Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak at third reading of Bill C-53, the Pest Control Products Act.
The passing of this bill will enhance the government's protection of Canadians' health and their environment by minimizing risks posed by pest control products.
Enshrined in this legislation is the requirement to incorporate modern risk assessment concepts into the scientific assessment of pesticides. This includes additional safety factors to protect children, thereby helping to ensure that Canada's children are given special protection from health risks posed by pesticides.
These additional safety factors recognize that children are affected by pesticides in a way that is different from adults and are applied whenever children might be exposed to pesticides through food or residential uses.
Health protection will also be strengthened through C-53's requirement that aggregate exposure to pesticides and the cumulative effects of pesticides that act in the same way be assessed.
One of the most important amendments that was made to the bill was to ensure that these factors are considered when making registration decisions about all pesticides, not just those used on food. This bill states unequivocally that no pesticide may be used in Canada unless any associated risks to the environment have first been determined to fall within acceptable limits.
The term “environment”, defined broadly to be consistent with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, includes the components of the earth, all layers of the atmosphere, animals, plants and other living organisms. Environmental risks include the potential capacity of pesticides to do harm to ecosystems, species at risk and biological diversity.
Bill C-53 supports minimizing risks, not just keeping them within acceptable limits. A pesticide will not be registered if its value is determined to be unacceptable—that is, if it does not contribute to pest management in a positive way. The assessment of value, which includes the pesticide's efficacy, enables the lowest effective rate of the pesticide to the determined and it is only that lowest rate that is approved for use.
One of the most important features of this bill is to increase the Canadian public's access to information generated and held by the government.
When enacted, the new Pest Control Products Act will make Canada's pesticide regulatory system among the most transparent and open in the world. A public registry will be established that allows the public to have access to detailed evaluation reports on the risks and the value of registered pesticides. The public will also be allowed to view the confidential test data on which pesticide evaluations are based.
Bill C-53 will make it easier for Health Canada to share scientific studies on pesticides with other federal, provincial, territorial and international regulators and with health professionals.
Sharing studies with its international regulatory counterparts enhances the process for international harmonization, including joint reviews of pesticides. Joint reviews give Canadian growers equal access to newer, safer pesticides so they can be competitive in the marketplace, while helping to ensure that Canadians have a safe and abundant food supply.
International harmonization also contributes to risk reduction by speeding up the withdrawal of older, frequently more hazardous pesticides and expediting their replacement with pesticides that are safer and more compatible with the goals of sustainable pest management.
Bill C-53 will also strengthen the government's post-registration control of pesticides. This control is being enhanced, first, by requiring mandatory reporting of adverse effects.
A company that is applying to register a pesticide or one that has a registered pesticide will be obliged to report to the government any adverse effects produced by its product.
Failure to report adverse effects will be an offence under the legislation. When the government receives an adverse effects report, it will review the information and decide whether it should initiate a special review in order to determine if registration of the pesticide needs to be amended or cancelled so that health and environmental risks remain acceptable. Action can be taken right away to protect human health or the environment, if necessary.
The government's capacity to re-evaluate pesticides systematically is being strengthened, notably by requiring re-evaluations of pesticides to be done 15 years after they are registered.
It is also providing the minister with the authority to take action against registrants who fail to provide the data needed to conduct re-evaluations. Strengthened capacity to conduct re-evaluations will translate into better environmental protection. It will also translate into better health protection, notably for vulnerable populations such as children and seniors. The re-evaluation process will be similar to the processes used in the United States and Europe.
Finally, Bill C-53 brings federal pesticide legislation into line with contemporary standards regarding compliance. It provides clear rules and increased powers for Health Canada's inspectors. The bill also allows higher maximum penalties to be set when pesticides are not marketed or used in accordance with the law--up to $1 million or three years in jail for the most serious offences.
Having touched on the main thrusts of Bill C-53, I will now review the changes accepted by the Standing Committee on Health which have been reported back to the House. Under these amendments, the major elements of the bill are substantially unchanged. But in order to improve and refine these elements, significant amendments have been accepted. They reflect comments made by committee members, the debates in the House, and take into account comments made by numerous other Canadians in submissions before the committee.
To respond to concerns that the term “acceptable risk” was too vague, an interpretation of this term has been added to the legislation, “Acceptable risk” means that there is a reasonable certainty that no harm to human health or the environment will result from exposure to or use of a pesticide.
This level of precaution is the most stringent way to protect Canadians and their environment from the potential risks associated with pesticides.
By adding a definition of “formulant” and including this term in the definition of “pest control product”, the requirement to ensure that all ingredients of a pesticide are assessed has been clarified. As well, as I have already mentioned, consideration of aggregate exposure and cumulative effects that was already in the section on maximum residue limits has been added into the registration and re-evaluation sections of the bill. The committee also accepted the suggested amendment that information about adverse effects be included in the material available for Canadians to examine in the public registry.
An important objective of the bill is to minimize risks associated with pesticides, not just ensure that risks are acceptable. One way of doing this is to facilitate access to pesticides that pose lower risks that those already registered. To this end, an important amendment made to the bill was to add a provision to require the minister to expedite the evaluations of reduced risk pesticides. The new provision in the bill will ensure that this is given priority. Another amendment also clarified that the annual report to Parliament on administration of the act will include the status of registrations of lower risk pesticides.
Access to minor use pesticides by farmers and other users was another key area of discussion during the committee deliberations. A specific authority to make regulations respecting minor uses has now been incorporated in the bill.
Finally, a provision has been added to have the act reviewed by a parliamentary committee after seven years.
There are two areas that have received considerable attention: restricting the so-called “cosmetic use” of pesticides, and extending the precautionary principle to the registration of new pesticides. I would like to explain why amendments have not been made in these areas.
Some witnesses before the standing committee stated that the cosmetic use of pesticides should just be banned by the federal government. The fact is that all pesticides and their uses must be treated in the same way under federal law. They must all be subjected to rigorous scientific testing and the results must be critically evaluated using the latest risk assessment methods. The results of these risk assessments will be different for each pesticide and use. An outright ban on “cosmetic uses” of pesticides presupposes that they all cause unacceptable risks.
That is not the case. Since the PCPA is based primarily on the criminal law power, it would not be appropriate to make that use a crime if the risks posed by that use have been determined to be acceptable.
The preamble to Bill C-53 recognizes the interdependence of federal, provincial and territorial pest management regulatory systems and encourages respect for the responsibilities of each order of government.
Should provinces and municipalities, whose legislation is not based on the criminal power, want to further restrict the use of any pesticide, they may.
For example, provinces may have sensitive wetlands that need to be protected and they would restrict the pesticide from being used in that area. Or, citizens of a particular municipality may decide that they do not want to have a pesticide used in their community no matter how small the risks and they may persuade the municipal government to enact a by-law to that effect, if their municipality has been given such authority by the province.
In any case, access to new, safer pesticides and an active re-evaluation program for older pesticides will ensure that any pesticides registered at the federal level do not pose unacceptable risks, bearing in mind the very stringent interpretation of “acceptable risk” that has now been added to the bill. Priority has been given to re-evaluating all lawn pesticides.
Suggestions have been made to have broader incorporation of the precautionary principle in Bill C-53. It is already included in the section of the Bill that pertains to pesticides that are already registered and in use. The principle is stated there so that if threats of serious or irreversible harm are detected for a pesticide that is already registered, the government will not have to wait for full scientific certainty before taking cost-effective measures to prevent adverse health impact or environmental degradation.
Use of the precautionary principle under these circumstances will enhance the government's capacity to act quickly when threats are detected.
The situation regarding the approval of new pesticides, that is those that are not already in use, is different. The Pest Control Products Act has as its fundamental approach the extremely rigorous assessments of pesticides before they are registered for sale or use in Canada.
As explained earlier, “acceptable risk” means that there is reasonable certainty that no harm to human health or the environment will result from use of the pesticide. Applying the precautionary principle based on a threat of serious or irreversible harm to the registration of new pesticides would actually weaken the standard set for safety, not strengthen it.
Registration decisions are based on whether or not exposure would be 100-1000 times lower than the level at which no adverse effects are shown. This is a more stringent test of safety than whether or not there are “threats of serious or irreversible damage”, which is the wording contained in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act's version of the precautionary principle and the one in this bill.
Pre-market assessment of pesticides means that Health Canada does not simply allow a pesticide to be used and then wait for evidence of harm, it exercises its authority to reduce risks before a pesticide ever reaches the market.
I would just like to note that the current Pest Control Products Act is 33 years old and Canadians are expecting the government to act to help protect their health and environment and ensure a safe and abundant food supply.
I ask everyone in the House who wishes to see an effective, modern and open pesticide regulatory system in Canada to support Bill C-53.
In closing, I would like to thank the Standing Committee on Health for its careful assessment of this bill and for the amendment that have been made to further strengthen it. I believe that this bill represents a critically important step forward in our capacity to protect Canadians and their environment.
