ENSU Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ENVIRONMENT AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'ENVIRONNEMENT ET DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DURABLE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, June 10, 1999

• 0910

[Translation]

The Chairman (the honourable Charles Caccia (Davenport, Lib.)): Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) we are pursuing our study on the management and use of pesticides in Canada.

[English]

Today we have two witnesses and then we have a committee budget and a budget in addition to that for the Halifax proposal. We need a quorum to do the budget of a larger number than the quorum needed to hear witnesses. Therefore we'll start with witnesses, beginning with Ms. Langer of the World Wildlife Fund.

We welcome you. You don't need to be introduced to the subject matter, I suppose. The floor is yours for possibly a ten-minute presentation, which will then be followed by questions and answers. We are very glad to have you and we welcome your presence here with us.

Ms. Julia Langer (Director, Wildlife Toxicology Program, World Wildlife Fund): Thank you very much.

Just as a brief introduction, I'm Julia Langer, I'm the director of the wildlife toxicology program at World Wildlife Fund Canada. World Wildlife Fund is a conservation-based organization. We started our work on endangered species both in Canada and around the world, but it soon became very obvious that you can't protect species without protecting the habitats they need for food and shelter for their homes.

We started quite an extensive across-Canada endangered spaces campaign to protect habitat. It soon became apparent that in many cases there were species that not for lack of habitat but because of contamination were at risk—for instance, the beluga whales in the St. Lawrence River, or the burrowing owls in the prairies. So we began a campaign, an area of research, on toxic impacts on wildlife. Our goal is to eliminate the toxic impacts to wildlife in Canada.

This is what brings me to the issue of pesticides, because pesticides are one group of contaminants that are deliberately put into the environment and that can have an effect on wildlife. When you think about it, we're actually not that different from wildlife, and people are also implicated in terms of impact.

What I'm going to address today is the pesticide regulatory system, which this committee is doing an inquiry on. From our perspective, Canada's pesticide regulatory system is pretty broken and needs urgent fixing. Health Canada's Pest Management Regulatory Agency is supposed to the one-stop shop for protecting Canada's health and environment from threats posed by pesticides. But both the framework for pesticide regulation, what the law requires and what the law allows, and where the priorities have been placed since its creation—who its main clients are, what it services—have undermined that role.

The lack of leadership from agencies in addition to PMRA that should be supporting the alternatives and the pesticide reduction side of the equation—the federal agriculture agencies, the forestry and fisheries departments, and also at the local level, local parks and public health agencies, and further than that, agricultural colleges—exacerbates the situation in terms of pesticide impact. No wonder toxic pesticides continue to remain in active use.

What I'd like to look at is both the pesticide registration system and the capacity to deliver alternatives. Both of these have to be dramatically and quickly improved in order to stop pesticides from affecting people and wildlife and to ensure that Canada doesn't continue to rely on chemical pesticides. This was pretty amply elaborated by the environmental commissioner in his recent report. But what he didn't talk about, and which I'd like to elaborate on, is how the system can be fixed in order to protect health and the environment. What we offer are some recommendations and a bit of a packaging plan of action.

My first recommendation would be to institute a re-evaluation program immediately. While data on the impact on wildlife and on people from pesticides has accumulated over many years from academic sources and from industry's own research, for instance, few of these have been formally re-evaluated, and the few that have been re-evaluated are done ad hoc. There are no particular criteria for timelimes and there's certainly no opportunity for public appeal when a decision is made. There are no particular criteria for triggering reviews, and there is no particular feedback into reassessment. And this also was slammed by the environmental commissioner.

• 0915

I did have an opportunity to read some of the testimony from previous witnesses, and to me the promise to re-evaluate all pesticides by 2007 that was made by Dr. Franklin sounds a bit hollow, because of a few issues, not the least of which is the cost-recovery shortfall.

One of the main things that was reprofiled when the shortfall was apparent was re-evaluation, and they still don't seem to have the money. And PMRA is inappropriately proposing, as I notice and as I've been aware of, that re-evaluation should be conditional on saving money on the registration side of the operation. That is unacceptable. Re-evaluation has to be made a real, rather than a rhetorical, priority, and it can be done without amendments to the Pest Control Products Act, but we certainly need amendments to the act in order to make it rigorous and standardized and required.

Ultimately, the Minister of Health has to be accountable for what pesticides are being dispersed into the air and water and food, and he is obliged to have confidence that registered products do not pose an unacceptable risk. But given the current implementation of the law, I think it would be impossible for Mr. Rock to assure Canadians that pesticides in current use are not posing such a risk to wildlife and pesticides are not posing a risk to people, because they are not regularly reviewed.

The second recommendation is to immediately ban POPs, persistent organic pollutants, either existing in themselves or contained in pesticides. As we have seen from CEPA discussions at this committee, the toxic substances management policy has a provision for track one substances, which are persistent, bioaccumulative, and CEPA-toxic equivalent. The ones relevant to PMRA would be dioxins, furans, hexachlorobenzene, and DDT, and also tributyl-10, in our opinion, even though tributyl-10 is not listed on track one right now.

What will be necessary if this is to happen is for PMRA to rethink its TSMP implementation plan, which is seriously flawed. For instance, it allows for new and continued registration of track one substances in the name of risk reduction, which we think is an oxymoron. So this needs to happen. This should be happening right away.

The third point would be to set ban triggers. For instance, Sweden has legislation for pesticides that specify what are clearly unwanted properties and particularly serious properties, and such pesticides with inherent risk characteristics are promptly removed from the market for a phase-out plan. Possible criteria include certainly persistence in bioaccumulation, high acute toxicity, carcinogenicity, and neurotoxicity.

Fourthly, and again this is something that hearkens to the discussion with CEPA, there should be a requirement for use of the precautionary principle, and that should be operationalized. Absence of harm does not equal absence of effect. So there has to be a methodology by which pesticides are evaluated using the precautionary principle, and of course that means using the weight-of-evidence approach. This should be entrenched in legislation, and it would be critical for both new product registration and for the re-evaluation side of the equation.

A fifth point would be to give the most vulnerable populations, the most sensitive populations, statutory protection. This would be children, wildlife, the elderly, and occupational users. There are a lot of people potentially more vulnerable than the average population. Health assessments for most pesticides in use now—so 90% of the pesticides—are based on the average male adult exposure and sensitivity, and have not been revisited, as I've pointed out, in terms of re-evaluation. Also, I did note that Dr. Franklin made a statement that all pesticides are evaluated with children in mind, and I think there would be some very big differences of opinion about whether that happens. I could elaborate on that at some point, if you wish.

• 0920

The sixth point would be to give wildlife protection equal weight to human health. Obviously we're a wildlife-focused organization, but when Health Canada acquired the pesticide portfolio, they acquired the portfolio and the mandate to protect human health and the environment, not just human health. A tough wildlife and environmental protection requirement is especially important in light of the emphasis on the U.S.'s new focus on food residues in children.

You can solve one problem. You could look at a pesticide and make a decision based on its impact on children, but then create another problem for wildlife. And I think we should avoid that at all costs.

The Chairman: With your indulgence, would you mind waiting a couple of minutes, because your brief is being photocopied for distribution and the members are not able to follow you and therefore can't get the full flavour of your submission because they don't have a text. So I would ask, with your indulgence, if you would wait a couple of minutes until the text arrives.

Ms. Julia Langer: Is this what I provided previously?

The Chairman: Yes, it is the one entitled “Fixing the Problems with Pesticides in Canada”. There are not enough copies distributed to members yet, and we are waiting for the photocopy machine to spit them out.

Ms. Julia Langer: I provided this last week, did I not?

The Chairman: Most of the recommendations Ms. Langer is making this morning are contained in the briefing book for parliamentarians.

Do you have the short summary?

Ms. Julia Langer: Yes. Those are my notes, yes. But I provided a roundup of the recommendations last week by e-mail.

• 0923

• 0927

The Chairman: I assume that the document entitled “Fixing the Problems with Pesticides in Canada” has now been distributed.

[Translation]

This is the only document we received this morning. It is a document prepared by the organization.

[English]

Ms. Langer reached, I believe, item five on the bottom of page two. Is that correct? Would you like to indicate to the committee roughly where you are and guide us through to the end, please.

Ms. Julia Langer: Thank you. I had previously distributed a roundup of the recommendations. These were actually my speaking notes. If people want my speaking notes, you're welcome to them, but that was not what I had submitted as my brief.

The Chairman: That's fine. Please proceed.

Ms. Julia Langer: The point I had just entered was with regard to wildlife and making sure that the mandate of Health Canada was clearly recognized to protect both wildlife and human health.

One of the points that seems to be in discussion, partially because of the environmental commissioner's report, is cooperation between departments. I think, ideally, pesticide registration should be co-administered by the Departments of Health and Environment, given the mandate to protect wildlife as well as human health.

My next recommendation would be to base risk assessments and risk management decisions on real-life pesticide exposures. This is something that is emerging as a result of the U.S. Food Quality Protection Act whereby pesticides with a similar mode of action, whether they're cholinesterase inhibitors, neurotoxins, or carcinogens, be assessed cumulatively and all sources of a pesticide be considered. So you don't look just at the pesticide on an apple and what that would pose as a risk, but you look at the pesticide from all the things you eat and from all the places you would be exposed to, including your workplace, your home, in the air, and in the water.

• 0930

Canada should definitely be adopting the cumulative and aggregate approach to recognize synergy among pesticides and the fact that there are multiple pesticides and other environmental contaminants we're exposed to.

On the subject of formulants, these are the sometimes 95% of a pesticide product that may be water but then again may be something else besides water and may have toxicological properties. These should definitely be subject to the same assessment and review and access-to-information provisions as the active ingredient. There are certainly some cases in which the whole product is looked at, but that is not necessarily always the case, as we see from submissions by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency.

On the subject of biotechnology and pesticides, what we would say here is to subject new pesticide biotechnology use patterns to full assessment. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency obviously has a mandate here, but they indicate to us that they do not consider changes in pesticide use patterns when they are assessing a genetically engineered crop. The PMRA, on the other hand, does not reassess a pesticide that may be registered if it's to be used in conjunction, let's say, with an herbicide-tolerant crop. But what this is doing is creating a completely new use pattern.

The other scenario would be where you actually have a pesticide within a crop. Just because it's engineered into the crop doesn't mean it's not a pesticide. The use of pesticides with genetically engineered crops should be subject to new registration, and pesticides that are incorporated into plants should be registered as pesticides. I think this is going to be food for thought for a variety of departments given that there's at least six or seven of them implicated.

On the subject of information, we must urgently unlock the stranglehold on pesticide information. It's treated as confidential business information. This is especially silly because much of this data is freely available in the United States. I think an independent legal opinion on whether this is legitimate under the Access to Information Act, given the health and public interest nature of the information, would be worth having. We certainly haven't sought it ourselves, but it would be worth having. As the environmental commissioner pointed out, pesticide information is not collected by the federal government, unlike most OECD countries. We have to abandoned this closed door approach to pesticide information, and we have to make provisions in legislation for clear access. In our opinion pesticide use data—in other words, where it's used, why it's used, how it's used, and how much of it is used—should be a condition of registration. Basically it would mean no data, no registration.

Opportunity for public input has to be greatly enhanced, and the public has to be meaningfully involved in pesticide regulations. Again, this probably will require legislative change, as has been explained by the PMRA. I certainly agree with them on that.

Another provision that is definitely required, which we do not have now, is post-registration monitoring and reporting of adverse effects. There's no requirement for this. When a registrant gets a registration, monitoring is undertaken ad hoc without any clear budget. This has to be rectified, and it can be done administratively as well as legislatively.

Our point about building the availability of non-chemical alternatives into the registration process is a bit more complex and not necessarily a straightforward amendment. But reducing reliance on chemical pesticides must become part of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency's core business or it might as well be renamed the pesticide registration agency.

I'm on a couple of working groups promoting integrated pest management, and I truly think these are admirable. But to really reduce reliance on chemical pesticides there has to be a way to make sure that proven, less toxic, even non-chemical means of pest management trump pesticides. In Sweden, for instance, this is called a substitution principle, whereby a toxic substance is replaced with a less toxic one. I don't think the assumption that when you register newer pesticides the older ones will just fall off the market is credible. It's certainly not going to get us from where we are to where we would want to be in any kind of expedited way.

• 0935

We feel there should be a dramatic enhancement in the development and adoption of alternatives. This is the flip side of the auditor's concern about pesticide registration. And it's the lack of capacity and initiative to deliver alternatives to pesticides.

This doesn't take away from the need to do the re-evaluation and to do de-registration; it only highlights the dilemma the farmers are in. I think they're between a bit of a rock and a hard place, because on the one hand they're feeling like they're not getting all the pesticides they might need, or the newer pesticides, and on the other hand, we come at it from a different angle, saying they're not getting the help they need from the agriculture agencies to seek out and find, and disseminate and adopt, alternatives.

This is more of a task and more of a focus for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and certainly their provincial counterparts, rather than PMRA. It's something perhaps this committee can look at in terms of integrating new cooperative mandates.

On the funding of PMRA, all I can say is ensure adequate funding for the PMRA, but that isn't necessarily what their budget is. During the cost-recovery negotiations with industry the PMRA had to cut its overall budget. They promised to save money through efficiencies and they also promised to meet industry-driven timelines for registration.

They've had shortfalls for two years in a row. They are seriously cash-strapped. It's activities that do not pay their way, like re-evaluation and development of a pesticide database and adverse effect reporting requirements, that have been pushed to the back burner, reprofiled, so to speak, and will be only implemented if money is saved. This is truly unacceptable. The real cost of re-evaluation and implementing the reduction program and post-registration monitoring has to be built into their budget in a realistic way and provided for.

On the topic of harmonization, we say harmonize if necessary, but not necessarily harmonization. The NAFTA process is dominating pesticide-related initiatives in Canada. It's been offered on the one hand as a way to gain efficiencies for cheaper re-evaluation to get lower-risk pesticides on the market to resolve so-called trade irritants.

There's nothing wrong with work-sharing, and avoiding duplication is commendable, but it has to be done within a Canadian context. I believe that PMRA—and perhaps this is the place to get it—should have a clear environment and health-driven negotiating position for harmonization, not just go into harmonization and do whatever comes up. The agenda should be set in Canada.

Accountability mechanisms definitely have to be built in. Again, this is a formal role for the public. We don't want to drown in paper, but we do want to make sure that participation is meaningful and that our input is actually taken into account. Mr. Rock's appointment of the Pest Management Advisory Council has been a very positive step for airing some of the key concerns and ensuring that there's a broad-based multi-stakeholder input into the policy issues.

What I provided to the committee was a roundup of the recommendations in terms of an action plan.

One thing I think is absolutely necessary is a catch-up program. What we've seen is a history of a backlog, and new legislation is going to take a year or two. Recognizing that we're living with pesticides now, we're living with the risk now, a catch-up effort to clean up this backlog of older, never-reassessed toxic pesticides is necessary. This would include immediate action on POPs and fast-track phase-out using existing legislative powers.

I've rounded up the recommendations for you in terms of the points I've made as to what we can do to catch up. In tandem with that we need this support for research and extension services dedicated to IPM and organic pest management techniques. Those must be enhanced by orders of magnitude. This is fundamentally important and everything else will hinge on it. It's almost like a double-edged sword.

Obviously, we feel there must be amendments to the Pest Control Products Act. It's not been significantly amended since 1969. And although unacceptable risk of harm still has to be the basis for decision-making, it has to be complemented by clear health- and environmental-driven requirements for registration and re-evaluation and public access.

• 0940

Everybody agreed that the PCPA needed amending back in 1990, and it still needs amending. We've set out some specific areas for amendment, and certainly when something is tabled we would make a submission to the committee at that point. The accountability system can be worked on now, because there is a real gap between what we hear the PMRA saying and what they're doing.

To conclude, just because a pesticide is registered does not mean it's safe. In fact there's abundant evidence to the contrary. And neither the tools nor the commitment to systematically prevent or redress the harm that routine pesticides can cause to wildlife or to people are in place.

The lesson of the Krever inquiry is that action has to be taken when there is a hazard. The environmental commissioner has pointed out that we're living with risk. There is the realization that we've lost fishing stocks because the government system ignored the signals. There are lots of indications of harm that has been caused by lack of action. I think the time and permission and mandate to take action has actually come. The day-to-day business of registering pesticides continues apace, but the key environmental and health protection issues are on the back burner, in our opinion.

These pesticides are inherently toxic, and the pesticide industry is inherently profit-oriented. Without a strong and focused regulatory regime and proactive support for alternatives, Canada's health and environment will continue to be adversely affected. We're certainly committed to doing everything we can to help fix the system.

Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you for bringing a broad and wide-ranging approach to the attention of the committee members and also for putting forward these 19 points on fixing problems with pesticides in Canada. It's a very refreshing approach and quite in contrast with the gobbledegook this committee has been administered so far by some departments.

We'll take this paper now and put it under the microscope. I'm sure Mr. Casson would like to go first, followed by Madame Girard-Bujold, Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Herron, and Mr. Stoffer. Mr. Casson, please.

Mr. Rick Casson (Lethbridge, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentation. As the chairman indicated, it's very good.

We have had different departments of government come to us, and the first thing they like to point out, most of them, is the fact that they're not responsible for this any more. We haven't really had a clear indication of the job being performed properly.

I would like to go to point eight of your presentation, subject formulants to assessment and disclosure. There are two things you mention here: an active ingredient and a formula. I'm not sure how you can assess a product that's being used in the field without assessing the entire makeup of this product. Can you explain exactly what you mean by this?

Ms. Julia Langer: What's generally done when you have a series of tests that have to be done by the manufacturer on a pesticide is most of them are done on the active ingredient and then some of them may also be done on the formulated product. I think the trend is more and more to be doing it on the formulated product. So the requirement for acute toxicity or toxicity to birds or whatever is done with the formulated product, but not always. The data might come in on the active ingredient and then there might be an indication that the formulant is non-toxic and doesn't have to be assessed. I saw a document in that vein just recently. It's not necessary, and all of the requirements for data are in guidelines.

So what we would like to see is a regulatory requirement for formulants to be evaluated as part of the product. Now it certainly can be asked for, but it is not necessarily a requirement.

• 0945

One thing to add about this is they're certainly not disclosed, so when you see a pesticide package the active ingredient is listed and it might be 2% something or other, or 5% something or other, but you don't know what the 95% is. Like I say, it could be water, but then again, it could be a solvent.

Mr. Rick Casson: You also talked a bit about alternatives to pesticides and some of that. Some of the things we're seeing, such as genetically altered plants and supposedly natural methods of controlling pests—how do you feel about that? To me, there seems to be some danger in that, as well, because we don't have it studied. We haven't the full book on that yet, either. How do you feel about the idea that you can control pests through natural methods?

Ms. Julia Langer: I think there are two separate questions. One is on the biotech issue, and the other is on alternatives.

There are many ways to reduce the use and intensity of pesticides. I think this is continually proven and continually improved. The number of farmers who are using integrated pest management methods, whereby they scout their fields before the spray.... It's no longer “It's June, so we must spray this; it's June 2d, we must spray that.” There is a lot more attention to that, and it reduces use and intensity. And then people can also be aware of the toxicity of the pesticides they are using. Organic methods I think are somewhat scoffed at, but frankly, the number of organic farms in Canada has continually increased. It's still very small, but it is continually growing, and those farmers certainly say they can grow food without pesticides. So there's a continuum of methodologies for reducing, not necessarily eliminating, the reliance on chemical pesticides.

Is biotechnology part of that mix? I think there's an increasing groundswell within the industrial side to push that as the alternative to pesticides. But we remain very skeptical about that. There are inherent problems of resistance, build-up of resistance, so you might then have to go back to even tougher chemicals. It's not really reducing reliance on an input per se. So I think there are just too many open questions in the agronomics area, such as the resistance, the health issues, which I'm certainly not an expert on, and some of the ecological issues, like the effect of Bt-engineered crops on butterflies that just came out in the peer-reviewed paper Nature. And those questions have to be answered before you can put your trust in those kinds of technologies.

Mr. Rick Casson: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Casson. We will now hear Madam Girard-Bujold, followed by Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Herron, Mrs. Kraft Sloan, Mr. Stoffer, and the Chairman. Madam Girard-Bujold, go ahead please.

Mrs. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold (Jonquière, BQ): I would like to add my voice to that of the Chairman to say that your brief gives us the other side of the coin we have been presented to date. I have not yet heard this version. You really are making a statement.

In your brief, you also stated that there were faults, omissions and possible improvements. You talk about faults because the present act is archaic, outmoded. There are omissions because there has been no reevaluation.

You therefore make a certain number of recommendations. Ten years ago, we committed ourselves to changing the Act and you are saying that the rules are contained within the regulations.

• 0950

In this perspective, what changes would lead us to steer the act in the direction of the commitment to improvement that we made ten years ago? Could you give us the major changes that you would like to see included in the new legislation and which the regulations should spearhead?

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: What I tried to outline in terms of amendments to the Pest Control Products Act would focus on using the basis of unacceptable risk of harm still as the basis for a decision, but building on that with the precautionary principle, including a requirement for a rigorous open re-evaluation process having the ability to trigger re-evaluation and phase-outs, for instance on environment and health-based criteria. So acute toxicity or endocrine disruption, or carcinogenicity or neurotoxicity, you could make those synonymous with an unacceptable risk of harm.

We would certainly like to see a requirement for the assessment of endocrine-disrupting potential and ensure that protection is based on the most sensitive species or the most sensitive life stage, because you can have a species that is sensitive, but the life stage, for instance the embryo, is more sensitive than the adult.

We would like to see formulants, as I've indicated, subject to full assessment and review and disclosure; provisions for public participation and full disclosure of information, except of course confidential business information; protection of beneficial organisms that are beneficial in an agronomic context; and regular reports to the public and to Parliament regarding progress on risk reduction.

There are so many things that when you look at the piece of legislation, it's not very big actually. It was written in 1969 very much as a piece of anti-fraud legislation. Regulations were added to that, and it's the regulations that are the operative health and environmental protection requirement. So you have to bring all those things together to make what we could call a truly health and environmentally focused and driven piece of legislation. And that would be the main clear, almost exclusive, mandate of the legislation, because right now it really is a balancing act.

[Translation]

Mrs. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: You are aware that certain pesticides are presently prohibited throughout the world; some of them are prohibited in Canada, others in the United States and still others in Mexico. Pesticides prohibited in Canada are sometimes used in underdeveloped countries. There is at present a harmonization problem.

How should we go about harmonizing all of this internationally? Have you already thought of a way of going about this? Certain pesticides are prohibited here whereas their use is allowed elsewhere. We will have to all sit down at the same table and set the rules. It seems that the government of Canada is sitting down with the United States in order to include this under NAFTA, but this will have to be done on a broader scale.

What mechanism should we establish to bring about a similar change of direction with the elimination of pesticides throughout the world?

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: In fact Canada does sit down with the United States and Mexico under the NAFTA process, and there is an attempt at harmonization. One of my points was I think our involvement in harmonization should be mandated more centrally, because otherwise you end up with a lowest common denominator kind of situation, where if we use a pesticide here, and we require a lower level for it than the United States, then they're angry and they think it's a trade irritant, and they pressure Canada to raise its levels. And similarly, if we ban something here and it's allowed in the United States, it's considered a trade irritant the other way.

• 0955

My perspective on that is that we have to have the ability to set our own health and environmental standards, as does the United States, and we need to actually respect that. One thing that harmonization globally can do is use other people's information. There's nothing wrong with harmonization in that context. So if something is banned in Sweden and they've looked at it from a health and safety perspective, why wouldn't we look at those same data?

Lindane is a perfect example. The European Union has looked at Lindane. Austria has done the review. And their conclusion is that it should be deregistered. Canada just started a special review. Well, why do we need a special review when it's very clear what the data say? We know our people are contaminated. We know, in particular, that people from the Arctic are carrying a body burden of Lindane. I think it's quite a silly exercise, because we could just be harmonizing. That's the good part of harmonizing.

The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Girard-Bujold.

Mr. Lincoln, s'il vous plait.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln (Lac-Saint-Louis, Lib.): Ms. Langer, in this critique by AGCare about the remarks in your report entitled “Fixing the Problems with Pesticides in Canada” regarding 2,4-D and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, I've read in their critique that your reference, the WWF reference, is incomplete. Most of the relevant published research has shown no association. They talk about one earlier study in Saskatchewan, which was not conclusive. And the Ontario Ministry of the Environment study concluded that potential health risks are too minute to justify discontinued usage. They go on to say that 2,4-D represents a negligible environmental and health risk compared, for example, to exhaust fumes from urban lawnmowers and farm tractors.

I read the following in New Scientist, April 3, 1999:

...Swedish researchers have linked pesticides to one of the most rapidly increasing cancers in the Western world. Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which has risen by 73 per cent in the U.S. since 1973, is probably caused by several commonly used crop sprays, say the scientists.

And they quote that

Lennart Hardell of Orebro Medical Centre and Mikael Eriksson of Lund University Hospital found that Swedish sufferers of the disease were 2.7 times more likely to have been exposed to MCPA, a widely used weed killer, than healthy people.

They refer to Cancer, volume 85, page 1353. And they continue:

MCPA, which is used on grain crops, is sold as Target by the Swiss firm Novartis. In addition, patients were 3.7 times more likely to have been exposed to a range of fungicides, an association not previously reported.

Can you explain to me where you get your conclusions from, and how you could address the remarks by AGCare?

Ms. Julia Langer: Well, I haven't actually looked at the remarks by.... Is this AGCare?

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Yes.

Ms. Julia Langer: In fact you can actually stack the conclusive and inconclusive studies on one side or another on 2,4-D. It has been studied so much, mainly because it's such a widely used herbicide. But it's not appropriate to say it doesn't cause something when there are studies that say it does. The best you could say is that we have evidence that it does and we have evidence that it doesn't. That doesn't mean that it does not present a risk. This is the cautionary principle context. You cannot discount that it does not pose such a risk.

• 1000

In fact there have been court awards in the United States on the basis of farmers' use of 2,4-D. There have also been studies of golf course superintendents. One of the main substances they used was 2,4-D, and there are higher rates of cancer in that occupationally exposed population.

My sense is that from my perspective, farmers should be worried, because they are the front lines here. To discount something out of hand I think is quite a dangerous approach to this. Now, obviously in their view there are benefits. That does not invalidate the conclusions or the findings where there is a correlation with something as serious as non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Yes, you can balance. But don't discount the effect.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: I really hope that organizations such as yours and others will refute this, because I think it's really very, very serious when people say there's a negligible environmental and health risk compared, for example, to exhaust fumes from urban lawnmowers and farm tractors. To just dismiss—

Ms. Julia Langer: Well, in regard to the other point you raise, about comparing risks, just because something is a bigger risk doesn't mean that something else is an unimportant risk.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Exactly.

Ms. Julia Langer: I used to work a lot on the ozone depletion issue, and people kept saying yes, but something else is more important. Well, that doesn't mean that ozone depletion is not important. I think that if we're focused on pesticides and trying to do better, that's exactly what we should do. It doesn't mean we should ignore it because there are other risks.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: It would be interesting to look at the commentaries of the naysayers when Rachel Carson's book appeared. It would be really interesting.

I have one very brief last question. Mrs. Franklin advised us the other day that they're looking at a review of the Pesticides Control Act and they're actively working on it. Are your organization and other ENGOs involved? Are you being consulted, and do you have input into this?

Ms. Julia Langer: Well, in fact there's nothing that's been formally tabled. But I was appointed by Mr. Rock to the Pest Management Advisory Council, and it's been indicated that there's consideration for tabling legislation. I know it's been considered since 1990, and actually prior to 1990. So I should hope that this is being actively considered now, especially in light of the commissioner's report.

Mr. Clifford Lincoln: Amen.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. Herron, please.

Mr. John Herron (Fundy—Royal, PC): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I guess my first question would be that given that we've just gone through the CEPA process for the last calendar year essentially, and the requirement in CEPA, with respect to the government having to engage in further study of endocrine disrupting substances, in that vein, would it not be incumbent on the government to establish some kind of process to study endocrine disruption with respect to pesticides as a benchmark test that should be done when evaluating, and hopefully re-evaluating, pesticides?

Ms. Julia Langer: Well, this is to the point of split mandates and mixed mandates that seem to have gone around this committee table, because CEPA simply does not cover any pesticides. You would have to repeat the legislative amendments in terms of getting endocrine disrupters into the Pest Control Products Act as a specific focus. But there's nothing standing in the way of joint activity in terms of researching endocrine disrupters, and when you look at Theo Colborn's updated list of endocrine disrupters, which is now reaching about 250 chemicals, at least half of them are pesticides. Many of them are pesticides that are currently registered and in active use in Canada. So it would not be very difficult to make a pretty short list of chemicals that deserve real scrutiny for their endocrine-disruption capacity that are pesticides. Nothing is stopping Environment Canada, Health Canada, and PMRA from working together on this.

• 1005

Mr. John Herron: That's sort of the vein in terms of what I was thinking. I think it would be a very positive signal for the federal government, and in particular the Minister of Health who is the co-sponsor of CEPA, to say we're going to be doing some research and advancing the issue of endocrine-disrupting substances, triggered from a pesticide perspective. They wouldn't even have to change the legislation in order to dovetail the research.

Ms. Julia Langer: I think it might be a matter of budget then, because when you look at what funding is available for looking at priority substances under CEPA, it's relatively small. They're even having a hard time getting through the new list of 25 PSL substances. They certainly had a hard time getting through the 44 PSL-1 substances, and then you add pesticides into that. I think you would need to create a bigger, more intensive and well-funded mechanism to look at endocrine disrupters.

This is being done in the global context. The U.S. EPA is actually setting up a very intensive regime for endocrine disrupters there, certainly focusing on the human health aspects. I think Canada could take a piece of the pie and look at the ecological aspects, which seems to be very much up their alley, and actually make some movement on endocrine disrupters in that way.

Mr. John Herron: I found it very interesting that you made no less than two or three references to the Swedish model, in terms of how they engage in studying pesticides. My former place of employment was actually a Swedish company, so I know there is a strong conservation element, even with my old company.

Are there some things in particular? Would you like to expand on the Swedish model of managing pesticides, in terms of what we could incorporate into this country?

Ms. Julia Langer: One of the things we are certainly doing, in anticipation of amendments to the Pest Control Products Act, is looking at European, Australian, New Zealand and other models of pesticide legislation, so we can sort of pick the best from everywhere. There's the substitution principle, the clearly unwanted properties requirements for phase-out, and the requirements for the protection of beneficial organisms. There are a lot of really great leading-edge requirements in different European pieces of legislation that we are certainly highlighting and tucking away for future use when the legislation comes up.

I could try to make that available to the committee, because it's instructive what other countries can actually manage to do.

Mr. John Herron: It would be very helpful if you could forward that to the committee. I'd be interested in chasing it down myself.

The Chairman: Short one.

Mr. John Herron: Okay. In your points 3 and 4, you talk about triggers in terms of what criteria should be specified in unwanted properties. Can you maybe expand briefly—I know the chair wants a brief response—on how you incorporate the precautionary principle and weight of evidence approach, in terms of how we manage pesticides? It just seems like one of these right things to do.

Ms. Julia Langer: In terms of precautionary principle—and this is something we could look back to our CEPA intervention on—you make a decision based on weight of evidence. If you have evidence on carcinogenicity or endocrine disruption, what do you do with that information? Do you just wait until you have more evidence and what I call dead bodies, or do you actually act on it?

The same could be said for triggers. If we decide as a society that we don't want our food to be sprayed with anything that's a carcinogen, that's a trigger. There are standard, globally-accepted classifications of carcinogenicity we could adopt into law as a triggers. They have not been set or decided.

• 1010

I think this will be a very useful debate to set on the table and say “Where does our society come down in terms of the cut-off points?” That is something that will have to be entrenched in legislation.

Mr. John Herron: Second round, Mr. Chairman?

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Herron.

Mrs. Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan (York North, Lib.): Thank you.

I've tried unsuccessfully to find out if residue levels have been set with regard to children's health, in terms of how kids metabolize substances differently from adults. They have multiple pathways. They have concentrated diets of different sorts of fruits and vegetables, more so than adults. I'm wondering if you can give me an answer to that question.

Ms. Julia Langer: Because I read the testimony of Dr. Franklin, I really had to do a bit of research and test whether I was on the wrong track, whether in fact PMRA does this and does look at children, in particular. Perhaps Barbara McElgunn, from the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, can come to the committee afterwards. In going over this question with her, we came up with six points why they don't.

This is not my area of expertise, so I hope you will ask other witnesses about this. But just from a procedural perspective, not necessarily from the toxicological effects perspective, the toxicological data is not there to make a decision based on children's health for all the relevant end points.

In particular, the developmental neurotoxicity test requirements are just not there for most pesticides on the market. They are starting to pay more attention to developmental neurotoxicity, especially in the U.S. But even the two-generation reproductive study they do is a measure of fertility; it is not necessarily a measure of behavioural outcomes. So the toxicological data isn't there to actually set residue levels, based on children's sensitivity.

Secondly, the exposure data is not there. My sense is that the most recent thorough consumption pattern data is from the 1970s. Maybe there have been certain updates, but how can you do proper residue setting if you don't have really up-to-date information on what children eat? I think they might be using some new data from the U.S. in making those comparisons, but I think that needs updating.

The cumulative exposures are certainly not taken into consideration. This issue of new versus old pesticides is very relevant to consider. Certainly, it was not done for most of the pesticides on the market today. It's being done perhaps in a limited way for new pesticides, but then again we can't tell because there's no transparency in the system. They can't prove how this was done because the data is not available.

Another point Barbara raised and we discussed is that in the context of harmonization, some maximum residue levels for Canadian foods are raised or adjusted, to harmonize with the U.S. It doesn't happen with every pesticide, but there are certainly cases where they have been adjusted for harmonization purposes.

I think that's a long way of saying it's not very likely for most pesticides on the market.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you. When we take a look at some of the issues the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development raised—for example, the government does not collect data on the releases of many toxic substances, voluntary programs to reduce the release of toxic industrial chemicals may not be sufficient to manage toxic substances, and monitoring for the presence and effects of toxic substances in the environment is incomplete and inconsistent—these are pretty damning criticisms.

When I look at some of the points you have articulated in your document with regard to what the Americans are doing, it seems as though they are addressing some of these issues. I'm wondering why the Americans have seen the light, yet we seem to be operating and groping around in darkness. As someone who is involved with an international organization, do you have some insights to share with us on why the Americans have been moving more progressively down this path?

• 1015

Ms. Julia Langer: I think you have to be careful in putting the United States up on a pedestal. I think their approach is to drown you in paper. You can get access to a ton of information about pesticides if you care to have it. In many cases we do care to have it and we would like to have access to it. In many cases it's the same pesticide, so it really does seem silly and a bit awkward that Canada doesn't allow that access.

Certainly the United States has taken a new and quite innovative approach in protecting children's health and looking at cumulative and aggregate exposure. But they're not there yet. In fact, my counterpart with WWF U.S. and colleagues from other environmental organizations recently walked out of the public process for implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act because it has just simply stalled a bit.

We have an interest in making their system work, even if just in the context of harmonization, because they do a lot of the leg work we can then sort of piggyback on. But don't put them on a pedestal. On information they're great, and in terms of the conceptual framework, they're certainly ahead and we can match that. But we have to work for it, just as hard as we're working for Canada to catch up with our interpretation of modern pesticide legislation.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: What happens when a pesticide becomes deregistered? What is the process of deregistration, notification, and getting rid of that chemical or substance?

Ms. Julia Langer: I've only had two direct experiences with this, and the most recent one was with carbofuran. Deregistration is at the minister's discretion. The act basically says the minister must be satisfied that something doesn't pose an unacceptable risk of harm. If he decides it does, then it gets cancelled. I think cancellation involves making certain provisions for use of existing stocks, which is contradictory in the legislation, because if something is too toxic it's too toxic. You shouldn't have two years to use it. Then the company has an appeal opportunity—only the registrant, not the public. That's spelled out quite simply in the legislation, but it does not really include any formal public involvement.

The Chairman: Thank you, Madam Kraft-Sloan.

Mr. Stoffer, followed by the chair and then a second round.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have to admit I've never seen a witness smile as much as you do during a presentation while using six- to ten-syllable words constantly. I have to admire that talent you have.

I have a couple of questions. Do you sit on the selection group for the substances and pesticides in terms of the Sydney contaminated site—the tar ponds?

Ms. Julia Langer: No.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Can you please tell us about the status of the proposed—

The Chairman: I apologize for interrupting you. Perhaps one day you will decide to address the chair, and we hope that day will come soon.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I'm sorry, Mr. Chair. I was just impressed by her presentation.

The Chairman: Yes, I hear you.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman—I'll look at you, that way it will be easier—

The Chairman: No, no.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

The Chairman: I can't compete with that.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The last time I was at committee we had members from various departments and I asked them the following question, which I'll be asking the witness. Has the situation with regard to the role of the key government departments improved because PMRA is here now?

• 1020

Ms. Julia Langer: I wasn't formally on the pesticide registration review process way back in ancient history, in 1989-90, when recommendations were made to take the registration authority from Agriculture Canada, which was sort of seen as the fox guarding the chicken coop, over to Health Canada. However, I was part of the environmental team that was supporting those people on the panel, and we had preferred it to be at Environment Canada. The compromise, I guess one could call it, the decision, was made to put it over at Health Canada and bring everybody over.

My view is that perhaps that was a mistake, because by homogenizing into one department all of the areas of expertise, you don't get the external critique, in a sense, the external expertise that Health Canada and Environment Canada used to provide.

In some ways, I think we are missing out by not having that external expertise and critique kind of function. Nothing's ever really a total critique within the big government system, but at least you had a clear responsibility from Health Canada to represent the health effects issue and Environment Canada to represent the environmental effects. I think that has been a bit overly homogenized and there isn't enough of an opportunity for the other agencies to get their oar in.

It doesn't mean it can't be, and I think we should find ways to make sure that expertise is brought to bear, because from an environmental perspective, particularly, from our area of expertise, we really need the Canadian Wildlife Service. We really need the monitoring they do in the Great Lakes or in the prairies or in the Atlantic provinces to bring to bear on registration decisions and deregistration decisions, and I think we've lost that.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My second question is on your recommendation ten: unlock the stranglehold on pesticide information.

I deal quite exclusively with a lot of aquaculture farms on both coasts. The concern, of course, is the use of pesticides and everything else that goes into these open-net cages. They give us the same runaround and say this is confidential business information, but for example when you ask the six different farms I deal with on a regular basis, all of these different businesses talk to each other about what pesticides and what information they use.

I always ask, who are they keeping it confidential from? They're definitely not keeping it confidential from each other. They're competitors. They all use the same products. They all have an organization called the aquaculture industry, and usually provincial ministries assist them in this regard.

When they say it's confidential business information—I'd like you to either agree or disagree with what I'm about to say—the fact is that they're really keeping this information away from people in those surrounding areas and people who may consume the products. Would you not agree with that?

Ms. Julia Langer: I think we have, overall, almost no access to information, period, whether it's from aquaculture or whether it's for other food use or whether it's for indoor use. We just do not get access to hazard and environmental information. It's non-existent.

On the issue of aquaculture, I notice that there was some discussion at previous committees. We drafted a letter, which was signed by about a dozen organizations, indicating that the minister should not register cypermethrin. I know this is under active discussion. We listed about seven or eight points about why, from the toxicity perspective in the marine environment, and we have not received an answer as to the status of that pesticide. You're not even allowed to know that it's seeking registration. We did happen to know, but there's no docket mechanism like in the United States, where you would know even what pesticides are seeking registration.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Why do you think that is?

Ms. Julia Langer: It's probably history. I don't know. There's no reason for it. As I said earlier, I think the Access to Information Act has been blamed for this lack of access, that such data is considered confidential under that act. I think we should have an opinion on that, because I don't think that's credible.

• 1025

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Ms. Langer, you have covered such a wide range of items that I'm not sure whether you have already touched upon the effect on migratory birds and on migratory legislation resulting from the present condition and policies. Would you like to give us an outline?

Ms. Julia Langer: This is an area on which the World Wildlife Fund has spent a lot of time and energy because of our interest in protecting the burrowing owl, which is a migratory bird. I think the committee discussed areas of overlap and conflict between pieces of legislation like the Fisheries Act and the Pest Control Products Act, but in our view there's an additional one, the Migratory Birds Convention Act.

If a pesticide is put in a place where migratory birds have clear access to it, such as the case where granular carbofuran was put on canola fields, when migratory birds are flying north they obviously pick it up. The conclusion of studies done on this was that depending when the birds were coming through and when seeding was happening, up to a million birds could die from this pesticide.

That could well constitute a take under the terms of the Migratory Birds Convention Act, so you would have another situation where Environment Canada and the PMRA would be at loggerheads about what their two acts say about each other and about the use of pesticides. That has not been tested. The issue of carbofuran was resolved by a cancellation before anybody had to deal with that issue, but I think it's one that should be resolved.

The other area that is in my brief but I didn't raise directly is about endangered species, in particular, and a piece of legislation that has not necessarily hit the floor of the House or come to this committee, but there is potential for another attempt at an endangered species act, and I feel that either the Pest Control Products Act or the Endangered Species Act, or both, should have some special protection for endangered species from the impact of pesticides.

So whether it's the burrowing owl or the peregrine falcon, which isn't endangered at this point—thank goodness—or the beluga whale, there are pesticide implications. Again, that would be an area of cross-mandate that would have to be resolved. I would hope that there is a very firm indication that resolving this does not mean compromising downwards to a lowest common denominator.

The Chairman: Thank you.

If there were a profound change resulting from reduced dependence on pesticides, what would be the effect on the cost of food, on diets, and other lifestyles?

Ms. Julia Langer: My sense is—and I might be very biased about this—there would be a positive effect, certainly on diets, hopefully on cost, and also just in terms of the overall reliance on pesticides.

We believe there is a lot of technical information about how to reduce reliance, but what there isn't enough information about or action on is adopting those practices and getting the consumer and the retailer, the whole food industry, to support it. The World Wildlife Fund has been working with apple growers and is starting to work with potato growers in P.E.I. to look at integrated pest management practices, which can be adopted in a transitional way. So you don't have to go zero pesticides.

There is certainly a benefit in incrementally reducing one's reliance on pesticides. There are a lot of personal benefits, cost benefits—pesticides are expensive—and benefits in terms of the amount of pesticides that would be in food. What you need is support from the buying public, from the retailer to carry it, from the food processor, and we're starting to see that happen.

• 1030

The baby-food companies are really getting into this in a big way, given that children are more sensitive and that mothers make decisions often about what their children should consume. As well, they're the major consumer. As a result, you get a company like Gerber in the United States having contracts with the grower saying they don't want these, these, and these chemicals used, or they want organic for a certain portion of their products.

I think the market is really starting to internalize this. And the transition has to happen from all sides. You can't expect the farmers to do it just like that. You have to have the market support, consumer support, and the research support as well.

The Chairman: Finally, do you have any views on pesticides and lawns?

Ms. Julia Langer: Well, pesticides are pesticides. It doesn't matter where you put them, in a sense. In terms of lawns, the cosmetic uses of pesticides seem to be perhaps the most immediately dispensable. Luckily, there are also ways of dealing with urban landscapes without the reliance on pesticides that has come to be traditional.

I would point out that a lot of the progress in terms of reducing reliance on pesticides is coming from municipalities, where they have a mandate. They have the ability to deal with pesticide reduction, and many of them are really doing so. We've worked with a lot of local organizations. There might be organizations in some of your constituencies that are working toward pesticide reduction bylaws. We're having a lot of success in convincing municipalities—not necessarily homeowners yet, but municipalities—to reduce reliance on chemical pesticides.

The Chairman: Thank you.

Second round, Mr. Gilmour, please.

Mr. Bill Gilmour (Nanaimo—Alberni, Ref.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Might I add my voice to an excellent brief? We often get people coming before us with the problems; yours has gone the next step and given us a number of recommendations. I think that is quite excellent.

From the witnesses we've had to date from the government, quite often we get the response, “Well, it's not our mandate”. I must say I'm personally having a difficult time putting together the pieces that make the whole regulatory system work. Some of the areas fall into provincial jurisdiction. Do you see the majority of the concerns in the federal arena? You even mentioned municipalities. Is it mainly a federal problem, as you see it?

Ms. Julia Langer: I would focus on the federal jurisdiction vis-à-vis the registration and deregistration, because the federal government has exclusive responsibility there. When it comes to the alternatives, I think there are other levels of government, certainly, the provinces and their responsibility for agriculture and agricultural extension, the municipalities in terms of their own borders and dealing with urban landscapes, so I think more on the implementation of alternatives. On the implementation of a risk reduction policy, there is an absolute necessity for having other jurisdictions involved.

When it comes to registration and deregistration, the federal government and, in this case, because it's been created, the PMRA have to hold the bag. Now, what we've seen is complex within the federal government system, the various departments, and I can just say what the environmental commissioner says: you've got to fix that; you've got to resolve those. This has to do with information, with access to information, with whose advice is asked for and taken. Those are not rocket science issues.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Yes, from what I see so far, I think there is a lack of accountability, people wanting to say “It's not mine, it's over there”, and pushing the problem around the table. But as you say, the environment commissioner basically put his finger on it: to fix the problem.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Madam Bujold, please.

Mrs. Jocelyne Girard-Bujold: Madam, I would like to talk about transgenic food.

• 1035

You are aware that in Canada there is a definite move towards biotechnology with transgenic food. At present, in Canada, it isn't compulsory to label transgenic food products. We also are aware that other countries are very much opposed to these products. Do you think there should be a debate in Canada before we make a definite move in that direction? Should a requirement to label such products be included in legislation to come? Thank you.

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: I'm more of a traditional toxicologist. Biotechnology is not really in my formal area. However, we're seeing the crossover between transgenic—that's genetically engineered crops—and some of the more classic toxicology issues when we get into BT-engineered crops. So the impact of the BT in the pollen, drifting and exposure of butterflies, is a real concern, and I think those kinds of questions should be answered before you go wholesale into this kind of technology. Therefore, our perspective is one of caution and precautionary action before jumping into this.

On the question of labelling, that assumes you already have food in the marketplace, which we do, mainly because there has been no debate about this issue to date. WWF doesn't have a formal policy on that, but we would certainly like to see the ecological questions answered before proceeding with this kind of technology.

The Chairman: Mr. Herron.

Mr. John Herron: A comment was made with respect to potential triggers, in terms of us not wanting food we consume to potentially contain a carcinogen. So something we might want to take a look at are the triggers such as you pointed out with respect to Sweden. How do you do it from an import perspective, because a lot of our produce is imported into the country? How do you deal with it from that perspective?

Ms. Julia Langer: The main mechanism would be through the maximum residue limits. If you say you don't want residues of chemical XYZ because they're carcinogens, that means you don't want to import them either.

Generally, Canada has been different from the United States in that way, where we say there's a maximum residue limit for everything. It's a default limit. If things come in, they have to be below that default limit, or the maximum residue limit, that's been set. Now, that assumes that it's registered here.

When it's not registered here, I'm not sure how it works, whether the limit is zero or not. Somebody else will have to answer that question. But that would be the mechanism for barring the import. So if something comes in that's got a carcinogen, we would say no, because our standards are that we don't eat carcinogens.

Mr. John Herron: On point ten of your brief, I'd really like to sort of expand on that from the standpoint that a lot of the producers of pesticides are providing the evidence in terms of the potentially harmful effects of a given pesticide. From this I'm reading that you have a concern as to whether you're getting the full picture about some of the studies that may be undertaken by different companies. I consider this to be kind of spooky, actually. Could you expand on your point ten?

Ms. Julia Langer: There's information about hazard, the sort of ecological hazard, health hazard. The tests that have to be done should not necessarily be the raw data, but the summary—everybody does summaries of that data—should be available. If a pesticide is going through registration or re-evaluation, if I'm interested I should be able to say “Look, it says here it has this level of acute impact”, or “This reproductive study shows this kind of impact on fertility”. The interpretation of the company might be that this is not a big deal, but it might be a big deal to me. I want to be able to see that and comment on it. Right now, we have no access to that information.

• 1040

On some new pesticides that are going through the registration process now, the PMRA has been asking the registrants whether they will allow a summary to be distributed for comment. I've seen three or four in the past couple of years where the company has provided permission—because this is the kind of data that's available in the United States anyway—so we've been able to see that.

It really is exclusive of what's pure confidential business information. As to the exact formulation, the testing protocols, you know, there are certain bits of information that are truly considered confidential business information, but everything else should be releasable.

Mr. John Herron: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Chairman: Madam Kraft Sloan, followed by Mr. Stoffer, Mr. Charbonneau, then the chair.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know if the witness has enough familiarity with the Government of Ontario to comment with regard to pesticide reporting, but it seems they provide detailed surveys of agricultural pesticide usage every five years and a survey that came out.... The information I have here is that the surveys they had produced on agricultural pesticide use had decreased by 28% from 1983 to 1993, so we're expecting a survey soon. How comprehensive is this?

Ms. Julia Langer: Really, it's a very detailed survey. This is the latest one; it's the 1993 data. It's an extrapolation of use. What they do is to survey farmers and then extrapolate to the amount of acreage in that kind of crop production. They go county by county, crop by crop. It's really very detailed data. The 28% is of course based on volume; they go by kilograms of active ingredients.

You can see the data is related to crop rotation, let's say. In corn, when you rotate the corn, you eliminate to a certain extent the corn borer problem, so you eliminate the need for insecticide use or you drastically reduce it. Some of the reduction, I must point out, is really a switch from one chemical to another—from a high-dose chemical to a low-dose chemical—which reduces the weight of active ingredient but doesn't necessarily reduce the toxicity. Nevertheless, their figures are based, I think, on quite extensive data.

I've been collecting data from all over the world on pesticide use and looking at different systems for collecting data—from the California system, which is very extensive, where the users and the distributors and the manufacturers have to report. There are all sorts of different systems. As a matter of fact, I'm on a committee the Pest Management Regulatory Agency has convened to look at doing a pesticide database. And what the provinces indicate they are interested in is what they call an anchoring number. So they gather this information, Alberta gathers some information, but they have no national figure to anchor this information to, to validate against.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Are there other provinces, other than Ontario and Alberta?

Ms. Julia Langer: Quebec does a survey of certain crops, the big corn-soybean rotation. P.E.I. does some data gathering. Alberta does a survey of the pesticide distributors to try to get a fix on volume. So it's a bit of a hodge-podge.

I just do not see why there is any reluctance on the part of PMRA to basically ask for this information and get it. They're sort of waiting on industry to see what industry will get them. They don't want to report it by active ingredient, which I think makes the information quite useless. There's so much information about getting information that there's no reason to be delaying on this.

• 1045

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: So even though there is some information collected, it's not very comprehensive and it certainly—

Ms. Julia Langer: It's province by province. It's according to what they see as their need. But there is no federal roundup. You know, PMRA is the registration agency. They have no national track of what pesticides are used when, where, or why. They just give the registration and out it goes with no follow up.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: The other question I have relates to the international POPs negotiating process. One of the grave concerns I had about the CEPA legislation was what elements from CEPA will be used as models for the international POPs negotiating process, considering that Canada is chairing the process. Given some of the issues we have with the PMRA, I'm wondering what impact you feel the sort of the practice in Canada right now vis-à-vis pesticides and pesticides that are POPs will have on the POPs negotiating process.

Ms. Julia Langer: I think I mentioned that PMRA's interpretation of the TSMP is seriously flawed. Without getting into the details, basically they do not ever say that POPs, whether they're micro-contaminants or pesticides themselves, should be virtually eliminated. End of story. They say “Well, maybe they can be used for risk reduction”. This is really unacceptable. So you get a situation where you may have pesticides with dioxins and furans. There certainly are pesticides that contain dioxins and furans and hexachlorobenzene, and these are not being fast-tracked for virtual elimination. They're being.... I don't know what they're doing with them.

This will undermine Canada's negotiating position within the POPs treaty process, because there's still this sort of assumption that you don't really need to get rid of them. In our view, track one substances should be virtually eliminated—end of story—and we should have an action plan to do it. The implementation plan does not list the substances, does not put a timeline. I think that has to be fixed before we can actually have some harmony within the Canadian delegation that goes to the POPs process.

The Chairman: Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just one thing she mentioned before, that Austria had done a study on Lindane, I believe, and they came up with some conclusions and that instead of doing our own study on Lindane, we should more or less.... I don't know if she's saying we should accept what they have done, or at least use their information.

Mr. Chair, is there not a possibility...? Right now we are dealing with an issue, for example, on fisheries, on seals, and we had two scientists who came up with two totally different points of view. Would there not be a risk or a danger, if we accepted another country's point of view on a particular substance or a pesticide that they said was not that risky or not that dangerous, of using pesticides in this country that are indeed harmful just because that other country said they were not, Mr. Chair?

Ms. Julia Langer: Certainly it does cut both ways. In the case of Lindane, I object to the process of Canada having to do a whole special review when another country has actually done the review. We certainly know that Canadians are exposed to Lindane, and we need to expedite processes like this. I'm only pointing out that Austria did it because Austria did it, so the assessment is there. Obviously, it has to be looked at. But a special review.... My experience with special review is carbofuran. That lasted from 1989 to 1998. That's a bit disconcerting in terms of what that means, especially when there's no timeline specified in the legislation or the regulations. I want to have an expedited process based on the fact that the Inuit and Canadian Arctic wildlife are exposed, that Austria's done the assessment, and that everything points to this being a very nasty substance.

• 1050

Mr. Peter Stoffer: My colleague from Atlantic Canada has asked me to ask this, so I'll do it on his behalf.

The Department of Health is doing a project on environmental illness and chemical sensitivity. If indeed the federal government one day does recognize environmental illness or chemical sensitivity as a recognizable disease, as an ailment, that would be compensated for or looked at. Would not then your actions on the accumulative effect of pesticides come into play in that regard?

You were saying that we have to look at the accumulative aspect. For example, I always say that if you pump your own gas you're exposed to certain things. If you drink milk out of a container, you're exposed to certain concerns. If you drink water from a certain other container.... All these are accumulative.

Ms. Julia Langer: What this speaks to more is what the most sensitive end points are. So if you pick a hypersensitive end point as being the level to which you will protect, you will come up with a different decision from what you would if you were protecting the average male or even the average child, because you've picked a more sensitive end point. So another regulatory decision has to be made on what level of protection we are offering. What are we basing our standard on?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The Chairman: Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Charbonneau, go ahead please.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau (Anjou—Rivière-des-Prairies, Lib.): I listened very carefully to Ms. Langer's presentation and I was very impressed by it. I come back now to the document you provided us with earlier in which you summarize your program under four main objectives: catch-up, alternative solutions, changes to the legislation and accountability. I find that it is a very clear and very interesting program that the committee should take a close look at and in my view adopt as its own.

With the experience you have acquired over the years in this field or in this milieu, if you had the power of a minister vis-à-vis the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, would you be questioning its very existence?

[English]

Would you scrap it or not?

[Translation]

Is it its organization or its leadership that is in question? Is there a poor definition of its priorities? Is the problem with its budget, its means or its scientific expertise? What are the problems? What would you do to correct the problem? Would you keep the agency and, if so, what changes would you make in order for it to work? You say that we must fix it, that the time has come to fix it. I'm awaiting the doctor's prescription.

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: I don't think that the PMRA is inherently incapable of managing this. As you phrased it, it is more really a matter of their priorities, their legislative abilities, their will, the direction they've been given and who really are their clients and what are their priorities. And I've tried to lay out a series of recommendations that will make their priorities, if I were in the position to set them, clearly health and environment oriented.

They also have an inherent problem, however, with how they're financed. Nobody likes cost recovery, not the industry and not the folks from our side of the table, because cost recovery is a recipe for continuing pesticide use. If your budget is tied to registering pesticides and having pesticides on the market, there's not that much incentive to actually reduce them, because then your budget disappears. You could look at it in that context.

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Given that the time has come to really focus on pesticide legislation, the auditor has given us more than his permission to do that—he's mandated us to do that. We have to look at the mandate and at the priorities and cost them accordingly and look at ways of financing them appropriately. So I don't think it's an unfixable thing. It's something that has just kept slipping and slipping.

For an historical perspective I did bring a bunch of material, but this goes back to your party's commitment in 1993 to amend the legislation that was in the Prime Minister's briefing notes on agriculture. It still hasn't been done. I think it really deserves that kind of attention, both to the mandate and to the financing.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Mr. Chairman, the witness tells us that there was a question of priority selection and certainly one of financial means. I would like to give her the opportunity to delve more into this aspect in particular.

Could you summarize for us the changes you would make to the agency's mandate in order that it do a better job?

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: I would reiterate that the clear priority has to be health and environmental protection. Anything else preambular has to come a very long second to that. When you read about the strategic plan of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency and all of their priorities about timely access to pesticides, that really takes away from what should be the major mandate. If we focus on that in the context of amendments, then we won't have difficulties sorting out what the mandate and what the direction would be. That's the simplest way for me to put it.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: The first aim, in the strategic plan, is the protection of health and the environment against the risks associated with pest control products. That is the first thing.

[English]

Ms. Julia Langer: That should be the mandate, and everything else is really secondary to that. Right now it's embedded in all sorts of other mandates.

[Translation]

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

[English]

As you know, Ms. Langer, the present mandate of the PMRA is of a dual nature. It promotes health but it also promotes the use of pesticides. The question is, do you see a conflict in the present mandate? If there is a conflict, how would you resolve it? And if there isn't a conflict, then we can rest and move on to other things.

Ms. Julia Langer: I think there is a conflict. Recognizing that their mandate is as the regulatory agency over pesticides, the mandate has to be to protect health and the environment. Otherwise, their mandate is to register pesticides while protecting the environment. I don't believe that should be the case. That conflict should be removed. They have to be a health and environmental protection agency and mandate recognizing that the task at hand is to register pesticides. So there has to be a way to remove that conflict.

The Chairman: You're familiar with the fact that the agency is responsible to the Department of Health.

Ms. Julia Langer: Yes.

The Chairman: Is that responsibility being fully discharged?

Ms. Julia Langer: They are accountable to the Minister of Health. They're a branch of Health Canada, so I don't think—

The Chairman: Are you satisfied with the manner in which the PMRA has acted so far?

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Ms. Julia Langer: No, I cannot say that I am. Many of the reforms that were part of the package in the creation of the PMRA have certainly not been undertaken. On the other hand, some of the reforms that enhance the access to pesticides have been undertaken. So I certainly am not satisfied, but, as I answered Mr. Charbonneau, there is an opportunity to fix this.

The Chairman: Thank you.

If there are no final questions, we thank you very much indeed for your appearance, and we invite the next witness to the table.

As a committee, we are very honoured to have as a witness Ms. Mary Doody Jones, representing the Stop the Spraying movement.

Welcome to the committee. I invite you to proceed.

[Translation]

Mrs. Mary E. Doody Jones (Stop the Spraying): I appreciate the opportunity given me here to appear before you. I have come from far away, as we say, and I would like you to feel free to ask me questions in French, but if you do so, it would be nice if you spoke a little more slowly in order for me to understand better. We don't get many opportunities to practise French in Victoria.

[English]

I am speaking from the viewpoint of the view from the bottom. To take the commissioner's view from the top, les perspectives des citoyens.... But really it's more du bas. That means to say that we receive all the stuff on us, and I have a great deal more information. I'm deliberately keeping this short. If anybody wants more information, I can answer most questions.

My qualifications are in fact as an academic, with a great deal of education as an active researcher in many areas. I also have a diploma of cultural conservation from the University of Victoria. That diploma involves, for me, particularly, the conservation of buildings.

They have world-class teachers there. One teacher taught us about pollution, so I do have some particular knowledge not just about the effect of pollution on masonry and granite, but also about its effect on people. I also took part in the actual appeal board in B.C. last year.

I took part in different activities...in the trapping and other ground-based activities by volunteers. I have also fought to prevent a huge, nearly 14,000 hectare spraying...and the appeal board last year would not allow 453 hectares. And this was done.

It's been very difficult. My aim in this is to give you the perspective of a citizen with some information you can ask about. I will be giving three main points, four recommendations, and I have also given to the clerk some more recommendations on different means and some more information about things going wrong.

We are citizens fighting for paradise. Vancouver Island is a unique, wonderful zone. It is not urbanized like the mainland. So many vulnerable people choose to live there. They can have their organic gardens; the climate is nice. There is a high proportion of seniors, another vulnerable group.

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When I come to Ontario I am totally surprised by the vitality in the street. The organic farmers and bee producers...that's really big.

[Translation]

For us, it is somewhat like a nightmare for citizens. Life has become a war. Last year, we obtained the other... [Editor's note: Inaudible] A few volunteers have devoted virtually their whole lives to this work, and they have succeeded. What I mean by that is that the insects were found. It was a total eradication. All of that was done despite the lack of cooperation of the part of officials, in particular those from the CFIA. I have supplied you with documents in this regard.

We nevertheless succeeded. The government skewed our results to say that it was a major crisis and stole our right of appeal from us. We went to court, but in vain. Everyone says that it is safe. It isn't. It's like a bombing campaign against the citizens of residential areas. Mr. Gilmour, from Nanaimo, is here; and that is in centertown. It is like a bombing program.

The emotions are still there: fear, frustration. It is difficult to live in these conditions. I didn't sleep very well and I would wake up in the dark of the night, afraid for everyone on earth. I wasn't eating well.

When I go back, it will be very sad. I will see my compatriots exhausted, frustrated, still fighting against the officials. It is very difficult. I won't have enough time to take care of the ordinary things in life or to carry out the professional activities that are so important to me. There is always a letter to be written to a minister or something else that has to be done.

That is the story of Canadians that the government doesn't know about.

[English]

Now I'm going to speak about Bt. This is not a chemical spray. It is the biological, the microbial, bacillus thuringiensis—only someone who has worked with it could spell it—and it has a certain form, Foray 48B. They talk to you about Bt. This not Bt; this is a spray in which Bt is 2.1% and there are other formulants.

Julia's talk, ahead of me, was very good. She talked about the synergistic effect. There are a number of low-level toxins. They're low level, but put together, with the synergistic effect, they work powerfully.

Then there are a number of food elements. For someone like myself, who's here as a refugee, partly, because of food allergies and warnings about problems with low gastric acid, that is really scary, and there are documented cases of food allergies, of problems due to that.

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I would like to explain how it works so that you understand that it is not doux et sauf. It is not gentle. It's actually a hard crystal, little crystals on the leaf. The bug eats it. It digs its way into the inside of the bug and lets off the toxins. And if that doesn't work, then the spores, which are a huge form of yeast, take over the whole system and the bug dies. Isn't that great? A dead bug. But there are also a lot of other dead bugs and other things too. If you can imagine that transferred to human lungs and human stomachs, especially weak ones.... I leave that to your imagination for the present. There's a lot of information out there.

I'm going to talk now on the third point, which is the effects on health and ecology. I'm concentrating particularly on the ecology, and I would like to note that the reregistration from the Environmental Protection Agency in the States, on whom we all rely, has stated various problems that occur. All of these problems are denied by the officials, who keep giving the line that it's completely harmless. Yet it can kill honeybees, wild mammals, and all kinds of beneficial insects and invertebrates.

It is not supposed to be applied to intertidal zones. I bring this to your attention, Mr. Gilmour, because when they spray on Nanaimo, Victoria near the harbour, Tsawwassen, which was added, and Esquimalt, they will not be careful. It will get into those zones.

You are not supposed to spray in water. The reregistration says so. You're not supposed to spray on drinking water. But as witnesses saw, the pilot kept his nozzle on over the lake and over the grass, where no gypsy moths are ever found. That stuff endures for a long time in water.

So there are a number of problems that will arise. Unfortunately, they may not be attributed to this, but over such a huge area there is a great deal of effect.

As to the attitude of the CFIA, I can best say I learned quickly at the appeal. That was quite simply arrogance. The EAB decision last year, which upset the officials so that they had to go and push for this other and drag their feet on helping us, called them arrogant, quite correctly.

When I was cross-questioning Dr. Fraser at the hearing, I said “Okay, let me take your concern about the trees and let's look at the health and environment.” He said “I don't care about the trees.” “Oh, okay. Let me take your concern about trade and we'll look at this.” He said “That's not my job; that's not my responsibility.” That is precisely the kind of attitude I've seen in some of the observing here. However, it was an introduction.

I'm now going to pass quickly over the four recommendations. We went to the law. We wanted to do biodiversity and under the Constitution, because this thing attacks vulnerable people, but we ended up only doing regulation. The judge has put forward a terrible precedent, which I think you should be aware of—the clerk has a copy of the judgment—in which he basically said that since the province had appealed to one section in their act, under emergency, they didn't really have to meet the other regulations. We had really good evidence about cutting and pasting different acts and all kinds of things wrong with regulation, but now the field is open. There's a precedent. As long as you appeal to emergency, there is no regulation, no permits, no plan, no right of appeal.

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So my recommendation, of course, is to ensure in federal law that regulations of process in applying for programs and in the actual spraying, the actual carrying out of it, are to be followed, and that something can be done.

The second one here is the situation. This is a so-called biological, and I note that the commissioner only talks about the chemical. There are effects. Unfortunately, they always skew the medical survey. It's being done right now in Victoria. They say, well, it wasn't the Bt. People are actually denied—when they go and say they've got this problem, and it's from the spray, they won't put it down; they won't test them. It's happened before; it's happening now. So no evidence, no harm is the conclusion.

In short, I would like to have the.... And all those who are lawmakers can look at this. I'm going to pass this on to the commissioner. The so-called biologicals also have effects. They may be sleepers, but they will come to hit us. There's a study being done right now by the EPA on the possible effects in soil, for example. There are concerns.

The Chairman: Excuse me for interrupting. We have copies of the study you are referring to. Would you please now come to a conclusion.

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: Yes.

The third situation, of course, has been referred to, but here we are being sprayed, with results like asthma, seizures, a number of things, and we can't find out the ingredients. What we can find out is pretty frightening. One of the ingredients is lye. I think it's sodium potassium, but anyway it's lye, and people have eye problems. There has been one already on Vancouver Island.

Anyway, there are all kinds of weird, strange things in there, but we don't know them. The food elements—I mentioned that before, and I myself found out through the back door from somebody who was at a meeting with the man from Abbott Laboratories that it has wheat and barley in it, which has the gluten, which is pretty absolute for me. And there's yeast in it, and Bt itself is a mould. If it took over my system—I already have enough problems. I walk a tightrope.

So obviously it is to everybody's interest that if we are being sprayed with this stuff and you cannot test on humans, that's not allowed, but you can throw it all over many people in the residential areas, then we should at least know what we're being sprayed with. The emergency systems should know, and they don't.

The fourth one is that B.C. took over the program, has been railroading it through, has been breaking regulations, has been avoiding regulations, and in the actual doing the spraying.... There is an account the clerk has of the problems already occurring—haven't been warning people, all kinds of things. They have missed on this.

Now, if it was observed that they wouldn't stop over a lake.... It's clear when you look at the maps that it is a war zone; it's right near the harbours and there's the Cowichan River and there are lakes. There is an incredible amount of water being sprayed, either directly or indirectly through drift. This is really serious. There is such a large area it will impact, and it can kill wild mammals. These are the exotoxins that arise.

What about the marmot on Vancouver Island? What about the bees, which are already down to one-fifth their numbers because they are infested with mites on the island, and they're responsible for 20% of the food production? If we lost them we'd lose that. Yet they're cutting $3.5 million from the education budget and spending at least $2.5 million on this program doing three huge sprays, when the CFIA couldn't finish the second limited ground spray last year, and we couldn't get burlap. It's an incredible problem.

Regarding the recommendation, I would go along with the commissioner on his points about the federal-provincial, that there should be an act.... Oh, there's one more piece of information that is just really recent. They just got the paper presented to the cabinet when they made their decision. That paper had no mention of environmental concerns, period. The CFIA person was quoted as saying the laws were expanding, when in fact it's not necessarily true and it's not an emergency.

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So there should be better accountability here. I really strongly suggest that somebody start making efforts to do an agreement with B.C., which is getting out of control here. Also, there is no process for taking the power back. Get that in place as soon as possible for any province.

[Translation]

I would like to conclude by saying that I hope that one day these things will no longer exist, that they will be considered ancient history and dangerous and inefficient barbarian methods. That is what I am working towards. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you, Ms. Jones.

[English]

It's very good of you to come forward with your personal experience and commitment.

We will start with Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome.

My understanding of the situation was the gypsy moth was identified in pockets basically on the southeast part of Vancouver Island. The government declared a state of emergency because of what this could do to the forest industry should these pockets be allowed to expand.

Now, you've described the process, and clearly from your point of view there are some flaws in the process, but my question is on the alternatives. Are there alternatives to spraying—

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: Absolutely.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: —that have been proven to work?

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: Yes. I'm all ready with that answer, because we were doing it, and there's a new alternative as well. First of all, the alternative.... Let me just for everybody here do a really quick summary of the differences between Ontario, Quebec, and B.C. And no, it was not an emergency. It should be dealt with, but it's not the crisis they said it was.

Now, the difference between Ontario and Quebec is that Ontario has rolling countryside, lots of deciduous trees, and you have 34% mixed hardwoods. In Quebec, you have 24% mixed hardwoods. Do you know the percentage of mixed hardwood in B.C.?

Mr. Bill Gilmour: It is quite low.

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: It's 1.3%. The terrain is very rocky and it has a lot of conifers. And then you get stands, which you can identify, of the Garry oak, which is of great concern. Then you get a few trees here and there. So to begin with, it is not the same; they cannot establish as fast, nor move as fast.

Okay, with regard to the alternatives, this is what was ordered last year, and there was a limited ground spray in what was called the epicentre. In fact, because they did a ground spray they actually found the place, the actual home where it came from, from a man who had moved from Ontario. They could tell because of the infestation of it.

Incidentally, on the ground spray they had to ask permission for everything, including putting in the traps, but no permission for aerial spray.

So there was supposed to be a limited ground spray, and I will emphasize that the CFIA did not finish the second ground spray. They had ground crews doing every second tree to make the stuff last. The ministry of forests couldn't fund enough to do a third ground spray either, and yet there's the money this year. So we're looking at different things.

What else did we do? Well, as a group we worked very hard; we involved 150 volunteers from the community and did a great deal of public education. So what we did was a combination of.... We did burlap banding for identification, because they crawl under there in the heat of the day, and that's one way you find them. We did egg mass searching in the spring, and it was done again in the fall.

I just want to say an important thing about egg masses. The female will lay eggs whether or not she's fertilized. And the traps are for the male moth, who flies around; the female doesn't. So in the traps with the ferromone, which is particular to those moths, so it doesn't hurt anything else, it catches them and eradicates them. Then what we did was mass trapping, which was 5,000 traps per square mile compared to 64 per square mile, the highest that the feds were doing.

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You cannot compare the results of these. I think you can see that quite clearly. You might have some idea there's some loss there, but I think you've got a pretty clear idea of what the population is. Yet we put out almost four times the number of traps and got only twice the population. Guess where most of them were found? I think you can guess, everybody. They were found in the mass trap areas or just around them, where we had not been allowed to trap. It wasn't our fault; we weren't allowed. And surprise—in fact the population had not necessarily expanded; they didn't know it last year. The trapping.... If it had been done the second year, it would have been a wonderful way to see if you got the same numbers, or whether it was really down.

One important thing is that when you went into the mass trap areas, in two of them there were no viable egg masses, and what that means is that the males never made it. In the third one, something like three out of thirty egg masses were viable. That's success, but they have twisted it to say “crisis”.

Now, there's another alternative I just heard about before I left. It's very exciting, and it kills just about as many of the gypsy moths as any spray will ever do—and nothing works 100%. It's a new fungus.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Do you have any independent scientific research to corroborate your views?

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: There's some, yes. The USDA uses some of that mass trapping as one eradication measure. This is not an infestation yet; this is in pockets. Also, when you're dealing with Garry oaks, for example, they have a whole ecosystem, and if you spray, you will hurt other bugs in the system that help the tree.

In regard to evidence, there is other evidence. Also, three scientists met with the volunteer who coordinated the program—three from University of Victoria and the government. They said from their point of view, it was a success. A second year would have been nice.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Thank you again.

The Chairman: Mr. Charbonneau, Mr. Stoffer, and Madam Kraft Sloan.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank our witness who has brought us the view from the bottom, in other words from those the pesticide and insecticide problems fall upon.

Let us tackle the question in the following way. We are all in the same boat. Here, we have a role to play as legislators, but when we leave this place, we are like everybody else. When we sit on the shore of a lake, when we go fishing, etc., we are attacked by millions of insects, black flies, mosquitoes, all sorts of insects that bite us, that bother us and drive us mad.

There probably are good insects, lovely butterflies and beautiful bees, but we are assailed by mosquitoes and the most hateful insects.

I do some gardening; I am on a lake. As we say, the weeds have the nasty habit of growing more quickly than the rest, and I must take that into account. I have to ensure that my flowers and the plants I want grow and that the weeds disappear.

I have a problem; I even have two problems: I have insects and insecticides; I have weeds and good plants and flowers. How can we reconcile all of this, and find good insecticides to fight against bad insects and good pesticides to fight against weeds? That is the problem. What would you advise us to do in order that we might move forward?

You are aware that a lot of bad decisions are being made these days. In British Columbia, we have a so-called progressive new democrat government, and you have spoken about decisions made by this government that are quite unpleasant.

We could also take the example of Quebec, where it's the same thing. Unfortunately, Ms. Girard-Bujold has just left the room. The Bouchard government, saying that the situation is an emergency, is putting aside the entire environmental evaluation process to erect hydro lines. There are several similar examples.

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The problem is knowing how to reconcile all of that. I have two problems: insects and insecticides. How can we move forward in this area?

[English]

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: Okay. The very first thing I would say to you is something that's in the added thing, where I made recommendations, which is that the citizens should be consulted. Now, there's one real problem in B.C., which is that there is, for instance, a special group that deals with decisions on the gypsy moth. They have a special committee. They call themselves stakeholders, and yet the people are not represented at all. One of the first and most important points is to get the stakeholders, the citizens, those who have to deal with the results of any spraying or any activities, in there. They will come up with creative solutions. Also, there are other solutions out there. So that's the first one.

The second one is to look at the situation carefully. As I've just explained, the B.C. government has totally skewed something that wasn't an emergency into an emergency. Is it really an emergency? Under the law, they don't have to say what an emergency is. Would two gypsy moths be an emergency? I mean, that's a serious question. So I think that “emergency” should be defined at some point to protect everybody and the environment.

Thirdly, yes, there are other measures. The problem is, and here I'm going to.... It's a bit like the game of Clue, I suspect: I'm accusing here. I'm accusing the CFIA.

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: What is CFIA?

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: You had them earlier, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. But they also did the spraying for us last year. You had them in front of you last time. But you don't talk about the spraying activities they do. All they can see is spraying, and aerial spraying at that. If you talk to many of the officials who work with it, that is all they can see. The problem here, and this is an ingredient, is how often is this going to occur? That's an important question.

In B.C. it occurs all the time, because people come from Ontario or some places in the States, and they bring it on in little bugs that are clinging to the wheels or their outdoor furniture. That's how it gets here. So it continually comes. It's not going to stop. If you see something is happening continually, it's really worth while to take a look and say, well, what can we do to reduce the pesticides and do other things? Because it's not going to go away; it's going to come back—even if we ever got rid of it totally.

So the last thing I say is look carefully at the alternatives, and at the situation in particular. As I explained, it's relatively easy in our part of the world to figure out where the hardwoods are. If you want to do spraying, for example, go and do ground spray. Don't aerial spray. I don't like ground spray, but it's a lot better than the other. Do the mass trapping where you've got sensitive ecosystems. It works, and you get the will of the citizens, who turned out and did a great deal of it.

Regarding the mosquitoes, if you spray this year's mosquitoes, next year they'll be back. If you spray them, what else are you killing? One of the effects, which B.C. hasn't been concerned about and hasn't talked about, is the effect on birds. Birds are the greatest insect killers, so to speak. They are your great defence. What happens with this spray, and it's in the literature, is that birds get displaced because of the lack of food—their supplies—in the middle of the nesting season even, which is when it was. So it hurt me when I saw the birds. They didn't know it was going to hit them. So what's going to happen is that for nearly 14,000 hectares or so, with drift, there won't be the number of birds to take care of the gypsy moths—the caterpillars—or other problems. So you have to balance off.

You also have to balance off the economic interests. The organic farmers had a problem. They would be decertified. Do you know what the solution was? It was totally strange. They were Saran-wrapping Vancouver Island. That was to quote the lawyer. They were putting down sheets of plastic, which doesn't solve the problem. The Bt will get in the soil.

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When I go back I will not be able to drink the water. I have to find a filter system. I will not be able to eat the produce from my own garden, as I could before. I'm going to have to wash the produce off in filtered water. So you have to balance that.

Then there's the honeybee people. Let's balance economic interests here. They were going to quarantine, but the quarantine was relatively small compared to if we lost the honeybees. Once again, organic farmers could lose, so you have to do that balancing act and also look at all the factors. If you're going to do pesticides, do the least amount possible. Do the greatest alternatives. Involve citizens who would be very happy to help just to avoid being sprayed.

The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Charbonneau.

Mr. Stoffer, please.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank you very much for coming out here and showing us more of a citizen's approach to trying to combat the spraying that goes on.

Mr. Chair, I'm always amazed that every Saturday morning in Nova Scotia out comes the battle with people and their lawns. You brought that point up earlier about pesticides on the lawn. It's just amazing what lengths people will go to to get rid of a dandelion. Instead of growing more flowers, more trees, and doing more landscaping in that regard, they insist on killing and destroying these little dandelions to their own great expense...plus their own health concerns as well.

You talk about aerial spraying, but are you taking your battle, your initiatives, which are greatly appreciated, by the way...? We have many women similar to yourself who take up this battle, and it's usually women, Mr. Chair. I don't see too many men fighting against spraying actions.

In Nova Scotia there's a large organization trying to get the municipalities and the province to end spraying in people's backyards. For example, if someone's spraying in their backyard and you have chemical sensitivities next door, you should be notified well in advance that this is happening. They're very reluctant to put in that bylaw.

What do you think we can do as citizens? As Mr. Charbonneau was saying, once we leave here we go back into the world of the citizen again. What can we do to persuade our municipalities, our provincial governments, and then ourselves to fight this battle?

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: I'm very familiar with municipalities, because I actually worked for twenty years in the heritage field as an advocate. I was up before councils all the time. In fact they are one of the most accessible areas. They are not provincial. They are not federal. They're right there. You can vote them out, hopefully, and they're closer to you.

I remember citizens in Victoria bringing it up. That's what works. You bring it up as a groundswell. The municipality eventually did cut out 2,4-D.

In Nova Scotia you face a discouraging prospect. Last year there was a huge spraying of this stuff by the Nova Scotia government, again, just like us, over residential areas. So what you save on one hand, someone else will outdo you on another.

There are several routes. You could work to have the provincial act amended for notification, certainly. I know enough sensitive people who are working on this cause, and some who can't work on it because they're too sensitive, and I'm here representing them, as it were. The others have to try for them. They have to lobby and present as much....

I see what has to be done, and it's greater than in Nova Scotia and it's greater than in B.C., because Nova Scotia was sprayed last year. The environmental movement has to get together all across Canada on these same questions through some forum and actually work together so that you get support from all over the country when you do these things, not just within the province.

The Chairman: To conclude, Madam Kraft Sloan, could you please compress your questions, because we have to deal with budgetary items and the quorum is very fragile.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Thank you very much.

Not being a chemist, I'm curious to understand the components of these aerial bug sprays and I'm wondering why food materials are—

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Ms. Mary Doody Jones: That's very simple. In fact we were told at the hearing by people who knew that they were treated as if they were.... Some of them are actually used in foods as keepers and/or as making things flow, or whatever. These things are treated as food when they do this. Basically, they are used for the qualities of flowing. They use molasses to stick to the leaf.

By the way, the first time they sprayed—and they didn't have to spray that area, because the leaves weren't out enough, the bugs weren't out enough—it rained for six hours afterwards and it was all gone. It was lost, because of course the rain would take away the molasses.

So these food elements are used for the various properties needed to get the spray to flow and to stick. That's the simple answer.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: I do share your concerns. I know a number of people who have food allergies, and their concern is around some of the genetically modified food products.

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: In addition, at the hearing last year, under cross-questioning by myself, our so-called medical health officer basically would not admit that there was a documented case of a food allergy in the literature from this. His bias on the medical survey was that he was setting out to prove it was safe, not to see what would happen. He would not bring himself to admit that there was a problem. He couldn't say yes or no. He would never answer me.

So a lot of the medical people who are in on this, who are pushing it—and medical health officers I generally do not trust at this point—will do the same.

The Chairman: All right, then. Would you like to conclude, please.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: That's fine. Thank you.

The Chairman: Ms. Doody Jones, we want to thank you for appearing before the committee and in particular for the four recommendations you have given us. If you have any documentation on the CFIA conducting spraying, could you please let the committee know the precise date and the conditions under which this spraying took place? This is new information for the committee and it ought to be either verified or confirmed by you perhaps.

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: I would like to clarify that the spraying this year is being done by the province, with perhaps the help of the CFIA. Last year, the ground spraying was done by the CFIA, and they say they didn't finish it and they dragged their feet in a number of areas, which I have mentioned in the brief.

The Chairman: Could you, by way of a letter perhaps, give the committee the dates of the ground spraying so that we can pursue that matter at an appropriate time?

We would also like to thank you for sensitizing the committee to the condition of the people who are particularly sensitive to this and bringing up dimensions related to that particular condition.

We wish you well in your endeavours in Victoria and on Vancouver Island and we hope one day to meet you there.

Ms. Mary Doody Jones: Yes, and I'll give you an historical tour, just to show you the other side. Thank you.

The Chairman: Thank you very much.

The clerk has kindly prepared a list of potential witnesses for the committee. The list is being distributed now. It is intended to give you an idea of what is ahead of us so we can comment on that list when we meet next time.

We will meet next Tuesday, if the House is sitting, and therefore we'd be glad to hear from you on the content of the list on that occasion. If we don't meet, then we will hear from you at the first opportunity thereafter.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Chairman, what Tuesday are you talking about?

The Chairman: Next Tuesday morning, if the House is sitting, I said.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: It's not.

The Chairman: That is an assumption.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: All right.

The Chairman: We'll proceed with the budget of the committee, which does not require an approval today because the liaison committee will resume its sitting in the fall. So it could be dealt with at the first meeting of this committee, whenever we meet next time. At least you will have an opportunity to go through it and evaluate it and comment on it.

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On the request of Mr. Gilmour, another document is also being distributed, namely the one related to the proposed Sydney visit. That budgetary requirement follows a different route. It does not go to the liaison committee; it goes to the House leaders for their approval. It requires more than the approval of this committee.

Therefore, I would ask you in the remaining minutes to examine the budget prepared by the clerk. It consists of two pages and that is the item before us for discussion.

Madam Kraft Sloan, do you have a point of clarification?

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Are we not going to discuss the pesticide budget? I had an issue around this. I was going to make a recommendation that the committee consider travel plans to Washington, D.C., so we can speak to some of the officials down there and take a firsthand look at some of the programs. We've been hearing an awful lot about what they're doing, particularly in regard to children's health in pesticides. It would be a good opportunity.

The committee hasn't been to Washington in a number of years. When we were there we had an excellent briefing from the embassy as well as an opportunity to meet with some of the American environmental groups. So we could do some of our pesticide work as well as get a quick briefing and update from some of the national NGOs in Washington.

The Chairman: These kinds of ideas need to be explored and they require research and examination.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Mr. Herron likes the idea and so does Mr. Gilmour.

The Chairman: We can try to put together a proposal to see what Washington is able to offer and at what time of the year. We'll ask Ms. Labelle to explore that aspect and have a draft outline for the committee when we meet next time.

Let's now concentrate on the business before the committee, which is the Sydney visit. You can see the estimated total cost at $27,400. The MPs' points have not been included also. They should be included, because there are sufficient trips available at the end of the year by members to do it on their own points and reduce the cost to the committee.

The other aspect is the per diems on page two. It is calculated according to the requirements of the House, I suppose.

The Clerk of the Committee: Yes...according to the standards.

The Chairman: It's a general rule.

The Clerk: With regard to the air transportation, of course that's full fare. That could, in theory, be reduced if we could make a reservation several weeks in advance.

The Chairman: I'm saying that if the MPs' points are utilized, that figure would be considerably reduced.

The Clerk: Absolutely.

The Chairman: I imagine that figure of $27,400 includes the full fare?

The Clerk: The full fare is $21,515, Mr. Chairman; the excursion fare would be half that. If the members use their points, of course, that would be zero on this budget, except for the staff.

The Chairman: So the floor is open for questions, comments, interventions, and whatever follows.

Do you have a point of clarification, Madam Torsney?

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.): We should be clear that whether it's used out of a member's points or whether the travel is attributed to a committee, it's still a cost to the government.

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I do not think members should be told to use their points. There are many members in this House who have families and need their points. There are many members in this House who use up all their points. I, for one, do not use up all my points. But whether or not I do is not the issue.

You should not have people using their points for committee business. If the committee believes the travel is appropriate, the committee should approve the budget for travel. It should not be taken out of the point system. Those points are quite separate. It's unfair to people with children and spouses who want to ensure that they have some contact throughout the year.

The Chairman: Thank you. We'll let the members with children and spouses speak for themselves. If they have any reservation, they will make that point. The travel is not for the entire House of Commons—

Ms. Paddy Torsney: No—

The Chairman: Excuse me. The travel is envisaged for the members of this committee. If there are objections, fine. If there are no objections, then the point system can be used.

Mr. Herron.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: I have a point of order. I can raise that point without having children, Mr. Chair, because I think it's a policy statement, not necessarily something that only people with children should be raising.

The Chairman: The member spoke on behalf of those with children and families. If there are people who want to raise that point, that's perfectly legitimate. But if there aren't, then the point system can be used. There's no rule that rules that possibility out.

Could we now also discuss the overall amount and get other views on the issue of the point system? Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Mr. Chairman, might I suggest that we leave it up to the individual members. Those who wish to use their points can use their points. Those who don't wish to do so can put it on to the committee travel.

The Chairman: That's a possibility, yes. That's perfectly all right.

Are there any other observations about the budget?

Ms. Paddy Torsney: For what dates is the trip planned?

The Chairman: There is no specific plan for that trip. It's for the committee to recommend to make it part of the proposal. It's wide open.

But I would draw the attention of the committee to the fact that one month ago or so Mr. Gilmour was asked by this committee to prepare an update on the situation of the tar ponds. That assessment would be very helpful to the members of the committee. That assessment is not yet in the possession of the clerk, who has followed it up on several occasions, I'm told. It would be wise that this trip take place when that report is ready, rather than without that report. Therefore, one consideration is to ensure that report is in the hands of the committee before a date is finalized.

The adoption of the budget, the clerk just informs me, is conditional upon the setting of a date.

Mr. John Herron: Do we have to set a date right now?

The Chairman: No, you don't have to set a date right now, although you could at least indicate the month and then give some latitude and indicate to the the House leaders a more precise target.

Mr. Clerk.

The Clerk: Mr. Chairman, it would be impossible to go further than today unless we have the dates. We cannot go to the budget subcommittee of the liaison committee unless we have dates. They would not approve a budget without a date. Of course, we could not go to the House unless we have dates to propose.

The Chairman: So can we entertain some kind of a motion? Mr. Charbonneau.

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[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I would suggest that it be August 19.

[English]

The Chairman: Mr. Charbonneau is proposing the date of August 19, which would be a Thursday.

Mr. John Herron: I don't want to deter the work of the—

The Chairman: We have a motion that it be set for August 19. You could insert an “or” in the motion and suggest an alternate date as well.

Mr. John Herron: I'm more in favour of an October date.

The Chairman: Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: Mr. Chairman, I think with summer vacations and people moving around it's going to be very difficult to coordinate a day in August. I would suggest that we deal with this in our first meeting after we come back in the fall. We'll have the report in our hands, hopefully, and we will then know when is the best time to travel.

The Chairman: Madam Kraft Sloan.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: Charles, or Mr. Chair, I suppose, some of this conversation is perhaps irrelevant, because the committees may be reorganized.

The Chairman: No, it's not at all irrelevant. The report is before us. A decision could be made today. I will entertain a motion for August 19, as proposed by Mr. Charbonneau.

Mrs. Karen Kraft Sloan: But you're talking about—

The Chairman: But there is an inclination here to have it later. So we have to somehow work it out, possibly by consensus rather than by forcing a vote. I think there is a hesitation as to dates. The clerk informs me that this proposal cannot go ahead unless it has an indication of a date.

Madam Torsney, followed by Mr. Charbonneau.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: To further clarify, it cannot go forward without a date. It cannot go forward today or tomorrow. Are you saying that it cannot go forward until the fall, or is there a possibility of getting something approved during the summer if we're not sitting?

The Chairman: If we are sitting next week, it can go forward very easily.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: But what happens if we're not sitting next week?

The Chairman: Then it will have to wait. But right now we have not adjourned.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: No. I'm still here.

The Chairman: No, the House has not adjourned.

Mr. Charbonneau.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: Could that not be dealt with in a conference call?

[English]

Could we have a conference call of the committee? Why not?

The Chairman: A conference call will not introduce a motion. We need a motion first.

[Translation]

We need a motion, a decision.

[English]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: We can make a motion during a conference call, and it's less expensive than having a meeting.

The Chairman: But we need a motion. In order to proceed the committee has to have a motion about the proposal. If you wish to move that the committee go on August 19, then all we need is a motion by a member.

[Translation]

Mr. Yvon Charbonneau: I have tabled one.

[English]

The Chairman: So we now have a motion by Mr. Charbonneau for August 19. Mr. Gilmour.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: I guess we have to deal with Mr. Charbonneau's motion first, but could we have an alternate date, August 19 and a date in October?

The Chairman: But then which of the two will prevail?

Mr. Bill Gilmour: That will get us the money. Then we can decide through a conference call which of the two dates to pick.

The Chairman: We have a motion by Mr. Charbonneau that the visit to Sydney take place on August 19.

(Motion negatived)

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The Chairman: Now, Mr. Gilmour, we'll hear your motion.

Mr. Bill Gilmour: I move that we postpone making a decision about the Sydney trip until the first meeting of the committee in the fall. We can then select the dates, and the budget can go forward. Also, we will have the report.

The Chairman: The motion is that we postpone a decision until we meet again.

An hon. member: It sounds like a song.

The Chairman: It sounds very romantic.

(Motion agreed to)

The Chairman: The meeting is adjourned.