Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources
Issue 13 - Evidence - February 20, 2007
OTTAWA, Tuesday, February 20, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources met this day at 6:10 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: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Energy, the Environment and Natural Resources. Over the past few months, the committee has held a number of meetings dealing with its review of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999, by way of case studies, to help determine how well that act protects Canadians. The first case study was on mercury. Today we will continue the second phase of our study by examining perfluorinated compounds, PFCs: perfluorooctane sulfonate, PFOS, perfluorooctanoic acids, PFOAs, and the like.
Appearing before us today, on behalf of Pollution Watch, are Kapil Khatter and Kathleen Cooper. Representing the Canadian Environmental Network are Sheila Cole and Sandra Madray. Appearing as an individual is Richard Purdy.
I invite you to begin with your presentations, leaving time for questions at the end.
Sheila Cole, Environment and Health Educator, Member, Board of Directors, Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia; Co-Chair, Health Caucus, Canadian Environmental Network: Good evening. The Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia, of which I am a member of the board of directors, and Chemical Sensitivities Manitoba would like to thank the committee for the opportunity to provide public comment on this review of CEPA.
In 2002, I was fortunate to have input into two consultation meetings on the reduction of residual perfluorinated carboxylic acids and their precursors in substances present in Canadian commerce. Obviously, this subject is of great interest to me.
Today, my colleague and I are here to draw the attention of the committee also to the problem of multiple chemical exposures and the burden placed on one's body by the totality of daily exposures. The chemicals categorization process of 23,000 substances that Canada has recently completed is an amazing achievement. Canada leads the world in the area of chemicals categorization. While celebrating this considerable accomplishment, we must not lose sight of the fact that thousands more chemicals are in commerce and new ones are introduced every year. In Canada, 700 to 900 new substances are notified each year, and it is estimated that globally, chemical production is doubling about every 25 years.
In this regard, the overall load of PFCs and other chemicals must be significantly decreased. The numbers of chemicals in commerce must come down quickly. I look forward to discussing later how this might be achieved.
PFCs have become totally pervasive in our society and can be found in many more places than in the livers of polar bears. They are found in textiles, furniture, sun-blocking fabrics, food packaging, firefighting foam, cleaning compounds, paints, fuel additives, hair sprays, cosmetics, asthma inhalers, carpets, pesticides, health care products and electronics.
It is widely known that some 70,000 chemicals are found in the products that we encounter daily. In the absence of action by government and industry, it has fallen on individuals and citizens' groups to take steps in their own communities to reduce this overall chemical burden. In the city of Halifax, where I come from, a number of community groups have taken a lot of action on their own to reduce our chemical load.
Canadians are not sufficiently informed and educated about the chemical content in products, nor should any individual be expected to understand the impact of all these substances.
Devolving responsibility to the individual to discern what is safe to consume is not at all effective, efficient or acceptable. Canadians rely on their government to ensure that what they consume is safe, and this expectation is reasonable. A priority under CEPA should be to ensure that all new products coming onto the market are non-toxic and natural.
To date, much of the content of products has been protected as proprietary information and may never be known to the public. This situation must change. The public right to know must be the underpinning of CEPA if the health of Canadians is to be truly protected.
In speaking of PFCs and their health effects, apart from the research information on perfluorooctanoic sulfonate, PFOS, perfluorobutane sulphonate, PFBS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA, little health and environmental information is available on the whole class of PFCs, which number in the range of at least 255 compounds. Canada has identified approximately 185 of these chemicals in their domestic substances list, but the number of other PFC compounds for which there is little or no data is cause for considerable concern.
Apart from occupational exposure to PFCs, it is claimed that levels of these compounds in human blood remain low, although at least one report states that the levels are on the increase.
In their presentation to this committee on February 1, Health Canada officials said the route of entry for humans is not known, yet exposure patterns strongly implicate ingestion from food packaging, for example, as one obvious route. It is becoming more and more evident that we are what we eat. Another obvious route of exposure is inhalation from things such as cleaning compounds, fuels, hair sprays, cosmetics, carpets and many of the other sources that we have already discussed.
It is surprising, then, that the Canadian government seems to think that, despite the pervasiveness of these compounds, because the levels are low, there is not sufficient cause for concern in the human population. Yet, based on observed negative effects in scientific studies, how can we safely assume that these low levels in humans will not eventually be proven harmful to our health? The negative effects on wildlife are already evident and proven. Should we then wait for the evidence of human harm, for example, in the form of provable cancer links, before taking action? We think not.
I refer you to the work of Dr. Claudia Miller, an environmental medicine specialist, and her research partner Nicholas Ashford, Ph.D. Their book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes, chronicles compelling evidence that implicates low-level exposure in many chronic illnesses including asthma, learning disabilities and chemical sensitivities. Environmental medicine specialists have a great deal to contribute to this discussion and should be brought on staff, especially at Health Canada.
As well as Dr. Miller, another physician who has done exemplary work on chemical exposure is Dr. Samuel Epstein. In his book, The Politics of Cancer, he highlights the role of chemical exposure and the myriad cancers that now plague Canadians, even in what was our pristine North.
It is recognized and accepted that vulnerable populations, including children, pregnant mothers, the aged and the chemically sensitive, are at greatest risk for health problems related to chemical exposure, but in reality this is not quite accurate. The truth is that everyone is vulnerable, as indicated by the recent testing of human blood undertaken by Environmental Defence and detailed in their Toxic Nation report.
It is noteworthy that data from the second study, which tested parents and children from five Canadian families, found PFOS and PFOA in every participant in the study, with children showing higher concentration levels than their parents. It is obvious that the burden of synthetic chemicals in our bloodstreams spares no one, not even infants. We know that PFCs and other chemicals have been found in the milk of nursing mothers and in the umbilical cords of their babies.
As a result of so much exposure, millions of people in North America and around the world are becoming chemically sensitive. A 2004 survey from the U.S. revealed that 11 per cent of the population reported unusual hypersensitivity to chemicals. This early hypersensitivity often proceeds to the full-blown debilitating disease known as environmental illness or multiple chemical sensitivities, and those numbers are worryingly on the increase.
Our continued exposure to PFCs and other toxins requires more definitive and timely action through the provisions of CEPA. It is easy to be misled by the apparent innocuous nature of some chemicals, particularly if there are long latency periods before ill effects materialize, as in the case of PFCs.
Today we make an urgent call to the government for immediate action to act with precaution through prevention. To address our concerns about PFCs and multiple chemical exposure, pertinent principles within CEPA such as precaution, timely assessment, substitution, safer alternatives and reverse onus must be strengthened and enforced.
Although by no means totally inclusive, we recommend to the committee today the issues listed below as some of the priority elements for this CEPA review. Those elements include increased use and initiation of precaution in chemical use, timely chemical assessment, reverse onus, increased use and substitution of safer alternatives both in the home and in the workplace, and government investment in research and development of non-toxic products.
I look forward to further discussion of some of these ideas, and I turn now to my colleague Ms. Madray.
Sandra Madray, Research and Education, Chemical Sensitivities, and Manitoba Caucus Member, Canadian Environmental Network: With respect to the precautionary principle, although levels of PFCs in humans are considered low, how can we be certain that these low levels are safe? At present, is there sufficient evidence to conclude levels are safe?
We do not need to wait for obvious negative human health defects to initiate more aggressive action that reduces PFC exposure. Complete removal of this class of chemicals from the market must be considered.
Sweden has called for a global ban on PFOS and its related compounds under the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants. That response data is available for some toxic chemicals. However, we strongly feel that other variables affect our response to chemicals, namely timing and genetic susceptibility.
Some scientific evidence indicates that exposure to chemical mixtures can produce unexpected effects, including unpredicted organ attack. In some cases, the effects are far greater than anticipated.
Of significance here are the observed adverse effects in response to a combination of chemical toxins at low concentrations rather than to the individual chemical. This effect has been observed in some unexplained cancer clusters.
We could be misled into thinking that chronic low-level exposure to chemical toxins, individual or in combination, is not detrimental to our health. There is a need to employ the precautionary principle with greater frequency and to have more well-defined measures for implementation of this principle. The ``cost-effective'' restraint, as it pertains to the use of this principle within CEPA, is unacceptable and should be removed.
This cost-effectiveness satisfies the industry's monetary gains. How can we compare that gain to human health and a sustainable environment?
For toxic substances that lack sufficient or even accurate assessment data, and have inadequate management standards or guidelines, the precautionary principle should be implemented. CEPA must be sensitive to vulnerable populations, including children, babies, pregnant women, the aged and the chemically sensitive.
With reference to PFCs, to quote from Environment Canada's submission to this committee on February 1, 2007:
We have a lot of information on certain substances like PFOA and PFOS. These were the most widely used chemicals of these classes, for which there has been a significant amount of testing and toxicological information. For others, we are still at the information gathering stage. For many of these, we even have difficulty identifying what they are and how to describe them in a chemical way that will allow us to do adequate analysis and testing.
We feel that the precautionary principle to implement is most appropriate here.
With respect to risk assessment, the current system under CEPA has not been able to address the issues of risk and safety of substances in a timely manner. Timelines are not well-defined, and the entire process, including risk management measures, can take too long. Provisions or mechanisms are needed within the act to reduce this lengthy process.
Substances that are found to be persistent, inherently toxic and bioaccumulative require greater priority for assessment under CEPA, as in the case of PFCs. Even with sufficient scientific data for assessment, it is recognized that there can be some degree of uncertainty. Science is not absolute.
Canada needs to be proactive, not reactive. It needs to act on the entire family of PFCs, including perfluorooctanoic acid, PFOA, and not only on PFCA, its precursors and PFOS.
With grouping of substances into the appropriate chemical categories, the determination of data gaps at that point can much reduce assessment time.
There will be instances where more than 90 days will be required for a risk assessment. Mechanisms within CEPA should allow an increased time for risk assessment where necessary.
With respect to reverse onus, the Canadian government has been burdened to provide evidence of harm for the expanding list of substances in use. Let this burden of proof lie with industry. The onus must be reversed.
With respect to substitution of safer alternatives, as consumers, we continue to use products containing PFCs and other toxic ingredients. We assume they are safe to human health and the environment because they are readily available in the marketplace and they have had government approval. This assumption is a fallacy.
Regulations are needed to reduce and eliminate toxic substances in these products. We have access to these products because of the lack of legislation to adequately control, label, ban or otherwise restrict these products. Provisions under CEPA must adequately deal with, and provide clear, easily understood information on, toxic or harmful chemicals in consumer products until such time as non-toxic alternatives are developed.
CEPA should be instrumental in this switchover. There must be emphasis for the safe substitution of toxic chemicals, and Canadians must be encouraged to use safer products in their home and in the workplace.
Products containing PFC in the home generally contribute to human exposure. It has been well-established that indoor air can be far worse than outdoor air at times. These products should be replaced with safer alternatives, with a phase-out period for essential products.
With respect to government investment, as regulations to remove or reduce toxic substances are enacted, research and development will be necessary to make the conversions feasible and safe.
In the research and development for new safe replacements, smaller companies may require assistance. The government should provide incentives to make this research feasible as we move to establish a cleaner and healthier environment.
That is the end of my presentation. The Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia, Chemical Sensitivities Manitoba and our colleagues would like to thank the committee for this opportunity for public participation in the review of CEPA 1999.
The Chairman: Thank you. I understand you must leave, Senator Angus. We will keep you posted on the proceedings. I know you have a list of questions you want to ask.
Senator Angus: I have asked them to myself. I have been here since 5:30.
The Chairman: Are we agreed, senators, that we should hear from all the witnesses before we begin questions?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Richard Purdy, Toxicologist, as an individual: Thank you for inviting me. I have been concerned with this class of chemicals since I first ran across it approximately 25 years ago, and my concern has increased with the time that has passed.
I am a scientist. I have worked in risk assessment and chemical categorization for my entire career. Many questions you wanted answered were about CEPA, and I do not think I can tell you directly what to do with CEPA, but I can give you my experience with the performance under CEPA of the perfluorinated chemicals from a toxicological and risk assessment point of view.
The Chairman: That is precisely the question.
Mr. Purdy: One of your witnesses, Scott Mabury from the University of Toronto was asked a question about CEPA and I agree with him that CEPA is nimble compared to the Toxic Substances Control Act in the United States and the European Union's legislation. Being nimble does not mean it is perfect, and I hear there can be some tuning.
The first topic I will cover is human health risk assessment.
Senator Spivak asked at a previous hearing how PFOS can be a problem for the environment but not for human health. That question was not well answered because it was not the area of expertise of the person answering it. In general, they do not have to track both areas of the environment and human health, but I think in the case of PFOS they do, and the reason they do not under the regulations is that the assessment that Health Canada did was not as good as it could have been. I think Health Canada used the right studies, and I think their general approach was right, but I also think that within the studies they chose the wrong data and did not consider the precautionary principle when selecting data or considering uncertainties. There are some uncertainties when a risk assessment is done because there are some populations we do not know about. There are deficiencies in the studies.
In a six-month study of monkeys, the animals were given PFOS. All the dosed monkeys showed effects. Even the lowest dose showed effects. Those monkeys had approximately 14 parts per million of PFOS in their blood.
For the concentrations in human blood, Health Canada chose a Red Cross study from the United States of approximately 600 adults and 600 children. This risk assessment compares the level of cause and effect in the monkeys' blood and the level that is in the blood in the human population. That approach is a reasonable way to conduct the study. However, when they chose the level in the blood to look at, they used the ninety-fifth percentile. That means that five per cent of the people had higher levels than that, and 95 per cent had lower. In choosing that number, they have already done some value judgment of who they will protect. I would choose the highest concentrations in those populations because I would protect everyone rather than potentially leaving five per cent of the people unprotected.
When Health Canada compared those numbers, the difference between the level of PFOS in the 95 percentile blood and the level in the monkeys' blood was 149 fold. If they had chosen the person with the highest level of PFOS and compare it to the monkeys' levels, the difference is nine fold. Nine fold does not leave much margin for error. There is not much safety there. In the monkey study, as you recall, there were effects at the low dose. There was not a dose where there were no effects. We do not know where the bottom of the effect is. We do not know if there are effects at even lower levels. There is that area of uncertainty.
These people were adults and children, but not toddlers and infants, which are probably the group of highest impact for two reasons. One reason is exposure, and the second is the possibility of effects. First, members of this group are exposed in utero, as you have heard. They are exposed through their mothers. When they are born, they are exposed to it from their mothers again in the milk, and it is also on their sleepwear, which they suck. We have all seen that exposure. It is on the carpet where they crawl. They put their hands on the carpet, then put their hands to their mouth and so forth. PFOS is on dust and in floor waxes. This group is probably the subpopulation with the highest exposure.
Additionally, this group is at a susceptible time in their life. In that first year, we develop our immune responses. The thymus gland is affected. All the animals in the monkey study at the low dose had shrunken thymus glands. You and I do not care about our thymus gland because it has shrunk. We are too old. The gland starts large when we are young, when we need it, because during that time the immune responses are set, or how we react in many areas the rest of our lives. If someone has the wrong ratio of thymus cells at that time, they will be prone to asthma. Their thymus can make a mistake and not destroy the antibodies made against their pancreas, which happens naturally. Various parts of the body make antibodies, and then the antibodies say ``No, that is body, and yes, we will destroy those.'' That process apparently does not happen with type one diabetes or early onset diabetes. The pancreas is destroyed and the person develops diabetes. These things happen in that first year. The thymus gland is its biggest then, and it shrinks the rest of our lives.
The second topic I want to address is Senator Milne's question at a previous hearing about 21st century health effects. Again, the answer was not good. We heard about the hypothesis from Scott Mabury having to do with the transport to the Arctic. We cannot prove a hypothesis or theory; we can only disprove them. We keep stacking up the evidence that supports the hypothesis until we feel more and more comfortable. The hypothesis is, yes, the fluoronated chemicals cause increased levels of possibly asthma and other immune diseases and diabetes. I think this assumption was in the question. We see an increase in the use of the fluoronated chemicals, but we also see an increase in these types of diseases. That does not prove the hypothesis, but it is consistent so it supports it.
Then we see the destruction of the thymus gland. These diseases are happening in more animal models. If the thymus is destroyed, whether mechanically by taking it out or by damaging it chemically — chemicals cause the thymus to atrophy — that destruction causes these diseases in animals that are susceptible to them. Sometimes it is hard to construct the models exactly right. So far, what I have seen is consistent with the 21st century health effects cause.
Now I will move to my topic three, and that is cumulative risk assessment. If Health Canada had used this cumulative risk assessment, even with their numbers they would have found PFOS to be a problem. With cumulative risk assessment, we look at all the chemicals in the class and identify the chemicals that look alike. All these fluoro- chemicals look alike. They are acids with a bunch of fluorines on them. They have the same mechanism of action and that is what we have seen so far although most of them have not been tested. However, from the ones we have seen, the tissues attacked are the same.
Therefore, when we perform a cumulative risk assessment, these toxicities are additive. We see this additive effect in organophosphate poisoning in the field. They set standards for all the organophosphates; they did no more than this. They met those standards in the field, but then they saw individuals with twitching eyes, which is a characteristic of organic phosphate toxicity. The reason was that 10 organophosphates were used and they were all below the limit but when they were added together they were above the limit for the class.
I believe that this class should have been approached as a cumulative risk assessment. Other classes on the domestic substances list, DSL, in CEPA could be approached this way. There are two reasons to use cumulative risk assessment. One, it is more protective and two, it is more efficient. If we did the whole class, and we have 185 fluorinated acids or precursors on the inventory, we would take care of them all at once instead of doing them one at a time, as they do now.
In topic four, short chained PFAs have been mentioned as a replacement. Again, the rationale was given by Scott Mabury. Scott Mabury is the world expert when it comes to the fate, which is the movement of these substances in the environment and their occurrences in wildlife. Scott Mabury gave the rationale of why the short chains are probably not a problem with wildlife. He is right, but the rationale does not necessarily carry over to humans.
As you are aware from what you have heard in the past, the fluoro-chemicals were not known to be a problem because we did not see them. They were out there but we need to tell the machine exactly what to look for. In the past, scans were done and new things would pop up but these substances need to be searched out specifically. If we want to look for the C8 chain and the C7 chain, we will not see the C7 chain when we are looking for the C8 unless we tell the machine where to look. People have not been looking for the short chains, in general.
It becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy if we are not looking for them. In Minnesota, they looked for the short chains and human blood in groundwater and found both: not everyone's blood, but they found it. This was the C4 carboxylic acid. From what we had been told about the elimination rate, it should not have been there.
There is a problem with how the elimination rate came about. They did animal studies. Looking back at PFOS, they conduct an animal study on rats and monkeys and they look at the blood of humans. What are the timelines and half- lives? In the rats it is days, in the monkeys it is weeks, in the humans it is years. Even though the timelines and half-lives for rats are much shorter, they are much shorter now for humans too and that could be now a matter of months, which is still a long half-life for a chemical.
Even though they are less of a problem than PFOS, the C4 chains could still be a problem. I see tips of icebergs; sometimes they turn out not to be icebergs. In the fluoro-chemicals overall I thought I saw the tip of the iceberg 25 years ago, and as things developed it was the tip of the iceberg. I do not know if this is the tip of the iceberg or if these are cautions we need to figure out. I believe we need to look at C4 chains more closely before we consider them safe alternatives.
I have two more topics. A colleague wanted me to mention incineration issues. In disposing products in households that contain fluoro-chemicals, so disposing them in municipal waste, those incinerators may not be at the temperatures required to break down the fluoro-chemicals. These chemicals require a high temperature. They are resistant to breakdown. That is why they are used in plating baths and so forth. That is why they are used in the electronic industry. They are resistant to breakdown. There is a possibility that by disposing them in that manner we may put more into the environment.
The other area is targeting stocks and destroying them, such as fire-fighting foam. Someone must go out and destroy the stock of fire-fighting foam. That presents a different type of problem that 3M knew about and addressed when they sent their waste to be disposed: When you have a large amount, the problem of degradation of products becomes evident. The main product of degradation to be concerned about is hydrofluoric acid. When those fluorines become hydrofluoric acid, HF, it dissolves glass and ceramics so they eat away at the incinerator because incinerators usually have ceramic tiles inside them. Therefore, they must be sent someplace where they can be handled and diluted enough so that they do not cause that problem. There are issues with the incineration of these substances.
There was also a question at the last hearing about climate change, which is my last topic. I added it only today. It is generally accepted that these substances are not important in climate change but that does not mean they are not forcers of climate change. One byproduct of PFOS was found in the atmosphere by an English research group and it is the strongest forcer of greenhouse gases. It is stronger than any other substance. It is 10,000 times greater than CO2.
That study was published in the magazine Science and 3M wrote a letter saying it is their substance, it is emitted from their plant and it has been emitted from their plant since they have been making PFOS and PFOA. Therefore, if the estimated concentration of that byproduct is low enough it is probably not that significant in overall global warming, but the substances are strong global warming substances.
As far as I know, there have been no measurements of PFOS and PFOA. At least, I do not recall seeing them. They may have measurements by now. A colleague was interested in doing that. However, they would be in the area of just under 10,000 times more powerful than CO2, by looking at other substances that are similar. Those numbers are big too. However, those substances should rain out and not be up in the atmosphere and that is why we would not be concerned with those.
However, there are other byproducts we do not know about from the manufacture of these fluoro-chemicals. Most of the byproducts are known. The efficiency of producing PFOS was less than 50 per cent. There are more byproducts and waste than product.
Kapil Khatter, Director of Health and Environment, Pollution Watch: Thank you for the opportunity of speaking again today on the Canadian Environmental Protection Act and perfluorinated chemicals. Pollution Watch is a project of the Canadian Environmental Law Association and Environmental Defence. With me is Kathy Cooper, a senior researcher at the Canadian Environmental Law Association.
By now, everyone in this room has heard about perfluorinated substances, what they are and what the problems with them are. We want to look at the problems with CEPA, what needs fixing and how perfluorinates can highlight those issues.
The first point in our submission is reverse onus or the burden of proof. This issue deals with the burden of proof of providing evidence of how safe or how harmful a chemical is. You heard from Environment Canada in the first session on perfluorinates that there is so much they do not know about these chemicals that they do not even know how many of them exist. The responsibility lies with government to find out what they can about these chemicals and to prove there is a problem, if there is one. Until then, the chemicals can be pumped out of smokestacks and put into products with no study of what those effects might be.
We believe it is only common sense that the industry is responsible for ensuring that what they put into a household product or discharge into the air will not cause harm. At the moment, for over 20,000 chemicals in Canada, this is not the case.
Perhaps you might ask the witness from Dupont, when he testifies on Thursday, why his company was discharging 60,000 pounds of PFOA a year into the Ohio River until 2000, when the company had no idea where the PFOA would end up, how long it would stay around, how much it would build up in our bodies or what the health effects might be. We mean that kind of responsibility when we talk about burden of proof — the responsible stewardship of chemicals and the products they go into. CEPA should place this burden clearly on the manufacturer.
The second and third points in our submission are protecting children and cumulative assessments. The government uses risk assessment to determine whether a substance potentially causes harm, but there are two major flaws with these assessments, and Dr. Purdy mentioned them both. First, CEPA does not specifically ensure that assessments take into account how much more vulnerable children and the developing fetus can be compared to adults. We have heard from Dr. Purdy that Health Canada did not adequately protect children with their PFOS assessment.
Second, the assessments tend to take a substance-by-substance approach, so even if two separate chemicals cause harm in a similar way, their combined exposures are not necessarily taken into account. They are generally assessed separately. Once again, Dr. Purdy pointed out that a cumulative assessment would have led Health Canada to a different conclusion.
The Pest Control Products Act, which is regarded as the newest and best act we have, related to chemicals, states that pesticides with similar actions need to be assessed together. There needs to be a cumulative assessment. The act also requires an extra safety factor to protect children.
If we need to do these things for pesticides, surely we need to do them for chemicals that we put into products or that we find in our food. We believe that these clauses should be taken from the Pest Control Products Act and added to CEPA.
Our fourth point is timelines. Timelines are important for ensuring that action to protect our health and the environment from harmful substances is not delayed. There are many chemicals in Canada that were declared toxic years ago but continued to be used and released at levels that can cause harm, because there was no requirement or timeline for action.
PFOS is a good demonstration of how slow the Canadian system works. One need ask only why PFOS was banned in the United States in 2000, yet now, in 2007, we have finally reached the draft regulation stage. I assure you that we arrived here because of much public pressure.
Where we have had timelines in CEPA, as with the categorization process the government recently completed, the work is done, but the assessment and management stages in CEPA either lack timelines or have timelines that are too long. Currently, the government has five years, plus a potential two-year extension, just to assess a substance.
You should have received with our submission a slide that outlines our proposed timelines. I can explain that further during questions.
We also suggest that three trips to cabinet, which is necessary with the assessment and management of a substance, is too many and causes unnecessary delays. There should be no need, for instance, for cabinet approval of a scientific decision on whether a chemical is toxic.
Our sixth point is on confidentiality. Environment Canada officials testified in the first session on perfluorinates that the lack of clarity in CEPA around confidentiality hinders their work. They said that such clarity would allow them to distribute science information in a more rapid and effective way to have a greater influence on the existing substances.
Once again, I point to the Pest Control Products Act and the advancements it has made in clarifying confidential business information. The pesticide act separates confidential business information from health and safety test data. The act says the test data is accessible to the public. They must sign something saying they will not use it for commercial purposes and they must look at it on site so they cannot share it with other people. However, it entrenches an important principle onto which Canada has signed in both the Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants and the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, the Dubai Declaration: that is, that studies showing how safe or harmful a chemical is must be public. That is the only way to ensure accountability in risk decisions. We recommend that, at a minimum, CEPA provide the clarity and transparency that the pesticide act does.
Our seventh point deals with consumer products, and this is where I say something nice. Though the PFOS regulations have taken too long, and perhaps have too many restrictions, the regulations are a good example of how we should tackle the problem of toxic substances in products. The substance-by-substance approach that Health Canada mostly takes using the Hazardous Products Act has been slow and ineffective. When a chemical is declared toxic under CEPA, CEPA should be used to restrict its use in products to protect our health and our environment.
As with PFOS, exceptions can be made where there are yet no reasonable alternatives, as with aviation hydraulic fluid, for example, but the assumptions should be that outside of these exceptions the toxic chemical is not to be used in products. If we take this approach with lead, mercury, di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, DHP, and other hazardous chemicals, we will do a much better job of protecting Canadians and their environment.
A few other recommendations in the submission relate to perfluorinates. One is that virtual elimination needs to be fixed in the act so that highly toxic substances, particularly those that are persistent, biocumulative and inherently toxic can be eliminated. Another is that the need to calculate the minimum measurable level, or the level of quantification, should be removed from the act and the option to use prohibitions should be available, as is being done with PFOS.
Also, there are regions that are more at risk from chemicals like perfluorinates, such as the North, due to long-range northern transport, and CEPA should allow for the designation of significant areas that need extra care, such as the North or the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River Basin.
Ms. Cooper will conclude for us.
Kathleen Cooper, Senior Researcher, CELA, Pollution Watch: I provided the clerk today with a copy of Child Health and the Environment — A Primer, which was produced by the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment. The book provides a briefing on a complex topic. It was written to give people such as you, the media, researchers and policy-makers a sense of the breadth and depth of this large and rapidly growing field about which you have heard much today, in order to put some context around discussions about mercury and perfluorinates.
The basic conclusion that the partners have reached in the context of multiple chemical exposures for children is that children are more vulnerable and there is a great deal of uncertainty, complexity and high-stakes risks in terms of the health effects about which we are concerned. We have concluded that it is prudent to take a precautionary approach in response, and there are many ways in which that response can be taken, including the various recommendations we have made.
You have probably heard that some chemicals do not qualify under the CEPA regulation as biocumulative. I raise this point because, in your review of CEPA, I submit that it is entirely within your purview to consider that flaw in the regulation. If these chemicals, which are well recognized as biocumulative and persistent, do not meet the definition of bioaccumulation, there is a problem with the definition and it would be entirely reasonable for you to recommend that the definition be corrected. These chemicals do not satisfy the definition because they do not accumulate in fat: They accumulate in flesh.
Other examples here support this point. Deca brominated flame retardant is increasingly recognized as bioaccumulative. Other chemicals are in the same category. The problem is with the definition, not the fact that chemicals are not a problem.
So you know we are up to date in the description of virtual elimination, in the submission we mention that this mechanism has been used for only one substance. As you may be aware, with the new Chemicals Management Plan proposed in December, either two or three more chemicals this month will go on the virtual elimination list. That is progress, and it is good that is happening. Out of 22,000, it is modest progress.
The other thing modest about that progress is that these chemicals have been largely withdrawn — they are not being used — and the scientific information base for the chemicals is rock-solid. They are known hazards. We do not need to elaborate further or gather more evidence to be sure.
I like to describe this progress as similar to banning matches in a child care centre. It is the right thing to do, but it does not accomplish much in the regulatory sense. The same thing is true with the deca flame retardants. With respect to their omission in the ban, there is some movement, but the movement is to regulate the status quo. The ban gives the impression that some things are happening a little bit, but it is absolutely not enough.
In terms of buttressing the point about virtual elimination, the Chemicals Management Program adds that sort of additional accuracy, but it also supports the notion that it needs to be interpreted more broadly. It needs to be used more effectively than it has been.
I want to drive home the point about looking at the progress that has been made in the Pest Control Products Act and the various measures that were put in there. It was a long hard process to accomplish that.
The senior civil servants in Health Canada describe those measures as the new benchmark in Canada in terms of regulating toxic substances. Let us meet that benchmark in terms of the recommendations made with respect to changing CEPA. If the changes to the Pest Control Products Act is the new benchmark, then that sounds to me like what you need to recommend for CEPA in the various ways we have suggested.
The Chairman: Ms. Cole, I want to make sure we understand what the landscape is here. Several witnesses we heard in previous meetings, including Dr. Mabury who was described to us as the Wayne Gretzky of PFOS, and speaking strictly about perfluorinated compounds, he agreed that if they were found to be a health hazard, we should do something about them. However, they have not been found to be a health hazard. Can someone tell us whether they are a health hazard or not?
Ms. Cole: We have come a long way in the world in using science to help us in many ways. I think we are at a point now where it is questionable sometimes as to how much we look to science to prove everything. We have thrown the baby out with the bathwater and we are not looking at precaution. We are not using common sense to the degree we used to.
Personally, this class of chemicals is worrisome. As you heard from our submissions, my colleague and I feel there is enough evidence of harm that we should call for a ban on this complete class of chemicals.
They have been in use since the late 1940s. We are only now beginning to look at possible human health effects. It is not that they are not a problem. The problem is that we have not done enough science. We have not done enough research to prove they are a problem in humans.
The animal studies that have been done indicate there is a problem. We started off thinking they are a problem because they are in the livers of polar bears in the North. We found that out because those tissues are the ones that are most plentiful. When people began to look further, they saw that the people in the South have the same levels as the people in the North, and it is because of their daily exposures.
We expanded the view to include chemicals in general because the problem is multiple chemical exposures. This is not to take away from this whole class of PFCs, but we must not lose sight of the fact that it is the totality of exposures that are getting us down.
The Chairman: We know they are there. What is the harm they do? We know they are not supposed to be there. We know they are not in our blood naturally, and we know we would rather they were not there, but what is the harm they do?
Mr. Purdy: At the lowest concentrations we have tested and probably lower, they cause the thymus gland to degrade. They also affect the thyroid. We do not know what all that means.
Yes, they have effects and they are out there. The hypothesis is they cause harm. When people jump on board, it is like the theory of the sun coming up every day: Some people need to see the sun come up twice to jump on the theory and other people wait hundreds of days to be sure. It is never actually proven. It is when you choose to accept the data. Some of us have chosen to see the handwriting on the wall now, and others want more proof.
Senator Spivak: From what I understand, the bioaccumulative stuff has not really been studied, so how do we know what the health hazard is if we have not looked at that aspect?
Mr. Purdy: The health studies have looked at the substances that the bioaccumulative stuff breaks down into. There are some studies on the precursors, the alcohols. I do not remember that data offhand, but there is data.
I mentioned the C4 acids earlier. There are studies on those chemicals, and they are surprisingly more toxic than we would have expected. I cannot compare the C4 acids studies to PFOS studies. The doses administered to the animals were different. I think they administered doses by forcing it down their throats. In the other studies on PFOS, they administered doses in the food, so it is difficult to make a comparison between the studies.
The Chairman: We heard that the precursors are a problem by themselves because we do not know what happens to them when they come together.
Senator Cochrane: Dr. Purdy, would you tell us a little bit about the work you do?
Mr. Purdy: Right now, I am a freelance toxicologist. I worked for three years with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, doing risk assessment in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I worked for 3M for 19 years. I have been on my own. I mostly do studies through the literature right now. I stopped doing laboratory work when I left a post- doctoral position. Since then, I have been using computational chemistry to predict the toxicity base.
Senator Cochrane: You said that the Pest Control Products Act has special provisions to ensure that children are adequately protected. The PCPA requires the use of special safety factors in risk assessments to account for children's vulnerability. Can you elaborate on these factors? What do they entail? How would you like to see such a tool incorporated into CEPA?
Mr. Khatter: If I may, senator, you are speaking to the points that we made.
Senator Cochrane: Dr. Khatter, please proceed.
Mr. Khatter: The tradition of having an extra safety factor for children originated with the Food Quality Protection Act in the United States and was brought into the Pest Control Products Act in Canada. When we look at animal research and try to figure out how relevant it is to humans, some uncertainty factors are added so that we take care of the difference between rats and humans, for instance, and the difference in how vulnerable different people are to different substances. We know in certain cases with certain chemicals that the vulnerability of a child or fetus can be a thousand times greater than that of an adult, in part because of the stage of development they are at and in part because of their lack of defences. The extra safety factor is meant to ensure that we adequately protect the fetus and the child.
Senator Cochrane: Do you know the specific chemicals?
Mr. Khatter: Lead is a good example of a substance that is highly toxic for everyone but is more toxic for a child and a developing fetus. As the years go by, we find more and more that the toxic level is lower than we think.
Ms. Cooper: Adding extra safety factors is also a way of addressing the fact that we have enormous amounts of uncertainty. It came from the debate about whether risk assessment is an adequate tool to resolve the concerns about the greater vulnerability of children to pesticides. It was a compromise between a number of approaches, and it is not perfect. Other child protective aspects of the Pest Control Products Act buttress the approach of aggregating the exposure of chemicals in a class, such as the organophosphates that Dr. Purdy mentioned. We recommend a number of elements of the Pest Control Products Act, including that safety-factor-approach, to address the greater vulnerability of children and to include the elements of the precautionary approach that has been incorporated into the Pest Control Products Act.
Ms. Cole: We are having an anthropocentric discussion. We are examining the nature of provable human health impact but CEPA is in place to protect the health of not only human beings but also the health of the entire environment. In this century, we are realizing beyond the shadow of a doubt the interconnectedness of all things. To know that these things are this problematic, that they can be measured in the tissues of so many forms of wildlife and in the environment in general, and that they have the kind of impact Mr. Purdy told us about, even pertaining to global warming, should be sufficient for us to act. That is what precaution is all about. We are having a truly live discussion about precaution.
The Chairman: Precaution is an important part of CEPA, as you have pointed out.
Senator Cochrane: Dr. Purdy, you responded to Senator Spivak's question on PFOS being designated CEPA-toxic for environmental risk but not for human risk. You said that CEPA did not have all the data but we do have efficient scientists with CEPA. I am surprised to hear you say that they do not have sufficient data.
Mr. Purdy: I did not say they do not have sufficient data. Rather, I said that the data they chose from the studies is not the data that I would have chosen from the studies. They chose the ninety-fifth percentile to look at, whereas I would have chosen the level in the person who had the highest level. The data is the same and all of it is there but the number they used is different from the number I would use, which reflects the precautionary principle. Which number do we take? Do we take the average? Do we take the ninety-fifth percentile or do we take the number from the highest impacted individual? That is another level of the precautionary principle. It is used mostly in the area of management but it is also used in the science of risk assessment.
Senator Milne: All of you have agreed on two things: first, the precautionary principle; and second, to take another look at giving a public interest override to CEPA. In particular, you spoke to the public's right to know overriding the company's right to keep their formulae secret. Certainly, this is something for us to think about. Dr. Purdy, perhaps you could talk about that concept, having worked for 3M.
I was interested in what you said about 21st century disease. When I asked that question, it was dismissed out-of- hand by the witnesses that were before us. I am interested in the fact that you said this disease could well be part of the cumulative effect of these various chemicals. Was the thymus gland simply atrophied or was it completely destroyed in these test monkeys?
Mr. Purdy: It was not completely destroyed. The term used was ``atrophied.''
Senator Milne: These monkeys were not young.
Mr. Purdy: That is right. The study compared them to the control animals who were not given PFOS.
Senator Milne: You spoke about cumulative risk assessment. I do not believe that any accumulated risk assessment has been done to date with the shorter chain molecules that 3M has developed and is using in some of these substances. Are any studies being done on the shorter chain substances?
Mr. Purdy: I know of no studies, although there are studies to do added toxicity, which I suggested many years ago. No one has done any of those studies. I forgot to mention that accumulated risk assessment has been used for other substances such as polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, and the hundreds of dioxin compounds, including organophosphates. Their toxicity varies so they are calculated as an equivalency and compared to one standard. That is how those risk assessments are approached.
Senator Milne: As the chairman pointed out, Dr. Mabury was before us and said that there does not seem to be any problem with the shorter chain fluorocarbons. I understand from what Dr. Purdy tells us that they are not known to be bioaccumulative because nobody has tested for them.
Mr. Purdy: Dr. Mabury was talking about the likelihood in an ecosystem like the northern ecosystem. He does not address the human side. His focus is elsewhere. In the context of his testimony and his studies, he is correct, but it looks like there could be a problem in the human area. I mention these because we need to review them before we say they are okay out of hand.
Senator Milne: Dr. Mabury also spoke about the excess molecules in carpet treatments. He felt that removing the excess molecules removed the danger because the bonds are so strong that the others are held.
Mr. Purdy: I do not think that is true. I read the testimony, and I do not remember him saying that. I think he mentioned that the bonds holding them onto the polymer can be broken. They are ester bonds. If you know chemical reactions, there are arrows that say, ``These bond to that and they do not bond the other way.'' Esters go back and forth. They are made and broken. How fast they break is sped up with heat, more acid, more base, and enzymes. There are hundreds of esterases. I got my Ph.D. isolating the first esterase that worked on polymers.
Dr. Mabury did say there are other ways to bond the molecule to the backbone so it will not likely come off, and many of us have been saying that for a long time. He mentioned, I believe, ethers. If they were held onto the backbone with ethers, they would not likely come off. There are other bonds that you can tie that to.
Senator Milne: In other words, if these excess molecules are removed and the others are properly bonded, they might become safe?
Mr. Purdy: Yes: For the substances that are out there now, we do not know, if we take all those excess molecules off, how fast the esters start breaking, because I do not believe anyone has done that research. I was pounding the table at EPA meetings to have industry do that, and I do not know if they have started yet.
The Chairman: Ms. Cole has a further response. I want to remind us all, including me, because I was the first offender, and I have been reminded by persons wiser than me, that although this stuff is interesting, the question before us is, is CEPA effective in dealing with these substances. What they are and what they do is another question.
Ms. Cole: I would say no, I do not think CEPA is effective enough. The act is a good start. Personally, I feel the act is missing teeth, and that is the point of this review.
You started off by commenting on what I said about the public right to know. I want you to know the weight with which I bring that to the table. The Canadian Environmental Network, which represents over 800 environmental groups across the country, met in Toronto late last January, and those of us at the table were mostly at that meeting to look at the whole question of CEPA. The public right to know was one of the things that was most discussed in the room that day, and how to move forward this agenda of people needing to know more about what is going on. I mention in my submission that I am troubled by the devolving of responsibility to the individual to figure out what to consume and what not to consume, and the public is not really happy with that situation either.
You spoke about 20th century disease. We first heard about multiple chemical sensitivities being called 20th century disease back in the early- to mid-1980s, and that was because people were becoming really ill. They talked about people having to live in bubbles and all this kind of thing. People were becoming ill, and they did not know what to call this whole thing so they called it 20th century disease. Then they started calling it environmental illness. Now it is mostly called multiple chemical sensitivities. It definitely relates to the totality of exposure, and PFCs absolutely would fit into that ballpark of total exposures.
I mentioned that in Halifax we have done a lot of things to reduce the load, one of which is that we are building environmentally healthy schools. In so doing, we have reduced the load of PFCs mainly by not having any carpets in those buildings and not having any upholstered furniture in those buildings.
I also mentioned in my speaking notes that one of the bizarre places that PFCs can be found is in asthma inhalers. When children come to school with asthma inhalers, they leave them at the office. If they need them, they know they can find them there. In the healthy schools, hardly any of the children need their inhalers because they do not have all the chemical incitements that bring on asthma attacks.
Ms. Cooper: In the interests of bringing this issue back to PFOS, as an illustration of CEPA and issues with respect to its implementation and revision, I make the point that whether we talk about the short chain chemicals, which we know less about, or the troubling, emerging evidence about the chemicals we are talking about today, we are talking about the notion of evaluating them first before they go on the market, which is the reverse onus notion. These chemicals should be evaluated before we run an uncontrolled experiment on children, which is what is happening in society with all these chemical exposures when they are allowed to be on the market before they are evaluated for safety.
We also need to do cumulative assessments and review an entire group of chemicals that appear to act with a common mechanism of toxicity. As well, the issue is one of timelines in terms of illustrating issues with respect to CEPA because this regulation all happens far too slowly. Finally, the major source of these chemicals in our lives and homes in terms of exposure to children is in consumer products.
We raised all those issues in this submission with respect to whether CEPA is doing the job, has done the job and how it can be improved. All those points are relevant with respect to the chemicals we know a little more about, and even more so with respect to your example of the short chain ones, yet another group of chemicals of emerging concern. I wanted to bring it back to the various points that were made in terms of what you can do in terms of making recommendations about CEPA.
Ms. Madray: To add to Ms. Cooper's recommendations and the points she has made, what she has said is pretty much exactly what we have been faced with. We have PFCs, we have other toxins that we deal with on an everyday basis, and these chemicals must be addressed in a more timely fashion.
The problem with CEPA is, how do we look after all the toxins that we have allowed for X number of years as compared to those that will become the new substances, the new substances versus the substances on the domestic list? How will we deal with all those toxins in a manner that will reduce our toxic load as soon as possible? That includes PFCs.
We feel, as Dr. Purdy mentioned, that there is enough evidence to reduce or ban some of these substances. I know what the act describes to make something come off the market, virtual elimination, is not feasible right now. The act must be changed.
We are concerned with not only this one category but all these toxins that we are faced with on an everyday basis, and the points made by Ms. Cooper are what most of us think about on a daily basis. How can we encourage the government to react and do these things in a timely fashion?
Senator Mitchell: In response to Ms. Cole's comment, if CEPA has holes and is not up to the task, is there anything in the clean air act that will fill those holes or do we need to do more? Have you studied the clean air act?
Ms. Cole: More than that is needed to be done. The clean air act has taken over the whole environmental agenda. Of course we all need to breathe, and clean air is essential. What will we do about what is happening in the fisheries, the forests and all the other parts of the environment?
Senator Mitchell: It does not supplement CEPA?
Ms. Cole: CEPA needs to be tougher in so many ways and the challenge for people who write the act is to reflect some of these things. New chemicals come on the market all the time. Meanwhile, this figure of 70,000 chemicals is widely used. In fact, the figure is on the conservative side. We often hear numbers in the 80,000 and 90,000 ranges. Meanwhile, 700 are being introduced in Canada alone. Canada is responsible for only two per cent of the world market in production of chemicals. We need to slow down the introduction of new chemicals radically, while we deal with the ones we already have. We need to look at the ones we already have, identify the ones we know to be carcinogenic, look the ones we suspect to be carcinogenic, look at the ones we know to be hormone-mimicking, et cetera, and get a grip on that information. If we want to encourage new things, encourage things that are non-toxic and natural. That is what the public seeks. When members of the public go into the store, they do not want to spend two hours reading little labels and trying to figure out whether something is good or not. Then they go home and find the label still does not tell them all that is in there.
Ms. Cooper: In response to the question about the clean air act, the focus is different. The act needs some of the things we have discussed. It will amend CEPA to a certain extent, maybe to make truly Canada-wide standards and to make them standards in terms of air pollution and addressing smog forming air pollutants. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen. It does not address consumer products in a way that this issue screams for. What we have recommended in terms of what needs to happen with CEPA is to use it and strengthen it in a way that can address these concerns.
This is an illustration for your review. It is one of many examples of emerging concerns about consumer products resulting in contaminants indoors, in our homes, for which children are more highly exposed and vulnerable.
Senator Milne: I wish to bring Mr. Khatter up-to-date. We had a witness before us last Thursday regarding your point number five, vulnerable ecosystems and that CEPA explicitly take an ecosystem approach, with the North and other areas being vulnerable, including my own Great Lakes basin. You should know that the Canada-Ontario agreement about the Great Lakes basin ecosystem is due to expire next month in March. There has been no progress from the federal side whatsoever about renewing or extending the agreement. We were told that there is disarray within the department and the department has done absolutely nothing. Environment Canada is the lead federal department on renewing that agreement. I know three Ontario ministries are involved and have already started work on the agreement, and they are ready to go, but nothing is coming from the federal government at all.
Mr. Khatter: Our submission purposely is brief in terms of the different sections, but it includes some things we would like to see in CEPA. As you said in the preamble, CEPA takes an ecosystem approach and then after that, there is no ecosystem approach. We would like to see separate sections for ecosystems like the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence River basin that are important, but we think the act should be explicit that it implements the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement. It should be explicit as to what its relationship is to the Canada-Ontario agreement as well.
The Chairman: CEPA should do that?
Mr. Khatter: Yes.
Senator Milne: That is their recommendation number five.
Senator Tkachuk: It is a complicated subject. I will stay away from the basin and of course, the previous question. I want the go to the question before us, which is CEPA itself. Would scientific analysis have prevented perfluorinated substances from going on the market in the 1940s, since they did not know anything about them or their effects until the 1990s? Would CEPA have prevented that product from getting onto the marketplace?
Mr. Purdy: It would not because it was a different understanding and a different time.
Senator Tkachuk: It was a different time because it was a new substance and it was still science. It was not the science of the 1990s or the science of the 21st century, but it was the science of the 1940s. The science of today is not the science of 2050. I only ask the question: the testing of new products in the marketplace today may show that the product is okay but 30, 50 or 60 years from now testing may show there are a few problems with that product. Is that not the way it would normally work?
Mr. Khatter: It is not just a question of whether the science is done and how well the science is done, but rather it is a question of whether an evaluation is done at all before something enters the market. What has happened now both for pesticides and chemicals is we have changed —
Senator Tkachuk: By whom?
Mr. Khatter: By the government.
Senator Tkachuk: You want the government to do an evaluation of every chemical that goes into the marketplace by any company in North America or by any company in Canada?
Mr. Khatter: That is what we are doing right now. Since CEPA 1999 came in, there is a new substance notification, and about 800 substances go onto the market in Canada every year. Every one needs a submission of data saying, here is our package of data showing the product is safe to go onto the market. We applaud that. The data set is a bit small, but we applaud the fact that we have finally come to our senses and have made this cultural shift that says, they cannot put something out there until it has been evaluated by the government. However, what do we do with all these other chemicals we have not yet evaluated? As long as the science is not there, and as long as we do not know there is a problem, they can remain in the market. What we think is similar to the revaluations with pesticides, and that is, there needs to be an approach to tackle this legacy of other chemicals on the market.
Senator Tkachuk: Ms. Cooper, earlier you said that only two substances were banned and out of 23,000. Do you want them all banned?
Ms. Cooper: No.
Senator Tkachuk: Why did you bring up the 23,000?
Ms. Cooper: I wanted to correct the fact that the tool of virtual elimination has been used once. There has been a recent announcement of using it for two additional chemicals. The point I was making is that the tool has been employed when something has largely been withdrawn already and those withdrawals or decisions not to use those chemicals have been made because there is overwhelmingly strong scientific evidence that they are a serious health risk or known health risk. This is why those chemicals stopped being used.
The tool is great as far as it goes, but it does not go far and it is not a precautionary response to a world of multiple chemical exposures, high stakes risks associated with a lot of them and a climate of incomplete information. However, what is the alternative? Are we to use it, and continue to run what is essentially an uncontrolled experiment?
We have the notion that taking a precautionary response in the face of incomplete information is only to be better safe than sorry with some things that look like they are a problem and for which we do not have full information about the health outcome. We will never have that information. We will not have it until we have exposed a huge population and measured effects. We used that approach with lead and gasoline. We measured the hazard of lead by exposing millions of children. Then we had a 30-year scientific debate about whether that low-level exposure was a problem for kids. After 30 years of debating, we said, yes it is a problem. Meanwhile, we exposed all those children.
We, as a society, used that approach of reacting after. We have 26 per cent of children in Canada with one or more learning or behavioural problems. We have clear evidence of a relationship between lead exposure and those kinds of effects. We have concerns about many more chemicals that may contribute to those learning or behavioral outcomes. There are large numbers of children in the population and we are not sure of the cause, but we have troubling information about potentially neurotoxic chemicals that may contribute to that. That problem is serious when you look at those kinds of numbers.
Senator Tkachuk: I am trying to find information. I am not trying to be argumentative.
Ms. Cooper: Sorry, I become a little exited about lead.
Senator Tkachuk: I noticed that, but we all grew up with lead so it obviously was not fatal to everyone.
Ms. Cooper: It is not a matter of fatal. We are not talking mortality, we are talking morbidity.
Senator Tkachuk: You are talking about the children of today. Lead was banned before the children of today.
Ms. Cole, earlier you said that it is not only a science. We should take preventive measures. I am not sure what you are asking for. Should we make guesstimates on the basis of what we think we know to prevent substances from entering the marketplace, or should we wait for conclusive scientific evidence that the product should not be in the marketplace? I am not sure what you were getting at. Do you mean both and if so, how do you differentiate?
Ms. Cole: I do mean both in a way.
Senator Tkachuk: That is what I thought you meant.
Ms. Cole: I did begin to address the problem that we have now with new substances. We are making progress in this country. I have acknowledged that the chemicals categorization exercise that we have recently been through is excellent. However, we still allow, and will allow unless we do something about it, hundreds and hundreds of new chemicals to come on the market. Our discussion here today indicates that we want to expand the time to assess new chemicals from 90 days. Even if we expand it to 100 days or a year, the period of time is still short.
I go back to my earlier point that we need to slow down drastically the introduction of new chemicals onto the market. We have had a best practices initiative. We need a best product initiative. We have so many products already, I think we need to start categorizing products and looking at what we need and do not need. We should think about not letting new products and substances on the market unless we can be very sure they are safe.
Senator Tkachuk: We are never sure. We are only sure by what we know today.
Ms. Cole: No, but we can be more sure than we have been in the past.
Senator Tkachuk: We can also be wrong.
Ms. Cole: We need to err on the side of caution.
Senator Tkachuk: Can something be toxic and not harmful?
Ms. Cole: I do not know.
Senator Tkachuk: Do we live with toxic products in our bodies that are not harmful? We must all have something.
Mr. Purdy: I can answer that. All substances are toxic in some dose. An old adage is, dose makes the poison, but there are different types of toxicities. All substances are toxic in at least one form and that is the mechanism of narcosis. That is when you go to sleep but you can come back — ethanol, anesthetics and ether — all chemicals have that level of toxicity.
Some chemicals have another level of toxicity that we never see. They are more toxic: for example, they are reactive. The question should be to determine the type of toxicities we are worried about rather than whether the substance is toxic.
Ms. Madray: To add to Ms. Cole's comment, we have products in the market that are toxic and then new substances that are coming in that need to be assessed. Here, we see industry and chemical companies being capable of interacting with the government at stakeholder meetings to help with risk, not necessarily risk assessment because these companies should have supplied all the information to the government for a proper risk assessment. However, the companies could be instrumental in working with the reduction of risk and risk management so that we can reduce the risk the public faces with all the chemicals on the market right now that are in Canadian commerce.
Hopefully, the new substances will be taken care of and the provisions that will be made under CEPA should reduce our risk all along. Not only is management of risk important, but also risk reduction, and ensuring that the reduction of risk is done in a timely fashion and as well as possible.
It is important for industry to be involved all the way through this process. In that way, hopefully, they can also increase their research and development. It is an incentive for them to put out new products on the market that are a lot safer for all of us.
Mr. Khatter: It is confusing because there are many definitions of toxic but CEPA uses a conservative definition of toxic. CEPA does nothing about a substance that could be harmful, but is in our bodies in small enough amounts that we do not think it causes a problem. CEPA only acts when we think the exposure is high enough that it could cause a problem. That definition of toxic is used in CEPA. It is a risk definition, CEPA toxic, as we call it.
When we now ask industry to submit data before they put something on the market, it is a way of saying that if we use the product and expose people to it in this amount, show us that it will not cause a problem before you do that.
Senator Tkachuk: We talked about the products that were brought out in the 1940s, and 50 years later, we find problems with them. How would reverse onus work? Would industry need to show something when the products came out in the marketplace? You brought that up, Mr. Khatter, so perhaps you can explain how that would work with the introduction of new products?
Mr. Khatter: With the introduction of new substances, sir?
Senator Tkachuk: I would think, unless you made it retroactive.
Mr. Khatter: I will talk about it in both contexts then. In the context of new substances, to a certain degree, we have a reverse onus now. We expect manufacturers and importers to come to us with data that is complete. Again, there are gaps in the data but data that is complete that demonstrates relative safety in order for us to be okay with the product coming on the market.
For substances already on the market, the government's recent Chemicals Management Plan is an example of how the reverse onus can be done. With the first 200 substances, they are saying these substances are bioaccumulative, they are persistent and they are inherently toxic. The onus is now on industry to show that these things are safe enough to be in use and if the substances are not, we will establish them as toxic and we will do something about them.
The Chairman: Does that solve problem? You talked about a new policy that came into effect in December 2006. Is it working and if it works, does that solve the problem?
Ms. Cooper: We do not know yet.
Mr. Khatter: We are still at the beginning. It is a limited policy because it applies only to a certain number of substances, and not to the whole list. It is first ones first. We think, to a certain degree, it is positive but we would like to see it entrenched. It is a policy, it could change after the next election, but if it was in CEPA as an approach for how we deal, a batch at a time, with the rest of the legacy of chemicals then we think the approach will be positive.
The Chairman: Does it deal with the most worrisome subjects that are on the domestic substances list?
Mr. Khatter: To a certain degree, it deals with the substances that are considered most worrisome based on a certain set of criteria — persistence, bioaccumulation and inherent toxicity. However, I think Dr. Purdy would say that criteria are almost missed that were not necessarily part of that categorization, for instance, is it carcinogenic or is it a hormone disruptor.
Senator Tkachuk: I have two short questions about the monkeys. When the monkeys were exposed to PFOS, did they receive dosages in quick and serious amounts like they do with rats when they test for cancer — they plug them full of stuff real fast — while it would take a human a long time to accumulate that same amount?
Mr. Purdy: There was a certain dose per day. I believe they were dosed daily with a certain amount. I do not recall the study though.
Senator Tkachuk: This is important, though.
Mr. Purdy: Yes.
Senator Tkachuk: This is important to the information you gave us, right?
Mr. Purdy: Independent of how the animals receive the doses, it is special to be able to look at the amount in the blood and compare it to how much is in blood some place else. Most risk assessments are based on the doses given, not the level in the body. Therefore, we look at the level in the body independent of how it was dosed.
Senator Tkachuk: If you have information on the actual study, can you table it with us or let us know how we can access it so we know exactly what the parameters of the study were and what the results were?
Mr. Purdy: I can send you the study. It is several hundred pages.
Senator Tkachuk: What happened to the monkeys?
Mr. Purdy: Some monkeys died.
Senator Tkachuk: What did they die of, the thyroid problem?
Mr. Purdy: No, they received higher doses. I believe one death was spontaneous, as I recall, and one was put away because it was suffering. That is vague recall. I do not recall everything about the study. It has been a few years since I have read it. When I reported to you I remembered the numbers, not all the particulars of the study.
The Chairman: Senator Tkachuk, are we sure we want the study given the nature of the question we are asking? We are not asking, did PFOS kill the monkeys, but if it did kill the monkeys, does CEPA work to do something about that? It is a big fat study? We can get it, but it is daunting reading.
Senator Tkachuk: I only asked for information to back up what Mr. Purdy was saying and he was not able to do that because he does not remember some of the aspects of the study. Whether he sends a memo to us to update us or whether we find a way to obtain that information, it seems to me that if we are not cognizant of exactly how the information was arrived at, then we do not know whether it is valid or not.
The Chairman: What we want to know is the dose question as opposed to the study. Am I right?
Senator Tkachuk: Yes, I would like to have a good idea of exactly how the dose was administered, over what time period and how that would compare to what a human being would inhale over time.
The Chairman: Would that be easy to extrapolate, Dr. Purdy?
Mr. Purdy: It would take some time but I can do it.
The Chairman: We would with grateful if you would do that and send the information to the clerk so our members can have it.
Senator Spivak: This information has been clarifying for me and I am grateful to you. However, I have a comment to make before I go into the CEPA question.
One thing you pointed out here is that we are not talking toxic here. Lime is toxic and it needs to be used. We are talking here about consumer products, which are used on a daily basis by human beings. That question is a different because we do not need to ban everything. It is a question of use. Is that not the case?
A book, Cradle to Cradle, written by an eminent architect and a chemist, said that if we had to think of a toxic society we could not have achieved it as well as it happened.
I want to know about reverse onus. First, it seems to me that if 800 substances a year are coming to the government, it is probably not easy for the government to evaluate them. You have it in your written presentation but you have not told us exactly what form of amendment we could use to strengthen the reverse onus in CEPA. What would the wording be and in what section? Do you have that information at your fingertips?
Ms. Cooper: We can certainly provide that information. I do not have it at my fingertips. There are two ways to respond to your question. First, we are already combing through CEPA and preparing suggested amendments to accomplish all the various objectives we talked about.
The Chairman: I want to interrupt because we do not expect you to be legislative drafters.
Ms. Cooper: We want to be.
The Chairman: Okay, sorry.
Senator Spivak: I understand that. I want a clearer idea because it is complicated.
Ms. Cooper: It is, but there is a model already in the Pest Control Products Act. Pesticides can be used to illustrate a number of things. First, we are not allowed to use a pesticide until it has been evaluated, which is different from being able to put things on the market in terms of the past. We also re-evaluate the ones that were allowed in during the 1940s, 1950s or whenever, under different circumstances. The whole battery of required tests has been modernized.
With respect to pesticides, the tests have been modernized with respect to the children's health concerns, accumulative effects and all those things we have suggested. In respect to CEPA, we suggest that the act be modernized in the same way as the PCPA, using that benchmark notion.
The notion needs to be enshrined in law that we do things with the greatest integrity that we have been able to establish, of which reverse onus is one. The process that happens there is industry is required to do a range of tests if they want to register a pesticide or a new substance. Yes, the chemical comes into the government and the government evaluates it, which is a daunting task for sure when we talk about the numbers we are talking about here. A useful comparison can be made though, again, with pesticides and these chemicals. The Pest Management Regulatory Agency has close to 300 scientists who work on this evaluation. We do not have that same kind of complement in Health Canada and Environment Canada addressing a far larger number of chemicals.
A greater amount of money is put towards it, which is a valuable part of the Chemicals Management Plan, but in terms of modernizing this whole approach, that is certainly part of it.
The other important point to make about reverse onus is that, yes, industry should do that according to the laboratory practices and the battery of tests that are needed to evaluate the range of health effects. However, the government evaluators also need to look at the independent, peer-reviewed scientific literature that Dr. Purdy and other people generated, and then they take a weight of evidence approach. They do not look only at what industry generates, but the burden has shifted in a substantial way towards those who seek to benefit from the introduction of these chemicals.
I went off on a tangent here, and I will get back to the book you mentioned and the desire to move also towards an inherently safe situation.
Senator Spivak: It is sane.
Ms. Cooper: Yes, it is sane. Another aspect of making decisions about re-evaluation or lower risk, or needing to come up with other alternatives when we recognize serious risks, is the notion of substitution and enshrining the notion that, when industry must come up with something different, the alternative should be inherently safer.
If that notion is enshrined in law, the technology forces it and makes things happen that would not happen otherwise, necessarily.
Senator Spivak: You make the point that CEPA, while having moved, is still not strong enough in this area. It is still not strong enough about reverse onus, and we need to look at something better.
It is also a question of rights. It is a strong conservative principle, but individual rights are important, probably more important than manufacturers' rights, so manufacturers need to prove that what they are selling is safe enough.
It is absolutely feasible for manufacturers to do that, and I am thinking of the carpet manufacturer — I forget the company name, but his name is Anderson — who not only cut emissions by 50 per cent but increased profits by 50 per cent.
I want to ask about the health issue and what Mr. Purdy brought up. This question goes back to the ecosystem approach. Human beings eat animals. If animals are contaminated, it is only common sense that human beings will be contaminated. What is this business about saying it is not healthy for animals, but it is healthy for human beings? You made a different kind of analysis, but can you comment on this basic analysis?
Mr. Purdy: You are correct: Some of us do eat animal flesh. These chemicals bind to albumin in blood, and they bind to proteins in liver, but we do not know which ones. Not a lot of the chemicals are in the muscles. The amount there is probably because of the blood left there. Those two tissues are dominant, by huge margins, over other tissues. The chemicals will be in the muscles, but not nearly in as high concentrations.
Senator Milne: It was pointed out by one of our witnesses, though, and you alluded to it, that the reason the chemical is not as high in humans as it is in polar bears is because they eat nothing but meat and we eat other things as well as meat.
Senator Spivak: I want also to address the ecosystem issue. It is in the preamble of the act, but you suggest that is not strong enough to look at CEPA and the ecosystem question. It strikes me that the question is huge. How can you use CEPA to protect ecosystems?
Mr. Khatter: As you say, the preamble of the act mentions that CEPA is supposed to take an ecosystem approach. When we look at the rest of the act, it is hard to tell how CEPA takes an ecosystem approach. We recommended that the way CEPA can take an ecosystem approach is to look at areas that need more care or attention.
Senator Spivak: Does that mean areas such as the Great Lakes?
Mr. Khatter: Yes, that means areas such as the Great Lakes and the North. There should be opportunities within the act for the minister to designate those areas as significant and to ask for extra monitoring, reporting and funding to deal with those areas, so that we do not give them special privileges but we even out the privileges and bring them up to speed with the rest of the country.
Senator Spivak: These areas involve a huge number of networks. Protecting the Great Lakes means protecting ships that come in, and it means the manufacturers. You suggest, then, that the government look at these particular areas in some way and designate them as worthy of extra monitoring or something like that. Is that what are you saying?
Mr. Khatter: Sure, and we can give you more specific details, but also we need to recognize the way that the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the Canada-Ontario Agreement have recognized that this important area needs international cooperation and special care in dealing with the pollution levels there.
I do not know if this issue has come up yet in this round, but the situation around Sarnia and the native communities there is a good example of the kind of extra contamination and the health impacts we are seeing in the Great Lakes.
Senator Spivak: All I meant is, there are other pieces of legislation that deal with that, so I wanted to know what, in particular, you were thinking of for CEPA.
Regarding the clean air act, I asked the officials to tell us exactly what the clean air act has recommended in relation to CEPA, and the differences and similarities. I assume they have not yet responded.
The Chairman: They have not responded yet, but we anticipate they will.
Dr. Khatter mentioned that DuPont dumped 60,000 pounds of bad stuff into the Ohio River, but did they not stop doing that of their own volition?
Mr. Khatter: I do not think it was of their volition. I know that mostly from media reports. The question I raised is that before 2000, when they dumped this stuff in the river, they did it without taking the responsibility of figuring out whether it would cause harm. In 2000, the EPA said this stuff could be a problem, and when the lawsuits started, they stopped dumping it.
The Chairman: Until about then, nobody had any idea that PFOS, in particular, was even around or was the slightest problem because the means of finding these things was not yet in place. Is that right?
The point I make is what Senator Tkachuk talked about. When they started dumping that chemical, nobody knew it was a problem because the means of detection had not yet been determined. Do we understand that correctly?
Mr. Khatter: I am not sure, Mr. Chairman. I am not sure about the question as to whether they knew specifically that PFOA was one of the things they were dumping in the river at that time. However, in terms of stewardship and responsibility, if they dump stuff in the river, they should know what it is, where it goes and whether it will have any consequences, before the government comes along and says they cannot do this.
The Chairman: To use an example of the government not having come along, it may have been self-protection, but we were all ready to give 3M a medal a couple of weeks ago because the company stopped making Scotchgard of their own volition when they found out the stuff was bioaccumulative. Dr. Purdy, you were with 3M. Were you with 3M at that time?
Mr. Purdy: I had left about four months before that.
The Chairman: Darn, we could have given them a medal.
Mr. Purdy: I wanted them to do that for a while.
The Chairman: They did, and it is to their credit.
In 2004, the government used section 80 to section 89 of CEPA to stop the introduction of four new PFCs into Canada. Was the application of those provisions in CEPA as effective and as timely as we would have hoped? Is that one aspect of CEPA 1999 that now works, and it has been implemented and used effectively? Given Canada's experience using those sections of CEPA to stop the introduction of those new PFCs, do we need to talk about amending the legislation, or is it working fine?
Ms. Cooper: I need to consult with colleagues, but my understanding of the concerns we raised at the time was that they exempted products. A decision was made to put fluorotelomers in Schedule 1, but it did not apply to imported consumer products. That correction was made around PFOS in the recent announcements about the Chemicals Management Plan, which is one thing that Mr. Khatter mentioned in terms of good things we had to say about it.
Mr. Khatter: On the subject of good things we can say about it, fluorotelomers are a good example of how well the New Substance Notification Program can work. The fact that the company was required to submit data to show whether the stuff was safe enough allowed us to keep it from coming on the market when we needed to do that. The question about exempting consumer products seems to come up over and over with chemicals. The issue is partly a trade one, and the government is averse to dealing with the trade issue of blocking products into which chemicals are put in other countries.
The Chairman: Is that chemicals such as Teflon?
Mr. Khatter: Yes.
Ms. Cooper: The ones that have been excluded under the new regulations are products that do not present a barrier to trade because these products have been largely discontinued in any event. However, there is concern about use continuing in other countries where they are not necessarily sure whether it is happening, and it will enable stopping those chemicals at the border in imported consumer products. It is a low-risk choice to make in terms of trade barriers, but it is a good choice to make.
The Chairman: Does CEPA 1999 now contain mechanisms for moving substances from the Domestic Substances List to the Priority Substances List? If CEPA contains those provisions, are they fast and effective enough? Is they working fine? Does it make any difference?
Ms. Cooper: With the results of categorization, we are about to see how that works. The difficulty that I anticipate will arise is in the risk-assessment, risk- management continuum that will occur. The science-based decision that is made under risk assessment must go to cabinet. There is delay in the timelines. Negotiation must happen in the risk- management phase. There is deal-making and lack of transparency around that process, and it is my scientist versus yours. Those debates and machinations will take time, so we will see how that process works. In our submission, we recommend that clear timelines be put on that process.
Mr. Khatter: Outside of the categorization, there are other mechanisms for substances to reach the Priority Substances List, such as nominations from the public. If a restriction happens in another jurisdiction, the government can decide to put the substance on the Priority Substances List.
As Ms. Cooper said, one of our priorities is that at that point, they have five to seven years to do the assessment and to decide whether it is toxic or not, and we think that is too long, especially when another country has already restricted it.
Ms. Cooper: There is another issue there. Once the substance is on the toxic substances list, it does not necessarily mean that anything will happen, particularly with respect to consumer products. We still have a flood of lead- containing consumer products, even though lead was grandfathered as a toxic substance under CEPA in the early 1990s, without even having to be assessed. We have had a stream of consumer products containing lead, almost all imports, ever since. There has to be a connect between something being considered toxic under CEPA and the ability to put it into a consumer product.
The Chairman: How much attention should we pay to foreign jurisdictions having made some determination about a substance? If, for example, the EPA has said something about a substance, should we go through our whole seven-year process, or should we take what a foreign jurisdiction has determined into more account than we do, or do we already? Does that fast-track something?
Ms. Cooper: Sharing information is one of the objectives, I believe. It is a worthwhile objective internationally. We want to ensure that there are quality checks on the way the work is done, that there is good laboratory practice, an appropriate range of toxicity testing, et cetera. We want some quality control on the acceptance of information. At the same time, sharing information is valuable, and we do that with respect to pesticides.
Mr. Khatter: The mechanism is important because we sometimes find that we are falling behind other jurisdictions, particularly the European Union, where they have taken the precautionary approach of banning certain substances in soothers and children's toys. We have not done that and have basically waited until these products have gone off the market because of the actions of the European Union.
Likewise, there has been much action in Europe in getting certain chemicals out of cosmetics from which we have benefited but have not done the work. It is important that when these things happen in other countries we recognize that and do our own work to protect Canadians as well.
Senator Spivak: Does risk assessment negate the precautionary principle? There is a whole tension between precautionary principle and risk assessment, and risk assessment has been abused in some instances.
Ms. Cooper: You are right, it has been abused. When we have limited information, we do all kinds of guesswork, and the risk assessment process can be subject to all kinds of value judgments and problems. When we incorporate precautionary approaches right from the start and all the way through, such as reverse onus and other things, we can come up with a good outcome through the risk assessment process.
We do not want to get rid of the risk assessment exercise totally. We want to apply a precautionary approach, using weight of evidence, et cetera, right from the start and all the way through. It is not something that you add on at the end during the risk management phase, which is somewhat the way the precautionary approach is applied.
The Chairman: When a substance is imported and shows up in a consumer good, does the current assessment process under CEPA contemplate the entire life of that frying pan until it goes into the dump and degrades over time? We know that happens. Many problems can happen when precursors join together in circumstances that no one ever intended.
Ms. Cooper: That is where we want transparency in the process so that we can see whether that is happening. I should respond to that question by speaking to one area with which I have direct experience, which is lead in plastic mini-blinds. During the 1990s, it was one of the many consumer products containing lead.
In the Health Canada evaluation of the exposure potential for children in indoor environments, Health Canada looked at exposure incorrectly, in my opinion. They looked at the numbers. I cannot remember them, but the exposure level was completely inappropriate in terms of what a child would be exposed to, in both the levels chosen and the manner in which a child could be exposed potentially indoors.
They need to look at exposure all the way through that life cycle. To me, we have a significant problem in that area in terms of methods and data to evaluate it. We need to fill those gaps, but there must be that recognition of those products indoors. What happens to them indoors and in our home environments or when things are reused and they go into thrift stores? It is important to recognize a whole socio-economic dimension to this issue. A lot of these products are a legacy of indoor contamination.
If you think about lead in paint, to use another lead example, we still have a significant problem of lead in paint. Lead is still in 25 per cent of the old housing stock in Canada.
The Chairman: You are not talking about new paint?
Ms. Cooper: No, I am talking about the legacy. In terms of awareness of the breakdown of that paint during regular wear and tear and especially during renovations, you have a serious exposure risk for children and pregnant women. You must have good public education work for many more decades into the future. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation has good materials on that, so we have that constant awareness.
Think about that and think about polybrominated diphenyl ether, PBDE, and flame retardants. Everyone is sitting on flame retardants right now. All our homes and buildings are full of products with those chemicals. Those products break down and wear out over time in the way you suggest. The kind of exposure that results from that kind of breakdown must be part of that evaluation. In my opinion, that breakdown is not adequately accounted for.
When I add the socio-economic dimension, I am particularly concerned. Again, lead in paint is an issue of older housing stock, inability to maintain, bad landlords and greater exposure to low-income children. The same thing will happen as mattresses and furniture are reused. Poor children are more vulnerable and more exposed to environmental contaminants. This kind of legacy will continue into the future. That is why we need better regulation, but it is also part of that whole risk management strategy. We need public education and awareness about these risks so we can know about them and know how to avoid them.
Ms. Cole: I will make a few comments about the various things we have discussed in the last half hour.
First, we are in a different state now with the way we do business. After six decades of flooding the market with chemicals and thinking that we are enjoying better life through chemistry, we are waking up a little bit. We are starting to take stock and do something about it.
The ground is fertile among the population to make progressive moves now. The public is waiting for people in charge to come up with good legislation and do things that are protective. We are at a point where we cannot be crawling forward anymore. We need to leap forward. The next thing we know, we will be on the endangered species list if we do not watch out. We need to get a move on.
Before we give 3M a medal, one would do well to look into the history of the whole thing that happened with them. As it turns out, we knew about the human health effects of PFCs over 30 years ago, but the level of knowledge was low. A lot of information was suppressed back in those days because we were dancing along merrily, making new things and having a great time with chemistry. Information was suppressed because it was allowed to be.
In fact, if we look into the hundreds of memos that flew back and forth, particularly between the EPA and 3M, we will find that they were about to have their hand forced.
Senator Tkachuk: Do you mean all the scientists were bought off?
Ms. Cole: I am not saying that.
Senator Tkachuk: That is what you are saying.
Ms. Cole: No, I am not.
Senator Tkachuk: What you are you saying?
Ms. Cole: I am saying what I said.
Senator Tkachuk: You are saying these scientists did not complete the science, and they knew about things 30 and 40 years ago that they did not disclose because of money. That is what you are saying.
Senator Spivak: That is true.
Senator Tkachuk: I am asking, is that true today?
Ms. Cole: That is your way of expressing it. I frame it differently.
I started off by saying we are doing business in a different way today. If we can have reverse onus firmly embedded within CEPA, we will do ourselves a great favour. Industry will be able to move along and provide us with more favourable outcomes when they receive the signal from us that the onus will be reversed.
We have seen great moves on the part of industry to make products that are healthier. For instance, Ms. Madray and I are involved with volatile organic compounds, and there has been tremendous movement on the VOCs front to make products that are VOC-free. The paints and coatings industry has done fabulous work making paints and coatings that have no VOC levels in them to speak of.
I think there is a lot of potential for positive moves throughout society. We must get our collective minds together and, as I said, leap forward and stop crawling.
The Chairman: This act has been in place since 1999, during which time a government by the party of which I happen to be a member was in place. From that time until now, there has not been, I do not think, a single environmental protection action taken against anything by anybody.
If things are as awful as we think they are, how is that possible? There is public pressure. There are people out there who know this stuff. How come nothing has happened?
Senator Spivak: I was going to say, it is easy. I can give you six examples.
The Chairman: I am asking the witnesses.
Senator Spivak: I know.
Ms. Cooper: What do you mean by a single action? Do you mean a prosecution under CEPA?
The Chairman: Yes, there has not been a single prosecution.
Ms. Cooper: We do not use CEPA for a civil action.
Mr. Khatter: I know from working with people at the Sierra Legal Defence Fund and reading the testimony before the committee — I know it was back in the fall now — that there are barriers to those actions happening, and there have been suggestions tabled with the committee about fund-splitting and other ways of reducing the barriers when those actions happen.
I would not say that those actions are not deserved, but the process has not allowed them to happen.
The Chairman: I thank you all on behalf of all members of the committee. You have been most helpful witnesses to us. We will probably have further questions, and I hope you will not mind if we write you with the occasional question. I hope you will respond when and if you can.
Dr. Purdy, I know it is an imposition to provide us the information about the doses to the monkeys and the relative human effects, et cetera, but we thank you in advance.
The committee adjourned.