Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 4 - Evidence - June 13, 2006
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 13, 2006
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 6:15 p.m. to review the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (1999, c. 33) pursuant to section 343(1) of the said act.
Senator Tommy Banks (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: This is a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources to continue our review, which will take place over the next few months, of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act of 1999. As a first step in the review, our committee has decided to hold a number of scoping meetings — going-to-school meetings — so that we are better informed before we decide on exactly how to proceed with designing our review, what aspects of CEPA we will look at, and the ways in which we will look at them.
Appearing before us this evening is Johanne Gélinas, the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development from the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. With her is Mr. John Reed, principal of that office.
My name is Senator Tommy Banks. Joining us are Senator David Angus, from Quebec; Senator Mira Spivak, an independent senator from the province of Manitoba; Senator Willie Adams, from Nunavut; Senator Francis Fox, from Quebec; and Senator Claudette Tardif, who is a senator from Alberta.
We will be joined shortly by the vice-chair of the committee, Senator Ethel Cochrane.
In the meantime, Ms. Gélinas, I presume that you would like to speak to us before we begin to ask you questions.
[Translation]
Johanne Gélinas, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you. I am accompanied today by John Reed, the principal in my group. He is the corporate memory of all the work our office has done on toxic substances since 1999.
The purpose of my presentation today is to support your evaluation of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, by recapping for you some of our past work that has a bearing on the act. Specifically, we will highlight some key findings as well as ongoing concerns about the government's assessment and management of toxic substances.
As all committee members know, the production, use and release of industrial chemicals, pesticides and their by-products in Canada can pose serious risks to the health of Canadians and to our environment.
For this reason, in 1999, we audited the federal government's specific investigation of existing industrial chemicals and pesticides and its management of their use.
The commissioner's 1999 report, Chapter 3, Understanding the Risks from Toxic Substances: Cracks in the Foundation of the Federal House, focused on how federal departments provide scientific information to support decision-making.
The chapter examined the coordination of research among federal departments, the state of environmental monitoring networks and the scientific assessment of existing industrial chemicals and pesticides.
Overall, we concluded that the federal government's ability to detect and understand the effects of toxic substances on Canadians and our ecosystems was seriously threatened.
[English]
Again in our 1999 report, chapter 4, "Managing the risks of toxic substances: Obstacles to Progress,'' focused on federal departments' management of the risks created by substances identified as toxic. The chapter examined legislation, government-wide policies and voluntary programs used for virtual elimination, life-cycle management and pollution prevention, and for tracking and reporting toxic releases. Overall, we concluded that the federal government was not managing the risks adequately. In my 2002 report, chapter 1, "Toxic Substances Revisited,'' we examined the departments we had initially audited to assess their progress in implementing our 24 recommendations. We found mixed progress. Although the federal government had made some progress in managing toxic substances since our 1999 audit, its ability to detect, understand and prevent the harmful effects of toxic substances was still quite limited. The processes we observed seemed to defy timely, decisive and precautionary action. Many of the root causes of problems we found in 1999 continued in 2002, including under-resourced commitments, major gaps in scientific knowledge and burdensome regulatory processes.
I said at the time that the situation was not environmentally, economically or socially acceptable and did not augur well for our health and our environment. The status of recommendations made at that time is included in your briefing package. Although our work on toxic substances included aspects of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, it was much broader than the act alone. While our findings are somewhat dated, we hope that they can support the committee's evaluation.
John Reed, the principal who led the 1999 and the 2002 work on toxic substances, will now lead you through a brief slide presentation to expand on some of these findings and their implications for your evaluation. After his presentation, we will be more than happy to respond to any of your questions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Reed, you have the floor.
John Reed, Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada: Thank you, chairman, and thank you, Ms. Gélinas.
You should have in front of you French and English versions of a slide deck presentation. We will not use the actual materials. If you like, you could follow along during this presentation. I have nine slides. I will try to move along as quickly as I can. Four of those slides are to brief you on what we found in our 1999 audit and the 2002 follow-up. In the last five slides, we have identified thematic areas that emerged from our work on toxics that may instruct you on areas you may wish to explore in your evaluation of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Put another way, if we were re-auditing this subject, these are five areas that we would look at again and the questions that we would be asking in the course of the audit.
I am sorry that some of this material is technical. If it gets too technical, please stop me. The domain of toxics is filled with acronyms and different acts and programs. It can get muddling. If it is not clear, please stop me.
I am sure you have already heard much about the fact that we live in a chemical world. There are 23,000 substances, apparently, in commerce in Canada. Most of those benefit us enormously, and most of them are quite safe when used in the way they are meant to be used. Of course, some pose risks to health and to the environment. In effect, the objective of our work in 1999 was to determine whether the government was properly managing the substances that are not safe.
As Ms. Gélinas said, this audit was not just focused on CEPA. We were focused on toxic substances. In 1999, many substances were called "toxic'' by various pieces of federal legislation and by various programs. CEPA toxics are one category of toxics that we looked at, but from the standpoint of the management of toxic substances, the government had a much broader net, and we looked at the entire subject, including the management of pesticides, which I will not talk about.
In the original audit, we were focused only on the management of existing substances. We did not look at the evaluation of new substances, either pesticides or substances under CEPA. We looked at three acts, including CEPA, but also the Fisheries Act and the Pest Control Products Act. Six departments were involved in the management and assessment of toxics at that time. At the end of our audit, we made more than 27 recommendations, and I will be coming back to the status of those recommendations in a minute.
It was a large audit on toxic substances. Many aspects of CEPA we did not look at, but some we did, particularly those that deal with the assessment and management of toxic substances. I will lead you through some of the high-level messages from the first two chapters in the 1999 report.
If you turn to the next slide, Chapter 3, the title of that chapter was "Understanding the Risks from Toxic Substances: Cracks in the Foundation of the Federal House.'' The reason for that title is we took the view that scientific research and monitoring is, in effect, the foundation for all decisions made with respect to the management of toxic substances. At the time, as you can tell by the title, we were concerned about the level of scientific research and monitoring that was under way, to the point where we felt it clearly threatened the government's ability to detect and understand the presence of these substances in our environment and in our bodies.
The central message at that time was that there was a large and growing gap between the demand for good scientific information derived through research, assessment and monitoring, and the resources that were available to provide that information — a growing gap between supply and demand for scientific information.
We also found at that time significant problems in the coordination of research efforts among departments. Five federal departments were engaged in doing scientific research at that stage, and they were not coordinating their efforts well.
Perhaps most importantly, we provided a fair amount of detail on the state of environmental monitoring in Canada, that being the scientific inquiry to find out what substances are in our waters, in our air, on our land, in our foods, and also tracking the releases of substances. It was a serious and strong message from us about the state of scientific inquiry and it included a number of examples of how the absence of data impedes decisions, both on the assessment and the management of toxics.
I will come back to the theme of science in a moment.
The next chapter dealt with the management of toxic substances. Chapter 3 dealt with assessment, Chapter 4 with management. Our net conclusion was equally stark. We concluded that the government was not taking adequate action at that time to protect Canadians from the effects of toxic substances. While it was true that progress had been made over the decades in reducing the amount of releases of certain substances, on the whole, there was a great deal of inaction, particularly with respect to substances that were declared toxic through the CEPA Priority Substances List process. I will explain those findings in a little more detail in a moment.
At the time of the audit, we also noted a great emphasis by the government on non-regulatory controls for toxic substances. The 1990s were a kind of age of volunteerism, and for a number of toxic substances, and not only those declared toxic under CEPA, there was a great reliance on voluntary programs. We were neutral on the policy question of whether voluntary instruments are a good thing or a bad thing or more effective than regulatory measures. However, we were not neutral on whether whatever measure is used should be effective. In effect, we said: Whether you use regulatory or voluntary approaches, make sure they are good and that they are delivering the results that you set out to achieve. That was a major part of our finding, and it did trigger quite a bit of reaction in the department at that time.
That is enough information on the big picture. It was a very complicated situation at that time. There were many departments involved in cumbersome negotiations with industry, and the result was a lot of inaction.
During the original work in 1999, we were still dealing with CEPA 1988. CEPA 1999 had not been passed and proclaimed in force at that point. By the time we did our follow-up in 2002, CEPA 1999 was in force, so the departments were coping with implementation of quite a number of changes in their processes.
At the back of chapter 1 there is a 2002 table containing the 27 recommendations we made, and it gives an indication of the status of implementation by the departments at that time. I do not expect that you will want to look at this in detail, but you will see many white dots on this page. White dots, in this case, mean no progress. There are not many green dots, which translates into "fully satisfied with progress.''
That was the status of the follow-up to the recommendations in 2002. I was not planning to speak about these in any detail. If you have any questions, we are prepared to give you answers. We have not done a follow-up to the follow-up yet. We plan to do more work in the future on selected aspects.
In 2002, the story was one of mixed progress in terms of implementation of the recommendations. As the commissioner has already noted, many of the problems we found in 1999 still existed in 2002. Those problems include under-resourced commitments, significant gaps in knowledge and regulatory processes and consultative processes that seemed to slow down the management of substances.
I will turn to the five thematic areas that derive from our 1999 and 2002 work, which we believe, anecdotally, are still relevant. If we were to do more work, these are the issues we would look at and these are the questions we would ask ourselves.
I want to start with the issue of science research and monitoring. I recognize this is a tricky issue with respect to CEPA 1999. CEPA 1999 does have a section that enables, and perhaps requires, the minister to undertake scientific research and monitoring. However, the levels, type and nature of that research are not specified in the act.
As I mentioned, serious problems were identified in 1999 with respect to the growing gap between the kinds of assessment work that needed to be undertaken and the resources that were made available. We met with many heads of research institutions, federal and non-federal, to talk about the state of monitoring and research. Virtually all of them were quite concerned about the state of research and, in particular, monitoring.
In 2002, we also raised for the first time the issue of what is called bio-monitoring, which is sampling people to determine the burden of chemicals in our bodies. You may have noticed in just the last week or so that Health Canada announced their intention to embark on some sort of bio-monitoring program. We have not looked at the details. It did not exist in 2002.
We have audited many topics where inadequate science has surfaced as a finding. To an extent, I think some people take the view that scientists are never really satisfied with their level of resources. In this case, I believe we were able to demonstrate many times through many examples that the absence of information impeded decisions.
For example, under the original Priority Substances List exercise, the departments of Health and Environment were unable to reach a conclusion on some 13 of the substances because of data gaps. If you were to ask the departments today which CEPA toxics are currently being measured in the environment, you will find it is very few.
The federal government undertook a new exercise called CISE, Canadian Information System for the Environment. This was the result of a blue-ribbon panel that looked at the state of research and monitoring in Canada.
I want to quickly read to you a paragraph from their conclusion in 2002: Canada lacks key environmental information. In the last decade, government-sponsored environmental monitoring programs have been significantly reduced. For example, there is no longer a national water-quality monitoring program. The capacity of federal and provincial governments to monitor the environment has diminished, with fewer parameters being measured at fewer sites with growing inconsistency in sampling and analytical methods. The data that do exist are not integrated, nor can they be synthesized to form a national picture.
I know this is not directly related to CEPA. However, if we were to investigate this, we would certainly be requesting information on the status of implementation of CISE.
It is my understanding from the CEPA evaluation prepared by Environment Canada, which I understand you have seen, that CISE was never funded and therefore was not implemented. I do not have much reason to believe that things have changed with respect to the monitoring of substances.
I gave you an example of how this impeded the risk assessment. They were unable to come to a conclusion on many of the substances. That is an absence of data. It is also true on the management side. Any time there is a data gap, it can be used as an excuse to block action. There were many examples in the consultative process where that in fact happened. An absence of knowledge about the presence of toxics in the environment basically caused some constituencies to question whether they really had a problem.
I think we would clearly be asking questions about whether the gap between supply and demand has been closed in any way, and we are anxious to pursue the status of bio-monitoring with Health Canada.
Let me move to the topic of the precautionary principle. I know you have had several discussions about this.
In 1999 we found a lack of consistent application of the precautionary principle in risk assessment and risk management decisions. I believe you well know that CEPA 1999 entrenched the precautionary principle in the act. At the time of our 2002 audit, Environment Canada was preparing operational guidance on how they intended to apply the principle vis-à-vis CEPA, and that exercise had not reached a conclusion.
At the same time, the Privy Council Office was leading a government-wide exercise to look at the application of the principle across many pieces of legislation and many programs. That exercise was also incomplete at the time of the follow-up audit.
I imagine if we were to pursue this, we would want to find out whether either of those exercises has been completed, but more importantly, what their impact has been. I think we would also probe the departments for specific and concrete examples of where they have applied the principle and it has led to decisions that otherwise would not have been taken. We would be posing those questions for both assessment and management decisions.
The precautionary principle, as I will mention in a minute, has huge implications for the Domestic Substances List, and the categorization and screening that I am sure you have heard about, but I will talk about those a little more in a moment.
The third thematic area is tracking the progress against substances declared toxic, through both the Priority Substances List 1 exercise and the Priority Substances List 2 exercise. They were different, and the management processes that came out of those two assessment processes were also different. Our original audit found significant shortcomings with the PSL1 process in particular. After 10 years of assessment and management discussions, in 1999, none of the recommended solutions had been costed, resourced or implemented.
In 2002, at least the consultations for the declared substances had been completed, but the implementation of the recommended risk management measures had not begun and their status was quite unclear.
Clearly, when we audit this issue, we will likely be asking for substance-by-substance information from the departments as to: What measures have been recommended? Have they been resourced? Have they been implemented? What reductions have been achieved? You almost need to proceed on a chemical-by-chemical basis to understand whether the act and its implementation have been effective in reducing risk.
You need to ask questions at that level; otherwise, you can get mired in too high a level to know whether things are happening on the ground.
One of the minor findings in the 1999 work was that after a major assessment is completed and new information about that substance has come to light, there is no clear procedure for revisiting the initial decision. We therefore made a recommendation in 1999 that Health and Environment Canada needed to figure that out and put in place procedures for incorporating new information. At the time of the 2002 audit, no action had been taken on that recommendation, so that is clearly an area that we would pursue.
Lastly, we would probably probe on two other fronts: one, continuing our work in 1999 to look at the mix of instruments being used, the balance between regulatory and voluntary programs, and ensuring they are robust and being properly implemented. Secondly, we would drill into the question of whether genuine pollution prevention is being achieved — minimizing or avoiding the creation of pollutants in the first place. I am sure you have heard some debate about what "pollution prevention'' means, but we would want to go after that and to see demonstrated progress, that all of these risk management measures were achieving the desired outcome of the act.
There are two more areas, and I apologize for taking so much time. I am sure you have heard of the concept of virtual elimination. That concept predated CEPA 1999 and was first introduced in a policy that existed at the time of our audit called the Toxic Substances Management Policy. This basically stated that there are two kinds of toxic substances: those that are so nasty we have to engage in virtual elimination, and others that we need to manage properly by reducing emissions and managing the risks throughout their life cycles.
Frankly, in 1999 the debate around virtual elimination was a mess. The departments were mired in conflict over how and why to achieve it. It led to a lack of action at that time.
By the time 2002 arrived, the process had been entrenched in CEPA, but no substances had been added to the Virtual Elimination List under CEPA and the department at that time was still engaged in trying to work out the mechanics of how to detect them in the environment.
I do not know the status at this stage, but clearly, we would be pursuing that. The original 12 substances designated for virtual elimination were not used much in the country any more. Eight were pesticides that had been banned long ago. We would be looking at what has been done to date, but also at management in the future.
Last is the Domestic Substances List. We did not look at it at all in 1999. In 2002, the process of categorization was under way. I do not know to what extent you have been coached or schooled on this process, but the act requires that the department go through two major phases. Their first task is to categorize these 23,000 substances on the Domestic Substances List. That categorization is expected to be complete this September; I believe you know the dates are coming up. They are supposed to then determine which of those 23,000 need further assessment.
We were already raising concerns at the time of our 2002 audit about the capacity, in particular, of the government to categorize, and more importantly, to screen the substances. At that time they were still talking about something in the order of 4,000 substances that needed to be screened and nobody knew how many might ultimately be determined to be toxic under the act. If it was even 1 per cent, that would be 40 substances. As our two audits in 1999 and 2002 demonstrated, they were not having much success in implementing the measures for the first 40-odd substances, so it raised significant capacity questions. We would look at that again. We would be looking at whether this process is on track and they have the resources they need to implement it. There is no deadline for screening under the act, as I understand it, so it is not clear when that process will conclude. We would be probing the departments' timelines and how realistic they are.
As I mentioned earlier, we would ask the question: How is the precautionary principle to be applied? It is quite likely there will be significant uncertainties and data gaps for those substances, so how we apply the precautionary principle is all the more important.
I will stop there, and I am sorry to have taken so long. I hope it is not too technical.
We are ready for questions.
Senator Cochrane: I am happy to have you both here. Madame Gélinas, you and your officials have always been candid with us. We appreciate your insights and input. Your office has previously looked at Canada's management of toxic substances. Could you give us a sense of the shortcomings that exist under the current CEPA?
What do you think are the key concerns that must be addressed? I use the word "must'' at the present. If you were entrusted with conducting a review of CEPA, how do you think you would proceed?
Ms. Gélinas: I am not sure that we can go further than what we said before. It is difficult for us to make a statement on what should be done. The only way that we can do that — and we have tried our best to do so tonight — is to tell you that if we were to re-audit toxic substances and not CEPA per se, these are the questions that we would certainly ask.
Your mandate is different from ours. I am hoping that at least some of the key questions that we have identified for you tonight might be of some help, but it is difficult for us to go further. Obviously, from my position, I cannot identify for you in which direction you should go.
We also appreciate that there are many things that could be looked at in the CEPA review. The expert here tonight is Mr. Reed, and as you have seen, he knows this issue inside out, so I will let him take the floor as much as I can.
Senator Cochrane: I appreciate the position that you are in, of course. In your 2002 follow-up report, you concluded there was limited progress in achieving the government's objective of virtually eliminating predominantly man-made releases of toxic substances that are persistent and bio-cumulative. The objective of virtual elimination was identified in the government's original Toxic Substances Management Policy, parts of which were incorporated in CEPA 1999. Were you able to identify the reasons the government is having difficulty meeting the objective of virtual elimination?
Mr. Reed: We did not address that question in particular. This was not CEPA mandated in 1999. This was still under CEPA 1988, so only the Toxic Substances Management Policy was in effect. As I mentioned a moment ago, at that time, the departments were really quite combative with each other. We said quite explicitly in chapters 3 and 4 that, on the one hand, Health and Environment Canada were lined up against Natural Resources and Industry on the other. The question of virtual elimination was one of the central points of that debate.
This was partly because some substances — mercury was one of the examples used at the time — occur naturally in the environment. They are not all the result of man-made emissions. The concept of virtual elimination becomes problematic when something occurs naturally. The idea is you should not be able to find it out there, but if it is out there, it is not really virtually eliminated. That was a big part of the issue in 1999.
In 2002, as I noted, they had not added any substances to the Virtual Elimination List. The difficulty at that time was that they had not determined what they called, and I am probably using the wrong term, the detection levels or the limits of detection. In order to prove that there is zero out there, you need the technology and the scientific methods to detect something, and in 2002 they still had not determined those levels, so it was a vicious circle.
The Chairman: Can I ask a supplementary question? What you just said is exactly true, Mr. Reed. As it becomes possible to measure ever smaller proportions of substances, virtual elimination to the point of background occurrence is a continually moving target. People in Europe are now looking at a program — although it has not yet been put into place — in which they are not going the route of virtual elimination with respect to these toxic substances. They are simply saying, as I understand it, "Do not use that substance when you are making something. It may already exist out there, as mercury does, as does lead and other things, but we do not want you to use it any more.''
If you were the king and we were starting over again — and we are certainly not talking about doing that — if you had to make a choice between virtual elimination, on the one hand, and saying, "Do not use that substance,'' on the other hand, what would it be? As a corollary question, are there virtues to virtual elimination in comparison with a simple, "Do not use that substance?''
Mr. Reed: It is a tricky question, in the sense that "Do not use it'' could apply to many substances, and that is what they did with certain pesticides. Eight of the substances had been banned for use in Canada long before the concept of virtual elimination was created. In my opinion, that would be the correct option for some substances.
However, not all substances are used in products for commerce. I believe dioxin, for example, was one of the substances on the original Virtual Elimination List of the Toxic Substances Management Policy. It is not produced as a commercial product. It is a by-product of different industrial processes, such as incineration. It is more difficult to say in that case, "Do not make that product,'' because they are not trying to make it. It is a by-product of other manufacturing processes. It becomes more and more complicated to try to eliminate those by-products without actually eliminating the initial production process. In other words, risk management is probably the only practical and feasible way to deal with some substances.
The Chairman: Risk management as opposed to hazard management?
Mr. Reed: You want to open up a big issue, do you not?
The Chairman: We are trying to mine you for as much information as we can, Mr. Reed and Madame Gélinas.
Mr. Reed: I am sure you know that those kinds of questions were big debates when CEPA 1999 was prepared. The entire question of risk versus inherent toxicity was debated at length in the redrafting. I use the word "risk'' because that is the language of CEPA and of federal departments.
From a lay perspective, I tend to think of them as the same thing. It really comes down to being exposed to something. If it is out there and it has toxic properties, then there is a risk. There is a potential hazard. I am sure that toxicologists and eco-toxicologists would take great exception to what I said and indicate that there are important distinctions between them, but I think Canadians just want to know what is out there, is it dangerous, am I exposed to it, what is it doing to me, and, if it is not safe, why are we not getting rid of it?
Senator Cochrane: Is not the question Canadians are asking, why is it taking so long? Why does it take so long to know exactly what is toxic and what is not, and why are these products out there? You hear these concerns on the street, about you had better not take this and you had better not take that, or you had better not use this or you had better not use that. We need somebody or something to tell us what is toxic, what is not, what we should be using and what we should not. There is such a dilemma among the public.
Ms. Gélinas: It is clearly the role of the federal government to answer those questions.
With respect to public awareness and why it takes so long, we asked ourselves the same question in 2002. We use in the chapter trichloroethylene as an illustration of one substance taking a long time to get through the entire process. We have received a few petitions over the last couple of years asking that exact question with respect to a specific product. Why is it taking so long to go through the assessment process and make a decision on how they should be used or if they should be banned?
Canadians are asking the same question as we are, but only the departments have the answer.
Senator Angus: Thank you for coming, Madame Gélinas and Mr. Reed.
I am absolutely stunned by what you have told us. I was here when the commissioner appeared with her annual reports from 2004 and 2005. I am stunned by the way you have put it to us, and I thank you for your candour. It is not easy to call a spade a spade every time.
You have indicated what a review would entail. If we were to do all those things, we would need a budget of about $25 million and a lot of scientists. Obviously we do not have the tools here. I am not sure where to begin.
I get the picture. You are saying it is not only as bad as we outlined on other elements of Canada's performance with respect to the environment in the past few years, it is deplorable. You have already described to us how we have gone from number two, three or four — near the top — amongst OECD countries down to near the bottom of the list. That in itself was shocking and terrible.
These two reports you did in 1999 and 2002 are what evoked my comment about being stunned. I realize you have focused on other issues after 2002. You were not doing another review of CEPA and the toxics situation.
According to the work you have done with the limited resources you have, is the situation still as bad as it was in 2002? Is it almost as bad? Is it worse?
You have been focusing on other areas. You sent a good letter to our chairman, dated May 12, and you attached a long list of other shocking things that we should be focusing on. The chairman is also numb, from the way he looked at me. We would like to make a difference and try to complete a study. It seems as if CEPA has not worked at all.
I have a couple of questions. Is it the same sad story in 2006 as it was in 1999 and 2002? We have heard from other witnesses that CEPA contains 37 different pieces of legislation that interact, overlap, and give rise to turf wars and inefficiencies, to the point where there is virtually no enforcement possible.
Ms. Gélinas: Unfortunately, Senator Angus, we cannot answer your question. The only thing we can do is to report on our findings. We have not done any work from 2002 up to the present.
Senator Angus: With respect to toxics?
Ms. Gélinas: With respect to this particular issue relating to toxics. In the meantime, we have been working on many other issues.
We cannot tell if CEPA is effective or not. From my standpoint, that is the first question we need to ask ourselves before getting into details.
From an audit standpoint, that is what we will do. With regard to any issue, we will look for the big-ticket item first, where the biggest risks are. Then we may look at other issues.
In a review such as that, we must ask ourselves: Is the process working? It is one thing to have it on paper. It is another to begin implementation.
This highlights the importance of regular follow-up. We have not done one over the past four years. Last year we decided to focus on climate change. As we speak, we have started focusing on toxics again. At this stage, I cannot give you the details of what we will be focusing on because we are not there yet. We would have determined that earlier if we had not decided to speed up on climate change.
This is a good example. We have all learned lessons on how to get as much as we can out of our work and to complete a follow-up in an interim period. That provides us with the information we need.
If we had done that in the first place, we might not be lost in terms of trying to figure out what results CEPA has achieved.
Mr. Reed: Obviously, as auditors we do not question CEPA. That is a matter of policy. We focus on implementation.
Audits are always conducted at a certain point in time. In the world of toxics, the timelines for getting things done are quite long: five years to assess, five years of consultation and then implementation.
Do not write off CEPA yet. When we did our audit, they had gone through the exercise and produced a number of recommendations. At that point, our audit ended and those recommendations were not resourced or implemented. They may well have been since. I am afraid I do not have good data right now as to whether they have been.
That is probably where I would focus my effort. I would ask the departments not to talk to me about process. I am not interested in the status of consultations. I want to know on a chemical-by-chemical basis if releases into the environment have been reduced. How do you know?
Another tricky area for us is the level of resources applied to any piece of legislation. That is also a matter of policy. In 1999, and again in 2002, there was a pervasive sentiment that there were not sufficient resources in place to implement CEPA.
It may well have changed, but the culture at that time was: We have to do what we can with what we have. There is no new money out there. Do not even bother asking. We will do the best we can with the budget allocation we have.
As auditors, we do not question that. That is a matter of policy. We had ample evidence indicating the objectives were not being realized and the processes were not being completed, so somebody ought to ask whether there had been sufficient resources put toward implementation.
Senator Angus: You said one of the things you would do during a review of CEPA is find out whether pollution prevention was being achieved. We welcomed people from an organization called PollutionWatch last week. They indicated it is not being achieved. That is superficial. We are caught between a rock and a hard place because we want to do something meaningful.
The steering committee met when the challenge was put forward and asked whether there was a way to make a useful contribution. That committee agreed that it did not know and would have to find out. That is what these preliminary hearings are about. Is there something constructive that the committee could do? Based on what you know, having done the reports up to 2005, plus the work in progress, is pollution prevention being achieved in Canada, in your opinion, as a result of CEPA?
Ms. Gélinas: I cannot answer that question.
The Chairman: Was it being achieved in 2002?
Mr. Reed: It was a little early to say because the pollution prevention planning side was applied to the Priority Substances List 2 exercise, which at the time of the completion of the audit had not started; they had not even completed the assessment.
The department was quite hopeful at that time that pollution prevention plans would be generated by emitters of substances and would lead to future reductions.
Parenthetically, I can tell you that there was a great debate at that same time as a result of the environmental management systems in the International Standards Organization. Senators might be aware of the ISO EMS standard, which also included a definition of "pollution prevention.'' Through that process, the definition was turned on its head and pollution prevention included good old end-of-pipe treatment, recycling, recovery, and all the activities that are part of management, whereas the original intent of pollution prevention, as I have always understood it, was to not generate the substances in the first place. It will be difficult for you to get that level of detail and find out whether it is truly happening because it is all inside the enterprises.
Senator Angus: I fully agree with you. I do not question the goodwill, competency or intentions of the good people at Environment Canada when they do not have the resources. We know that Environment Canada has a new minister and a new deputy minister and that a new, so-called made-in-Canada plan is being prepared. However, we do not know what it will say or where the budget will come from. You have couched it in these terms, saying that government has the tools — not to be confused with the resources — to be on the leading edge of pollution prevention, managing climate change and dealing with water and air quality. I believe that has been your evidence in the past, and yet nothing has happened to date.
Through our study on CEPA, the committee is challenged to try to supplement what you, the auditors, have said. Obviously, as Commissioner of the Environment, it is your job to give the government a wake-up call. I understand what you have told the committee, that it is difficult to bring it to a substance-by-substance level. We can call in the organizations that are focused on the environment, but we know what they will say. I have said before that I believe there is a huge problem, and I sit on this committee because I want to try to be a part of the solution.
The deputy chairman asked what you would do. You told us via your slides and you cannot go beyond that. The committee can ask questions such as is categorization and screening on track? Does Environment Canada have the capacity? How will the precautionary principle be applied? However, who does the committee ask to get the answers?
Ms. Gélinas: You have to ask Environment Canada and Health Canada because they are co-responsible for CEPA. The first time they testified before the committee they gave you the big picture, but as an auditor will do, I dug deeper, looking for details. You quoted a general statement that I made in the past with respect to my findings: The government has a tendency to overcommit and under-deliver. The weakest link in the chain, if you will, is measuring and reporting. Again, witnesses might come here and tell the committee that pollution prevention is not being applied and that they do not see results on the ground. If the federal government were to gather the information, officials could appear before the committee with factual evidence of the results. Obviously, the committee can ask about that.
Senator Angus: That is helpful.
Mr. Reed: The evaluation of CEPA undertaken by Environment Canada in respect of the management of PSL substances concludes much the same as we concluded in our audits, although little documentation exists on the relative efficiency or effectiveness of ongoing management efforts. Moreover, while there is evidence that use, emission levels and exposures are declining for some toxics, trends for others are increasing, and data for still others are insufficient to make such determinations.
If I were in your place, I would ask Environment Canada and Health Canada to bring the results to the committee so you can know whether emissions are going up or down. For those that are going up, I would ask why that is and what the barriers to improvement are. I do not think it is a question of the design of CEPA, as you have said, because it gives them the tools and the authorities that they need. What is getting in the way? I think it is implementation.
Senator Angus: Senator Adams was here, but has gone to another committee. He lives in Rankin Inlet and he told us about the deleterious effects of mercury in the atmosphere that originates "down here.'' I asked him where he means, whether Southern Canada, the U.S. or both. How is it measured? Does anybody know? No one knew, but I assume that you would agree that that is one of the problems in the North, and it is getting worse. Is that your sense?
Mr. Reed: I do not know if it is getting worse, but the presence of substances such as PCBs and mercury in a place that has no emissions has always confounded scientists. They have concluded, from the evidence, that the pollutants are transported from south of the equator. It is called the grasshopper effect. That is how these pesticides make their way into the Arctic.
Senator Angus: You talked about bio-monitoring, which concerns the effect of these different elements on people. That would likely be our first line of interest. For example, we heard about the effects on mothers' milk in Arctic communities; and it boggles the mind.
I am at a loss to add anything constructive at this time, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: We have been well instructed, to a degree.
[Translation]
Senator Tardif: Mr. Reed, you said that inadequate science, or lack of information, is often cited as an excuse to delay or block action.
I am trying to understand how this approach can be reconciled with the principle of precaution that was established in the CEPA in 1999.
[English]
Mr. Reed: That is our question too. I will give you an example of what we found in 1999. The original Priority Substances List contained, I think, 44 substances, and after five years of investigation of 13 of those, they were unable to reach a conclusion because there were data gaps.
The Chairman: Pardon my interrupting, Mr. Reed. Would you be able to send us a list of those 13 substances?
Mr. Reed: Yes.
The Chairman: At some point in the next few weeks.
Mr. Reed: I believe they have closed some of the gaps.
The Chairman: That would give us a good place to start.
Mr. Reed: In each of those cases, they were unable to reach a conclusion because of data gaps. Make no mistake; the burden of proof in CEPA is high. The scientific community will tell you that.
That is why we raised the question about the precautionary principle at that time, because one might think that, in the absence of data, in the face of uncertainty, one would lean toward declaring them toxic. They had not done that in 1999. They had left it undeclared. In fact, they were sued. That is probably the wrong word, but the Canadian Defence Fund took great exception to the fact that they were not planning to publish any final decision.
By the time 2000 came around, the precautionary principle had been entrenched in the act, but we still had the same kinds of questions: What will you do when you do not have data gaps in the case of an act that, in some ways, has a very high burden of proof? It is almost a contradiction, because to be declared toxic under the act, there is a high burden of proof. I am not a scientist and cannot speak to the detail, but that is why it takes five years to go through some of these substances.
That is why we raised it: What will you do in the future? We have in this country a lot of information about a very small number of substances and very little information about the majority of substances out there. The uncertainties and the absence of information will grow as they turn their attention to the domestic substances.
The Chairman: You said it was almost a contradiction. Is it not a direct contradiction? The precautionary principle says that if we are in doubt, we do not have to wait until we can prove it is safe. The precautionary principle says, if you are not sure, do not use it. Is that not the object of it?
Mr. Reed: That is why I suggested you find out whether Environment Canada had completed to develop guidance under the act. I understand they did. According to our follow-up, they did. To be honest, I did not read it. I do not know what it says about what they intend to do on either the assessment or the management side. The precautionary principle is probably not the issue on the management side, but in effect, what was happening in the List 1 exercises was that they were going through an assessment exercise, and after five years a substance was declared toxic. Then the entire process is turned over to another group of people, the risk managers, who then engage in consultations with industry, with other stakeholders, to figure out collectively what we should do about it. However, even those processes were hampered by the lack of data, because some groups would legitimately ask, "How do we really know it is out there? How do we know what is the level of exposure? We are not doing the monitoring. By the way, by how much do we need to reduce to get to the safe levels?''
In 1999, we identified that as a significant shortcoming of the process. The assessment declared something to be toxic, but it did not say how much of a reduction we needed to achieve to make it safe. Risk managers were hampered because they were trying to convince a relatively hostile group of emitters that there was a need to take action without a lot of concrete, science-based information as to what level, where, and so on.
I am rambling a little because we do not know how the department themselves decided to apply the principle.
[Translation]
Senator Tardif: Since there is that contradiction, do you believe that leaves an opening for effective lobbying by certain interest groups?
Mr. Reed: On the list or the management process?
Senator Tardif: On the list.
[English]
Mr. Reed: I do not think there was that kind of thing. The first list, the departments would admit, was pulled together without a deep consultation process. They felt they knew what the bad things out there were. They were in start-up mode at that stage. For the Priority Substances List 2, they went through a much more rigorous consultation exercise to identify the 25 substances that were ultimately put on that list and assessed.
At the time of the 2002 follow-up, Environment Canada had changed their process for determining the risk management measures, but they had not implemented it. It was just being announced. It was responding on paper to some of the criticisms that we had made, but we do not know about the implementation, and I think that too would be relatively easy for you to ask the departments: What is the status of the PSL 2 substances?
Ms. Gélinas: I think we should look at the precautionary principle from another angle. The precautionary principle is a means by which CEPA may be implemented more realistically. The point we raised is simply that this way of looking at CEPA and managing toxics has not been used. That will come back to haunt us, because you can look at the application of the precautionary principle with respect to many areas, pesticides being one, but so far, we have not heard from the department or the government as a whole. Mr. Reed indicated that the Privy Council was looking at guidance for applying the precautionary principle across the board. We have looked for what has been done over the last couple of years, and we have not seen anything.
I recall a couple of years ago we were of the view that we should audit the implementation of the precautionary principle, and it became quite obvious to us that there was nothing to audit because the precautionary principle has not been applied in the government. CEPA is a good example when asking the government: What is the guidance for applying the precautionary principle with respect to CEPA, and how has that been done so far? If you get an answer to that question, it will be very helpful to all of us, and to Canadians, in understanding, because that has been a question mark for many years.
Mr. Reed: I will just add to that. Put that question directly with respect to the Domestic Substances List categorization and screening, because it is likely that the PSL assessments have been completed, but the screening for the 4,000-odd substances has yet to occur, and there will be uncertainties. They will need that clear guidance themselves.
Ms. Gélinas: If I recall — and correct me if I am wrong — at the time of the audit on toxics, we ended by saying that with the resources that the department had and the domestic list that they had to go through, it would take decades to complete.
That precautionary principle exists to help achieve the objective of CEPA.
Senator Angus: You have given us a couple of good, clear questions to ask in the context of the precautionary principle. Could you explain what exactly the precautionary principle is? How should we couch that?
Ms. Gélinas: There is a clear definition in the document.
Senator Angus: Is it in your 1999 report or in the act?
Ms. Gélinas: It is in the act. We have borrowed some of the documents that were tabled before the committee over the last couple of weeks. There is a document called "A Guide to Understanding the Canadian Environmental Protection Act,'' which is dated October 2004, and the precautionary principle and how it applies to CEPA are clearly explained there. There is nothing new under the sun. It was there way back then and still is.
Senator Angus: It is part of the environmental, trade and business environment lexicon. Can you put it in layman's terms? How do you understand the precautionary principle?
The Chairman: There are different versions of it now, similar to the non-derogation clause. The one that applies to CEPA is literally part of the act. It is not a preamble.
Ms. Gélinas: It is crystal clear, and I will read it to you. It says the following:
Precautionary Principle — The government's actions to protect the environment and health are guided by the precautionary principle, which states that "where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.''
It could not be clearer than that.
The Chairman: It could be if you left out "cost-effective.''
Mr. Reed: This is open to some interpretation, and there's the rub. That is why we were pushing the department for operational guidance. How will you apply that in the decisions that you have to make? With respect to the screening of 4,000 substances, what will you do when you do not have certainty?
Senator Angus: I would add, when you do not have consistent application.
[Translation]
Senator Fox: My question concerns governance and accountability. In the first of the three conclusions in the report you presented to us this evening, in paragraph 4, you stated that "the federal government's ability to detect and understand the effects of toxic substances on Canadians was seriously threatened.'' In the second of your conclusions, in paragraph 5, you stated that "the federal government was not managing the risks adequately.'' As for your third conclusion, in paragraph 6, you questioned the government's ability to detect, understand and prevent the harmful effects of toxic substances and said that that ability was still limited. Your conclusions are quite disturbing.
I also note that, in general, the federal government is committed to heading in these directions. But there appears perhaps to be a deficiency with regard to the buy-in and probably performance. It is precisely concerning that that I wanted to ask my question.
From an accountability standpoint, it is very important to determine who is responsible for certain things. You refer a little too generally to the federal government rather than to the departments in particular that are responsible for execution. I understand that, as regards general policies, we can discuss the Privy Council's responsibility, and I think you're right in emphasizing that. I would be inclined to say that the Privy Council has this general responsibility for coordination. I hold them accountable for that responsibility. We are lacking this notion of accountability right now. The Privy Council should be accountable in this regard, and the departments should subsequently be clearly and simply accountable for the progress or lack thereof in achieving objectives. I cannot accept the idea that we cannot reject an expenditure based on sufficient or insufficient resources. Perhaps there are explanations.
In the detailed 2002 report tabled this evening, you refer to the progress made by the departments. In a number of places, you state that governance is notably deficient. The deputy minister should be held personally responsible, and that should be part of the evaluation of the effectiveness of the minister's performance. That should be reflected in the annual evaluation and could affect the performance bonus.
Right now, when I see that, I see a number of principles that everyone subscribes to, but I do not see much else. I have to admit that I am not an expert in the field, but the environment is an area that I want to explore. I think it is important. The basic management principle is:
[English]
If you cannot measure it, you cannot really judge it or evaluate it.
[Translation]
I do not see any guidelines or targets for evaluating the deputy minister's work. In our system, the deputy minister is at the top of the pyramid: he receives instructions from Cabinet — Cabinet is responsible for developing policies — but the deputy minister subsequently determines ways to achieve objectives; it is no longer up to the minister to do that. The deputy minister is not given enough direct and obvious responsibility on these issues. It should be clearly identified who is responsible for what, and that person should be held responsible in the report you prepare. That would help the people involved deliver the goods.
I would ask for your comments on this because we could talk about these things for 25 years. None of the governments in our history will ever have enough resources to do everything they are supposed to do. Every time, it is said that the deputy minister didn't have the necessary resources. In the context of the resources he does have, there should be reference points, targets and objectives. A general manager of a company doesn't have those objectives. No one in the private sector has unlimited resources to meet their objectives, but, within the resources they do have, they have objectives, targets to meet: at the end of the year, they are evaluated on their progress in using those resources. That is how they can concretely be encouraged to meet their objectives. In the absence of that, we will not achieve this kind of thing in either the public or private sector.
Ms. Gélinas: Let me respond to your first comment concerning our conclusions. You have to put matters in perspective. Those conclusions date back to 1999 and 2002. I would not want to leave the impression that the department has done nothing since then, in accordance with the recommendations that were made. We haven't done an audit. We are eventually going to go back and give you an update.
As to your other comment, I would say that you could very well write one of my reports because we have been saying that for a number of years now: the roles and responsibilities are not clear. So when things go well, they go well because everyone benefits from that, but when they do not go well, they do not know exactly whose fault it is. And to make people accountable, progress once again has to be measured and reported on. In most cases — and I am starting to sound like a broken record on this point — progress is rarely measured and there is no public reporting. So it is very hard to know whether a department, a minister or a deputy minister has achieved its or his objectives because you at least have to see what progress has been made.
I will close by saying that we have stated — not in this particular case, but we have previously mentioned this in other cases — that performance elements should be established in the deputy ministers' objectives. Obviously, if a little more pressure was put on senior officials to achieve certain objectives, perhaps we would see more results. We have suggested it.
Let me close by saying that we have a lot of cases, situations, subjects that we look at, where responsibilities are not necessarily clear, because, as you know, the environment is a shared provincial and federal jurisdiction. But, in the case of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, it could not be clearer: it is a federal responsibility and it is the responsibility of two departments that are specifically named in the act. Then, we cannot say we are looking for the person responsible for enforcing and implementing the act: it is the Canadian departments of Health and the Environment. And if someone has to be accountable, it is those two departments exclusively.
[English]
Senator Spivak: I am not as shocked as other people here may be by the lack of results, because in my view, CEPA is more honoured in the breach than in the observance. We are looking at the law and at the implementation. You have not told us that there are major deficiencies in the law. There is non-implementation of the law, if I understand you correctly.
It seems to me that there is another elephant in the room, and that is industry. We have been asked by the consumers' and manufacturers' associations to take out the word "toxic.'' That would, of course, be terrible because the Federal Court has said it is essential.
It seems to me that the trend in industry now is that they often find that when they do not pollute it saves them money, because then they do not have to clean up. If there is no serious defect in the legislation, and I take it you are not suggesting there is, it seems to me that we are looking at voluntary action versus regulation, and nothing concentrates the mind so much as a hanging.
In the early years of the Mulroney government, the fish were being poisoned in Howe Sound and the government had the guts to tell the pulp and paper industries that they had to change their process. They did that, and it cost them billions, yet they are still profitable.
Dupont did not want to follow the Montreal protocol, but when they were forced to, they did.
Do you not think we can cut through this? We will not get through 4,000 substances in six months. However, everyone knows what the most toxic substances are and where they are coming from. If you have the courage and the political will to look at the most important ones and bang your fist on the table, it will get done. I think industry is ready to do that if they are coerced.
There are 12 POPs, persistent organic pollutants, I believe, the dirty dozen. European countries have banned them. Are you saying that eight of them have already been banned and do not require legislation? What about the rest?
Ms. Gélinas: I do not have any information with respect to POPs in particular.
One of the differences between a senator and a commissioner is that you can say that. I cannot. We have not looked at the law, so we must be very careful. We focus on management of toxics, so it is broader than just toxics in CEPA. Voluntary and regulatory measures are different tools, and it is a policy decision of the government to use one or the other.
As Mr. Reed said earlier, it is not the tool that is important; it is how rigorously it is used. As we were saying, a voluntary approach may be as good as a regulatory approach if it is implemented rigorously, and with many conditions and reporting. We have identified many situations in which voluntary agreements are a good way to do business. We have no position on which is the best way to go.
Mr. Reed: With regard to POPs, I believe that the dirty dozen came out of the work of the International Joint Commission.
Senator Spivak: It was an international agreement.
Mr. Reed: I am probably out of my depth, but I think that some banned pesticides were on that list, but not all persistent organic pollutants were included. There is now a UN convention on persistent organic pollutants. John Buccini, who negotiated the UNECE protocol on POPs, is quite an expert on this.
With regard to voluntary action, at the time of the audit, CEPA toxics were declared toxic under the act, but some of them were managed through voluntary programs. There were other substances that were called toxic, but were not declared toxic under the act, that were also managed under voluntary programs, principally a program called ARET, Accelerated Reduction/Elimination of Toxins.
Our interest is in the bottom line and the reductions that happen in the field. We used to joke that the frog in the pond breathing and drinking this stuff does not care whether it is a regulation or a code of practice or a training program or a memorandum of understanding; are the reductions happening? That is the position we took.
The government makes a choice to use different instruments and there are good reasons to choose voluntary programs. Sometimes they work much faster. You can capitalize on the will of industry and achieve reductions quite quickly. However, we did take the position that if we intend to do that for toxic substances, then we have to make sure the controls work and that procedures are in place to ensure that.
I think Environment Canada actually responded quite well. They did react to our recommendations and used those to strengthen their negotiations with industry.
Senator Spivak: That is your position on voluntary action versus regulations. What is your position — perhaps you did not look at this — on the issue of removing the word "toxics'' from the legislation?
Senator Angus: That is because of the stigma attached to same.
Mr. Reed: It is certainly not a question we posed and I do not think we have ever talked about it. I call a spade a spade. If it hurts people, "toxic'' is probably a good word, because it heightens some sensitivities. That is just my opinion.
The Chairman: I know that you were not examining CEPA per se, but did you establish, for the purposes of your investigation of toxics, the larger audit that you did, a definition of "toxic,'' and did you write it down anywhere, or did you just accept the generally understood, in-the-air sense that it is something that harms people?
Mr. Reed: No. Honestly, it took us quite a while to get our heads around the word "toxic'' in the federal government, because it is used in different ways and different places. CEPA has a particular definition of "toxic.'' The Pest Control Products Act, on pesticides, I do not think uses the word "toxic'' that way. By definition, if a pesticide is authorized for use under the act, it is not toxic, but everyone knows that there is the potential for effects.
The Chairman: In fact, its entire point is to be toxic, to kill things.
Mr. Reed: That is it in a nutshell. I am searching for a passage we had here in the report. The quick answer is we did not try to come up with a single definition. We just said that if the government has called it toxic, either under the act or in a voluntary program, then it is toxic for the purposes of this audit and we want to know how they are assessing and managing it.
The Chairman: You concluded in your report of 2002 that government devoted insufficient resources to carry out the ends, whether it was measurement, monitoring, assessment, or whatever was incumbent upon it. Did you arrive at a conclusion as to the order of magnitude of that shortfall? Did they have a quarter of the money they needed, or half, or did you establish a dollar figure for it? How close were they? By "they,'' I mean the resources that you judged to be required.
Mr. Reed: The quick answer is no. To be careful, we did not really conclude that there were insufficient resources in the way that you have just articulated. You would not find that in the chapter. On the assessment side, we were talking about the growing gap between the resources available, which were dwindling at that time, as was well-documented — certain departments had budgets cut by 10, 20, 30 per cent — and a growing demand for information and more substances to be assessed.
The Chairman: But you did identify that there was a shortfall?
Mr. Reed: There was a gap. We did not try to quantify that gap in any way, partly because at the outset of the audit, we tried to get our heads around how much is being spent on toxics generally. We made a fair amount of effort, but ultimately concluded that we could not do it with any degree of reliability. In the chapter we note that somewhere around $100 million annually is being spent on these collective activities, but it was not a precise number.
Ms. Gélinas: That was in 1999, a long time ago.
The Chairman: Part of what you take into account in the course of your work is efficacy. Did you conclude that the $100 million was not enough, but that it was being well spent, or that it was not being spent efficiently and with the desired result?
Ms. Gélinas: That was not part of the audit; this is something that we have not looked at.
Mr. Reed: The reason being that we were not able to get reliable estimates of the exact resources being used on an aggregate basis or on a substance-by-substance basis. We could not make that correlation. We were able to determine whether risk reduction measures had or had not been implemented, but we did not try to link that to the level of resources.
The Chairman: We have taken the view from time to time, in previous reports that this committee has issued on matters having to do with the environment, that one of the enabling — would that be the word? — factors in bringing about efficiency and the desired results would, in many cases, be a simple process of internalizing the true costs. You referred earlier, or maybe it was Senator Spivak, to the fact that there are these contingent liabilities that continually build up. There are costs involved in mining or drilling for or making these substances that are set aside to be dealt with at some other time, usually through the public purse. If those costs could somehow be internalized, do you think that would make the efficiency, to which Senator Spivak referred, and the profits, from which some companies have now found themselves benefiting, more obvious and bring it about earlier, rather than leaving things to be dealt with later by somebody else?
Mr. Reed: It is an interesting question and one that you might want to pursue. At the time of the audit — let me just quickly search for a graphic here — we did a comparison, an international benchmark, with six countries, and the extent to which they used different kinds of measures.
In Europe in particular, at the time, and even more so now, there were a number of regulated programs that go under different names, but they essentially put the onus on industry to design safer products and to take those products back at the end of their useful life. "Designed for the environment'' is one of the terms used.
You are right. Throughout Europe, those programs have, in a way, forced industry to rethink how they produce and manufacture their products, but in so doing, they have realized a lot of economic benefits and efficiencies, product innovations and so on. It is often said that the reason those kinds of programs are not put in place in North America is that we do not have any kind of green consumer ethic. In Europe, they believe that people are willing to pay the price for a green product, if it is an incremental price. A lot of polling says that is not so in Canada. I am sorry, I did not find the reference, but I believe those programs in other parts of the world would be a good topic for you to pursue.
We can put you in touch with experts who know a lot more about that subject than I do if you wanted to pursue the potential of CEPA embracing some of those concepts.
Senator Spivak: I want to point out that Kodak changed the way they process photographs. It was non-toxic, and they saved a lot of money.
It seems you must then have the reverse onus. You have to let companies know, and I am unsure of the wording in the act, what is required of them. Otherwise, they have to pay for the pollution and the costs of cleaning it up. Most of the time people end up paying. It would be a great way of going about it.
Ms. Gélinas: If I may just reiterate, this is all about pollution prevention. It is one of the guiding principles of CEPA. It is already there.
It is not meant to react after the fact, but to ensure that we look at all the processes before those toxics are released into the environment. That is the essence of CEPA.
Senator Spivak: Again, that must be implemented. Somebody has to have the courage and the competence to implement it.
I think industry would comply if the rules were set. I do not think this can be voluntary. I disagree with you. I think you need strict enforcement. The public interest requires it.
Ms. Gélinas: If I may return to one of Senator Angus's comments, we have all the right tools in Canada as well as the knowledge and expertise. The issue is the implementation.
Senator Spivak, when we are talking about pollution prevention and how toxics are released into the environment, the polluter pays principle comes into play. We have all the right tools. It is just a question of coordinating, implementing, measuring and reporting so we know where we are going.
The Chairman: With respect to the timeline that has been referred to often, how long it takes to get through the process, did you express an opinion when you were doing either of your examinations as to the extent to which Canada might piggyback on work that has been done elsewhere, on the assumption, for the purposes of my question, that the work done in other jurisdictions was of equal rigour? It seems that we sometimes re-plough those fields. Did you address that question?
Mr. Reed: No, we did not. I know where your question is coming from, particularly when you are dealing with the categorization and screening of the 23,000 substances. The world is studying those. We did not examine that, but it seems to make eminent sense not to reinvent the wheel and to use data where you can find them.
The assessment and management of the priority substances pretty much had to be tailored to the Canadian situation. To be declared toxic under the act, there must be exposure. You must know whether Canadians are being exposed to the substance. It does not matter whether Scandinavians are exposed to it. It must be happening in Canada.
When dealing with risk management, you have to deal with Canadian companies, municipalities and others. No, we did not look at that point.
The Chairman: Mr. Reed, I will ask Mr. Beauregard to contact you directly with regard to putting us in touch with people who could help us with that question.
Just to remind you, I asked if you could provide us with the 44 items from list 1 and the 21 items from list 2. I know we have them somewhere, but it would save us some work if you could get them for us. It would give us a good place to start.
Are there any further questions from senators?
Thank you, Madame Gélinas and Mr. Reed, very much for being with us today. I remind you this is a preliminary. You are helping us go to school, and I expect that we may wish in our pursuit of the study, once we decide what form it will take, whether we will look at some aspect of it as it applies in all areas, or whether we will take a narrower perspective and follow one particular item more deeply, to ask you to come back and talk to us again.
Ms. Gélinas: Thank you very much. As you know, we are always here to help. I take this opportunity to wish you all a great summer. We will most likely see each other again in September, as I will be tabling my report on climate change.
The Chairman: I believe we have already invited you to come to speak to us on that occasion.
Ms. Gélinas: That is true.
The Chairman: We look forward to it.
The committee adjourned.