by what I have heard and read about this that "cost-effective" and "de mesures effectives" are not the same. However, I am not an expert, and I am relying on a brief from the Library of Parliament and the testimony of Mr. Blais, the expert.
I am not supporting the amendment for two reasons. First, I would not support the change by conforming to the less flexible reference.
Second, I do not think it is a sufficient enough error to need correcting. If there were other amendments that we were going to pass, then, fine, clean it up, of course; but I am not sure there are. However, I would not clean it up this way. I would clean it up by changing the French to conform with the English.
In any event, I am not certain that I would move an amendment at your invitation or otherwise to do the reverse.
The Chairman: You have neglected the third aspect in coming to your conclusion, namely, that the government has basically said there will be no amendments.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: We are talking about the efficiency and effectiveness of investments. When my colleague refers to the examination of the new versions of business emissions, we are talking about businesses. And thank God, we are not only talking about commercial enterprises, we are also talking about public sector enterprises.
When you read this paragraph carefully, you can see that the effectiveness of the investment could weaken the main intent of the paragraph which is to introduce the precautionary principle. So let us not wait to have scientific, fundamental, formal evidence beyond all reasonable doubt: let us not prevent our adopting effective measures. So if we restrict ourselves solely to effective economic measures, we are altering, in part, the intent of this paragraph and that is why I have tabled this amendment.
[English]
The Chairman: Will all those in favour of the amendment, please say "Yea"?
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Chairman: Will all those opposed to the amendment, please say "Nay"?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Chairman: The nays have it.
Are there any further amendments to the preamble?
Senator Spivak: Yes. I want to now turn to what you already have before you. I move:
That Bill C-32 be amended in the preamble:
-- on page 2, by replacing lines 45 to 47 with the following:
"trol and management of any adverse effects of the use and release of toxic substances, products of biotechnology, pollutants and other wastes, and the virtual"
and on page 3, by deleting lines 1 to 5
I think this is a simpler amendment. It has a very specific purpose. This would mean that the wording would revert to what came out of the House of Commons committee. I think that the intention is very clear here. One does not wish to have the product of biotechnology linked with any threats to biological diversity in the wording of Bill C-32.
You can see in lines 1 to 5, where it says:
Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the need to protect the environment, including its biological diversity, and human health, by ensuring the safe and effective use of biotechnology.
It seems to me that it shifts the emphasis so that you would not want to phase out the generation and use of biotechnology products. Even if you were to do that under clause 93 -- you cannot because it is under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I do not think you can use clause 93. It is totally hived off.
The emphasis here is incorrect. Recent research has cast some doubt on the fact that all biotechnology products can be safe and used effectively. An English scientific expert and proponent of biotechnology found, to his surprise, that genetically modified corn impacts rats; that is to say, there was a negative impact on the liver and immune systems. This is not to say, again, that the product might be unsafe. It might not be unsafe, but then you need to do long-term research and apply the precautionary principle.
We met with about 60 western farmers, who are at their wits end in very dire circumstances. After the meeting -- I think you had left by this point, Senator Taylor -- I specifically asked them what they thought about the products of biotechnology, the terminator gene, and so forth? They were very clear in their responses. They now see this as an attempt to control their farms and to control their lives. They are very worried. They are particularly worried about the terminator gene.
The terminator gene is coming down the pike. It is definitely a biotechnology product. It could pose the most immense risk to biological diversity. People are concerned about this. In fact, I think Monsanto, which bought the company that owns the patent to this, has backed off a bit. They will wait. They have patents pending in every country in the world in order to get this thing through and to protect their commercial invest.
This is not a minor issue. You want to get it back to where the House of Commons committee had it, in order that it is clear that some products of biotechnology may have an impact on biological diversity.
I would remind you that Canada has a legal obligation to introduce legislation. Under the convention of biological diversity, Canada must introduce domestic legislation to comply with its legal obligation under biological diversity. I think the amendments here remove the threats to biological diversity from the products of biotechnology, which were obviously a result of lobbying. Clause 347, an insidious clause, hives off entirely the whole products of biotechnology on to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which is simply a terrible thing to do. Nevertheless, here in the preamble the whole foundation is laid for how we will treat products of biotechnology, which is lightly.
In fact, some will get no assessment at all. The unscientific theory is that if you change a gene that product is not different than the potato that does not have a gene changed. That is an unscientific assertion that has subverted our approach to these products. If you change a gene, you have changed that product substantially.
At any rate, I feel it is important to change this, so we understand what it is we are doing. We should not allow a last-minute amendment to be thrown in for reasons of fear to subvert what is such an important matter. We will be living with this for a long time. I think we should get it right. As the scientists in England said, if you do not get it right you cannot fix it. There is an irreversible change when most of these things are let out into the environment.
Senator Hays: I listened carefully.
Perhaps this is a question to Senator Spivak. It seems to me that the most important things achieved by this proposed amendment would be to eliminate the words "risk" and "virtual elimination," which I think are necessary in the preamble unless other clauses, particularly clause 65 and clauses referred to there, are changed.
Senator Spivak: We are not talking about virtual elimination; we are talking about the biotechnology. I am referring to page 2.
Senator Hays: As I understand your amendment, you would eliminate these words starting at line 45 of page 2.
Senator Spivak: Right.
Senator Hays: And you would take out the following words:
the control and management of the risk of any adverse effects of the use and release of toxic substances, pollutants and wastes, and the virtual elimination of persistent and bioaccumulative toxic substances;
You would also take out the next paragraph.
Whereas the Government of Canada recognizes the need to protect the environment, including its biological diversity, and human health, by ensuring the safe and effective use of biotechnology.
Therefore, words that would be taken out in your amendment include the word "risk" and the words "virtual elimination." These words would be picked up later on in the bill, which the preamble is companion to. You may have amendments there that, if passed, would involve revisiting the preamble.
I heard, as we all did, the difference between the argument of the strong environmentalists and the so-called economic or business group. It seems to me to be a difficult one to bridge. I am particularly impressed by Mr. Leiss' paper on risk management. It notes that to downplay the idea of risk management will hurt the CEPA because it introduces rigidity, which makes it less workable than it is if you have the flexibility of managing risk where that is appropriate.
With respect to virtual elimination, while you have not commented on it because it would be taken out I am not sure that is a good idea because virtual elimination is defined with regard to the level of the substance that you can measure.
For those reasons, I do not think it is a good idea to take it out. Perhaps you could comment. You did not really talk much about risk and virtual elimination. You talked about other things.
Senator Spivak: There are two things on which I should like to comment. I refer you to the House of Commons committee.
As I understand it, from my work on the Agriculture Committee, risk management does not lend itself to biotechnology products because it may take years to evaluate what is happening. You will recall the precautionary principle: It says that even where science is uncertain you ought not take action. I am sure no one in their right mind would do it unless they had some marker. You have the issue of the monarch butterfly and the BT corn gene. So you have a few markers.
You have pointed out exactly why this is so important. It is not risk management. Some products of biotechnology -- we hope very few, because biotechnology is a huge industry -- may indeed affect biological diversity. I give you the example of the terminator gene, which has no reason to be on earth except to protect someone's commercial investment. Do you think it is worth while to place at risk the plants and the health of human beings to ensure that someone protects their commercial investment? What is more important? I think that is probably why the members of the House of Commons committee, which I would remind you spent four years and nine months looking at this, made that amendment, and that is the reason for this amendment.
Senator Chalifoux: The knowledge that Senator Spivak has on this issue always amazes me, but I must disagree with her right at the moment.
Senator, you are only taking a part of the bill, and I think it is taken out of context. That is my opinion. It says here that the Government of Canada will endeavour to remove threats to biological diversity through pollution prevention, through the control and management of the risk of any adverse effect of the use and release of toxic substances, pollutants and waste, and through the virtual elimination of persistent and bioaccumulative toxic substances.
That is what we have to look at in the preamble in this bill, because there are some really good things happening in biotechnology. I am not a strong promoter of biotechnology; I lean more to the organic side.
You say here that you want something changed or deleted, something that I think is very important and should stay in, and that is the part where the Government of Canada says it recognizes the need to protect the environment, including its biological diversity and human health, by ensuring the safe and effective use of biotechnology. I think that is really important. By keeping this in, we ensure that our government and our departments have the opportunity and the dedication to ensure that we do have safe and effective use of biotechnology. I agree with you on the terminator gene, but there are other things that are good, and I think they have to be examined.
The Chairman: Is there any further discussion before Senator Spivak closes debate?
Senator Spivak: I know that Senator Chalifoux and I share the same goals, but I must say that risk management does not apply to biotechnology. Taking products of biotechnology out of the part that talks about threats to biological diversity, in my mind, weakens the bill.
The statement you mentioned does sound good, but it should be examined more closely. When it mentions ensuring safe and effective use, that means that we will use them, that we will just ensure they are safe and effective. We cannot always do that.
I will give you another example. The organic farmers came to see us in the Agriculture Committee and said they cannot certify their products as organic any longer because they are getting stuff that is genetically modified.
I am not suggesting for a moment that we should eliminate all biotechnology products. What I am trying to achieve is to get back to the House of Commons committee, which recognized that the other wording was not appropriate because of risk management and also because it just talks about safe and effective use rather than about eliminating the phase out, the generation, and use. If the government had accepted that, the bill might have been better.
The Chairman: All those in favour of the motion of Senator Spivak please say "Yea"?
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Chairman: All those opposed, please say "Nay"?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Chairman: The Nays have it. The motion in amendment is defeated.
Senator Spivak: Mr. Chairman, I wonder if we need to take up a great deal more time presenting our case when these very basic amendments to the legislation have not been approved and we have the minister's letter saying that he does not want any amendments. Perhaps we should just read through the amendments and I will present the rest of my amendments in the Senate. The reason, as I said to you before, is that there are some areas where I really have not had the time to consider amendments, areas that were presented only this morning. To go through 356 amendments, only to have them rejected, strikes me as not very productive. I think we might do it a little quicker.
The Chairman: It seems to me to be a horrible waste of time and taxpayers' money to carry forward. It seems obvious that the instructions are out: There will be no amendments. I thought perhaps Senator Chalifoux or Senator Adams might, as a result of many of the concerns that have been expressed, have a somewhat different view, but that is not the case.
We could go on and on, but it is obvious from the minister's letter, from the motion for closure, and from everything that has happened over the past days that our amendments may be better served in the Senate rather than wasting everyone's time here and wasting the money of taxpayers. I am in the hands of all of you. If someone wishes to present a motion to dispense with further clause-by-clause consideration, you have that open to you, if you so wish.
Senator Taylor: I gather that Senator Spivak wants to make that motion.
The Chairman: No, I did not hear her say that.
Senator Taylor: So we are in a position where you do not want to go on but you do not want to be the person who makes that motion.
The Chairman: We are prepared to go on.
Senator Taylor: We do not want to be accused of cutting you off. You have asked that it be cut off and that this move to the full Senate. That is fine. You asked us and we can vote on it. I am not sure how the vote will go, but to ask us to make the motion, so that you can be the hero by opposing it, is not really proper.
The Chairman: I am not asking you to do anything. We are willing to go ahead.
Senator Spivak: I am just stating my feelings. I am being very frank.
The Chairman: I will step down now and ask Senator Taylor to take over the chairmanship. I will take my place at the table.
Senator Nicholas Taylor (Deputy Chairman) in the chair.
The Deputy Chairman: Is there further discussion on the preamble?
Shall the preamble carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: The preamble is carried, on division.
Shall the title carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Senator Ghitter: I wish to abstain.
Senator Spivak: We are abstaining.
Senator Ghitter: We will abstain on all future votes.
The Deputy Chairman: Senators Spivak and Lynch-Staunton may have something to say.
Senator Spivak: Carry on. We may have something to say.
The Chairman: Is it agreed that clause 1 stand?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall clause 2 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: I move to amend the bill as follows:
That Bill C-32 be amended, at clause 2, in the English version, on page 3, by replacing line 24 with the following:
[English]
"postponing cost-effective measures to prevent".
[Translation]
Well, you heard the arguments I set out earlier. I have the same ones again. This is a substantive clause of the bill and not just something affecting the text of the preamble. This clause establishes a mission for the federal government in the matter of protecting of the environment. It is even more important for us to be most specific in English and in French and that, insofar as possible, we say exactly the same thing in both official languages.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Excuse me. Which part of clause 2(1) are you talking about?
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: It is clause 2, paragraph 1, subparagraph (a).
[English]
Senator Hays: The amendment matches the amendment to the preamble moved by Senator Nolin. I agree that they should be the same in the two languages. However, I believe that "cost-effective" is a proper inclusion in the bill because of the anticipated use of economic instruments and the anticipated "most effective," which I think is usually the most cost-effective way of achieving the objective under this legislation that deals with toxics.
Senator Spivak: You just do not get it, Senator Hays.
[Translation]
Senator Poulin: I understand that Senator Nolin would not want to weaken the strength of this paragraph which, in fact, clearly identifies the federal government's mission. I do not want to repeat what I said before: the English version and the French version state clearly that in its mission, for the implementation of the present legislation, the federal government must, taking into account Canada's Constitution and legislation and subject to paragraph 1.1, exercise its powers in such a way as to protect the environment and human health and apply the principle of prudence which means that when there is a risk of serious or irreversible damage to the environment, the absence of absolute scientific certainty must not serve as a pretext to postpone the implementation of effective measures. The important message is that the absence of absolute scientific certainty must not serve as a pretext to delay the implementation of effective measures or as they say in English: "to postpone cost-effective."
The message is very clear in English and in French and the intent is good. "Effective" is a new word developed in the 80s. I remember very well having looked it up in the Petit Larousse in the 80s and the word did not exist. Today, when you look at "effective measure," it means something that takes effect, that is implemented and is said of a method of reasoning which, through a given number of stages, allows one to arrive at a complete and verifiable demonstration.
Senator Nolin: I agree with that.
Senator Poulin: So the intent is there, Mr. Chairman.
[English]
Senator Nolin: I totally agree with that.
[Translation]
Senator Poulin: We have a consensus, Mr. Chairman.
Senator Nolin: We have no problem with the French.
Senator Spivak: If I heard correctly, the word "cost" is not written in.
Senator Poulin: It is understood because of the definition itself.
Senator Spivak: No.
Senator Poulin: I would not want us to start thinking we are linguists. If we wanted to, we could spend the afternoon, the week and even the month on translations.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Shall I call for the vote?
Senator Nolin: First, I should like to make my closing remark.
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: For my colleagues, in French, I quite agree with you. It is rare I am in agreement with the Petit Larousse, but I am this time even though the Robert is better. "Effective" means that there is an effect produced, in French, all kinds of effects.
In English, it just refers to economic effects. That is my problem. I do not want this to be limited to economic effects and that economic matters only be considered, but I want us to consider all matters whether heritage or non-heritage. That is what I want.
Senator Poulin: And as a good lawyer for the defense would say: "I rest my case."
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: Would all those in favour of the amendment please say yea?
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Deputy Chairman: Would all those opposed to the amendment please say nay?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Deputy Chairman: In my opinion, the nays have it. I declare the motion defeated.
Senator Spivak: Honourable senators, I wish to move an amendment to subparagraphs 2(1)(j) and (j.1) in the same way that the preamble was amended because it is exactly the same. If you do not allow the amendment, well, I am lost.
The Deputy Chairman: If I do not allow it, will you promise not to say anything on the subject unless it is new?
Senator Spivak: No. Like Senator Poulin, I rest my case.
The Deputy Chairman: Are we ready for the vote on the issue?
Senator Spivak: This is on my amendment. You understand that it is the same.
Senator Hays: Will you circulate it?
Senator Spivak: I could if you want to wait until it is done. It is exactly the same as the other one.
Senator Hays: At the very least, it should be read, I think, because I do not see the word "risk" in subparagraph (j.1)
Senator Spivak: I move:
That Bill C-32 be amended in clause 2 on page 4, by replacing lines 17 to 19 with the following:
...from any adverse effects of the use and release of toxic substances, products of biotechnology, pollutants and wastes;
And by deleting lines 20 to 23.
That is exactly the same amendment as in the preamble.
The Deputy Chairman: I think it is exactly the same.
Would all those in favour of the amendment please say yea.
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
The Deputy Chairman: Would all those opposed to the amendment please say nay?
Some Hon. Senators: Nay.
The Deputy Chairman: In my opinion, the nays have it. I declare the motion defeated.
Are there any other amendments to clause 2?
Shall clause 2 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 3 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 4 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 5 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 6 carry?
[Translation]
Senator Nolin: Mr. Chairman, I am moving three amendments; one in English only and the other in both official languages. They all have to do with the same thing. My first amendment concerns clause 6.
[English]
Replacing line 9 of page 12 with the following:
"each of the provinces;"
The second amendment is the following:
That Bill C-32, in clause 6, be amended by adding after line 30 on page 12 the following:
(d) one representative for all Métis, selected by the Métis National Council.
[Translation]
The French version of the amendment reads as follows:
Que le projet de loi C-32, à l'article 6, soit modifié par adjonction, après la ligne 31, page 12, de ce qui suit:
d) un représentant pour tous les Métis, choisi par le Ralliement national des Métis.
The argument underlying of my amendments is definitely my total support for the testimony of what seemed to me, until this afternoon, to be the authorized representatives of the Métis National Council. My amendment was ready so I will table it anyway. If the legislation has to be changed in five years, then we will change it as need be, but it seems to me that we should at least respect the 1982 Constitutional Act and that we respect the very wording of this fundamental legislation that recognizes the existence of the Métis in Canada. If the Government of Canada, in preparing this bill, was incapable of at the very least including respect for the Métis, then we will do it here.
[English]
Senator Chalifoux: This is why I consulted with the Métis National Council, and I really looked at this bill.
Subclause 6(2) refers to the aboriginal governments of Canada. The Métis are currently in dialogue, negotiation, and arguments as to their role as an aboriginal government. There is no way that this amendment could go through unless we look at the term "aboriginal government."
This is why the Métis National Council's president, Gerald Morin, has stated that he would rather have a look at this, start reviewing it, so that when it is included in this bill -- and I have no doubt that it will be in the next go-round -- it is done so properly.
I think the Inuit nations must be consulted as well. This act, once proclaimed, must be relevant to those two aboriginal segments of our society. Therefore, at this time, I cannot support this amendment. I will be looking forward, within the next five years, to determining how we can deal with the aboriginal governments and with the Métis nations.
The Deputy Chairman: Is there further debate?
Perhaps Senator Nolin could help me. Do we have two amendments here, or are they rolled together?
Senator Nolin: One is in English only, and the other is in both official languages. The English-only amendment affects only the English version.
Senator Chalifoux is asking us to believe her word. I do want to contradict her "testimony," but that is not what we heard from the Métis representatives who came here.
I would be glad to meet with the Métis representatives, but I double-checked with them and asked them if they wanted us to amend the bill. I suggested the wording, and they said, "Yes, sir, that is what we want." That is my case.
Senator Chalifoux: I totally agree with you, senator, but in the meantime we have a definition of "aboriginal governments" that totally eliminates the ability of the Métis to participate. They do not qualify under the definition of "aboriginal governments" in the bill. It is the same thing with the Inuit. The Inuit are recognized, but only under a government.
Senator Nolin: Honourable senators, let us have a little more relaxed procedure. I am introducing an amendment to subparagraph (2). I am not referring to "aboriginal government." I am referring to "following members." That has nothing to do with "aboriginal government" and everything to do with the Constitution of this country.
Senator Chalifoux: I understand that. This is where I must refer you to clause 3(1) and the definitions of "aboriginal government" and "aboriginal land." That is where the problem lies.
Senator Nolin: That is precisely why I did not move to amend clause 6(2)(c). I moved to add another one, that being (d).
The Deputy Chairman: I believe I let the debate on the second amendment go on for too long. We should take a vote on first amendment proposed by Senator Nolin.
Will all those in favour of the first amendment of Senator Nolin please say "yea."
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: The amendment is defeated, on division.
Will all those in favour of the second amendment please say "yea."
Some Hon. Senators: Yea.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Defeated, on division.
Senator Nolin: Mr. Chairman, I will introduce more amendments when we get to the Senate.
The Chairman: Shall clause 6 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Clause 6 is carried, on division.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall clause 7 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 8 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 9 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 10 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 11 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall clause 12 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
Senator Ghitter: Mr. Chairman, this seems a little foolish. Rather than waste your time, Mr. Chairman, we will be opposed to everything. You might wish to think in terms of how to expedite the process.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall clauses 13 to 356 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Clauses 13 to 356 are carried, on division.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall schedules 1 to 6 carry?
Senator Hays: Mr. Chairman, I have a question. In my copy of the bill, there is nothing for Schedule 2. It simply reads "Acts and Regulations." I am wondering about passing a schedule that is essentially a blank page.
Senator Ghitter: We have done it already. The bill might as well be a blank page.
Ms Monique Hébert, Researcher, Library of Parliament: Both Schedules 2 and 4 are, in fact, blank. These schedules are tied into the residual clauses that have been discussed at length in this committee. It is under those schedules that the other acts which will prevail over CEPA will be listed. Of course, none has been listed so far; hence, the reason for them being blank.
Senator Hays: Will Parliament be involved when they are listed?
Ms Hébert: No, sir.
Senator Hays: Why not?
Ms Hébert: Because this is done by order of Governor in Council.
Senator Hays: Is that so provided in the bill?
Ms Hébert: Yes.
Senator Hays: Do you happen to know where it says that?
Ms Hébert: There are a number of examples; for example, clauses 81(7), 106(7), 81(6).
It is clause 81(7) where you will find the authority to list those statutes.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall schedules 1 to 6 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
Shall clause 1 carry?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: Carried, on division.
The Deputy Chairman: Shall the title carry?
Senator Ghitter: No. It is not a protection act.
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: The title carries, on division.
Is it agreed that this bill be adopted without amendment?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: The motion is carried, on division.
Is it agreed that I report this bill at the next sitting of the Senate?
Some Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
Senator Ghitter: It is traditional that if the minority on the committee wishes to file a minority report they be allowed to do so. That is our intention. I would like the motion to read that the minority be permitted to file a minority report.
Senator Hays: It is traditional to report with comments, if that is our wish. It would be helpful to the Senate if there were comments from the committee. Perhaps we should hear from those representing the opposition. They may not want to work together with us on it.
Comments could be added that would serve the purpose of assisting our colleagues in terms of what it is that we have learned and where we see problems and things that might assist them in understanding better the difficulties with this legislation.
The question is, however, whether we wish to make a committee effort to comment or whether this a matter that we would pursue individually or as parties? Perhaps that question goes to you, Senator Ghitter.
Senator Ghitter: On behalf of the minority in this committee, we do not wish to participate in the committee report. We wish to file our own report.
The Deputy Chairman: Honourable senators, I have been handed something by the clerk of the committee. It says that if the chair and deputy chairman are unable to agree on the wording and observations then both versions of the observations would be reported to the Senate. In other words, you can report your observations and I, as deputy chairman, will report my observations. Would that motion be order then?
Senator Ghitter: I would find that acceptable, but I think we should also report in accordance with the August 24 motion that has already been passed. That should be part of that report, because we must adhere to that motion.
The Deputy Chairman: That is September 7. So you are happy to have them beside each other on one piece of paper?
Senator Ghitter: I think it should be separate comments.
The Deputy Chairman: The clerk tells me that it must be one report.
Senator Ghitter: Then it will be in the same report but under two sections.
The Deputy Chairman: Senator Hays wants to try to bring some union to the table.
Senator Hays: Since the clerk has said that we are obliged to report as one -- I am not sure why, but that has been the practice, and I have been informed of that before and have always followed the practice myself -- then we should at least share our reports with one another and meet to comment in terms of having them look as good as they can vis-à-vis the order in which things are presented and the source and the reason for making comments.
For instance, in the preamble, I have expressed concern, but my concern is not sufficient to support an amendment to the bill. In any event, the amendment that was proposed and that I would support is about differences in language. I have listened carefully to Senator Poulin and I think she is right that they mean the same; however, if "cost-effective" and "effectif" do not mean the same thing, then I think a comment on that is worth making to the Senate. They may wish to proceed with an amendment.
In any event, that means that we would meet again, presumably on September 7, to at least let one another know what we are reporting. You may not want to do that.
Senator Ghitter: It is not that we do not want to do it, there just will not be time to do it. We will be working throughout the weekend to prepare our material. There will not be time because of the closure motion that was imposed. Although we have no objection to doing it, there just will not be time.
Senator Hays: We must have the committee approve the report, if I am not mistaken.
The Deputy Chairman: That is what we are discussing now.
Senator Lynch-Staunton: You are reporting without amendment.
Senator Hays: But you want to make comments.
Senator Ghitter: Are you really trying to tell us that you want to write the report?
Senator Hays: No. I am just trying to provide as much flexibility, for people who disagree, to do so in a way that is in keeping with what I understand to be the rules and traditions of the Senate. In other words, if we make comments or observations about the bill, they are the observations of the committee. How can they be anything else? We need to meet and say, yes, these are our comments.
That is my understanding of how it is done. Otherwise, it is not a comment that belongs in the report, because it is not a comment of the committee. It is a comment of only some members of the committee, either from our side or their side. We can do that in the chamber. However, I am making the point now that, if we are going to make it a comment or observation of the committee, it has to be from the committee. To be from the committee, it must emanate from the committee; therefore, I assume the committee would meet to say, yes, these are our comments or observations.
Perhaps the clerk or someone will say that I am wrong, but that is my understanding of how those comments or observations get on to a piece of paper that goes before the whole Senate, with a recommendation or without a recommendation. I am raising it now so that we can handle it in a way that will be in keeping with the Rules of the Senate.
Senator Ghitter: When this committee speaks, it speaks as the majority deems it to speak, so the majority can write their report, which becomes the report of this committee. That is obvious and so be it. The majority may write their report. I have no interest at this point in time in seeing it because I know what it will say. We are so far apart with respect to this legislation that we are really talking in terms of cosmetics. We wish to print our observations alongside the majority's observations within the same report, as the clerk has told us we must do, and we are happy to do that. I do not think we need go any further.
Senator Chalifoux: Mr. Chairman, ever since I started studying this bill I have thought that I would like to make some remarks, some recommendations, and some observations. Am I allowed to do that as a member of this committee, or do I put it in the report? There are several recommendations and observations that I wish to make.
The Deputy Chairman: Trying to write a report to which seven Liberals will agree and get it finished by the weekend is difficult in itself, but it will come into the house and no senator -- Liberal, Conservative, or independent -- will be denied the right to stand up and give a full speech. To try to encapsulate your ideas into a few lines in the report would be difficult. I am sure Senator Ghitter and I will want to keep our comments in the report to a page or so. My comments will be fairly short. I would try to check them with the party as much as possible, but getting seven Liberals to agree over a long weekend to a long report might present some difficulties.
Senator Chalifoux: I am in the habit of writing my own reports.
The Deputy Chairman: And you will get a chance to speak in the house.
Senator Chalifoux: How long will I have to speak?
The Deputy Chairman: On third reading, you have 15 minutes. I have never seen the Speaker stop anybody, if you need to speak longer.
Senator Ghitter: We will support your wish to speak as long as you like, Senator Chalifoux, if it is reciprocal.
Senator Chalifoux: Thank you.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I am on the Banking Committee. We are in the practice of having comments and remarks about legislation, sometimes speaking of the future, telling the minister that, in the next step, we want this to be changed, knowing that it is important to pass the bill right now. The practice is that both the chair and the deputy chairman invite members to send them their remarks in writing -- early enough, of course, to be included. We can send a few lines about reservations we may have or further study we would like.
I will give you an example. Regarding the fiscal treatment of the demutualization process for seniors, I was promised that it would be examined by the Minister of Finance. I raised that concern when we studied the bill and the minister said, yes, the bill will pass but the issue will be addressed.
I want to be sure that this does not preclude us from making our remarks. If they are short, they are probably more pertinent. If I have some comments, I will direct them to the deputy chairman, and the Conservatives can direct theirs to the chairman. They will do the work together and present the report as being the report of the committee. That is how it works.
The Deputy Chairman: I will be available all weekend, either here or in Calgary.
I need a motion to authorize the deputy chair to report both sets of observations to the Senate.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I so move.
Senator Hays: Will we have another meeting?
The Deputy Chairman: No.
Senator Hays: I think you are breaking new ground. I congratulate you on that. I would have thought we would have met again to go over our observations. I gather you are approving it in advance.
The Deputy Chairman: The motion was that we each file our observations. Senator Ghitter is now asking that the committee review those. On our side, I will accept written submissions from everyone and do the best I can. If I do not do it well enough, you can either complain to the leader of the caucus and have me removed or you can rise in the Senate and say what you would have said in the observations.
I suspect that almost everyone will speak in the Senate on this issue.
Senator Adams: If this bill passes committee today, it will be returned to the Senate on Tuesday. As soon as Bill C-68, the gun control bill, passed committee, there was nothing further said about it.
The environment is very important to us. Even if we pass Bill C-32 without amendment, I want to be sure that it is reviewed before five years pass, and I would like that included in the observations.
Senator Poulin: I should like to make a suggestion in terms of deadlines, simply for efficiency reasons. I suggest that all comments from committee members be faxed to the chair and deputy chairman before Thursday at 5 p.m., that the combined report be faxed to all members of the committee by Tuesday morning at 9 a.m., and that there be a short meeting of the committee on Tuesday at 3 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman: Senator Poulin, we are trapped by our own motion that everything be finished by noon on Tuesday.
We will certainly not file a report that has not been carefully checked. I will not spend the weekend writing a great tome. I will put it together as best I can and it will be vetted by the key people. I am sure that Senator Ghitter's parliamentary boss will look at it, too.
I need a motion that we will report this bill with observations at the next sitting of the Senate.
Senator Hays: Mr. Chairman, how can we vote on observations that do not exist?
The Deputy Chairman: If you do not want to support the observations, get up and say so, then we will vote on it.
Senator Hays: Normally, we would collaborate on observations. We would ask our staff who have assisted us throughout the process to assist us in preparing a report. We seem to be departing from that. One of the reasons for that is that opposition members wish not to collaborate.
Can we approve observations in advance? Perhaps we can. Perhaps we can say that whatever you say will go into the parliamentary record as observations of this committee.
Is that what you are saying?
The Deputy Chairman: As an example, the banking committee recently agreed that both sets of observations would be reported to the Senate. They did not go back to the committee again. It was left for the chairman and deputy chair to decide. If you have no confidence in the chairman and deputy chairman, say so. You can make your own minority report, if you want.
Senator Hervieux-Payette: I cannot validate the comments of fellow committee members. We all commented on various categories. Another example is the issue of car leasing. On that subject, three Liberal members opposed bank involvement and we simply reported that.
I do not need to see the observations, if they reflect what I said. It was obvious throughout hearings where we stood. It will not be a lengthy document needing validation.
Senator Hays: I think you should add the language "to be prepared and submitted by."
The Deputy Chairman: Do you want someone other than the deputy chairman to prepare it? Would you like to prepare it? We could also decide to make no comments and everyone could make their own comments at third reading.
Senator Chalifoux: That would be doing a disservice to this committee. Whether this bill is passed with or without amendment, every one of us has reservations and observations, and that must be brought out in the report as well as by individuals.
The Deputy Chairman: I think that is what will happen. I do need a motion that we report this bill with observations at the next sitting of the Senate, in accordance with the resolution of August 24.
Is the motion carried?
Senator Ghitter: On division.
Some Hon. Senators: Yes.
Some Hon. Senators: No.
The Deputy Chairman: The motion is carried, on division.
Senator Ghitter: I should like to thank all members of the committee. Even though we disagreed, as we often do, it was done with collegiality, class, and dignity. I thank you all. It was a very interesting and lengthy process, but the committee acquitted itself very well.
The Deputy Chairman: I wish to add my thanks. I am sure that these arguments will continue in the Senate.
The committee adjourned.