Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue No. 49 - Evidence - Meeting of April 24, 2018
OTTAWA, Tuesday, April 24, 2018
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 6 p.m. to examine and report on issues relating to agriculture and forestry generally.
Senator Diane F. Griffin (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Honourable senators, I welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. I am Diane Griffin, senator from Prince Edward Island and chair of the committee. I’ll ask each of the senators to introduce themselves and we’ll start with the deputy chair.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Senator Ghislain Maltais, Quebec.
Senator Dagenais: Senator Jean-Guy Dagenais, Quebec.
[English]
Senator Doyle: Norman Doyle, Newfoundland and Labrador.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Chantal Petitclerc, Quebec.
[English]
Senator R. Black: Robert Black, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Gagné: Raymonde Gagné, Manitoba.
[English]
Senator Mercer: Terry Mercer, Nova Scotia.
The Chair: Thank you.
This evening, the committee will continue its spot study on the composting of cannabis residues and potential impacts on the environment.
Today we have with us Mark Lefsrud, Associate Professor, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, McGill University. By video conference from the University of Guelph, we have Michael Dixon, Professor and Director, Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility, School of Environmental Sciences; Dr. Youbin Zheng, Associate Professor, School of Environmental Sciences; and Mr. Deron Caplan, PhD candidate.
Thank all of you for accepting our invitation to appear. I’ll now invite the witnesses to make their presentations and we’ll start with Mark Lefsrud.
Mark Lefsrud, Associate Professor, Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, McGill University, as an individual: Thank you, senators. I work on post-harvest handling and production methodologies for plants. I’m going to talk in favour of the composting of cannabis.
We’ve done a bit of work on cannabis directly but some our work has been with hops. It is the closest plant to cannabis that is considered legal at this point, and so we are looking at terpene concentration in these plants and we’re looking at their stability.
I circulated — and hopefully people can see this — table 1 that is provided. This was part of a report I did for a cannabis company called DelShen. Their question was what is the stability of the compounds inside the plants as we go through a drying process?
We ended up freeze drying them, hot air drying and other conditions, microwave, a number of them are listed there. We found in most cases the terpenes decreased quite significantly, up to 60 to 70 per cent in some cases and as low as 30 per cent. Just going through a heat treatment of any form whatsoever actually starts to degrade them.
The reason I wanted to bring this to your attention is as part of the standard composting process we usually bring them up to around 60 degrees Celsius as part of the compost process, and it usually lasts for at least a week to multiple weeks. It can go up to 30 days in some cases.
The stability of these compounds degrades quite quickly over that period of time. By the end of your standard composting cycle, these compounds degrading at 60 per cent per day means there are trace amounts to irrelevant amounts by the time you get to the end of the cycle.
That’s the primary work I’ve done in my lab is to show the compounds are not overly stable under those kind of conditions.
As part of my research, I actually use CO2 and other gases inside a greenhouse to allow for enrichment of the atmosphere. Part of what I would like to do is allow combustion or burning of the biomass. This would allow the release of the CO2 and then I can reuse that CO2 as an energy source or a CO2 source to re-enrich the plants.
There’s a value to going to composting system which means that I can recover my nutrients which could then be used for further plant growth. I actually want to recover the carbon. I’d like to be able to go through a carbon extraction technique typically known as burning to allow this process.
Those are the two points that I wish to bring up here.
Michael Dixon, Professor and Director, Controlled Environment Systems Research Facility, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, as an individual: I will give the whole presentation, but I will definitely defer to my colleagues if questions are too hard.
The Chair: Okay.
Mr. Dixon: It’s Mr. Mike Dixon and my colleagues Dr. Youbin Zheng and Deron Caplan. The three of us are engaged in a four-year research contract with a licensed producer of cannabis here in Ontario. This is the fourth year of that contract, so we’ve been working with this plant for some time now.
We’re not alone. The team is actually a little bit bigger, but in terms of your specific issues of relevance to our work, the three of us are probably the best ones to talk to.
I understand you have my presentation in written form in front of you. I’ll just advance to the second slide which just shows a picture. I wanted to acquaint those of you who are not familiar with this plant. It can start from seed, which is the big picture, not to scale, on the left side. The seeds are typically the size of an apple seed.
On the right, the top picture is the male flower and the bottom one is the female flower. The female flower is the product that everybody is looking for. That’s the one that houses all the medicinal compounds of interest, and there are many.
Aside from starting from seed, you see in the next slide modern production practices use cuttings to clone the plant. The very large plant next to my colleague, Dr. Zheng, is a so-called mother plant, and on the right side of the picture is a smaller mother plant. They are termed mother. They are maintained in vegetative stage, in other words, non-flowering production stage. Cuttings of half a dozen leaves or so are cut off of these plants and these are put into a propagation system, on the next slide, which is basically rooted cuttings. They would spend a week or two under these conditions just establishing a healthy root zone and getting ready to be transplanted.
The next slide is the vegetative phase which typically the plants would spend a couple of weeks under 16 hours of daylight and eight hours of night and maintaining their vegetative production. They are not flowering yet.
Then the plants are taken from that condition. The photo period is changed to 12 hours of day and 12 hours of night. You get the next slide which is a mass of flowering plants under different conditions. The right one is LED lighting. The left one is high-pressure sodium lighting, supplemental in a greenhouse situation.
There are a number of production strategies deployed by Canadian industry in this sector, from very sophisticated, controlled environment technologies to not so sophisticated greenhouse production systems. They all have the same horticultural management requirements, and that is to modify the photo period to stimulate flowering. It spends about eight weeks, typically, depending on the cultivar, in the flowering stage.
The next slide shows you a close-up of those female flowers that are the desirable product. Those female flowers have the highest concentration of the medicinal compounds of interest. The next slide shows you Deron with a typical harvest. Those are the buds, the flowers that have been harvested and dried and ready for, essentially, retail sale.
The next slide gives you an overview of the compounds. There are hundreds of compounds comprised of cannabinoids, like tetrahydrocannabinol — that’s THC, the ubiquitous, major drug — and CBD, cannabidiol, termed cannabidiolic acid here. The acidic form is what you get in the plant and it converts to the drug form when you add a little heat.
You can see there are large numbers of different kinds of compounds. The terpenoids, for example, are responsible for the characteristic odour that comes with cannabis. You’ve probably all one time or another smelled it, but they are the reason for that. The cannabinoids are the ones typically associated with medicinal properties.
The next slide gives you a bit of a comparison of the drug type cannabis and the fibre type, we’re calling it, which is hemp. In other words, the non-drug version of cannabis and all the different plant parts; the roots, the seeds, the stems, the leaves and the flower.
The flower at the bottom, the female flower specifically, holds the lion’s share of the compounds of interest, up to 25, I’ve even heard 30 per cent THC by dry weight.
By the way, there’s a misprint on your printout. The flower CBD content says 0.06 to 1 per cent, I think, in your printout. You can change that to 10 per cent, if Kevin didn’t manage to do that already.
In the literature — that’s just the old literature and it’s cited there, but in more recent literature, the CBD contents are actually getting higher, and we’ve recently had our own results in excess of 15 per cent.
Those are the two main drugs of interest and those are the two that Health Canada identifies as the ones that you quantify as a licensed producer to meet certain standards.
What the medical science community is slowly learning is that cannabis is hundreds of drugs. These two compounds, by virtue of their mass, their high concentration compared to the terpenoids and flavonoids that are also part of the consortium of drugs that comprise this medicinal compound, this medicinal plant. There’s a great deal to learn. We’re just at the leading edge of the research and technology developments required to learn a lot more.
There’s a generation of research to be done to identify the efficacies and the production practices, et cetera. If you get me started, be careful. There’s a long list of research and technology activities we are currently engaged in that will refine the production practices to the point where this plant finally achieves, I think, the lofty status of a conventional pharmaceutical commodity.
The next slide, which is a graph, refers a bit to what Mark was indicating, and that is temperature. This is a typical temperature graph and a composting system and you can see the temperature reaches up to 60, even closer to 65 degrees Celsius. Among other things, in compost, it’s not just a temperature issue. There are all kinds of microbiological activity that’s happening in there as well. This has the effect of degrading the plant material and composting definitely accelerates that degradation.
The final slide in our concluding remarks here: The industrial form of cannabis is hemp, and this is produced over large parts of Canada. There’s big production activity in Alberta and here in Ontario, probably in Quebec. I’m not aware of this market too much. But we’re not aware, as we say, not aware of any environmental consequences of whatever waste material accrues to that production practice.
The main difference between hemp and the drug type cannabis is the drug compound THC, the psychoactive compound. That’s what everybody is interested in. That’s what’s been illegal for almost 100 years.
I hasten to add that according to the literature to date, there has been very little direct research on exactly the issues you’re addressing, simply because this poor plant has been illegal for all my lifetime and yours as well, so we’re just starting.
Nevertheless, in principle, the temperatures and the conditions in a compost heap will certainly provide the appropriate conditions to degrade this plant, as Mark indicated. The microbial activity is probably more useful than the heat.
The other point that wasn’t indicated was seeds. There may be seeds that survive this system. The temperatures that compost typically reaches is usually enough to kill most weed seeds. It would probably do in most seeds here. There’s always going to be some that survive but in the cannabis cultivation practice that we’re addressing here, which is medicinal cannabis, they seek to keep seeds out. Seeds are an undesirable component of the biomass of the product, so they specifically exclude male flowers so there’s no possibility for fertilization or pollination of any seeds that might reproduce. The seeds, even though there may be some there, they are teenie weenie and not particularly viable and the composting process will likely do them in, in any case.
That’s our story. We’re welcome to take any questions from you.
The Chair: Thank you, everybody, for your presentations.
We’ll now open up for questions. We will start with the deputy chair. Before I do, I ask senators to keep their questions short and the responders to keep their answers short enough so we can get through the whole group here. We have 11 of us and four of you in total. We’ll start off with a quota of two questions per senator and see if we can get through this.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: My question is for Mr. Dixon. It is regarding compost derived from cannabis waste. Can you guarantee that a large quantity of compost mixed in with other compost is not dangerous for fertilizer that is used in gardens and used by vegetable producers? Are you able to confirm today that there is no danger?
Mr. Dixon: Yes.
Senator Maltais: Could you relay this message to the Minister of Agriculture?
Mr. Dixon: Excuse me. I did not hear you.
Senator Maltais: Could you relay the answer you just provided to us to the Minister of Agriculture?
[English]
Mr. Dixon: I would be delighted, and I think probably to the Health Canada operatives as well.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: My other question is for you Mr. Lefsrud. You are an expert in composts. Are you able to provide the same answer as Mr. Dixon, whereby there is no danger when using compost derived from cannabis waste to make other fertilizer that will, in turn, be used to grow vegetables or other plants? In other words, will lettuce taste like cannabis? Can you guarantee that it won’t?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: As long as it is composted, yes, I will guarantee it. If it is not composted, the plant will not uptake it in any form, so you’ll never have salad that will taste like that because the plants don’t have that ability. If you’re saying as long as it’s true compost, it will never be a health risk.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Can you relay your answer to the mayor of Laval and send a copy to the Minister for Agriculture?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: Yes, I will.
The Chair: I think we can look after getting those comments sent on to the appropriate sources.
Senator Doyle: Thank you for your presentation. Did I understand correctly that apart from areas like British Columbia, the climate in Canada would be unsuitable for large-scale outdoor cannabis production, or is it the tighter security that demands it be done inside? Can it be done outside on a large scale in Canada? What is the story? Do you know?
Mr. Dixon: Who are you directing your question to?
Senator Doyle: Anyone who can answer it.
Mr. Dixon: That’s a good one. I’ll take a stab at it and I’ll ask Mark to fill in. I think we’re all equally capable of responding here.
There are many areas in Canada that can host the production of cannabis outdoors. I guess the quality would be extremely variable, certainly not suitable for medicinal purposes, but if you’re addressing the recreational prospect here with Bill C-45 and everything that follows, then yes, there are plenty of areas here, in southern Ontario, for example, the poor man’s south, and all across Canada, with the exception possibly of the Far North, where various strains of cannabis could certainly be cultivated in the outdoors on any scale. Just think of hemp. Hemp is a close cousin and is cultivated in huge scales in large areas of Canada, Western Canada and here. But isn’t it going to be legal, and so what?
Youbin Zheng, Associate Professor, School of Environmental Sciences, University of Guelph, as an individual: Cannabis can grow outdoors up to latitude 50 degrees north.
Mr. Dixon: Does that help?
Senator Doyle: The notes I have been reading indicate that indoor cannabis production accounts for about 3 per cent of California’s energy consumption. Given the mild climate in California, what is it about indoor production that would have such a draw on energy?
I know you have to have lighting and heating and what have you inside, but what is the draw on energy? Do you know specifically what the draw would be for growing cannabis inside? What is it currently?
Mr. Dixon: It is entirely due to the requirement for photosynthetic lighting and sufficient levels of photosynthetic light energy provided conventionally by high-intensity discharge lamps, which are really hot and energy-consumptive. They are slowly but surely being replaced by more energy-efficient LED, light-emitting diode, systems. The environment control challenge requires that you control all aspects of the plant’s environment, whereas outdoors you get free energy from the sun.
I have a quick question for the senator and maybe for the group in general. We need to differentiate between recreational cannabis and medicinal cannabis or medical cannabis, as it’s called.
Medical cannabis requires very strict attention to environmental control strategies. It virtually demands that you grow it indoors in a very strictly controlled environment where you have control over light, CO2, temperature, humidity, nutrients, water and even the spectrum, the colour of the light. All of these environment variables will influence the quality of the medical product. That standardization of the medicine is the Holy Grail of that industry today.
When you go into recreational products, that quality control aspect is less dominant, not that anything will do. The market will sift out, in the fullness of time, the good, bad and indifferent products delivered to recreational markets, so I wouldn’t worry too much about them. They will be grown under all kinds of different conditions, from basements to little grow ops — you can imagine — from outdoors to indoors to wherever it’s economically feasible under whatever conditions prevail.
[Translation]
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you for your insightful presentations. My question will most likely be very simple, and I apologize in advance for that.
Mr. Dixon, you already began answering my question. Depending on the different provinces, we know that Canadians will be able to grow a maximum of four cannabis plants. Generally speaking, I was wondering if this could lead to any danger, being exposed to pesticides, for example, if people are not completely informed. Is there a risk for people’s health or for the environment?
Let’s stay on topic for our study on composting. Do you believe that it will be easy for these people to get rid of composting waste? I would like to get your thoughts on this topic.
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: The residues will break down over time in the compost material. We’ve seen that with most cases.
If you talk about the use of herbicides or pesticides, fungicides are one of the big ones because powdery mildew is one of the things they are worried about most. There has to be some level of control. There is a fear people who are growing it on their own and don’t understand this, even on a larger scale, have the potential of it getting out. We don’t know the side effects of that part.
From a composting perspective, I don’t have any worries whatsoever. On the smaller scale, as with any agricultural crop, having some acceptable herbicide that has been tested is good, but I wouldn’t say that we should allow all. There has to be some limit and some control standards on what can be used.
Senator Petitclerc: I don’t know, Mr. Dixon, if you have something to add.
Mr. Dixon: I definitely agree with Dr. Lefsrud. The compost will sort of level the playing field, regardless of the status of the crop. If a personal grower, someone growing the four plants — who is going to count them? But anyway, somebody growing their four plants, they will be, of course, free to use, in the privacy of their own production activity, whatever chemical technology they think is appropriate to deal with, Mark was right, powdery mildew, downy mildew. Fungal pathogens are a major issue, and the pesticides that deal with them are the reason why many medicinal shipments have been rejected by Health Canada.
Yes, it is a risk. It’s definitely one that needs to be addressed for the health of Canadians. Not only that, but I mentioned the THC content of conventional medicinal commodities, medicinal crops now, can be as high as 30 per cent. When I was a kid, it was 1 or 2 per cent. As liberal a thinker as I may be, my great fear is that 30 per cent THC finds its way into the hands of a 13-year-old somehow.
That can’t happen. That’s your challenge, I guess.
Senator Mercer: Thank you gentlemen for being here. I appreciate it. My understanding is we were talking about the disposal of the plants after they have outlived their usefulness.
I recently visited the growing operation in Smiths Falls at the old Hershey’s chocolate factory. It was a very impressive operation. I learned all kinds of things about growing pot that I didn’t know and some I had forgotten from my ill-spent youth.
The one thing I was impressed with that is of particular interest tonight is that of the plants they were disposing of that outlived their usefulness or they had harvested, et cetera, they had to go through a process of reporting back to the government agencies. They had to weigh the product, everything was tagged, everything was bagged. It was all very formal and seemed to be very strict. They were doing it themselves. There was no supervision from government officials.
I am curious: Why the preoccupation by the regulator with all parts of the plant, knowing where all the residual products have gone? Is it possible that someone could use some of that product to seed a new operation?
Mr. Lefsrud: The original concern, at least from my perspective, was that people thought they could take some of the samples and cut it with something illegal or take it home with them, the same way that a gold mine has to check everything.
The highest concentration of THC is in the bud or the flowering part. There are still some amounts present in the leaf and the stem, and you can still extract some out of that. There are such low concentrations that unless you have a industrial-size amount, the fear is that somebody might be able to slowly accumulate enough that this could be a risk. They take a lot of effort to track it because that’s what the government tells them they have to do, to the point of putting it in the landfill. It’s an excess. We don’t need to track it. We don’t track tomato waste that same way. There is no compound that we worry about, but some are just as toxic or beneficial with all the things present in the plant and if we concentrate them at some level they would have a potential risk. We don’t worry about that with this plant. It is more of a lack of knowledge at this point as opposed to an actual truth.
Mr. Dixon: I agree completely. I think the ignorance of the regulators at this stage is borne of a hundred years of this plant being illegal. The sensitivity and the paranoia of its distribution and just dealing with it has created all of these rather paranoid kind of rules. It requires we get a little better educated at the federal agency level that is administering the rules and regulations to appreciate some of the limitations and some of the onerous — outrageously expensive I might add — approaches imposed on licensed producers across Canada. Some are kind of silly really. Now that we are considering relatively whole-scale legalization, it makes them seem even sillier.
Senator Mercer: Would you anticipate that as we move, as the industry grows and as legalization takes hold, that the education of the regulator will evolve into not needing to do all of this stuff to dispose of the plant?
Mr. Dixon: I would certainly hope so. I have participated in a number of forums across the country discussing all the various aspects. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but I fully expect as we evolve through the production practices, through the medicinal components and the composting requirements and just managing the waste from this industry sector growing by leaps and bounds in Canada, that our level of ignorance will be reduced quite a bit and researchers like us will be the ones who can supply the answers.
Mr. Zheng: If the THC and CBD in the residue are high enough, people will extract them, not throw them away or compost them because many operations now are extracting THC and CBD from the leaves, so it won’t be a problem.
Mr. Dixon: The waste material is indeed just that. The stuff that finds its way to the garbage dump on a licensed producer’s facility is there because it is not worth doing anything commercial with. The composting process will deal with the rest.
Senator Mercer: Is it of any use as a fertilizer?
Mr. Zheng: It is compost that can be used as fertilizer.
Mr. Dixon: Absolutely. You have probably got a black plastic compost bin in your yard on the sunny side of the house and you throw all your vegetable waste in there. By the time it’s done, you open the drawer at the bottom and out comes the black composted material. It would be just like that.
Senator Mercer: You have no idea how bad a gardener I am.
Mr. Lefsrud: I agree with everything that has been said. We have talked about the compost, but we will extract out the THC and the CBD. There are plenty of other compounds available in the plants. At this point, we can’t say what they are, but at some point there will be someone clever who says there is a value to these individual products and we should have the ability to extract that further. We lose the ability to extract this if it ends up in the landfill. If it means we are doing direct combustion and there will be some interesting compound that comes about, we have to have the flexibility to dispose of the product and have other applications for it, not just as a fertilizer at the end.
Senator R. Black: I know we’re talking about composting and that sort of thing. Dr. Dixon, when you reviewed page 9 of your slides, you talked about 500 identified compounds. I think your words were cannabis is full of hundreds of drugs. Should that worry us?
Mr. Dixon: No, that should most certainly encourage us to pursue the research and technology development to identify and do the clinical trials.
I gave a talk at a conference in Cologne, Germany a couple of months ago. It was comprised entirely of medical professionals. I was shocked and dismayed at the level of ignorance among that community as to the nature of this particular medical/pharmaceutical commodity.
When they get a request for a prescription, they write on the prescription cannabis. Typically it is identified in terms of THC and CBD content. That is how our own Health Canada identifies and quantifies this particular drug. But there are so many compounds in there.
The grandfather of this medical revolution, Raphael Mechoulam from Jerusalem, he calls this the entourage effect. Basically it is THC and CBD, a long list of trace elements of terpenoids and flavonoids, a long list of chemistry that comprises it, and the consortium and how they combine together creates a drug that defeats epileptic seizures or glaucoma.
It is a different drug for each.
The long list of human ailments and animal ailments we can treat with this rather magical drug is quite incredible.
Deron Caplan, PhD candidate, University of Guelph, as an individual: Cannabis does not necessarily contain over 500 hundred drugs, but it is more compounds that potentially could be drugs. They haven’t been tested yet, just like Dr. Dixon said. We have just started, so there are tonnes of compounds we know little about, but they are not necessarily drugs and they are not necessarily dangerous. We are not sure yet.
Mr. Dixon: We don’t know why cannabis works in some; this particular strain of cannabis is perfectly useful in defeating epileptic seizures in children. We don’t know exactly that it’s this piece of plant and not that piece. It’s that entourage effect of all that complex chemistry that is the drug. We are at early stages here so somebody has a lifetime’s worth of work.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: My question is for Mr. Lefsrud. Does composting completely eliminate the pesticides used to grow plants? Of course these are horticultural products that are considered dangerous. Does composting eliminate all pesticides and fertilizers?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: We cannot say that. There are some compounds, both at the plant level and at the other level, that will in very trace levels, down to the parts per billion. Rarely do we ever see things in parts per million, but possibly parts per trillion. We can’t say it is 100 per cent certain. That’s where the research component comes in. We know based on other compost that if we use certain pesticides, they degrade fast enough, but I can’t guarantee that with all pesticides. There are some nasty ones out there that have been tested in the United States — they are banned in Canada and I’ve seen them — and if they make it into a compost, they have a long shelf life. There has to be a bit of an effort of the committee and Health Canada to say that we can’t allow those into the system because they have that potential risk. I don’t know of any in Canada that has that, but there is potential out there.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Mr. Dixon, we know that there are currently many people who will want to grow marijuana. In Mirabel, Quebec, there is a large tomato producer who is getting into growing marijuana. These people will produce waste and will need a dedicated space for composting. It is a lengthy process. People may be tempted to throw this waste away or to bury it.
I would imagine that there are costs associated with composting. Are you aware of them? Would it be easier for a producer to throw the waste away or to have it buried? Has this been brought to your attention? I would like to hear your thoughts on composting costs.
[English]
Mr. Dixon: No. And cannabis is just another plant. It’s just a plant. It doesn’t create any more special conditions for composting than the tomatoes this guy used to grow. He would have had to deal with all of the waste material, which I submit is probably a bit more with tomatoes than with cannabis, but there is no difference here. This is a zero sum game, basically. If he has production systems for plants, then for whatever plant he is producing, the waste matter has to be dealt with and the cost factor is similar regardless of the species of the plant.
Senator Woo: Thank you, witnesses. Could you educate us on the rising levels of THC that can be extracted from cannabis plants? You measured 30 per cent by dry weight. Is that an upper limit? What has led to the ability to get these higher levels of THC? And should we expect that with technology, even higher levels of THC can be extracted from the cannabis plant?
Mr. Dixon: Thirty per cent seems like a ridiculously high amount. I won’t say with certainty that’s the limit. It came about partly by accident. In the last 50 years of breeding in the black market of cannabis, we have bred for high THC and one of the accidental consequences was the falling off of cannabidiol, CBD, which has a very positive effect as a medicinal compound. It’s not psychoactive and it offsets some of the more extreme psychoactive results of THC, but I would say that it arrived kind of by accident.
We have pushed THC in our breeding programs in the basements of Vancouver and Amsterdam for the last 50 years, and so here we are with strains that have remarkably high levels of THC and almost no CBD. In fact, there are strains that have absolutely no cannabidiol. Now we are starting to learn more about the medical applications of this pharmacological compound and realizing the CBD is really the magic critter here. There is a big move to bring CBD back into the chemistry of the medical compounds that result from this plant.
Mr. Lefsrud: I am not an expert, and Dr. Dixon said everything I would have said.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I am pleased to see that as researchers, you have a progressive way of thinking. That’s great. At the beginning, you answered with a definite no, and claimed that there were no dangers. While answering Senator Mercer’s question, you said that yes, there could be very toxic waste left behind once the flower has been harvested. I believe you. I don’t know anything about this. Operators would be required to remove the toxins from waste. Toxins remain in waste. You said it yourself, Mr. Dixon. I believe that you have focused on medical cannabis. What about industrial cannabis and cannabis used by consumers who will grow four plants at home? Does a person’s individual cannabis have the same THC concentration as industrial-grown cannabis over hundreds of acres?
[English]
Mr. Dixon: It is possible, but I have to correct you. When you indicated your interpretation of the earlier comments from both Mark and me, there are no toxic compounds to be dealt with here, other than possibly those applied during the production practice, which would be pesticides, herbicides or fungicides. That kind of externally endogenously applied chemistry would be the only source of toxic compounds.
If you are talking about the medical compounds — THC, CBD and the long string of other chemicals that exist in this plant — it is true that the compost process, which is the central question we are dealing with here, will reduce ultimately those compounds to effectively CO2 and water in the fullness of time. In the near term, it reduces it to its organic base and they become fertilizer for other plants and the cycle continues.
In terms of what people can grow at home, there will be the possibility to get a hold of strains of cannabis that have significant levels of THC unless they are somehow restricted in the recreational marketplace. I have no idea how you are going to evolve that level of legislation, but at the moment, if it is legalized in its current form there will be the chance for someone to get a very high level of THC, grow it at home and if they know what they are doing or if they read our papers and understand how to manipulate the environment control to achieve the best result, then they can do it and so can you.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I don’t smoke it myself. Mr. Zheng, did you wish to add something?
[English]
Mr. Zheng: I want to clarify a little bit.
Pesticides are being brought up tonight but, really, pesticides are not going to be an issue. Currently Health Canada is regulating the production of cannabis very tightly and a lot of pesticides are not allowed to be used. For medicinal cannabis production at this moment for the licensed producers, their usage of these is very limited.
Down the road, if people are growing cannabis for home usage — their own usage — I don’t foresee that people would want to use any bad pesticides because for one thing, a lot of pesticides get banned for gardening. For these, they will most likely use organic alternatives, so I don’t foresee that being an issue.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I admire your optimism that an individual growing marijuana at home will not be tempted, if he finds an insect on a leaf, to use pesticides. No one can know about it, neither you nor me.
Mr. Lefsrud, you said that in cannabis there are many other drugs. Are these drugs destroyed during composting?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: Back to the original question, which was the addition of pesticides. To clarify the statement I made before, these are chemicals I’ve seen applied in the United States. They have not ever come across the border here and these are, in some cases, Central America —
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I don’t want to talk about pesticides, this isn’t my problem. Rather, I want to talk about the large quantity of other drugs that you mentioned earlier. Will these drugs be destroyed during composting? I’m not talking about the four plants that can be found in a home, nor am I not talking about cultivation for medical purposes here. You swear to me that all these drugs are destroyed during composting.
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: For the chemicals produced by the plant, going through the composting process makes them no longer harmful and they are fully removed from the process.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Therefore, when your composting is finished, after 30 weeks, no toxic drugs can be found within it.
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: A trace? If you are asking if there is a single molecule that did not go through the composting process and is still present, I cannot say that zero is the number. I can say there is one molecule within a room this large but you would never find it. I can’t say zero. That’s an impossibility.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: In personal production, we don’t know what individuals will use as fertilizer or if they will use pesticides, be they approved or not. Will this have an influence on the composting process, whether it be in small or industrial quantities?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: If the chemical has not been accepted within Canada, which is what has happened in most of these cases — it falls under the many conditions — it will never show up. It is only if someone illegally imports it from another country, uses it here illegally and then processes it illegally. There are multiple steps of illegal activity for this to ever creep into the system.
I can’t say zero at that point. What I can say is this: Do not allow it to come across the border, do not allow it to be used as a pesticide at all and do not allow it within the process. As long as we do those controls, we will not see it.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: If one of these products is introduced into the compost, as you say — one can assume that it can happen —, will that have a harmful effect on the compost?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: We have seen it in cases of composting in Edmonton where people have accidentally applied something illegal and they had to landfill the whole compost material because they had to do testing.
If it’s a pure plant sample, there is no risk. It is only under rare conditions where it is a possible case and I would say less than one in a billion.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Does this product alter the cannabis flower? This unapproved product, which could be imported illegally, does it alter the quality of the cannabis flower or seeds?
[English]
Mr. Lefsrud: I would say yes.
The Chair: Thank you, senators. On your behalf I’d like to thank our guests who have been with us here today. It has been a very interesting discussion.
Honourable senators, we will hear our next witnesses on the matter of the regulatory framework regarding agricultural products used for cannabis production. With us we have, from CropLife Canada, Mr. Dennis Prouse, Vice-President of Government Affairs, and Ms. Maria Trainer, Director of Regulatory Affairs. From Scotts Canada Limited, we have Ms. Karen Stephenson, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Stakeholder Relations.
Thank you, folks, for accepting our invitation to appear. We’ll invite you to make your presentation. I guess we’ll lead off with Mr. Prouse.
Dennis Prouse, Vice-President, Government Affairs, CropLife Canada: Honourable senators, it’s a pleasure for us to be here.
CropLife Canada is the trade association that represents the manufacturers, developers and distributors of plant science innovations, including pest control products and plant biotechnology for use in agriculture, urban and public health settings. We are committed to protecting human health and the environment and we believe in driving innovation through continuous research.
On the issue of cannabis, we believe one of government’s principal objectives in any potential legalization of cannabis would be to significantly restrict the accessibility of cannabis and accessories to minors. However, inadvertently deeming pesticides and fertilizers that can be used in the production of cannabis as cannabis accessories would have unintended consequences for Canadian consumers.
There are millions of Canadians who rely on pest control products that are regulated under the Pest Control Products Act. That act ensures all pest control products registered for sale and use in Canada are safe and effective.
The act also ensures pest control products are registered for a specific use on a specific crop, such as vegetables and potentially cannabis, at a specific point in the growing season. The act and its associated regulations also regulate how pest control products can be promoted and advertised to Canadians.
The conflict occurs if any bill potentially legalizing cannabis is written in such a manner to have crop protection products captured under the definition of a cannabis accessory. Without further clarification on what exactly is considered an accessory, such a bill could inadvertently thwart marketing and selling products that can be used for a wide variety of purposes. This applies to many common domestic class agriculture products.
The details of any bill that may prohibit a cannabis accessory to be displayed or labelled in any way that may result in the package being seen by a minor. Many Health Canada approved pesticides are and will be labelled for use on multiple types of plants and agricultural crops. These products will inevitably be promoted and advertised in retail stores and other areas frequented by minors.
Defining pesticides as cannabis accessories, even if inadvertent, would be extremely disruptive to retailers, manufacturers and distributors of Health Canada approved products.
Karen can give you much more detail on that later.
Given Health Canada approved pesticides are often used on multiple crops, they are typically marketed in that fashion. Should there be restrictions on appropriately advertising products for use on cannabis crops, such as in large retail stores, garden centres and other areas visited by minors, Canadian consumers who will be consuming cannabis may lose access to important information, such as instructions for appropriate and safe product use as the product may be locked away.
The cannabis plant science sector is committed to consumer education and safe use. These are goals shared by Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency. Any restrictions that might prevent proper labelling and marketing would compromise those efforts.
Therefore, CropLife Canada recommends that pesticides regulated under the federal Pest Control Products Act be exempted from any definition of a cannabis accessory. This can be achieved by amending the definition of cannabis accessories in any potential legislation.
Alternatively, products in compliance with the Pest Control Products Act could be specifically exempted from regulation under any cannabis legalization bill. This would allow the act and Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency to continue to do their important work in keeping Canadians informed about the safe use of pesticides.
I’m going to turn it over to my colleague, Dr. Trainer, who can speak to the issue of the challenges going forward for registration and approval of products for marijuana crops.
Maria Trainer, Director of Regulatory Affairs, CropLife Canada: Thank you. As my colleague Dennis mentioned, pest control products in Canada are regulated under the federal Pest Control Products Act which, as he said, requires that pesticides be registered for a specific use on a specific crop at a specific point in the growing season. The Pest Control Products Act is arguably one of the most modern pieces of pesticide legislation in the world.
Cannabis can be impacted by numerous pests, including moulds blights and insects that attack the plant, both pre- and post harvest. As a result, cannabis growers, like any other growers, need access to safe and effective tools, including pesticides, to protect their crop. However, it’s not quite that simple. Pesticides are one of the most stringently regulated substances in commerce. The pre-market testing requirements are extensive and designed to ensure that registered products will not pose an unacceptable risk to human health or the environment.
Health tests must be completed to evaluate any potential risks to applicators or the public through exposure during mixing, use and entry into treated areas. Completed studies determined whether residues of a given pesticide remain on a crop at harvest and at what concentration. The data from these residue studies are used to determine how a pesticide should be used to ensure any remaining residues are low enough to not pose health concerns to consumers.
Cannabis can be processed for multiple uses, including, I understand, smoking of dried flowers, edibles, consumption of edibles and concentrates. Each of these uses results in different potential routes of exposure for users. For each of these routes, pesticide use would need to be evaluated for potential risks which increase the data requirements for registration.
Under the existing Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations, licensed cannabis producers are permitted to use only those active ingredients currently registered for use on marijuana under the federal Pest Control Products Act. There are currently 21 active ingredients approved for use on marijuana produced commercially and indoors. This list includes plant oils, insecticidal soaps and biological control agents. Conspicuous in their absence are any synthetic pesticides.
This limited suite of registered products has resulted in some producers using unauthorized products to protect their crop. These are products that are registered in Canada but not for use on cannabis.
CropLife Canada and our members do not support off-label use of our products. However, we recognize that without access to efficacious registered products cannabis growers are likely to resort to the kinds of off-label use that has received considerable media attention in recent months. These illegal uses potentially have human health implications and represent a reputational risk to our industry.
We have engaged with representatives of the cannabis industry to ensure they are aware of their legal obligation regarding pesticide use. We’ve also reached out to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency of Health Canada, the federal regulator, to encourage them to clarify the data requirements needed to add cannabis to a pesticide label should a registrant wish to pursue a registration for that crop.
The current testing guidelines to add cannabis to a product label are unclear, in part due to the nature of the potential uses arising from cannabis that I mentioned earlier.
At a minimum, we would anticipate that a pyrolysis study would be required. It’s conceivable that the other modes of cannabis consumption would result in routes of exposure that might also require examination, for example, consumption of edibles or application of oils dermally.
So far, the federal regulator has indicated they will address these potential data requirements for registration on a case-by-case basis, which is not ideal in the long run.
Clear and transparent pre-market testing requirements are needed to ensure that registrants who wish to add cannabis to their product labels are fully aware of the data requirements needed to pursue a registration.
Furthermore, the costs of conducting the studies needed to support the addition of cannabis to a product label are likely to be high. It’s conceivable that the sales potential might not be sufficient to justify the cost of registration.
Canada’s Minor Use Pesticides Program, which was launched in 2002, as a joint initiative between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency, has a long history of improving grower access to crop protection treatments on low-acreage, high-value crops used in low volumes so that sales potential is not sufficient to seek a registration in Canada. CropLife Canada is proud to support the work of the Minor Use Pesticides Program through the pest management centre, and we anticipate this program could be one vehicle through which the data requirements to add cannabis to a pesticide label may be fulfilled.
We would encourage the government to explore this and other existing models through which the data requirements might be fulfilled in any discussion around cannabis legalization.
Before I close and hand over to my colleague, Karen, I want to note the decision to add any crop to a product label remains solely that of the registrant. As such, even if all of the regulatory requirements for a cannabis registration are clarified, some registrants may choose not to pursue a registration.
With that, I’m going to hand over to my colleague Karen, who can provide some context around the challenges experienced by our member companies in the retail sector.
Karen Stephenson, Director, Regulatory Affairs and Stakeholder Relations, Scotts Canada Limited: Thank you, Maria, and thank you, honourable senators, for affording us the opportunity to speak this evening.
I will give you a little bit of an overview of our company, in case you are not familiar with Scotts Canada. ScottsMiracle-Gro is a leading provider of safe and effective horticultural products for growing plants, including products that can be used in cannabis cultivation.
In Canada, ScottsMiracle-Gro is represented by two Canadian companies, Scotts Canada, which is focused on consumer home and garden products, in addition to horticultural-growing media products, and Hawthorne Canada Limited, a provider of liquid nutrients, plant supplements, lighting and other equipment used for hydroponic growing.
Scotts and Hawthorne employ over 700 employees across nine facilities across Canada.
Scotts Canada and our industry share the same goals as the government in terms of providing safe and effective products that allow Canadians, in both commercial and private settings, to grow plants, including cannabis, that are high in quality and safe.
Members of CropLife Canada and Fertilizer Canada, one of our other industry associations, represent the majority of the pest-control products and fertilizer products sold in Canada.
Our products are supported by extensive research, as Maria has alluded to, as well as data and a history of safe use on multiple crops.
Our companies then use research data and our experience to educate our retailers and consumers about the proper use of our products.
We have decades of experience communicating with retailers and users about our products through labelling, marketing material and other communication vehicles.
Therefore, restricting access, either to products or to good information regarding those products, does not serve us as a business, nor does it serve consumers.
Imagine for a moment a member of the public who is legally allowed to grow their four plants at home goes into a big-box store or a garden centre to purchase products, such as fertilizers or lights, to grow their plants, because that’s where they usually go to buy any product when they grow any of their other plants, and not being able to select the appropriate product because the products cannot be labelled for cannabis growing. Or, having spent time growing their plants, they have a pest problem but do not know the appropriate product to use because none are labelled for treating cannabis. They must guess the product to select and guess how to use it.
Many products for growing plants, as already mentioned, are appropriate for multiple crops and are commonly marketed that way. As an industry, it’s our goal to make appropriate products available and to provide information to ensure that both commercial enterprises and consumers are making appropriate choices and have the necessary instructions to ensure safe use.
Imagine a business having to make a decision not to offer products to consumers for growing their cannabis because they do not want to risk their product being taken off of retailer shelves if they in any way associate their product, through labelling, marketing or promoting it, for use in growing cannabis.
These are real potential implications if general horticulture products are characterized as being cannabis accessories.
Restrictions on representing products for the cultivation of cannabis because these horticultural products meet the current definition of a cannabis accessory will not only create a disruption in the current market but will also likely lead to misuse and actually raise the risk to the Canadian public.
It has been industry’s experience that, where governments restrict access to safe products and in the absence of information about appropriate products, growers, whether they are commercial enterprises or home growers, will often find ways to resolve their cultivation challenges. This will often take the form of using unapproved products or home concoctions that have not had the benefit of Health Canada or CFIA assessment. This raises the risk profile of growing and runs counter to all of our goals of ensuring the safety of cannabis cultivation and ensuring that the measures are commensurate with the risk.
We’re therefore seeking a clarification of cannabis accessories to ensure that cultivation products, such as pesticides, fertilizers and hydroponic equipment, can be offered with appropriate instructions and with support that helps to achieve the government’s goal while also allowing companies to be competitive and successful in this burgeoning industry and keeping consumers safe.
The Chair: Thank you for your presentations. We have several senators who are on the list to ask questions.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Thank you very much for your presentations, ladies and gentlemen. We have received a copy of Mr. Prouse’s presentation, but would it be possible to receive those given by Ms. Trainer and Ms. Stephenson? If so, please submit them to the committee clerk. They could be very useful to us.
You bring a different perspective to the table that few of our previous witnesses have focused on. In no way do you wish to be associated with fraudulent products, if I can use that term, with products that are not certified by Health Canada and others. And rightly so. I myself grow tomatoes in my small garden. I must use fertilizer and pesticides if small insects invade the garden. I always purchase products approved by Health Canada. I don’t want my tomatoes to taste of anything other than tomato.
You said that there’s a cost associated with this. There are many future cannabis producers, and they are often new to the field of agriculture. They do not necessarily come from the field of carrots or salads. Will these people be informed of the fact that the pesticides that they will need for their growing operations must be approved by Health Canada and by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada? They will have to ensure that they do not use counterfeit products that could alter the quality of the product and harm human health.
Mr. Prouse, to what degree can Health Canada exercise control over this?
[English]
Mr. Prouse: My colleague Dr. Trainer recently toured a large facility. I was not on that tour and she was. I’ll defer to her.
Ms. Trainer: From the perspective of large commercial producers, they would be treated the same as producers of any other horticultural crop. In that regard, the label is the law, and they’d be required to comply with it.
It’s fair to say, based on our experience and speaking with the grower organizations, they are very aware of their legislative responsibilities and their legal obligations to follow the label.
PMRA would be better positioned to talk about their education and outreach activities, but certainly they do a lot of work in that area, and they also have compliance enforcement activities.
Ms. Stephenson: If I could just add, I think there is the opportunity and the desire from producers of products that go into the cultivation of cannabis to partner with those cannabis growers.
We have spent a lot of time and effort developing our products. When we go into establishments that are interested in growing cannabis, we are also bringing with us our experts who can help inform them about the proper products to use. We would never recommend a product that was not approved by PMRA for that particular crop.
I think there are certainly a lot of very reputable companies out there who are interested in partnering with growers in this effort.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Thank you. That is appropriate for large production operations. But what about small producers who have four plants on their balcony? Ms. Stephenson raised this in her brief. The individual who realizes that his plants are not growing fast enough will go to the hardware store to purchase a product in the hope that it will make his plants grow more. How will he know which product to purchase? Can you tell us how Health Canada plans to share general information? We are talking about nearly one and a half million small producers. That’s a lot of people. I am not sure that what is good for tomatoes or onions or slugs is good for cannabis. How will small producers tackle this issue without poisoning themselves?
[English]
Ms. Stephenson: Certainly from Scotts’ perspective, we are very committed to consumer education. For example, when we are in-season, we have our own Scotts experts in stores talking to consumers about their gardening challenges, recommending appropriate products and talking about proper use.
We also use a lot of other aids such as marketing materials, the labels themselves, and providing a lot of clear instructions on the label. Someone can pick up the product, read on the packaging about it and how to use it.
Those requirements are in the regulations both for fertilizers as well as pesticides, but beyond that, we are doing multiple things to educate consumers broadly on our products and how and when to use them.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Thank you very much.
[English]
Senator Mercer: I want to divide this properly. If we’re talking about a commercial operation, a large licensed grow op, companies will come in and make products available to them. They will be licensed products. What you’re saying is they won’t be labelled. If I go into the local Canadian Tire garden centre, the product is not going to be labelled saying it’s cannabis-friendly?
Mr. Prouse: That depends on how any legislation is written, senator. If the legislation is written in such a manner that it defines pesticides and fertilizers as a means of production, then it may be difficult for consumers to get proper information.
The point we’re trying to make is it’s important you separate out pesticides and fertilizers from other means of production of cannabis, because it’s important for consumers to get good information.
Senator Mercer: That’s true. But if I go in and pick up a box from Scotts and it tells me what it’s good for, to grow my tomatoes or my flowers or whatever, and it doesn’t mention cannabis, can I go online and get that information? If the legislation excluded the ability to put cannabis on the list of plants that it could assist, is there a way to go online and get that information?
Mr. Prouse: I’ll throw it to Karen momentarily, but this is what we’re trying to avoid, a situation where people are having to Google and try to guess what products they ought to be using. I don’t think that was ever the government’s intention, and I don’t think that’s particularly good public policy.
What we want to have, and I know the regulator shares this desire, is very clear, concise, front-of-the-label use that consumers can understand.
You mentioned Scotts, so I want to throw it to Karen to talk more about that.
Ms. Stephenson: Certainly as the person who is responsible for regulatory compliance for Scotts and Hawthorne products, our aim is always consistency across all of the communication methods we use.
If it says on the label you can use that product for certain crops, that’s what our marketing material will say, that’s what our website will say, and that’s what our videos will say. Our concern is if we cannot communicate consistently about our products, it will create a lack of clarity, confusion and could potentially lead to misuse. We really want to be able to recommend our products for the appropriate use on the appropriate crops.
Senator Mercer: We’re back to the devil is in the details.
If you can market your products to large commercial operators who are growing large amounts of cannabis, that’s one thing. It’s the small growers, the people growing the four plants at home, who we need to protect by telling them what is and is not good to help grow their products. Or we could recommend they go buy it at a commercial operation where the government gets more of their tax money.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: My question is for Ms. Trainer. For large producers, there is no problem. We are talking about small producers. First, the government will allow people to grow four plants at home. You know full well that it will be impossible to verify and count the number of plants in 700,000 homes. Many people may grow eight plants or 12 plants. In the past, the only way to detect home production of marijuana was using electricity bills. If everyone grows four, five or 10 plants, it will not be possible to tell the difference. What concerns me is that these people might use bad products that may have health consequences.
Do you have examples of health effects related to the use of a bad product for growing marijuana plants? Let us be frank. Legalization will open wide the door to the black market. Everyone will want to grow a dozen plants at home. In any case, if people grow four plants to respect the law, I really wonder who will check.
[English]
Ms. Trainer: I certainly will not comment on the legal aspects of how many plants someone is growing. With respect to your point about the health consequences of using unregistered products, that’s exactly why we advocate for clear and transparent regulatory data requirements in order to register a product for use on cannabis. Those requirements would apply regardless of whether the registration is for domestic-class products for a homeowner to use on their four plants or for a commercial-grade product for use in a large facility.
We would like to see clear and transparent data requirements, regardless of which sector the product would be marketed into. I think it’s important that consumers have confidence that the products they are using are ultimately safe.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Regarding the consequences of a poor use of the product, do you have examples? Have you analyzed the potential risks?
[English]
Ms. Trainer: At CropLife Canada, we have not. I understand that Health Canada has done work in that area, and I believe they have issued a couple of memoranda in recent months resulting from some of the media coverage last year, but that’s not something I’m particularly familiar with. Karen might have comments.
Ms. Stephenson: My only comment is that from the media reports I’ve seen and from some of the conversations we’ve had with commercial growers, I believe there was a concern the products could potentially create cyanide from the residues of the illegal pesticides on the cannabis. Certainly those are things that would be assessed if a pesticide goes through the proper assessment process within Health Canada and the PMRA to ensure the product, when used on that plant, is safe, considering the ultimate use of the crop at the end of the day.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: If we compare that with pesticides, would you say that the government has been less strict for cannabis production than for the sale of unregulated products?
[English]
Mr. Prouse: We are into uncharted waters, as the expression would be in English. This is such a new area and there are very few products that have been registered for marijuana use. We have not gone very far down this road yet. We’re still waiting.
There is a program — Dr. Trainer alluded to it — the minor use program. There is provision for these growers to access product if they need it. I think the regulator themselves, if they were here, would acknowledge this is very new ground for them and there is a lot of work to be done.
[Translation]
Senator Dagenais: Before adopting this bill, it would be better to wait for these products to be approved by Health Canada.
[English]
Mr. Prouse: We would certainly encourage the government, before they adopt any act, to take a very fulsome look at how it will apply to existing law, and existing law would be the Pest Control Products Act. I think that would be a worthwhile exercise before full legalization happens. It would be a lot easier to fix any problems now than to try to go back and fix them later.
Senator Petitclerc: My question will be very simple. I understand where you’re coming from with the pesticide being an accessory in the bill right now. I want you to run it by me as an example.
For example, if someone buys a fertilizer or pesticide, as far as I know, it will say that this is good for this, this and this. You are saying that the bill will prevent it from saying this is good for tomatoes and cannabis, for example?
Mr. Prouse: That’s correct. Karen is probably in the best position to tackle this.
Ms. Stephenson: The way the legislation is currently written, “cannabis accessory” is anything used in the production of cannabis. If we want to put on the label that you can use fertilizer “X” for growing cannabis, then it becomes a cannabis accessory.
Within the legislation there are also provisions or restrictions for cannabis accessories that say you cannot label it, you cannot advertise it for cannabis use, you cannot promote it for cannabis use, and you cannot sell it anywhere minors are likely to be present.
By virtue of those restrictions, we would either have to make the choice to not put cannabis on the label; or, if we put cannabis on the label, we couldn’t sell it at Home Depot, Canadian Tire or independent garden centres. You would have to go to a licensed dispensary or some other licensed vendor in order to acquire those products. I think most consumers, as I said in my brief, are used to going to a big-box store or independent garden centre to get the products they need to grow their plants; and cannabis is a plant, like any other plant.
Mr. Prouse: Senator, if I could add that I don’t think it was ever the government’s intention to capture pesticides and fertilizers. That’s the road we’re heading down if we apply a blanket definition of “accessory” without looking to see where the conflicts might be. There is a very obvious conflict now with pesticides and fertilizers, and I think there is a fairly easy remedy to this.
Senator Petitclerc: That blanket, as you say, is applying to pesticides. It is also applying to everything else, like lights.
Ms. Stephenson: Yes.
Senator Petitclerc: Okay, so it’s not an exception. Then, if I understand well, no child should be exposed, or would be; and they would have to go, like you said, to a specialized distributor who would provide the whole kit, if I may say it that way.
Ms. Stephenson: Yes. And just to add what Dennis said, we have certainly engaged in outreach to the government to validate, first of all, that our interpretation of this definition was correct; and we determined that, yes, indeed, it was correct. Everybody acted very surprised, and everybody we have spoken to has told us these are not the sorts of products we meant to capture. But because of the way the definition is defined, it will definitely capture these products.
Senator Petitclerc: One last question: As a business, I guess this will force you to produce something that is specific for those retailers. If you want to label it the way that it should be labelled in terms of the information and be distributed only with specific retailers, that will be possible, but then it forces you to — do you see where I’m going?
Ms. Stephenson: Yes. It’s certainly possible. Whether it is economically feasible to create a totally separate product line. Most of our fertilizers or lights or what have you are general purpose, but we do provide instructions, for example, if you need to do something a little bit different for tomatoes versus flowers. That’s on the label. Similarly, we would do that for cannabis, as appropriate.
To create a totally separate product line just for consumers who wish to grow their four plants, that’s certainly something that we would have to look at very carefully to see if it were economically feasible.
Mr. Prouse: I can address that quickly. It’s important to understand scales here. This sector is very small, and the more difficult you make it to provide products for the sector, the less likely it is the companies will provide licensed products for this sector. Just to keep scales in mind, there are 24 million acres of canola in Western Canada. There are 3 million acres of corn in southern Ontario. I believe Senator Black could correct me if I get that number wrong. I think I’m close.
This is a very small sector, and like I say, if you make it extremely difficult for companies to enter that space, the less likely they are to enter it and that’s not a good public policy outcome either.
Senator Petitclerc: Thank you.
Senator Oh: Thank you, witnesses. I want to bring it back to Bill C-45.
Each household is allowed to grow four plants. Bill C-45 does not specify the size of the house. It only says per household. What if people are growing it in a condominium? You are allowed to grow four plants in 600 square feet. You have 30 storeys, which is pretty common these days. How do you control the growing and the cultivation? What I worry about is mould because people may not be growing properly. Then it gets into the central air-conditioning system and spreads throughout the whole building. Do you foresee any problem in the future?
Ms. Trainer: I think these are concerns that have been raised by a number of different groups and individuals, and they are valid concerns. What they really signify is the importance of having access to products that work and are safe for use on that plant or that crop, whether it’s for commercial-scale production or for homeowner use. Until we are able to clarify the requirements around registering a product for those uses, it will be a challenge. There are a very limited number of products that anybody would be able to get access to right now.
Ms. Stephenson: I will add that Hawthorne Canada is focused on urban gardening, which is inside condominiums, being able to offer those indoor growers appropriate products for growing whatever it is they want to grow, whether it be tomatoes or cannabis. ScottsMiracle-Gro has invested more than $450 million acquiring hydroponic companies so we can be the full solution to people growing indoors.
If they have a product they can buy off the shelf that’s very easily accessible versus trying to figure out how to do it themselves in maybe a more unsafe way, it certainly minimizes risks to have those sorts of products available.
Senator Oh: So as an individual, I can give four plants to my friend and say, “Here, I have extra plants. You can have four and grow them in your apartment next door.” We have no control and you have no control, right?
Ms. Trainer: That’s beyond the scope of my expertise.
Ms. Stephenson: We are not in the business of selling plants or seeds. We are in the business of selling equipment and horticultural products that help them grow that. I think it’s up to the regulatory framework to ensure access to plants and seeds is in some way controlled. Once they get those plants and seeds, they are going to need safe products to grow them with.
Senator Oh: We must definitely look into the urban lifestyle of growing marijuana. Agreed?
Ms. Stephenson: Certainly. That’s a little bit outside of our area of expertise.
Senator Oh: Okay, thank you.
Senator R. Black: I have a very quick and easy question. If it’s exempted, then you can put cannabis on the label, you can advertise in Home Depot and have your pamphlets and all that. The lights can also be advertised as good. Okay, that’s all. Thanks.
Mr. Prouse: I think the easy definition, senator, would be exempting products that are already regulated under the Pest Control Products Act. We have a Pest Control Products Act. As Dr. Trainer pointed out, it is very extensive and comprehensive. By and large, as you know from your previous professional experience, it works. We think there is a fairly easy solution here to simply exempt those products.
Ms. Stephenson: I would just like to add, though, certainly CropLife is here representing us on the pest control products piece, but we also need to consider the fertilizers and the lights. From our perspective and from the discussions we’ve had with government, we understand their concern is more centred around the post-cultivation processes, so the production of oils, concentrates and so on, and the sorts of materials that go into that.
Further to what Dennis was saying, we also have the Fertilizers Act, which ensures that fertilizers are safe for the crops on which they are intended. They also have labelling requirements and safety requirements. And we have the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, which also protects consumers who buy products such as lights, et cetera.
We have a number of regulatory frameworks already in place that are specifically set up to protect consumers and ensure safe products are in the marketplace. We feel having this extra layer adds complexity. You’ll have multiple jurisdictions trying to regulate the same products, and it basically creates the potential for confusion. As Dennis said, that’s not good policy.
Senator Gagné: You’ve actually answered my question, so thank you for that clarification.
As a general statement about the effects of pest control products on our health, I imagine we should expect Health Canada to have the research and the systems in place to ensure that testing is done and we have evidence on the health effects of pest control products on our health. We should be able to have that done in a timely fashion if cannabis is legalized. We’ll have to have those facts on the health effects.
That is just a statement on which I was hoping you could comment.
Ms. Trainer: I can speak to that. You are absolutely right. To clarify, PMRA at Health Canada does have the structure and legislation in place to do exactly that. Right now, they are working with companies on a case-by-case basis to evaluate what additional data they will need to see to ensure that these products can be used safely on cannabis. Cannabis is an unusual crop, because it can be used in multiple different ways, post-harvest. That creates a number of challenges.
PMRA does a great job of understanding that and identifying the data requirements that would need to be fulfilled in order to pursue a registration on cannabis. It would be the registrant’s responsibility to conduct those studies and pay for those studies, but they would be conducted in accordance with a protocol that would be agreed upon with the regulator.
All of that structure exists and in place. We are looking for clarity on exactly what those data requirements would be. Dealing with this on a case-by-case basis is less than ideal and not transparent. We are looking for clarity on the data requirements. But the structure is in place.
Senator Gagné: How long does it take for a pesticide to go through the regulation in order to certify it for a certain use such as cannabis?
Ms. Trainer: The most recent industry data we have is that it’s somewhere in the region of 13 years and in excess of $300 million Canadian. Those are numbers from three or four years ago.
Senator Gagné: To certify a product, it takes 13 years —
Ms. Trainer: Yes.
Senator Gagné: — and $300 million?
Ms. Trainer: Yes. That’s from initial R&D through to registration. Less than 1 in 100,000 substances screened will make it to market. That’s the success rate.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: I have a last question for Ms. Stephenson. Our first two witnesses this evening, with whom we talked about cannabis residues, are people from Vancouver who invented a composting machine. I will not mention the name of this machine because I do not want to advertise on television. They told us it was ideal; in short, it destroys everything. According to them, it is an extraordinary and totally safe way to compost without a problem. Ms. Stephenson, if I bought your products for my own little garden, would you sell me cannabis residue compost?
[English]
Ms. Stephenson: I don’t know. We have a very thorough R&D process and vendor-qualification process whereby we look at different raw materials. We would have to test those raw materials. We would formulate them in the lab and put them through a number of growth tests to see if they would, indeed, grow in that medium.
There are certainly composting standards that the CFIA, at the federal level, have for compost. There are also provincial quality and safety standards for compost. We would really have to look at all the data, generate some of our own data and do our own greenhouse testing to determine the safety of those products for plants.
When I saw the topic of composting cannabis plants, I made our facilities aware of that, because we do use a lot of compost. ScottsMiracle-Gro is one of the largest users of green waste in North America. We take a lot of those wastes and incorporate them into our growing media products, because they have beneficial properties for plants.
The Chair: On behalf after all the senators present, I would like to thank our guests for appearing here this evening. As you can tell, it was interesting discussion with lots of questions.
(The committee adjourned.)