CPCHE RESPONSE TO THE CANADA HEALTH PROTECTION ACT

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To: The Honourable Pierre Pettigrew

Re: Canada Health Protection Act - A Proposal to Renew Federal Health Protection Legislation

Dear Minister:

The Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and the Environment (CPCHE) is an affiliation of environmental, child rights, public health and health organizations that share a vision to improve children's environmental health in Canada. Working across traditional boundaries, our current membership includes ten organizations that have decades of collective experience in dealing with children's health and well being from a variety of perspectives. Our partners have come together to address growing concerns about the impact that environmental contaminants can have on the health of Canadian children. We support the renewal of Canada's health protection legislation, however are concerned that the current proposal does not go far enough in protecting children from potentially toxic environmental exposures.

The proposed renewal of Canada's health protection legislation has very important implications for children's environmental health. A growing body of evidence suggests that the physical health and/or mental potential of our children can be negatively affected by exposure to toxic contaminants present in, or released from, our food, water, air, consumer products and soil. Research conducted in recent years has demonstrated that children are uniquely vulnerable to toxic contaminants because of differences in their behaviour, metabolism and development. These special vulnerabilities have been recognized by organizations such as the United States Centers for Disease Control and the World Health Organization.

Many of the issues related to children's environmental health can be affected by legislation, including that under consideration for renewal as set out in Health and Safety First! A Proposal to Renew Federal Health Legislation and its accompanying detailed legislative proposal. Together with the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA) and the Pest Control Products Act (PCPA), this proposed Act will shape and govern Canada's environmental health policy. As such, it is essential that it reflect the following factors:

1. Canada's commitments to protect child health through:
   • Endorsement of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which defines healthy environments for play as a basic human right for children;
   
   
   • Signing the 1997 Declaration of the Environment Leaders of the G8 on Children's Environmental Health, which acknowledges the threat to child health posed by environmental contaminants and commits governments to action; and
   • Membership in the Commission for Environmental Cooperation, through which Mexico, the U.S. and Canada have resolved to develop a cooperative children's health agenda.

2. Developments in law, policy and practice regarding risk, including the precautionary principle and risk assessment and risk management methodologies that have incorporated changes to account for the unique exposure circumstances and vulnerability of children; and

3. The existence of proactive strategies for the protection of health and the environment in the area of product assessment and regulation, such as a comprehensive materials use policy.

As written, the proposed Act does not meet these requirements, nor will it allow Health Canada to carry out it's mandate to protect people's health, particularly that of children. The Act does not directly address the unique vulnerabilities and specific needs of children. Rather than limit considerations for vulnerable populations, including children, to the risk assessment and risk management process, each element of the Act should explicitly recognize the unique health vulnerabilities of children and include strategies to address those vulnerabilities.

The risk assessment approach in the current proposal does not reflect contemporary critiques of risk assessment or the evolution of the precautionary principle in Canadian and international law, policy and practice. One shortcoming of the proposal is its failure to integrate the precautionary principle into the risk assessment process as well as in the risk management process. We are also concerned with the notion of weighing potential "negative effects" against "advantages" as this could create situations in which economic benefits prevail over health risks. In the current proposal, a reliance on scientific evidence "solely" as well as a lack of specific strategies for public participation also minimize public involvement where it is most needed - in the determination of what constitutes risk and how and when precaution should be applied.

We suggest the adoption of a more comprehensive definition of the precautionary principle, such as the one articulated in the Wingspread Statement of the Precautionary Principle (1998):

"When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautions should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically. In this context, the proponent of an activity, rather than the public, should bear the burden of proof. The process of applying the precautionary principle must be open, informed and democratic and must include potentially affected parties. It must also include an examination of the full range of alternatives, including no action."

We believe that a General Safety Requirement (GSR) could be a useful addition to the legislation provided that it is used to supplement, not displace, proactive regulations designed to protect against unsafe products. As proposed, the GSR is unlikely to improve the protection of children from unsafe products because it:

1. Does not clearly specify which standards are to be met;
2. Provides too much leeway for industry due to vague language and concepts;
3. Appears to endorse current industry practices that are not necessarily subjected to government review or public scrutiny, and which may not adequately protect children from environmental health risks;
4. Does not specifically address the deficiencies of the four Acts being replaced; and
5. Does not obligate Health Canada to ensure health protection by restricting or prohibiting the use of known or strongly suspected, developmental, neurodevelopmental, or immunotoxicants in the manufacture of products for children or in foods, cosmetics, and in the raising of animals for food.

The GSR needs to incorporate clear, high and consistent standards of safety and work with a precautionary approach. Standards must be based on the unique and often greater exposure and physiological vulnerability of children to environmental contaminants and substances found in consumer products, and for the reality that many exposures are multiple exposures to substances with multiple effects.

The proposed Act does not fill in gaps left by a deficient Hazardous Products Act. One deficiency is the difficulty in determining whether or not a particular children's product is regulated under and complies with the Hazardous Products Act. For example, although many children's toys and equipment are made of plastic, currently children's products made of or containing plastics appear to be virtually unregulated by Health Canada. In light of the fact that the phthalate plasticizer, DEHP, found in some children's plastic products, was labeled "CEPA-toxic" almost ten years ago, the ongoing lack of regulatory action to control or eliminate this chemical in children's products is unacceptable.

In order to compensate for deficiencies such as the one detailed above, the proposed Act should base product supply provisions on a Materials Use Policy that utilizes a proactive, precautionary and preventive approach through which consumer products would have to be manufactured with materials that are inherently safe, and with safer productions methods. In addition, the Act should specify that Health Canada the authority to issue mandatory product recalls.

There is no mention in the proposal of the regulatory initiative on new environmental fate assessment regulations as published in The Canada Gazette, September 2001, under the Food and Drugs Act. These were to be pre-published in the Canada Gazette in the fall of 2003. Some consumer products, such as cosmetics, cleaning products, drugs used in beef, pork and chicken production, as well as prescription drugs, are entering the environment, and are a potential exposure hazard, especially to children. This is another example (like phthalates noted above) where the pace of regulatory change on these important issues appears to be unreasonably delayed or stalled; and their absence from these larger overarching legislative proposals does not engender confidence that this exercise will result in a new legislative regime that proactively ensures health protection and prevention of harm.

The issues cited above are among the reasons that we feel strongly that the current proposal does not adequately protect children from threats to their health posed by environmental contaminants and toxic substances in consumer products. At this point in time, Canada is lagging behind the European Union and the United States with respect to the attention we have paid to this issue.

Our members plan to continue to reflect on this proposal, the issues it raises, and will remain engaged in the consultation process. We agree with Health Canada that changes to Canada's health protection legislation are necessary. Our main message is that the current proposal does not do enough to protect our children from toxic contaminants. We believe that this renewal process provides an important opportunity for Canada to raise the bar with respect to children's environmental health - something that is long overdue. We want to thank you for giving us the opportunity to comment. If you have any questions about these comments, please feel free to contact us via the CPCHE Partnership Director, Tonya Surman, at (416)762-2887 ext.222.

Yours sincerely,

Members of the Canadian Partnership for Children's Health and Environment (CPCHE)

Enclosure: profiles of CPCHE partner organizations