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I call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 79 of the Standing Committee on International Trade. Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Therefore, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.
I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members. Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. When speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. For those online, please mute yourselves when you are not speaking. I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. Members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. Members online, please use the “raise hand” function.
For interpretation online, you have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel. If interpretation is lost, please inform me immediately, and we will ensure that interpretation is properly restored before resuming the proceedings. I ask all participants to be careful when handling the earpieces in order to prevent feedback. Feedback can be extremely harmful to our interpreters and can cause serious injuries. I invite participants to speak into the same microphone that their earpiece is plugged into and to place earpieces away from the microphone when they are not in use.
I welcome all of our witnesses this morning, specifically Mr. Côté.
It's nice to see you here in person today.
Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, October 17, 2023, the committee is resuming its study of Canada’s proposed biocides regulation.
We have with us, from the Association pour le développement et l'innovation en chimie au Québec, André Côté, member, board of directors. From CropLife Canada, we have Gregory Kolz, vice-president, government affairs; and Émilie Bergeron, vice-president, chemistry. From Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada, we have Gerry Harrington, senior vice-president, consumer health; and from Flexo Products Limited, we have Stephen Parker, president and chief executive officer.
Welcome, again, to all of you. We will start with opening remarks, and we will then proceed with questions from the committee members.
Monsieur Côté, I invite you to present for up to five minutes, please.
Before I begin, I want to thank the committee for allowing me to speak after all the technical difficulties that occurred on Tuesday. I am here as a regulations expert and as a member of the board of the Association pour le développement et l'innovation en chimie au Québec, or ADICQ. I have worked in the product approvals field with Canadian authorities for more than 20 years.
The proposed biocides regulations are not new. Starting in 2016, together with many representatives of other associations, I attended preliminary meetings on the subject, during which Health Canada was already proposing a use of foreign decisions, or UFD, pathway for access to the Canadian market.
Since 2016, ADICQ and other industrial associations have expressed their disagreement with Health Canada's unrealistic implementation timeline for small and medium-sized businesses, or SMEs.
The overall objective of the proposed biocides regulations is to establish a new framework for certain product categories, essentially disinfectants and hard-surface and textile sanitizers, as well as food-contact surface sanitizers.
The Canadian industry is being asked to approve products based on a new approach that has never previously been requested for this product category in Canada. It is also being asked to approve products that are not currently approved.
Since 2014, food-contact surface sanitizers have no longer been subject to a Health Canada evaluation before being marketed. The Safe Food for Canadians Regulations discontinued the examination that had previously been required.
We know that 1,918 food-contact surface sanitizer products were subject to a Health Canada evaluation when the regulations were amended in 2014.
The deregulation hasn't changed much in industrial practice. Food-contact surface sanitizers are still in use, but none is currently approved. As a result, no Canadian company doing business exclusively in Canada holds an approval for this type of product.
That is simply because the product category doesn't currently exist in Canada. When the biocides regulations come into force, some 700 to 800 food-contact surface sanitizers will have to be approved under the new regulations.
You should note that approval of food-contact surface sanitizers has been mandatory in the United States for decades. All companies headquartered in the United States or marketing this type of product on American soil already hold foreign approvals.
When the proposed biocides regulations come into force, the use of foreign decisions will enable products approved in the United States to enter the Canadian market immediately to the detriment of Canadian manufacturers, which would have to have their products approved before putting them on the market.
This kind of treatment is unfair and threatens international market equilibrium as it would clearly favour American products on Canadian soil, and Canadian manufacturers would be subject to significant delays. From a technical and regulatory standpoint, Canada is going it alone relative to the other G7 countries.
Contrary to what was suggested earlier this week, it is not because two regulatory processes involve the same protocols and methods that they are equivalent. In all G7 countries, human beings are treated with drugs such as penicillin, and services are treated with disinfectants such as bleach, for example. In every other G7 country, one set of regulations has been put in place for disinfectants and another for drugs.
The situation is different in Canada. You have to understand that, here, we “treat” a table with a “drug”, that is, a medication, to prevent a disease. According to the Canadian definition of the word “drug”, as provided in the Food and Drugs Act, bleach and penicillin are equivalent drugs. They are treated in accordance with the same principles, and that is precisely why the natural and non-prescription health products directorate manages approvals of disinfectants in Canada.
We welcome Health Canada's wish to align Canada's regulations with the international regulations adopted in the other G7 countries by proposing these biocides regulations. Unfortunately, the proposed regulations, in their current form, are far from comparable with the other regulations that earlier were alleged to be “equivalent”.
Implementation of these regulations would require Canadian businesses to comply with them, which is entirely normal, but within a framework that has already been in use elsewhere in the world for many years.
Consequently, Canadian manufacturers will have to prepare a submission in order to comply with the new requirements and to wait for Health Canada to reach a decision on their submissions. In the meantime, the use of foreign decisions will permit the de facto entry into Canada of products previously approved outside the country.
In ADICQ's view, the only way for the Government of Canada to be fair is to allow the Canadian industry to comply with the regulatory framework before permitting the use of foreign decisions.
In the circumstances, we request a two‑ to five-year moratorium before any use is made of foreign decisions. That moratorium will enable the Canadian industry to catch up and, more particularly, allow Health Canada to determine whether a foreign authority is competent to support the approval of biocides in Canada.
Thank you.
Good morning, honourable members. My name is Gregory Kolz. I am vice-president of government affairs at CropLife Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Émilie Bergeron, vice-president of chemistry.
Both Émilie and I were very pleased to participate in this committee's recent study on non-tariff trade barriers. We're equally happy to appear today as part of your current review of proposed biocides regulations and the potential trade impacts these may have on certain Canadian sectors.
CropLife Canada represents the Canadian manufacturers, developers and distributors of pest control and modern plant-breeding products. While our organization's primary focus is on providing tools to help farmers be more productive and more sustainable, our membership also develops products for use in a wide range of non-agricultural settings. These include urban green spaces, public health settings and transportation corridors.
Globally, biocides are sometimes classified as a type of pesticide. In some jurisdictions, the words “biocides” and “pesticides” are used interchangeably. For instance, the World Health Organization defines biocides as chemicals that “kill pests, including insects, rodents, fungi and unwanted plants”.
That said, as you heard from the government officials during your last meeting, Health Canada defines biocides as “surface sanitizers” and “disinfectants” that are regulated under separate regulations in Canada. Currently, disinfectants are regulated under the Food and Drugs Act, while surface sanitizers fall under the Pest Control Products Act.
While CropLife Canada's members do not manufacture biocides as defined in Canada, our interest in today's study is in the model this innovative regulation provides to the government in terms of how to make the regulatory system more efficient while ensuring that the same level of protection is achieved for Canadians.
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CropLife Canada is championing a regulatory environment that both protects human and environmental safety, and encourages innovation and competitiveness. We are advocating for science-based regulations—both federally and provincially—that allow farmers access to the latest tools they need to safely and sustainably grow our food and compete on a global stage.
The proposed framework that is being examined by this committee aims to create a regulatory pathway for biocides within Health Canada that supports regulatory alignment, facilitates trade, reduces unnecessary regulatory burden, and encourages new infection prevention and control innovations to be brought to the Canadian marketplace.
While CropLife Canada has not been directly involved in Health Canada's pre-consultations on this specific proposed framework, we are very much in favour of recommendations that support and further strengthen existing regulations, while at the same time reduce red tape, enhance efficiency and promote greater access to innovative products for Canadians.
We strongly believe the Canadian government can best protect market access and the competitiveness of Canadian businesses by remaining science-based, focusing on product safety, and being transparent about their decisions.
To encourage regulatory reform efforts, CropLife Canada will continue to advocate for regulatory alignment with like-minded countries that share our science and risk-based approach to regulation and work to achieve similar levels of protection.
In an environment where resources are limited and regulatory efficiencies are needed, we need to ensure innovative approaches like this one are promoted and facilitated in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of our regulatory system.
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Once again, it is worth noting that Canada is a net food exporter and the fifth-largest agricultural exporter globally. We produce some of the highest-quality and most sought-after products in the world, but we need predictable, transparent and science-based trade rules with our major trading partners in order to get our products to market.
As mentioned, CropLife Canada fully supports regulatory approaches that help create a more competitive business environment, facilitate trade and remove barriers to market entry, while ensuring that they continue to protect the health and safety of Canadians and the environment. In order to grow crops sustainably and profitably, Canadian growers require access to plant science innovation such as crop protection products and modern plant-breeding technologies. As is the case for biocides, a science-based, efficient regulatory system is the best way to achieve this objective.
Thank you, honourable members, for inviting us to appear today. We appreciate this opportunity to share our perspective.
We look forward to taking any questions you may have.
[Translation]
Thank you.
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Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity to provide Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada's perspective on the proposed biocides regulations.
Food, health and consumer products sectors employ nearly 300,000 Canadians in businesses of all sizes across the country that manufacture and distribute the safe, high-quality products that are at the heart of healthy homes, healthy communities and a healthy Canada.
FHCP strongly supports the proposed biocides regulations.
The two key types of products captured by the proposed regulations—surface sanitizers and disinfectants—are currently governed under two separate pieces of legislation, the Food and Drugs Act and the Pest Control Products Act, and regulated by separate agencies. Given that these products have similar risk profiles and are used under similar conditions, this approach is cumbersome and inefficient for both government and industry. A single framework and regulator, as proposed under these regulations, is an important step forward for all, especially for consumers and taxpayers.
The COVID pandemic underlined the importance of sanitizers and disinfectants to all Canadians, as well as the vulnerability of our supply of these products. Through the extraordinary efforts of Health Canada and a broad range of Canadian companies, those supplies were bolstered by virtue of an interim order by the that allowed them to be authorized for sale in Canada based on foreign approvals. One of the key benefits of the proposed biocides regulations, in our view, is the creation of a permanent pathway for the use of decisions by trusted foreign regulators in authorizing products for sale in Canada.
FHCP is very encouraged to see Health Canada apply the lessons learned during the pandemic to modernize the framework. The “use of foreign decisions” provisions will create more competition and innovation in the marketplace, increasing consumer choice and, in so doing, will ease some of the inflationary pressure on these products. The UFD provisions do not compromise safety for Canadian product approvals. The ambulatory list of trusted regulators whose decisions can be leveraged is limited to those whose approval criteria align with those of Health Canada.
Since the supply chains for these products are generally North American in scope, it is natural that the United States Environmental Protection Agency is the first foreign regulator to appear on this list, but the regulations provide a process and pathway for other regulators to be qualified and to further increase the opportunities to reduce the amount of resources going to redundant reviews of the same safety information against the same criteria and generating the same outcomes.
Once approved, these products will be subject to the same postmarket oversight by Health Canada as all other licensed products. Should that postmarket experience result in questions about the safety of a product, all of the authorities from Vanessa's Law will be available to compel manufacturers to submit additional safety information, including the information submitted to the original foreign regulator.
Given the absence of any compromise on consumer safety and other regulatory outcomes, the appropriate use of foreign decisions in product regulation offers a great opportunity to drive costs out of the system and increase competition. This would give consumers more choice and more competitive pricing at a time when the cost of living is a significant concern for so many.
Canadian manufacturers can be very competitive, but many organizations, including the World Economic Forum, have noted a decline in our competitiveness and cite burdensome regulations as a principal cause of that decline. Regulatory modernization can have a dramatic impact on international competitiveness.
In the decade that followed the introduction of the natural health products regulations in 2004, we saw exports of these products more than double in Canada, to over a billion dollars. That is a growth rate in exports of more than double the overall average for Canadian manufacturing. This was because those new regulations were internationally recognized as being both robust and class leading and, at the same time, provided an efficient pathway for innovative products to reach market.
Only time will tell whether the biocides regulations will have a similar effect, but making the marketplace for these products more competitive is not something we should fear.
[Translation]
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'm ready to answer questions from members of the committee.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
I appreciate that the committee has undertaken a review of this subject and that you have invited me to speak.
I am the owner of Flexo Products, a Canadian company that's been in Niagara Falls since 1918. I'm the great-grandson of the founder. My son, who will be the fifth generation, has also joined our company. I have an engineering degree and an MBA from the University of Toronto, and I'm a registered professional engineer in the province of Ontario.
My company employs 85 people and is a manufacturer and distributor of cleaning chemicals and supplies to industrial customers. We stock 7,000 products in seven warehouses. We sell these products to school boards, day cares, health clubs, universities, nursing homes, cleaning contractors, hotels, restaurants and industry. We are both a manufacturer and a distributor to end-users. We make approximately 60,000 deliveries a year in our own trucks. During COVID, my company was on the front lines, trying to fulfill the requirements of customers for not only biocides but also other needed supplies, such as hand sanitizers, gloves and masks.
My company has been making registered biocides for over 35 years. We currently have a list of 26 products in the Health Canada drug product database. While the current regulations have been effective over the years, we welcome the development of a new category of regulated products through the creation of a single framework.
When our company decides to produce a new disinfectant cleaner, we reach out to various producers of biocidal active ingredients to find an appropriate formula for our needs. These companies, all based in the U.S., own master registrations and have completed all the work to prove to Health Canada that their formula has verified biocidal claims. Our registration documents go to Health Canada, together with a letter of authorization from the raw material manufacturer and a label proposed by us. We wait for our notice of compliance. Upon approval, we buy the main disinfectant raw material and make the product in our facility.
The majority of manufacturers in Canada would not have the resources to make and sustain the necessary biocidal claims without the work the U.S. companies perform for us. Typical testing to certify a new product costs over half a million dollars per product. There are no guaranteed results. As new bacteria and viruses arise, we rely on these companies to update their claims, so we can update ours. During COVID, as a result of their work, we were able to update labelling on many of our products. The Canadian market needs these companies and their R and D. We need access to new technologies. Most current biocides are made from corrosive and sometimes flammable raw materials, and the push for safer and greener products in our environment requires new technology.
There's no shortage of Canadian manufacturing capacity to make the end-use product. Our company and many of my competitors in Canada have highly scalable facilities. Our biggest problem during COVID was not that we didn't have the proper products to kill the virus, or that we couldn't get the appropriate label claims. In fact, during COVID, Health Canada staff were very responsive. They gave us excellent support and worked overtime to process requests. The real problem was that we could not get enough of the raw materials in a timely manner. We need to consider how to ensure we get these raw materials should another pandemic occur.
The financial impact to Canadian manufacturers of recognizing foreign registration is a dual-edged sword. We need the U.S. registrations and their technologies. What will likely come is more U.S. manufacturers selling their products into Canada. It will cause a reduction in sales among domestic manufacturers. The moderately reduced fees that have been proposed for Canadian manufacturers in no way mitigate that problem.
I was happy to see the new regulations propose changes to labelling. I get to see and talk to many end-use customers. I would like to suggest that the labelling of bottles be reviewed with more emphasis on helping the end-user. Many users in janitorial positions do not have the education or expertise to fully understand all the information on existing labels. Current labels are frequently packed with huge amounts of data not needed for the application of the product.
In the scope of the new biocides regulations, it was proposed to exclude air sanitizers at this time. During COVID, one of the major requests from customers was to help them sanitize rooms through the use of hand-held sprayers. Huge amounts of sanitizers were sold for this use. It is a potentially dangerous operation to perform without proper safety standards. Should another similar pandemic arise, there will be countless people once again wanting to do this, and I would suggest that regulations on air sanitization be reviewed as soon as possible.
I appreciate the time you have afforded me. I look forward to your questions and comments.
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When the new regulations come into force, a Canadian company operating nationally will first have to conduct efficacy tests. That will cost it thousands of dollars. As Mr. Parker said earlier, those tests are very costly, and waiting times for results are from 3 to 12 months.
Then it will have to prepare a file and submit it to Health Canada. It will also incur further costs of $10,000 to $12,000 to open the file.
Lastly, the company will have to wait 9 to 12 months for Canadian authorities to process the file. In all, the process will take 12 to 24 months, and the company will have spent $10,000 to $12,000, not including research and development costs.
In the meantime, for the same product in the United States, a company will file an expedited administrative application, pay $3,500 USD and receive approval for its product within three months. That's possible when the American regulatory file is deemed in order.
Our view is that we should wait before allowing an American file to be submitted in Canada; in other words, we should waive the 12‑ to 24-month period imposed under the new regulations for every Canadian company. We think it will take two to five years for Health Canada to complete the entire process.
There are precedents for this. When the natural and non-prescription health products directorate was created, it took seven years to process applications. Now, five years after the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations came into force, we're still issuing establishment licences. That's not what was planned.
We don't mean to attack the Health Canada people, but it is what it is. Implementation delays are always longer and more complicated than anticipated. That's the situation we have to face.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Parker, thank you so much for coming. Your family is quite motivational. This is the fifth generation, you said. Instead of thanking your grandfather or you or others, I think I would thank your son for taking over the business. We need more manufacturing here.
To summarize some of the things you said, you said that you don't invent new products here possibly because of the economies of scale or because of the technical complications involved. That's my understanding. Correct me later if I am wrong.
You also said that about 80% of Canadian manufacturers get products that have been developed elsewhere and manufacture them here. You also said that testing costs about half a million dollars and that there's no shortage of manufacturing capacity here in Canada, but the problem you faced during the pandemic was the availability of raw materials.
If my understanding of all these things is correct, your major solution is very important for the committee to review: that, in the labelling, we should focus more on the end-user because of the knowledge gap that may be there in the end-user who uses the product.
That is my understanding of what you said. My question for you includes two things. One is that Mr. Côté said that Canadian manufacturers need a moratorium, because 80% of Canadian manufacturers use products that are already being invented elsewhere. Do you think that a long moratorium is required?
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That is the problem. The differences in the regulations cause a lot of confusion.
On Tuesday, I heard Mr. Cannings explain how confusing this was, and I think there is a general consensus in that regard. Canada lumped everything together and looks at everything from a drug perspective. It applies the drug regulations to all of these products. These regulations apply to the pharmaceutical industry and they are accompanied by pharmacovigilance principles, clinical studies and everything that is involved in that. In Canada, the same regulations that apply to drugs also apply to disinfectants.
That means that, unlike the United States Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, and unlike the European Chemicals Agency, which implemented the REACH regulations, Canada does not review the raw materials that will make up a disinfectant. We do not do any toxicological reviews or reviews of the environmental fate of those materials. We assess the quality or suitability of a disinfectant based on the drug criteria. We look at whether the product will reduce something or prevent a disease. In Canada, we do not look at whether a disinfectant will make surfaces cleaner or more hygienic.
That is the difference in the regulations, and that is what is preventing Canadian companies from doing business in the U.S.
Thank you all for being here.
Thank you especially, Monsieur Côté, for coming here again. I'm glad to hear it. I think you pointed out that I was confused on Tuesday, and I think maybe we all were in some ways. I admit that I was confused, and I think you've helped clear up that confusion.
What we were hearing on Tuesday was that there was some unfairness between American and Canadian companies trying to register their products. The American companies apparently had an advantage because they were already registered through the EPA, whereas Canadian companies had to register their products here or had to get them approved.
My initial thought on that, as you heard, was that they had to do it through the EPA and we have to do it our way, so how is that unfair?
Again, maybe you can clear up my confusion. What you're saying here today is that those companies here in Canada have not had to register their products until now, so is this a new thing? We've been just selling products that weren't approved in any way and they had to have them approved, and that's where they're ahead of us. Is that it?
Disinfectants are regulated in Canada—period. You carry a DIN and you get to demonstrate and register your product, but not according to the new rules. The new rules align with the rule that already exists in the U.S. That's the problem.
[Translation]
Currently, our regulatory structure for product registration is not equivalent to that of the United States. What we are asking of Canadian companies today is different from what the new regulations will require of them. The new regulations are modelled on and aligned with the U.S. regulations. That's really where the problem lies.
Once everyone is on an equal footing in this respect, there will be further discussions, as other technical points will likely be raised. In our view, the major point that justifies a moratorium is the fact that Canadian industry must be given the time to get up to speed, to comply with Canadian regulations. Currently, it's not true that Canadian regulations are equivalent to U.S. regulations.
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Thank you, Mr. Parker, for agreeing to come from Niagara Falls. Flexo is a long-established company in the riding of Niagara Falls. Thank you for your continued confidence in having your manufacturing and distributing company located in our riding. Thank you for your company, which employs 85 people.
I asked that you be one of our witnesses and come forward because I thought you could bring that unique perspective both of the distributor and manufacturer and of a smaller-sized enterprise. I think this builds on what my colleague Mr. Canning was talking about—and, maybe to some degree, Mr. Côté. You indicated some of the concerns you may have with regard to clearing those registrations with Health Canada. Once these regulations are posted, they come into effect in a year.
Do you have those concerns with regard to backlogs and getting re-registrations in time, as opposed to just simply bringing in product?
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Thank you for the question, once again.
[English]
The idea of cumulative regulatory burden is one of the things we need to spend more time looking at. For example, we're talking right now about the biocides regulations, but the manufacturers of those products are also dealing with new regulations from ECCC around recyclability. We're also dealing with new regulations around packaging materials and pollution reduction.
All those initiatives don't necessarily align. Manufacturers are put into very challenging positions, and the lack of stability, the lack of predictability.... If you're in the middle of taking on a project, for example, right now, there's a whole relabelling initiative for natural health products under way, and then halfway through the implementation exercise—whoops—ECCC now says we have to put new labelling information on the front of the product label, so now that whole relabelling exercise has to take a step back.
We could point to a lot of different examples like that, where there is this whole concept of the cumulative burden. It's not just any one exercise or one regulatory framework, but it's the number of overlapping regulatory frameworks that industry is dealing with.
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There are only so many ways to do it. The Canadian industry has to sell apples and the American industry has to sell apples. There is no other way to align our regulatory frameworks, and there is no other way to be fair. If our businesses don't start the race from the same starting point, they can't expect to achieve results other than what we've predicted.
We are calling for a moratorium for two main reasons. Registering a product is done basically in four stages, and the process takes 12 to 24 months, when all goes well. At this time, we know that between 700 and 800 products are not registered. We have passed that information on to Health Canada officials. They have archived the lists themselves, because they were the ones who managed it previously. We have demonstrated this to officials, we've repeated the information, and they don't believe us.
I go to food factories every day to perform checks, and I send approval files to Health Canada. I help Canadian contractors with that process, because we don't need certification. It happens quickly, because we can do it ourselves.
I'm going to go back to Mr. Parker.
You've been talking off and on about the pandemic and how things changed—what went well and what didn't. Toward the end, you mentioned the fact that, when we started, everybody was washing their hands and wiping every surface down—their groceries, their newspapers and everything. Then we discovered that it was more of an airborne situation, and you talked about people wanting sprays, basically, to deal with the air.
I'm just wondering if that is still the best situation. We've been hearing.... Towards the end of the pandemic, it was more about filtering. Are there products that you sell or produce that are combined with filters for airborne diseases like COVID?
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Thank you, Madam Chair.
I wanted to just quickly go back to some of the things you spoke about today, Mr. Parker.
You said that 80% to 90% of the Canadian industry uses formulations from the United States. I guess my question, then, is this. Would the UFD be useful, if you're getting the formulations from the U.S. that have already been approved in the U.S.? Any new formulation, I would assume, can go on this new 90-day approval track.
When I look at that and I look at what you've said, it would seem to me that these new proposed regulations will actually be a benefit to the industry. Would you agree with that?
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Thank you very much to all our presenters.
I was amazed to hear about the business being a fifth-generation business. That's quite a remarkable feat. Where I'm from in northern Ontario, in Sault Ste. Marie, the Ojibwa, when they have discussions like this, when they arrive at decisions, will try to figure out how it will affect five generations down the way. A lot of first nations think this way.
In listening to your presentation, it was very thoughtful, not only about the moment and about what happened but also about what Canada ought to do to be prepared if, as you said, another pandemic happens. A lot of people have been saying that we hadn't seen a pandemic like this. People were comparing it to the one after the First World War. People are saying that the way we live now, there is the potential for another pandemic of some sort to happen.
You mentioned the supply issue. I wanted you to drill down on that. I'm wondering if, with your expertise, you can inform the committee on how Canada could be prepared to have supply on hand. I don't understand your industry that much. Can we stockpile stuff? Is there a shelf life? Is it capacity in manufacturing?
If you wouldn't mind delving into that, that would be great.
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Stockpiling is very tough because there is a shelf life, and it's typically on the raw material.
Typically, when we make a disinfectant cleaner that has eight to 10 ingredients in it, one or two are the products that do the disinfection. They have a limited life. It's generally a year to two years, so it's problematic to stockpile, just as there are, unfortunately, millions and millions of gallons of hand sanitizer that are out of date and sitting in warehouses all over the world—all over North America anyway.
A possibility would be if could Canada make some of these raw materials. We make some. We make bleach, and we make hydrogen peroxide. Those are two disinfectants that are used. We make peracetic acid, but some of the other products we probably don't want to make because they're quite corrosive and no one wants a chemical plant next door to them.
It's a definite problem. To be honest, I don't know how you could guarantee the supply and, unfortunately, it was a real issue. We were waiting for products to arrive at our facility so that we could make the finished product.
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The strength wasn't as high as the other ones.
The other issue that you just identified that I think we need to also note is that, if there are these products that are expired and they're sitting in warehouses, it concerns me that somebody, a bad actor, might distribute them and sell them, that kind of thing.
Do you have any recommendations or thoughts about that and what Canada ought to do to basically take an inventory, if you will, of what's out there and what might be expired yet still be for sale? It could be through reputable retail, although I would imagine they have their own processes, but anyone can go online and sell products.
Sir, would you mind drilling into that observation?
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Thanks for making time, Madam Chair.
I want to thank everybody for joining us today.
I'll ask a little bit about the safety standards first, but then, at the end of my five minutes, I'll allow a bit of time for you, Mr. Kolz, and you, Ms. Bergeron, to weigh in on some of the things you might have heard here.
First of all, to you, Mr. Parker and Mr. Côté, there were some comments made at the last meeting that perhaps the companies using a UFD would be held to a lesser safety standard than Canadian manufacturers, and I think Canadians listening to and watching this committee would be concerned about comments like that. Would you agree with that statement?
I'll start with you first, Mr. Côté.
Just for those listening in and watching, there are three points in particular, as part of this regulation, that are put in there to help with ensuring that they are held to a high safety standard. I will just quickly read two of them.
The first one is that to meet the standards under the UFD pathway, a company must meet several criteria outlined in the regulations including identifiable formulation, same conditions of use, same manufacturing process and specifications, and confirmation that the company possesses or has immediate access to all information submitted to the foreign regulator to support approval.
The second one is that the UFD review pathway does not diminish Canadian health and safety standards. Manufacturers and importers who submit applications through this authorization pathway will need to meet all Canadian regulatory requirements including bilingual product labelling, standardized safety statements, robust incident reporting and postmarket surveillance obligations.
With that being said, as promised, I will turn it over to you, Mr. Kolz and Ms. Bergeron, to provide some summary perhaps.
Yes, with respect to the question we received earlier about whether we still have faith in the American system, it's not just about having faith in the American system. It's about having faith in the Canadian system as well. We have one of the strongest systems in the world, quite frankly. If they assess the information they are provided and decide that the dataset is accurate, then we have reason to have faith in that.
Furthermore, a point was raised about how things maybe evolved or changed under the Trump administration. Our exact point is that: We don't want political involvement in this process. We want it to be based on science and on facts. It shouldn't be about public perception. It should be about data and making those changes.
Is it a question of the current system not being fact-based or science-based? No, it's absolutely not.
Are there options to refine the system, expedite the system or make it more competitive? We hear about it in various jurisdictions, whether it's transportation or groceries or otherwise. Canadians want lower prices. They want more competition. They want a healthy economic environment. We're talking to the trade committee, so there's obviously a sensitivity to those deals with other countries. That is why we are here. We are in favour of something that helps our growers, our companies, which very much rely on biocides among other products and which should have access to those in a timely manner whether they're produced domestically or internationally.
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I'm not opposed to the motion, at first sight, since we suspect that the bill will pass second reading, based on the opinions expressed by all the political parties, who support the principle. A preliminary study would therefore not be in vain, because there's nothing hypothetical about it. It's pretty obvious that the bill will end up here.
However, I want to make sure that we don't add sessions when the bill passes second reading, and that we don't start the study all over again. In other words, the preliminary study has to count. We also have other subjects to discuss. Four sessions are more than enough to study an agreement that is short and simple, not very binding and limited in scope, on the face of it.
Can we agree that, when the bill comes back to us, we'll just do the clause-by-clause study and not add sessions until the end of time?
Besides, the bill cannot be amended, so we know that the text we have before us, as it is likely to be adopted, will remain identical. So there can't be any nasty surprises about what we're about to study.
:
I'm incredibly disappointed with how this has been done here, Madam Chair, by both you and the clerk. We had talked about studying the economic impacts of the strike at the port of Vancouver. That was going to be next week. A witness submission was never requested from us. Now, here we are on Thursday with no witnesses contacted to proceed with that study, which is completely out of the ordinary business as to how this committee operates.
We've operated this committee in a way where we've treated each other with respect and tried to work on things. To come in here today and be told that the has already been arranged to come on Tuesday for a study that is not before this committee, with a piece of legislation that is still being debated in the chamber, and will bump our study, which the entire committee agreed would be the next thing we study.... It's been bumped because not a single witness has been contacted. It's now Thursday at almost one o'clock.
There was a plan afoot here. The plan afoot was that this was going to happen and our study was not going to proceed. I find this to be something that I am exceptionally frustrated with. We do not have a bill before us. It is not the job of this committee to deal with incompetence in the government's ability to manage their legislative calendar in the chamber.
We had a committee plan. We agreed, everyone, to this plan. Now, all of a sudden, the plan has been thrown out of the window with no consultation with the committee. To somehow suggest this surprise announcement at committee business, when what we thought we were doing at committee business was to discuss this budget, I find to be a breach of how this committee has operated.
I'm incredibly disappointed. I'm disappointed in you, Madam Chair. We've had a good working relationship. I don't think this is the way we would treat each other normally.
I do not agree to doing a prestudy of that particular piece of legislation, because the committee had business we had already scheduled. If that legislation is before us, then of course it would bump a study, but to bump our study, which is an important study.... We all agreed it was important. We all agreed that it would go right after we finished Mr. Savard-Tremblay's biocides study. I think this is a big problem, and this is not how this should have been done.
:
Thanks, Madam Chair. I don't think your comment at the beginning that this was going to be a quick one is necessarily accurate at this point in time.
I don't sit on the subcommittee, but we all received a report from the subcommittee and I thought there was a lot of goodwill when we talked about the ability to talk about the supply chain issues that we're facing.
I think Mr. Sidhu's and Mr. Miao's motions were good motions, and I think we came to a good understanding about what that would be. The subcommittee report—to remind everybody—started with this biocides meeting that we had here for, I was going to say, Mr. Savard-Tremblay, but I think it was actually a pretty good study for everybody to understand that. Then we were going on to the port strike. I think, again, that was something that everybody was in agreement with. Again, it was in the subcommittee report that we were doing it. I just remind the committee that the initial motion for that was to include the as part of that study and that study would have been happening Tuesday.
We now understand that the is free Tuesday, but she's not appearing on this. It's about this prestudy, which seems to have jumped the queue, if you will. I think there was a lot of good faith in removing the minister from that and making sure that we're focused on the government's response and having government officials. We didn't necessarily demand that the minister appear, which I know has happened in previous committees that I you and I have sat on together, where we spent a lot of time demanding that the minister show up.
That wasn't the case this time. I think, again, it was the understanding that we were going to move directly to the port strike. I know there has been a lot of anticipation from pretty much everybody in this room, and we wanted to do it. It was topical. We wanted to do it sooner rather than later.
Certainly I think this is something that I, unfortunately, won't be supporting—going to this prestudy just because the happens to be free, when initially we were looking for the minister for the first one.
I'll leave my comments there, Madam Chair, but again, to my first point, I don't think this is going to be a short discussion, as you said in your opening comments. Hopefully we can resolve this.
Thank you.
:
I have Mr. Baldinelli, Mr. Cannings, Mr. Tremblay and Mr. Martel.
I'd like the opportunity to respond so I don't necessarily want to wait until the other speakers have spoken.
Is it okay with everybody if I respond to the suggestions so that there's a better understanding of where we're going with this?
We all know that Bill takes precedence, as Mr. Seeback said, over everything else. It was expected. Bill C-57 had to come. We have to deal with it because it's legislation, and then immediately following the four meetings that were decided on for Bill C-57, we go on to the port study, which is scheduled at the moment for the end of this month.
There's been a delay in the House with getting the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement into this committee due to concurrence motions being tabled. We all know what's going on. It's been deliberately to delay the Canada-Ukraine free trade agreement from moving on.
The clerk has to have a schedule and we expected the legislation to be here, which is why the schedule is the way it is. We did the biocides and, normally, if it were not for the concurrence motions being moved in the House, the legislation would be here. It was scheduled for Monday, and we had asked the as well to be here for the beginning of that study, which is normal, and the schedule worked as well.
It's efficient use of our time as a committee. The concurrence motions in the House are delaying its getting here, because it was scheduled to be debated yesterday and Friday. We have the four meetings, and we immediately go on to the Vancouver port strike that we talked about. That was the plan. That is the schedule that is before us at the moment.
Since Bill is not here yet, but it will be at some point, the idea was to do a prestudy and then apply that information so that we can continue with the schedule that's before us. There was no intention to be devious about anything. The legislation takes precedence. It is the holdup in the House that's preventing it from being here, so that's all I'm going to say about that.
Mr. Baldinelli, you have the floor.