HEAL Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Health

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Thursday, May 2, 2002

Á

1110

The Chair (Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.))

June Irwin (Individual Presentation)

Á

1115

The Chair

Mr. David Bennett (National Director of Health, Safety, and Environment, Canadian Labour Congress)

Á

1120

The Chair

Ms. Barbara McElgunn (Health Policy Officer, Learning Disabilities Association of Canada)

Á

1125

Á

1130

The Chair

Ms. Janet Kasperski (RN, MHSc, CHE, Executive Director, Ontario College of Family Physicians)

Á

1135

Á

1140

Á

1145

The Chair

Ms. Janet Kasperski

The Chair

Ms. Janet Kasperski

The Chair

Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka (Representative, Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World, Inc.)

Á

1150

Á

1155

Â

1200

The Chair

Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance)

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Mr. Rob Merrifield

Â

1205

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Mr. Rob Merrifield

The Chair

Mr. David Bennett

Mr. Rob Merrifield

Mr. David Bennett

Â

1210

Mr. Rob Merrifield

Mr. David Bennett

Mr. Rob Merrifield

Mr. David Bennett

The Chair

Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, BQ)

The Chair

Â

1215

Mr. Bernard Bigras

Ms. Barbara McElgunn

Â

1220

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP)

Mr. David Bennett

Â

1225

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Ms. Barbara McElgunn

The Chair

Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.)

Â

1230

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka

Â

1235

Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield )

Mr. Jeannot Castonguay (Madawaska--Restigouche, Lib.)

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Mr. Jeannot Castonguay

Ms. Janet Kasperski

Mr. Jeannot Castonguay

Â

1240

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield)

Ms. Barbara McElgunn

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Â

1245

The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield)

Mr. David Bennett

Â

1250

The Chair

Mr. David Bennett

The Chair

Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis

Ms. Barbara McElgunn

The Chair

Â

1255

Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka

The Chair

Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Health

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NUMBER 074

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Thursday, May 2, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Á  (1110)  

[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Bonnie Brown (Oakville, Lib.)): Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I'm happy to call the meeting to order and to explain to you that we will hear from the witnesses first. Then we will have rounds of questioning from the members who are present.

    We have representatives today from the Canadian Labour Congress, the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, the Ontario College of Family Physicians, a group called Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World Inc., and our first witness, who is coming to us as an individual.

    May I introduce to you Dr. June Irwin, who is a medical doctor.

    Dr. Irwin, you have the floor.

    Ms. June Irwin (Individual Presentation): Should I sit or stand?

    The Chair: Sit.

    Ms. June Irwin: Okay.

    As a practicing physician specialized in dermatology, I have seen, since 1985, the results of exposure to the pesticides in lawn chemicals. I have brought this to the attention of municipal, provincial, and federal governments. A press release on July 3, 2001 from la Direction de la Santé Publique Trois-Rivières confirms these risks.

    The spraying or the application of chemicals and pesticides—that is, herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodenticides, and their secret hazardous ingredients—on lawns, trees, parks, within and about houses and schools, is an infringement on the common right and liberty of all citizens to breathe clean air and to remain in health. It is the responsibility of both the provincial and federal authorities.

    We have been, for many years, a human experiment, without doctors being able or ready to keep records. The official newspaper of the American Public Health Association published in 1987 the statement that “all of the commonly used home and garden insecticides and weed killers, such as 2,4-D, Sevin, and mosquito repellants, have the potential for causing nervous-system and psychological problems.” It is felt the domestic exposure problem is much greater than that of occupational exposure.

[Translation]

    Since 1987, the ministers in the federal government have been informed by physicians like myself that people, especially children, were getting sick after exposure to these products, whether on their own property or on a neighbouring property.

    The federal and provincial governments have also been asked repeatedly to inform doctors and the public of the contents of the chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and to disclose non-pesticide ingredients in these products.

    While Health Canada wrote to physicians warning them either about certain prescription and over-the-counter medications, or about cigarette and second-hand smoke, despite repeated requests, health practitioners such as myself were never warned by Health Canada about the health effects of commonly used lawn, house and garden pesticides.

    This information is critically important to safeguarding people's health and lives. If that information had been made public, all doctors could have kept records and could have issued warnings to the general public.

[English]

    Many people have to stay indoors with windows shut during days of the spring, summer, and autumn when there are lawn chemicals applied in the neighbourhood, because they get sick. According to knowledgeable medical authorities, there is no treatment for allergy or intolerance to pesticides; the only treatment is to avoid exposures, even in trace amounts.

    This year, as a physician, it has been my experience that even in schools, the school board and the principal of the school may not know what pesticides or toxic chemicals have been applied within or about the school or yard, nor have the health and safety data sheets been available, even though the health of students and employees can be targets. Nor are records available of what dates pesticides or toxic chemicals have been applied, nor how much. It is evident that either by ignorance, by error, or with premeditation, an individual can, with these products, harm the health of children, families, a community, and the future of a nation.

Á  (1115)  

    Since 1987 I have requested to the federal government that laboratories already available to Health Canada be available to all physicians in order to be able to measure toxic chemicals and pesticides in body fluids and tissues, which would permit better understanding of the health risks of these products.

    In March 2000, a petition signed by over 7,000 people was forwarded by me to Mr. Allan Rock, asking that there be a public inquiry into the hidden contamination in some peoples' bodies from pesticides and PCBs. Canadians should have the right to know if they have a contamination risk or not and to know what effects these contaminants may have on health. Canadians in general do not have access to facilities so that they might know about the powerful chemicals, such as pesticides, PCBs or solvents, that may have been ingested into their bodies unknowingly and involuntarily, and which can persist in high amounts in their body tissues.

    Some people with unexplained skin eruptions, fatigue, or other painful illnesses have gone from doctor to doctor and may be diagnosed as suffering from psychological depression when in fact, as I have been witness, some of these patients have been shown to have reportedly high levels in their body tissues of pesticides, PCBs, or toxic solvents.

[Translation]

    There are detoxification centres where persons addicted to illegal drugs, prescription drugs or alcohol can receive treatment. Why are there no centres in Canada where people can be treated by doctors experienced in diagnosing chronic poisonings associated with pesticides and other toxic chemicals? Why are there no facilities where Canadians can go for treatment to rid their bodies of these toxic chemicals?

    Why do federal authorities allow this human experimentation to continue, without any record-keeping, even though the technology exists to measure the level of human contamination resulting for toxic substances, not to mention that it is a known fact these contaminants can sometimes cause permanent damage?

[English]

    Why should the federal authorities allow this human experiment to continue, and without records having being kept by physicians, even though the federal authorities have long had the facilities to measure human contaminations and even though they knew these contaminations could sometimes cause permanent harm?

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Dr. Irwin.

    We'll move to Mr. David Bennett, who is the national director of health, safety, and the environment for the Canadian Labour Congress.

    Mr. Bennett.

    Mr. David Bennett (National Director of Health, Safety, and Environment, Canadian Labour Congress): Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the whole committee for enabling the CLC to testify as a witness. The CLC was a founding member and is a member of the steering committee of the Campaign for Pesticide Reduction, the CPR.

    Though workers are a major risk group for pesticides, they are nowhere included as an identifiable subgroup in the bill before us. Secondly, there is no mechanism in the act to facilitate access to lower-risk pesticides. The intention is there, but there is no mechanism in the act that enables the government to do it.

    The test for acceptable risk is subjective. It's what the minister considers to be acceptable in evaluating health risks for the purpose of affirming or denying registration. The test of government policy is intolerably vague and licentious. Now, in fact, the government policy is one of risk management, which does not address the main issue the public is concerned with; that is, will pesticides continue to damage human health or will they be restricted in some effective way?

    In determining acceptable risk, registration will only be granted if conditions of registration can be established to prevent adverse health effects. The problem with pesticides is that their escape into the human environment cannot be controlled. The only way to achieve pollution prevention is by eliminating their use, that is, by denying registration. Personal protective equipment cannot protect workers against chronic health effects. The only way to reduce the use of toxic pesticides is by restricting the use of pesticides to specified crops in specified quantities. But since it would require draconian policing and enforcement, this provision is not likely to be effective. Apart from saying that health-risk evaluation must be scientifically based and that the criterion of registration is acceptable risk, there is no indication of the procedure that will be used in evaluating pesticides.

    On this point, I'd like to emphasize that there was a recent consultative exercise on the notification of new substances regulations under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This concerns the chemical testing of chemicals that are new to Canada. Health Canada was a part of this exercise, and a consensus report has been tabled. If the recommendations of the consensus group are accepted by the government, then data on worker exposure will be used in the evaluation of chemicals new to Canada, in which case Bill C-53 as it stands would be at odds with government policy in another important area of public health.

    The second thing the notification consensus achieved was to say that when decisions are made about the licensing, as it were, of new chemicals—the notification—a rationale for the decision would have to be published on the Internet so that the public could quite clearly see the reasons for the action taken by the government. Whether the government allows this chemical into Canada, whether it allows it under certain restrictive conditions, or whether it refuses to allow the chemical, the rationale for the decision will have to be published.

    In particular, the threshold effects are not to be used as a criterion of registration, but only in the calculation of safety margins. The test of a threshold effect is again subjective. That's no wonder, since there are very few scientifically valid thresholds for any toxic chemicals, and therefore it's very unlikely any scientifically valid threshold would be found for pesticides in use in Canada.

    Lastly, concerning information and the right to know, the enabling provisions from material safety data sheets are welcome. It remains to be seen whether and when the regulations will appear and whether they will meet the agreement to provide workplace hazardous materials information system, workplace labels, and data sheets conforming to WHMIS standards.

    I would like to make three recommendations for the committee to consider when it examines the bill in detail. The first is, the precise criteria for determining registration or the denial of registration should be spelled out in the act so the government department concerned is given quite clear instructions by Parliament as to how it evaluates chemical pesticides.

    The second thing is that this decision-making by the government should be transparent and there should be a rationale for the decision that is produced as a result of the registration application.

    And third, the precautionary approach should be used in registration decisions so that whenever there is any doubt or uncertainty about either the data or the health effects concerned, the government errs on the side of precaution and denies registration to a controversial chemical.

    Thank you.

Á  (1120)  

    The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bennett.

    We'll now go on to the representative of the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada, Ms. Barbara McElgunn, who is a nurse and the health policy officer for that association.

    Ms. McElgunn.

    Ms. Barbara McElgunn (Health Policy Officer, Learning Disabilities Association of Canada): Thank you, Madam Chairman and members of the committee. We really like this opportunity to appear before you this morning.

    I've also served on the research committee of LDA, our sister organization in the United States, for 22 years, and have been involved with both associations in urging action on pesticides by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Health Canada to protect children's health and development. I have participated in two OECD expert work groups preparing draft guidelines for neural toxicity testing. I am a member of the Pest Management Advisory Council.

    Our association believes this bill is a major improvement on its predecessor. Bill C-53 incorporates many of the recommendations contained in our brief to the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development in October 1999. We agree that the passage of this bill will bring pest management regulation into the 21st century. We are pleased that the protection of human health and safety and the environment are the prime considerations in Bill C-53 and that many new requirements to ensure the protection of human health are incorporated into law—in particular, for us, that extra safety factors will be applied to protect children—that cumulative and aggregate exposures must be considered in risk assessments for pesticides, and that adverse effects must be reported.

    However, there are number of areas that we would recommend be strengthened in the bill. These include action on formulants, consideration of maximum residue levels for imported foods, the need for the Pest Management Regulatory Agency to have a statutory mandate with a research capacity, and the need for a direct reference to regulations for data requirements, as Mr. Bennett just mentioned.

    I'll talk about formulants a little. Formulants are only referenced, but not by name, in paragraph 43(5)(b), the section dealing with what constitutes confidential business information. This section designates the identity and concentrations of the components—including contaminants—in pest control products as confidential business information unless the minister considers them to be of a health or environmental concern. Under this section, formulant safety is only referred to obliquely in an exception clause to CBI. Because few chemical substances have been evaluated with regard to their toxicity or possible synergistic effects with the active ingredient, we would urge that this section be more proactive and explicit, to state that information on all formulants that are chemically or biologically active are not covered by the provisions of CBI. As well, poison control centres need this information to treat cases of pesticide poisonings.

    Formulants until quite recently were exempt from toxicity analysis or rules. Two years ago, PMRA issued a regulatory proposal for a formulants policy that denotes timelines for list one formulants of toxicological concern to be removed from products, and for list two formulants considered to be potentially toxic to be designated for testing and disclosure on the label. We understand this is to become a regulatory directive, which is not a regulation.

    Clause 67 of the bill, which denotes those areas in which the Governor in Council may make regulations, should include specific mention of formulants to ensure that these are regulated.

    For maximum residue limits, or MRLs, our concern is that there is no mention of necessary action for MRLs on imported foods, which can be retained when cancelled for domestic use in foods. The intent of the bill is to protect human health, and so the minister must require that imported foods be similarly safe for the Canadian population. A recent example that raises concerns is found in the April 5, 2002, re-evaluation note on lindane. Lindane is a persistent organic pollutant in the organo-chlorines class of pesticides. Hormonal and neuro-developmental effects have been demonstrated in experimental studies, and lindane has been known to cause seizures and other neuro-behavioural effects in children and adults.

    Lindane is a health concern. According to the re-evaluation note, there is going to be a revocation of all lindane MRLs for foods in Canada. However, the document also states the PMRA will consider a request to modify or maintain the MRLs established for lindane to cover imports from other countries. These MRLs are set for lindane on numerous and commonly consumed fruits and vegetables, most of which have a very high MRL of three parts per million. Our recommendation is that this bill or its regulations under this clause should ensure that MRLs for domestic foods be applied equally to imported foods.

Á  (1125)  

    The third point we'd like to make concerns a research mandate for PMRA. One of the report recommendations of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development was that a statutory base be provided to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency in the new Pest Control Products Act, and its role and responsibilities be clearly defined.

    We believe one of the mandates of the agency should be a research and development capacity. The preamble to the bill recognizes that it is in the national interest to encourage the development and implementation of innovative, sustainable pest management strategies--for example, by facilitating access to pest control products that pose lower risks.

    In subclause 11(2), in setting maximum residue limits the minister is directed, in making decisions, among other relevant factors to consider available information on aggregate exposure, cumulative effects, and sensitivities of major identifiable groups. The available information regarding these is somewhat scarce. These are important new areas of concern, with major data gaps that can only be filled by independent research. The safety of pest control products in Canada should not be at the mercy of available information.

    PMRA lacks the independent research capacity to conduct audits on registrants' data or the conduct of experimental lab analyses. They have little or no capacity to conduct independent research on environmental fate data or exposure data, or to conduct the necessary research to further their mandate to assist the development and regulation of alternative and safer forms of pest control.

    Under developmental neurotoxicity testing, our recommendation is that we have urged government for many years to require testing that would ensure the safety of priority chemicals—pesticides, food additives, and cosmetic products—to protect brain development and function, prenatally and in early life. The PMRA's data requirements for registration and re-evaluation should be published in regulations for consistency and transparency. The U.S. EPA toxicology working group has recommended this type of testing be a core data requirement for many pesticides.

    We would recommend that clause 67 include a direct reference to the publication of regulations for data requirements, since that is such an important part of pesticide safety evaluations.

    In conclusion, we hope these recommendations will be considered in amendments to Bill C-53 by the Standing Committee on Health; however, we trust that the bill will proceed through Parliament without undue delay so that it can be enacted in this session.

    Thank you.

Á  (1130)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. McElgunn.

    Could we now hear from Janet Kasperski, representing the Ontario College of Family Physicians, of which she is the executive director.

    Ms. Kasperski.

    Ms. Janet Kasperski (RN, MHSc, CHE, Executive Director, Ontario College of Family Physicians): By way of introduction, the Ontario College of Family Physicians and the College of Family Physicians of Canada were established in 1954 to set standards of practice for the new and emerging discipline called family medicine. We were asked to oversee the establishment of family medicine residency programs in the 16 medical universities across Canada. Over the years we've stayed very close to those academic roots.

    In 1992 Health Canada released a survey showing that Canadians considered the medical community to be the most credible source of information on health and the environment. The survey emphasized the key role family physicians should be playing in prevention, assessment, and treatment of exposure to environmental contaminants. However, in follow-up needs assessments, family doctors identified a number of gaps in their knowledge base, and the Ontario College of Family Physicians established our environmental health committee to address these knowledge gaps by assisting medical students, family medicine residents, and practising family physicians to acquire a better understanding of the environment and health.

    During the ensuing years, our committee has undertaken a number of projects addressing a wide variety of environmental issues and concerns. In 1994 we undertook a review of the literature on pesticides. The literature review included more than 300 studies that were available at that time, and we concluded there was a high probability of harmful health effects from pesticides. Our findings from the review were developed into a newsletter for family physicians—a really quick read for them—and also a patient brochure that was widely circulated among our patients, the general public, and all levels of government.

    In distributing that newsletter and through subsequent educational programs, we asked family doctors to be on the alert for the possibility of acute or chronic pesticide toxicity. We asked them to engage in continuing medical education, or CME, activities so that they could be aware of the clinical presentations of pesticide health effects, including dermatitis, respiratory problems, reproductive effects, and cancers. We asked them to educate their patients regarding the known health concerns associated with pesticides, and we asked them to be active in their communities and encourage alternatives to pesticides among homeowners, local business people, schools, and municipalities.

    In the year 2000, the Ontario College of Family Physicians and the Canadian Environmental Law Association released a major paper. It was called “Environmental Standards Setting and Children's Health”. The report provided a detailed review of the research into the greater susceptibility and exposure of children to environmental contaminants, including pesticides. The comprehensive review of the literature that underpinned the chapters on pesticides concluded that the potential for the health of children in Canada to be affected by pesticides is undeniable.

    The studies pointed to a wide variety of possible health effects in children from pesticides, many of them serious and in some cases life-threatening. The data implicated pesticides in inducing damage to children's immune, endocrine, nervous, and reproductive systems. As well, pesticides were seen as a potential cause of congenital abnormalities and cancers.

    Children's susceptibility to the health effects of pesticides were documented as being greater than adults', based on the available scientific research. The report concluded that many Canadian children were enduring the negative effects of pesticides, especially those living in low-income housing that are often treated with pesticides, children living in agricultural areas, children of agricultural and pesticide manufacturing workers, aboriginal children exposed through their traditional diet and their mothers' milk, and children with chemical sensitivities and immune deficiencies. The aggregate effects of being exposed to many different pesticides over a lifetime were seen as representing an unqualifiable and unacceptable risk to all Canadian children.

Á  (1135)  

    The paper identified the major shortcomings in the regulatory process to protect children from the negative health effects of pesticides, and we recommended a precautionary approach to protect children from exposures, our feelings being very strongly that where there's smoke, there's usually fire.

    The evidence is even stronger than it was in the mid-1990s, when we conducted our research. A joint report recently released from the European Environmental Agency and WHO's regional office in Europe, entitled Children's health and environment: A review of evidence, identifies the fact that 40% of the global burden of disease attributable to environmental factors is estimated to fall on children under the age of five.

    The report summarizes the existing knowledge about pesticides as follows: “Childhood patterns of behaviour often lead to increased levels of pesticide exposure compared with adults” because of their “hands-to-mouth behaviour” and their eating behaviours. As well, “Possible health effects include immunological effects, endocrine-disrupting effects, neurotoxic disorders and cancer.”

    The report provides a detailed review of children's exposure levels and states that fetuses, infants, and children are exposed to pesticides on an almost daily basis. The diet and special behaviour patterns of infants and children often result in greater exposure to pesticides than adults experience.

    Pesticides may be present in food, including baby foods, drinking water, and breast milk. Children consume more food and water per kilogram of body weight than do adults, and their diet is less diverse. If it's there, they get it.

    They are often exposed to pesticides in their homes, their schools, their parks, their swimming areas, and pets bring it into the house as well. Their hand-to-mouth behaviours and their play behaviours make them much more at risk, and they're closer to where pesticides live.

    Because their bodies, and particularly their brains, are still developing, fetuses, infants, and children are more vulnerable to toxic compounds than adults. Their ability to absorb, metabolize, and eliminate toxins is deficient relative to the adult and, as examples, the blood-brain barrier and the immune system of the immature human organism are less likely to protect the young from harm.

    In spite of these major concerns regarding developmental neural toxicity, endocrine and reproductive toxicity, and immunotoxicity, the report finds reasons for concern regarding the adequacy of pesticide toxicology tests used for risk assessment in children.

    The report suggests strategies to reduce the exposure of children, but it also calls for the development of appropriate toxicological tests to assess perinatal and childhood toxicology that lead to developmental problems and interference with the functioning of nervous, reproductive, endocrine, and immune systems.

    In Canada, pesticide manufacturers and others who see the value in continued use of pesticides point to those articles that only demonstrate inconsistent findings. The rest of us tend to point to those that demonstrate the causal relationship between pesticides and harm.

    The Pest Management Regulatory Agency has often been presented with these two conflicting bodies of evidence because of lack of access to a more balanced body of evidence provided by credible research scientists.

    Our colleagues at the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment and our colleagues at the Canadian Environmental Law Association have already presented you with key recommendations to strengthen this bill. A summary of their key recommendations is as follows.

    The precautionary principle needs to be embodied as the fundamental concept underlying all aspects of the legislation and needs to be at the level set by international standards.

    Mandatory monitoring and reporting should be included in the bill.

Á  (1140)  

    The re-evaluation period should be reduced to 10 years and include a specific date for completion. Some of the studies are still going on 10 years after they're started.

    The preventative approach needs to be enshrined in the bill, along with strategies to decrease the overall use of pesticides and increase lower-risk alternatives. Transparency of information and public participation in the review process should also be included in the bill.

    The Ontario College of Family Physicians agrees with these recommendations. In particular, we believe Canadians can only be adequately protected from the detrimental health effects of pesticides by applying the precautionary principle to the evaluation and registration of pesticides.

    In addition, we would ask that a fifth major principle be added. We would recommend that the Pest Management Regulatory Agency be required to base all of its judgments regarding the registration of a pesticide and the re-evaluation of formerly registered products on balanced evidence from credible sources.

    Much more research is needed, especially into substances that appear, from the existing research, to be hormone disrupters or neuro-developmental toxins. The research should be conducted by non-industry scientists to reduce the appearance of bias in the findings. This level of transparency bodes well for the government in restoring public confidence that it is doing its utmost to protect the health of people in the environment, especially our children. It will also bode well for the industry in reducing its potential liabilities for health effects and increasing the utilization of lower-risk products whose risks have been adequately assessed in a non-biased manner.

    In summary, we recommend that the act require that the science and the research underpinning the regulation of pesticides be strengthened, unbiased, and transparent. Doing so will strengthen this bill in its ability to protect our most vulnerable citizens, especially our children. Health Canada can play a major role in funding this type of research, and by doing so, can make the intent of this bill a reality.

    I would like to show you drawings by children, four and five years of age, in two geographically close villages in Mexico. The drawings on the right were made by children who live in the valley, where pesticides are used. The drawings on the left are from children living in the foothills, where traditional, non-chemical agricultural methods are used; no pesticides contaminated these children. The detail of the drawings in these early years corresponds with long-term cognitive abilities.

    The drawings speak for themselves. The squiggles are the four-year-olds exposed to pesticides.

    Four- and five-year-olds here in Canada, non-exposed, are able to draw with a great deal of detail. You can see hair, fingers, and all of the facial expressions. Of children exposed, same age, same background, same diet, the only difference being pesticides, the cognitive abilities are unbelievable.

Á  (1145)  

    The Chair: Would you pass that around, please.

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: Certainly, and it should be at the back of the papers that we distributed.

    The Chair: We don't have the papers, because they're not translated. We can't distribute until we have them in both languages.

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: Sorry.

    In summary, we really owe it to our children to make the bill as strong as possible from a precautionary perspective to protect children.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Kasperski.

    Now, from Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World, Inc., we have Dr. Gilka.

    Dr. Gilka, you have the floor.

    Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka (Representative, Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World, Inc.): I'm speaking on behalf of the association Physicians and Scientists for a Healthy World. I'm here to say that we believe, and have reason to believe, the re-evaluation of synthetic chemical pesticides for non-essential use is futile and should be abandoned, replaced by alternative, safe approaches. We need a ban on pesticides that are presently used for cosmetic and other non-essential reasons.

    We are bringing this opinion here for a number of reasons.

    Number one, we share with other living forms the basic life blueprint, structural and biochemical. Each living form is composed of cells. The cells, even in our own bodies, look different, but they still have the same blueprint. You have a nucleus, cytoplasm, a wall, mitochondria, which are the energy factory, etc.

    Biochemically, we are so close to other living forms that, for example, to assess certain substances for human use the tests are done sometimes on bacteria and then interpreted for human use. We share this basic blueprint with all other living forms, and pesticides as well as other chemicals, once they are released into the environment, are frequently spread through the food chain, through wind, through rain, etc., very far from the origin of dispersal. It has been documented that pesticides may even spread sometimes into the other hemisphere.

    As a result of that, it is especially those who are most vulnerable, the children, including the unborn, who get all these chemicals into their tiny bodies. The result is that nowadays pesticides are detected in the amniotic fluid of one-third of the pregnancies in North America. Pesticides were also detected in the perifollicular fluid surrounding the eggs of women who were infertile. This study was done on women from three major Canadian cities, and none of those women had any special history of exposure to pesticides. They didn't work in agriculture, they did not have any kind of special exposure, and the pesticides were found in the perifollicular fluid.

Á  (1150)  

     Pesticides were also found to contaminate the sperm, so what we see nowadays is children coming into this world with this load that they get additionally, because the placenta does not have any mechanism to hold these foreign chemicals. During pregnancy, the pollutants, including pesticides, are shifted from the mother's body directly to the body tissues of the developing child. That is prenatally.

    Then comes breast milk, contaminated again with pesticides and other chemicals. After that, there is the daily intake through the air, through food--vegetables with pesticides, fruit with pesticides, etc.

    Let me give you one personal observation. I started as a pediatrician in my old country, Czechoslovakia. In 1960 I was working as a staff person in pediatrics. It was mandatory for every child who died in the hospital or at home to have an autopsy. During three years of working as a staff person in the hospital, I saw two cases of malignancy. One was leukemia. That was a child of a farmer. One child had a neuroblastoma, which was hereditary from one generation to the other. That was everything--in a large hospital for a quarter of a province. Nowadays, the situation is even worse than here: brain tumours, leukemias, lymphomas, sarcomas, etc.

    I remember when I was preparing for exams as a pediatrician the shock I got when I saw in a heavy, two-inch book a paragraph with the title, “Cancer and Children.” It was in tiny print, with a paragraph of approximately one inch, saying that in the world literature there had been described very rare cases where children had developed cancer, and that these had been found to be cases where the immunity had been suppressed. I still remember the feeling about children having cancer. Nowadays, it's the same there as here--every children's hospital has a cancer wing.

    We appreciate the bill very much. It will bring better management of these substances. We believe there is no need to use these toxic substances for cosmetic reasons or for other non-essential uses. The evidence is that there is no possibility to develop chemical substances that will act as pesticides, quickly killing or slowly destroying some unwanted organisms, without also getting, finally, back into our bodies. It is not only that we share the same life blueprint, we also share the same environment--the air and the rain.

Á  (1155)  

    Fifty years back, when synthetic chemical pesticides started, they were considered a wonderful thing. We did not know anything at that time about bioaccumulation. We didn't have any idea about bio-magnification. We did not have any idea that one day, half a century later, we would have such a widespread problem; cancer in children, neuro-degenerative diseases, Parkinson's Disease, and so on.

    If we realize that every year there is a production per capita of three and a half pounds to four pounds for every individual, just calculate how much it will be when this child, who is now born, will be twenty and how much it will be when this person will be forty or sixty.

    I worked after that in internal medicine for five years as a staff person. During these five years, it never occurred to me that because somebody is older they should have a problem with their intellect, with their brain. We had people who had problems with their hearing, with their eyesight, but generally the population of these sixty- to eighty-year-olds was a population that we considered to be people who would have much more life experience.

    You can also see that historically there used to be, especially in Europe, heads of state who were usually elected when they were seventy or older. Our first president was still active at the age of eighty-five. Nowadays what I see year by year is that it's worse. I see the intellectual abilities of people who were formerly in high positions deteriorate drastically when they reach seventy or seventy-five.

    Nobody is doing any testing of the brain for pesticides and for other chemicals. But we know that the brain is an organ that is 60% fat and that many of those things are fat soluble. We have to change. We have to face the fact that we cannot continue this way any more because we are saturating our bodies, our environment, with the chemicals that are toxic, not only to pests but also to us.

    What we believe is that education is necessary and that the money that can be saved by not testing chemicals for cosmetic use, and other non-essential use, can be put for the education to help people to understand that everyone would benefit from that, including those who might be stakeholders and who might be pro-pesticides. It is also them and their families, and their children and grandchildren, who are affected.

    Thank you.

  (1200)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Dr. Gilka.

    We'll move now from the presentation portion to the questioning portion, and we'll begin with Mr. Merrifield.

    Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance): I want to thank the witnesses for coming and sharing. We're talking about a very important subject.

    Some of the stats we have I find a little bit alarming. One statistic, from one of the doctors here, suggests that one third of all women in North American have pesticide in their amniotic fluid. That seems a little bit alarming to me. I wonder at what rates, and I wonder if there are studies on it. I wonder what kind of follow-up is done on that kind of research.

    This is the third time we've had a witness come forward and use the illustration of what happened in Mexico, and I'm wondering what pesticides were used in that study. Then I'm wondering if any of those pesticides are registered in Canada today.

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: To answer the question about the study in Mexico, the children were exposed to DDT. It has not been used in Canada in quite awhile. I think people are bringing that study to your attention simply because it was such a graphic demonstration of what happens to children's brains when neurotransmitter systems are interfered with.

    We know from our educational colleagues that children's ability to be able to draw with precision at an early age demonstrates long-term cognitive abilities. We also know from Fraser Mustard's work how very, very important the early years are. Any substance that disrupts the lay-down of our neurotransmitter systems, and the connectiveness between neurons, will cause long-term cognitive effects.

    I think we're all much more aware now that long-term health is really brain health in these early years. We always bring that study forward, because it's probably the best way of being able to demonstrate what can happen when children's brain lay-down is disrupted.

    Mr. Rob Merrifield: The thing we have to be careful of is that we don't emotionalize something when we're not comparing apples to apples. I don't think there's any argument that pesticides are dangerous. Therefore, we have the PMRA, which registers them, and they go through an extensive process. I think that's just appropriate. What we're dealing with is the health risks of that to society.

    We have the ten times factor in this piece of legislation. I guess the next question is, do you see that as being appropriate? It means, I think, if there is no risk at one stage, we go ten times less than that. Do you see that as appropriate, or do you see it as too weak or too strong? It's probably not too strong from your perspective, I'm sure, but is it strong enough?

  (1205)  

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: It really depends on the chemical itself. I think it's more the aggregate exposures that children have. So simply looking at a single chemical in isolation may not give us the answers that we really require in order to make good decisions.

    The messaging we're all trying to deliver is that we need to have really good regulatory processes in place to make sure that the safest products out there are allowed to be used, and that we're very careful over time to be monitoring continually.

    So regardless of what your factors are, if you haven't enshrined within this legislation an obligation to do continuous monitoring--just as we do with pharmaceuticals--you're missing the boat.

    Mr. Rob Merrifield: Exactly. So now we have the 15-year re-evaluation.

    I think you also said--it doesn't matter which side, whether it's industry or labour--that the timeliness of re-evaluation and of bringing on safer and new improved products must be accelerated. You would agree with that? I know some of you just breezed over that, but is that a concurrence?

    The Chair: Mr. Bennett wanted to respond.

    Mr. David Bennett: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I think talking about the role of safety margins in the registration process will be fruitful, because the discussion of safety margins in the bill specifically relates to registration decisions. But the way it's worded in the bill, there is no absolute obligation to take safety margins into account. The specific figure of a tenfold safety margin is mentioned in the context of establishing a threshold, but as we tried to say earlier, there are virtually no scientifically valid thresholds, so the scope of the application of the tenfold safety margin is unlikely to occur in fact.

    Let's look at the decision-making procedure. The main decision the government makes is to register or not to register. Now, when it takes into account safety margins, what is it going to do? Is it going to say that safety margins are really so tight that in conditions of normal use we would not be able to achieve these margins, and therefore we're not going to register? This procedure has not happened in the United States, which has had safety margin legislation since 1996; it has never happened.

    The second thing is, if they're not going to base registration decisions on the safety margin, how would the safety margin apply? It would apply in the instructions on the label as to how this pesticide is going to be used. But we know from experience that, because of the lack of enforcement authority on the part of Health Canada, these use decisions cannot in fact be enforced effectively.

    Personally, I don't think it's fruitful to ask them to, because making sure that no farmer is putting this pesticide on in a way that violates this tenfold safety margin would require a draconian regime of enforcement.

    My conclusion, then, is that the role of safety margins in the bill is not significant, that it will not prove to be significant, and that it's in fact a diversion from the issue. The issue is this: Under what grounds is Health Canada going to either register pesticides or deny their registration?

    Mr. Rob Merrifield: So how would you change the bill?

    Mr. David Bennett: Well, I tried to explain that. It was very briefly done, I know, because I tried to keep to the five-minute limit.

    The precise criteria for registration have to be spelled out. On what grounds will we register or refuse to register? And then there is a threshold whereby, if something is so toxic, if it's so much of a threat to human health in normal use conditions, it isn't registered.

    But in the whole history of the act since 1969, I can't think of a single case where a pesticide has been presented for registration and has been refused. In a few cases, the pesticide registration has in fact been cancelled after use as a result of a long, drawn-out legal process, which involves an awful lot of effort and public expense. It's not the way to handle the problem. The pesticide has to be captured at the source, at the point at which it is released into the environment.

  (1210)  

    Mr. Rob Merrifield: Yes, that's interesting. So what you're saying, then, is that there are products registered in Canada that may be unsafe, but because they lost the ability, or they don't look at the ability to...the safety hazard, and can't define it, they are allowing it. Is this what you're saying? I'm not really following what you've....

    Mr. David Bennett: I think there are two levels of debate. One is to say we have to have a proper examination, proper research, on all the health effects. This research is then applied to the pesticide, and if it's found that this is really too dangerous to use, registration should be denied.

    There are a lot of important questions, which all the witnesses have discussed, about the availability of evidence, its relevance, its application to the pesticide. The problem is that the products being registered are new products for which there is no epidemiological evidence for or against; there cannot be, because there's been no experience with their use. So what are you going to do? You have to evaluate pesticides on the grounds of the data package the manufacturer submits. Registration decisions have to be made on the basis of that package, not on the experience of the use of the pesticide, because that's the only evidence you have.

    Some people are going to say, “Well, that's not evidence enough. That doesn't prove harm, therefore we're going to register this pesticide”. The alternative position, which is the position taken by those who believe in the precautionary approach, is essentially that chemical pesticides are a necessary evil and we should do without them if possible, and that our registration system should be very cautious and conservative about allowing highly poisonous products on the market.

    Mr. Rob Merrifield: So you're more concerned with the inappropriate use of them once they're registered. One of the other witnesses had suggested that cosmetic use is more dangerous than commercial use. Is that what you're suggesting? Actually, you had suggested that. That was my question to you. I wrote it down when you were talking about danger in the workplace. Do you find that the cosmetic is more dangerous than the commercial, or vice versa, or is there no difference?

    Mr. David Bennett: There are all sorts of figures about the domestic use of pesticides per square foot compared to agricultural applications per square foot. The question isn't essentially one of which application is more or less dangerous than another. The question really is that Parliament is being asked to make a political decision about what pesticides it's going to allow to be used in Canada. This is a political decision for which evidence can be produced on both sides for saying this is a wise policy or not a wise policy.

    What I'm saying is that if we get bogged down in questions of health effects, we're going to get an interminable argument. What will happen, despite the good intentions of this act, is that the regime of pesticide registration will not in fact change.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Merrifield.

    Mr. Bigras.

[Translation]

    Mr. Bernard Bigras (Rosemont--Petite-Patrie, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I'd like to welcome the witnesses to the committee.

[English]

    The Chair: Dr. Gilka, the questioners usually direct their question to someone. I do not recognize people usually. I'm asking the questioners to direct their question to the person from whom they want to have an answer.

    Mr. Bigras.

  (1215)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Bernard Bigras: I'd also like to thank them for their presentations. Once again, this proves the importance of committing, at both the federal and the provincial levels, to a process aimed at gradually eliminating pesticide use through the adoption of alternative solutions. This is critical step, in my opinion.

    My question is directed to the spokesperson for the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada. However, if other witnesses care to respond, they are welcome to do so by all means.

    You've made your point very eloquently and your statement confirms the findings of other studies, including one by researcher Elizabeth Guillette. I don't know if you're familiar with that study. Ms. Guillette examined twelve pesticides and three chemical substances and concluded that while these products had no effect on children's growth patterns, clearly they did have a direct impact on brain development and function in children.

    As I understand it, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, in North America, there is no requirement that studies be carried out to consider how pesticide use affects brain function and development, despite the fact that a number of pesticides have been specifically developed to directly attack the nervous systems of insects. The US Environmental Protection Agency is thinking about establishing a pesticides data bank, but apparently we haven't yet reached that point.

    Which brings me to my question: you appear to be saying that studies measuring the effects of pesticides on brain development should employ the best possible risk and toxicity assessment criteria. To the extent that the focus of this bill should be on protecting children, do you feel that the best possible risk and toxicity assessment criteria have been employed? Do you feel the proposed legislation assigns enough priority to these important criteria?

[English]

    Ms. Barbara McElgunn: No, I don't feel enough priority has been given to the toxicological assessments in this bill. As I stated in our presentation to the committee, we really feel that the core data requirements for pesticides must be in regulation. There are other data requirements that may be conditional, but we feel that developmental neurotoxicity testing, immunotoxicity testing, and other tests that are protective of children should be incorporated in regulations so this is transparent and systematic, where everybody knows that it's going to be done.

    Now, there are certain classes of pesticides that, as you stated, are inherently neurotoxic. Recently, because we worked very hard in the U.S. with the committee and other organizations there, the EPA has issued a data call-in for data on developmental neurotoxins for those classes of pesticides. The organophosphorous pesticides and the carbamate pesticides are the ones they're starting with.

    This data are being developed extremely slowly. The data call-in happened about three years ago, and I think they're just beginning to look at the first five or ten submissions. It takes years and years for this kind of information to develop and to be evaluated by the agency.

    This is where the precautionary principle should come in. This is what the Food Quality Protection Act in the U.S. said, that if there are data lacking, you apply an additional uncertainty factor of 10 to the pesticide until the data are in.

    We have really criticized the EPA because they have removed the extra ten on a lot of chemicals when we feel it should have been retained. They've reduced it to three in some, and they've retained it for a few.

    So the action on chlorpyrifos and diazinon in the U.S. was a direct result of the neurotox data they got on these chemicals. This toxicological data is extremely important in terms of the patterns of use that are going to be registered and what registration is going to happen.

    Those are two things. We'd like to see the data requirements in regulation attached to this bill and also perhaps the consideration of the precautionary approach to apply an extra safety factor when there are data missing.

    I'm sure PMRA does some of that. We would like to have it as more of a standard or contained in a policy document at the very least.

  (1220)  

    The Chair: Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

    Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis (Winnipeg North Centre, NDP): Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

    I just wanted to make a quick statement at the outset in terms of this whole issue of the Mexican example. It seems to me that this isn't a question about being over-emotional on a serious issue. It seems to me it should be the kind of thing that sets off alarm bells and helps us to understand any new pesticides being introduced into the environment that could possibly have similar effects.

    The other thing about DDT--and I'm sure Janet could comment on this--is that even though it's banned in Canada, it's still there. It still shows up in wildlife; it still shows up in human tissue. So it's a good example of just how much we have to think into the future, and it's an example to apply in the case of this legislation.

    I have a couple of questions. One is to Dave, and anyone else.

    It seems to me that one purpose of this bill is to give government the authority to keep dangerous pesticides off consumer and industry shelves. What you're saying is that this bill is worded so loosely we can't be sure that any new products that come before government for registration will be denied registration. The history seems to bear that out.

    We have 400 to 500 pesticides on the market now. None has been banned. We have all kinds of scientific evidence, but no action. Lindane is probably one of the best examples. So is that the case, that in this bill we don't have the authority within government to actually stop new pesticides that might be dangerous to human health from coming onto the market?

    Mr. David Bennett: Yes, I think that's correct.

    When the PMRA first came out, it came out at a time in Canadian history where decisions about pesticides--exposure limits to chemicals for workers, and so on--occurred at a time when we entrusted the professionals to make the right decisions because they were professionally qualified to do it. If you look at the current act and regulations, they're in fact very, very vague. This allows people inside the PMRA basically to make decisions on any scientific grounds they wish--not even scientific, because there's no indication of the data they use in the evaluation, and there's no idea whatever of the decision procedure they use, on the basis of the evidence, to come to their decision.

    And as you've rightly said, in all cases that I can think of, every time a pesticide has come up for registration, the decision has always been, yes, go ahead. It's a long, drawn-out process. It's expensive for the manufacturers. But the way we should look at this is not as a professional decision based on science. We should regard this as something that's been entrusted to government personnel to do in the public interest, and given the pressures on the part of the manufacturing industry and the demands of agriculture, the decisions are made on grounds of public utility, not on science.

    In the bill we have before us there is an attempt on paper to make this decision-making procedure more rational and more accountable. For example, for the first time we see the term “acceptable risk” appearing. We see the science-based approach. We have the discussion of safety margins. We have the appearance, again for the first time, of a threshold effect. These are moves in the right direction, because it's at least clear what sort of criteria or public policy are going to be used.

    What I've tried to argue on behalf of the CLC is that the way in which these terms are used in the bill is very far from a guarantee that the registration process is going to have more integrity and be more scientifically grounded than it has been in the past. So on the central issue of to register or not to register, the bill doesn't take us one step ahead at all.

  (1225)  

    Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Well, then, I guess my follow-up is to Barbara and Janet, especially Barbara.

    I think you said, Barbara, that you recommend some changes, but you don't want to see the bill held up. Wouldn't it be incumbent upon us to hold up this bill as long as it takes to get at least those basic elements? Related to that would be a question around, say, lindane, which has been identified as a possible human carcinogen and endocrine disrupter, in cases of human poisoning...the list goes on and on. It was up for review in 1988, and it's still on the market. The latest e-mail from PMRA says it's still being studied. If we can't even act when we have the science--and this bill doesn't necessarily address that issue--what good do we have at the end of it all?

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: It certainly doesn't address the timely review process at all, so we would suggest that this needs to be strengthened in it. Our past history demonstrates that science has been in place to prove harm absolutely rather than looking at the industry needing to prove safety. When we compare the way in which we go about evaluating pharmaceuticals versus the way we go about evaluating pesticides, it's the exact reverse.

    You're asking us whether we would like stronger precautions within this bill. Absolutely. Enshrining the precautionary principle in this legislation is a vital component of it, the onus being on manufacturers to demonstrate safety rather than requiring researchers to demonstrate that harm has already taken place, when the product is new.

    I think we made some very strong suggestions with our other partners in terms of the timeliness of reviews. It is unacceptable that products that are out there, where we suspect harm is happening on a daily basis, are still out there ten years later and the review process isn't taking place.

    I think there are some areas where the bill could definitely be strengthened, but as all of us are saying, there's a lot of good in this bill as compared with the original one. It needs some tightening. Can you tighten it quickly enough to allow it to be released? That's the question that you'll need to ask yourselves.

    Ms. Barbara McElgunn: On the lindane issue, I think PMRA has moved on that. Their re-evaluation note does say that they're going to revoke all lindane MRLs for other foods, as well as the voluntary withdrawal from the industry, from raw foods and seed treatment. So I think action is beginning to take place on lindane.

    You're right that things do take too long. It would be really nice to see a time line in the bill, for re-evaluations to be concluded within a certain number of years. I wouldn't think that should hold up the bill. I would hope not. We would really like to see the bill go through in this session, if at all possible.

    The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

    Madame Thibeault.

[Translation]

    Ms. Yolande Thibeault (Saint-Lambert, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Thank you to all of the witnesses for accepting our invitation to appear before the committee today. I'd like to discuss the cosmetic use of pesticides. Perhaps Dr. Gilka would like to discuss the issue in further detail.

    For instance, like me, you also noted the lack of regulations governing pesticides. Why is that? I can't answer that question. Some argue that regulating pesticide use should be the responsibility of municipalities and not of the federal government. What do you think?

  (1230)  

[English]

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: One of the things we did see in this bill is that the language is vague in regard to prevention of usage. When you're talking about cosmetic use, that's one area where we really can decrease use and do it quite easily. So it would be great to see not so much language that is specifically aimed at cosmetic use of pesticides, but an overriding principle of prevention.

    I was speaking to the group before we started, and I was saying, as a mother, I don't teach my children to listen to the smoke detector and go around looking for the smoke and the fire. When the smoke detector goes off, I say to get out of the house.

    In this case, we're saying very clearly to patients, to the public, and to municipal officers, when you can reduce, do it, and this is an area where you can reduce.

    You can capture that thinking by making sure the language in this bill reflects decreased use over time, prevention of use wherever possible, and that will capture your cosmetic use.

    Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka: If I may, I'll say something to that.

    The big problem, and this is the root of the whole problem, is that we as physicians don't have anything in our literature on the impact of these pesticides on human health.

    For example, when I was presenting the paper for the committee on pesticides, I called the Canadian Medical Association Journal and asked if they could send me what was published in the last ten years in our main journal in Canada, which comes to every primary physician, on environment and health. I knew there was nothing done, but I wanted to know what there was for ten years. They sent it to me for 12 years. There were three letters to the editor, two references from newspapers, and one announcement on an environmental conference.

    There was an enclosed letter that they were sending this for 12 years and that the Canadian Medical Association Journal does not carry any section on environment and health; that it is the responsibility of Dr. Levi, and there was his phone number; that he's responsible for the education of Canadian physicians.

    I phoned him, and the answer was, “Who, me? You are the first one to tell me I should be responsible for the education of Canadian physicians. I have never, ever heard about it.” Then about six months after that, in every monthly issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal we had an article related to health and environment. But 2001 came and it was gone. Nothing happened; no more articles, no more information. Last month there appeared again what should be a series of articles, as it was announced. There were two good articles about environment and health.

    So that's everything we got as physicians. There are two organizations on environment and health: CAPE, the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment, and the Canadian Medical Environmental Association. Altogether, there are about 150 members; I am a member of both of those. But there are 52,000 physicians. That means that it's less than a quarter of 1% of physicians who will be, in some way, getting information on the environment.

  (1235)  

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Canadian Alliance)): Thank you very much.

    Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka: Let me just add something. The problem this leads to is, if the decision-makers are asking their physicians, “What do you think about this?” the answer is, “Don't worry. We don't have anything in our literature. Pesticide application is just an issue in the third world.”

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield ): Thank you, Dr. Gilka.

    We'll go to Dr. Castonguay.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jeannot Castonguay (Madawaska--Restigouche, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I believe you're here on behalf of the Ontario College of Family Physicians. You alluded to the precautionary principle. A number of witnesses have broached the same subject. Some people have also told us that scientists take a precautionary approach to conducting research.

    Could you explain to me the difference between the precautionary principle and the precautionary approach? That's my first question.

[English]

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: The Ontario College of Family Physicians tends to use those two words as the same, as it were. In our minds, we would be advising our patients to avoid any product where we really don't understand how safe the product is.

    When we're saying to you to enshrine within this bill the principle of precaution, we're asking that products not be registered, or when we're going through the review process that they not be re-registered, without a good sense of whether there is safety evidence there. When there's not, let's be very cautious in allowing the products out there.

    That's just a simple warning, saying, “Look at the evidence; see if there's lower-risk stuff out there. If there is, this product should be withheld.” I think it's semantics. Maybe my partners could give a--

[Translation]

    Mr. Jeannot Castonguay: I have some additional questions, Mr. Chairman.

    Obviously, we mustn't be naive. All of the products marketed will involve a certain element of risk. We often hear people say that if there are no risks associated with a product, then that product can't be worth anything. The goal is to have a product that is effective in terms of killing pests, but one that is also safe from a human health standpoint. That's an important objective, to my mind. We're asking scientists to help us strike a balance.

    You talked about strengthening science and ensuring that it was unbiased and transparent. Do you feel that the scientists currently doing the research and supplying the information to us and to the PMRA are biased and that their opinions are somewhat unreliable? Is that in fact the case?

[English]

    Ms. Janet Kasperski: What we were trying to let you know is that quite often the research is done by the industry rather than non-biased researchers. We would suggest that the agency be very cautious in accepting research done by scientists who have a declared bias.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jeannot Castonguay: The PMRA officials who testified before the committee informed us that when they review scientific data, they can request additional information to guarantee the validity of their studies. That's what we were told.

    We know that some medical follow-ups are done. Drugs are put on the market and sometimes must be withdrawn when the realization dawns that, despite the best of intentions, they can cause some side effects. They are then either taken off the market, or the formulation is changed.

    Clause 17 contains a reference to a special review that is conducted either when the OECD imposes a product ban or when the provinces or persons request one. If a product has found its way on to the market and there is reason to raise a possible red flag, a request that the product be re-evaluated may be made without having to wait for 15 years. Do you not feel that this is a reasonable approach to take?

  (1240)  

[English]

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield): You have about 30 seconds each, and I think Barbara McElgunn wants to add something there as well.

    Ms. Barbara McElgunn: Whether or not the data are reliable, I think the precautionary principle is based on the situation where there is insufficient scientific evidence. I can read to you what the European Union has said about this. The precautionary principle applies where scientific evidence is “insufficient, inconclusive, or uncertain”--and that often happens in science, almost all the time--“and preliminary scientific evaluation indicates that there are measurable grounds for concern that the potentially dangerous effects on the environment, human, animal or plant health may be inconsistent with the high level of protection chosen by the European Union.” This is the EU's operational statement on the precautionary principle.

    So at the end of the day, when the scientists say they have information over here that shows this and other information over there that shows that--inconsistent information--and a big data gap here, but some reliable evidence that a certain product is already causing harm, the precautionary principle says don't wait until all the data are in before taking action; act immediately.

    “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” is a very colloquial way of putting the precautionary principle. But this is where it really comes into play, when scientists are facing uncertainties in their evaluation of the data and the evidence.

    Mr. Jeannot Castonguay: Merci.

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Castonguay.

    Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

    Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Thank you.

    We didn't really talk much about the whole impact on workers who actually are exposed to pesticides. We've talked a lot about children's health, which is important, but I wonder about this whole issue Dave has raised about testing for worker exposure, and how we do that.

    Almost two years ago the CLC put out a statement saying that Health Canada's pesticide regulators deserved a D-minus for failing to protect farmers, forestry and industrial workers, and lawn-care applicators from illnesses linked to pesticides.

    So I guess my one question is, having seen Bill C-53, are you any more confident that we're addressing the whole issue of exposure to pesticides on the part of workers? Would you give it a higher grade, based on what you see now?

    And perhaps you could comment briefly on the whole question of any protections available now under the workplace hazardous materials information system. Is there now any protection under that system? Or is it a question of workers being totally reliant upon what we can do with this bill and with the PMRA?

    I have one more question, going back to lindane and dursban. I mean, here we have two substances that produce seizures, convulsions, even death; nausea, headaches, and blurred vision; lack of coordination and on and on. I know Barbara has mentioned there is a process in place to phase them out. But is that good enough? How can we sit back and say it's good enough, or to say we'll discontinue something, and that as long as it's still on the shelf it's okay, because we'll phase it out? When we have the scientific evidence, when do we ever say it's time for a ban ?

  (1245)  

    The Vice-Chair (Mr. Rob Merrifield): Dr. Irwin.

    Ms. June Irwin: I would like to make a comment.

    He has spoken publicly. But when you say how does one assess workers, sometimes workers do not have the right or the ability to have a complete examination.

    For instance, I'll mention Clément Daoust, who has given me permission to do so. He came to my office in 1996. He had to quit work when he was about 27. He'd been an exterminator. He said he sprayed chlordane. He was on CBC Radio talking about going from doctor to doctor to doctor, being unable to work. He was weak and sick. He asked the doctors if it could be anything could to do with his work, and the response was “no, no, no”, apparently.

    He has very, very small levels of chlordane in his blood, but he reportedly has very high levels of old chlordane in his fat. As you know, storage of chlorinated pesticides in fat come out under exertion and other problems.

    This man has not been able to work since the age of 27. He quit working in 1987. Our medical system does not give workers the right to a complete exam for intoxication. That's why we did the petition to Allan Rock. For certain chemicals you may not find it in the blood. You have to look in the tissues, particularly fat.

    Now, when you say that DDT is not being used here, where does the DDT come from that's showing up in important levels in some people's tissues? The point is, Canadians have neither medical facilities to find out about their contaminations nor medical facilities to remove unwanted synthetic chemicals from their body. You can have tests for Ativan. You can have tests for Tylenol. But if you are affected by chemicals you've been exposed to involuntarily, and without your knowledge, our system does not provide for that, in general.

    Mr. David Bennett: I'd like to make a number of points about the relationship between workers and pesticides. The first is to point out that workers are a very high-risk group for exposure to pesticides, partly in manufacturing but also in the application of pesticides. Farm workers are in the front line, and they get a double dose of pesticides, partly from their work and partly as members of the public, bystanders, consumers, and so on.

    Historically--and this is a matter of the way the federal government is organized--Health Canada has been very reluctant to consider occupational issues and worker exposure when it's deliberating on public health issues. Also, in quite a cavalier fashion, it has dismissed the risks to workers when it has talked about the general risks of pesticides to public health. In both these areas I think there are signs of change, because there is nothing in any legislation, including the mandate of Health Canada, that stops Health Canada from using data about worker exposure in evaluating a pesticide, for example.

    We're not asking for any special protections for workers as a result of this bill. The conditions of work for pesticide applicators are regulated provincially. The point we do want to make very strongly is that however well you can protect applicators, you cannot protect workers or anyone else from the chronic health effects of chemical pesticides.

    Pesticides are different from industrial chemicals, where you can control their use. Pesticides, by their very nature, are spread out into the whole environment, including the human environment, affecting children, affecting mothers and potential mothers, and affecting workers. The only way you can remove this risk is either to reduce the use of pesticides or to stop them from coming onto the market. I think what we tried to do is to point out to the committee that trying to control the use is much more difficult than simply saying “Get the pesticide off the market”.

    Incidentally, there is nothing in the bill that enables the government to say it's not going to register this pesticide on the grounds that lower-risk products are available. In fact, they cannot do that because that is not a science-based approach, which the bill currently calls for.

    I'd like to say something about the right to know, Chair, but if there's no time, we can move on.

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    The Chair: Go ahead.

    Mr. David Bennett: The situation with the right to know and pesticides is that the national system we have, the workplace hazardous materials information system, does not apply to chemical pesticides. What the bill is saying, by implication, is that there should be a right to know over chemical pesticides--for example, embodied in material safety data sheets that would accompany the first shipment of the pesticide to a farmer or to other users.

    Then the question arises, how will the government do this? I'd like to point out that in 1992, Parliament accepted a committee recommendation that pesticides come up to the same standards for industrial chemicals as the workplace hazardous materials information system. They did not say to bring pesticides under WHMIS as a system, but they said there must be equivalent standards.

    Well, what are the standards? For industrial chemicals, workers have the right to know all the ingredients in a chemical product. So if WHMIS applied to chemical pesticides, we would get the names divulged of the active ingredient and of all the formulants insofar as they were classified as toxic. In industrial chemicals, for classification purposes, nearly all the ingredients are classed as toxic. That would be a good move; we would have a label, a workplace label, and a data sheet, up to WHMIS standards for chemical pesticides.

    But then the big question arises, how do you handle confidential business information, the very thing that workers and everyone else really want to know?

    In WHMIS, we have a very effective system in Canada for making sure that only those things that are genuinely confidential are withheld from the public. They're not withheld from the government; they're withheld from the public. This is done through a commission called the workplace Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission, the HMIRC, which basically examines labels and data sheets. It's presented with evidence, and then it says in some cases, no, that's not a trade secret; you have to divulge it. In other cases, it says this is a trade secret; it can be withheld. The government is then the trustee. The government, not the manufacturer, decides whether this is a genuine trade secret. This has been a very effective system for well over a decade, and in fact the organization is a credit to Canada.

    But here comes the fight: Will Health Canada allow the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission to review pesticide labels and data sheets? From what we understand, Health Canada is adamantly opposed to this. It wants to have its own system of handling confidential business information, and we know from past experience that this way of handling it is not in the public interest.

    So I would ask this committee to make it part of its business to say that if pesticides come up to the right-to-know standards for industrial chemicals, that includes submitting pesticides to the Hazardous Materials Information Review Commission.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

    Ms. Judy Wasylycia-Leis: Maybe my last question could be answered by Barbara and Janet, over the very notion of a ban.

    Do you support a ban when we have evidence?

    Ms. Barbara McElgunn: I guess I'm a pragmatist. It would be lovely if the minute we had a ban all that product disappeared from the shelves and all the product disappeared from any use.

    I don't know why there is historically a process whereby the registrant can sell off the remaining stocks of that particular product, but it happens in the United States and in Canada. I know this probably needs to be looked at. Indemnity, in other words, has to be the registrant's in order to get rid of that in a safe way, to destroy the remaining stocks. Right now we don't have any way of getting that on, but in the best of all good worlds, it would be wonderful if that would happen.

    The Chair: Thank you very much.

    Thank you, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis.

    Thank you to all our witnesses. In particular, I want to thank our medical doctors. In reviewing their own practices, they were able to show what they have observed over the years and point out some of the holes.

    Dr. Gilka, you wouldn't know, but we have just been studying assisted human reproduction and have been informed of the rising incidence of infertility. You are the first witness, in this study or in the previous one, I've heard talk about pesticide residues in the fluid around eggs and in sperm. So you made a link for us between our two areas of investigation, which was very interesting.

    I'm also interested in your observations of certain phenomena when you were beginning practice as opposed to today. I think that should be stark warning to all of us as to what is going on, these accumulations of residue.

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    Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka: If I may, I'll make just one comment. The concentrations of the pesticides have been considered negligible because they are compared in such terms as “one part per million” or “one part per billion”. Now, one part per million would represent 1¢ per $10,000, and one part per billion would be 1¢ per $10,000 million, which seems so negligible that you don't need to worry. And compare it with time--for example, one part per million would be one minute in 695 days.

    From that comparing we get a sense of security, but the problem is, if you start to compare that with a dose that is prescribed as medication, then you will find that the doses in parts per million and parts per billion are how we prescribe things like valium. If I prescribe 5 milligrams of valium to somebody who weighs 220 pounds--100 kilograms for easy calculation--then the concentration in the tissue of the body of that individual will be 0.05 parts per million.

    The Chair: You're saying we shouldn't be lulled into accepting these numbers, which sound so innocuous, because they aren't innocuous.

    Dr. Libuse Anna Gilka: Exactly. For example, hormones like estrogens are active even in parts per billion or parts per quadrillion; they still exert an effect. When we put it into proper context to understand it and compare it with medication and substances that are produced in the body that are so powerful, then we realize that these are not negligible doses but ones with a profound effect.

    The Chair: Thank you for making that point, and thanks to all of you for coming on fairly short notice and making substantive presentations for us. We always reserve the right to call you again if we need some clarification or if we want to ask you a further question we didn't think of today. Thank you very much.

    To the members of the committee, we are trying to set up a Monday night round table and a Tuesday and a Wednesday night round table. We're having some trouble getting the witnesses because apparently, with respect to the witness lists that were submitted by the members, those members did not call those people to alert them to the possibility they might be called.

    The clerk's staff has been calling over the last couple of days, and these people don't know anything, don't know there's a bill, don't know there's a study, and have nothing prepared because they haven't been alerted as to the whole prospect. Now they're saying they couldn't possibly start to work on a presentation for, say, Monday night after having been notified, say, yesterday afternoon. If in fact you have submitted a witness list, you might help the clerk by calling them and saying, I thought you'd want to come, and what's the problem here? Either that or we're going to end up being short of witnesses. However, some members did call their suggested witnesses.

    At any rate, I thank you, and I'll ask you to ask your staff people to be alert to the signal as to whether there is or is not a meeting on Monday night.

    This meeting is adjourned.