Environment committee  My sense is that would be an important question to raise with the industry. As I said, in the consultations that we have had with them, they have stressed the need for them to properly comply with an orderly implementation on a North American-wide basis.

Environment committee  We believe that's a date that needs to be fully considered, and will be, in the course of the regulatory process.

Environment committee  Thank you. Our normal process for setting product standards--and standards for substances like this--is through the regulatory process. Perhaps Dan Blasioli, from the Department of Justice, could speak to the issue in general.

Environment committee  It's our understanding that this committee will be considering the pros and cons of this bill and take that into context.

Environment committee  Certainly that is an important question to raise with the industry. I believe that with some of the alternatives we have seen, we have not identified issues. It may be that industry also has proprietary chemicals they're looking at for which I would not have the answer. At Environment Canada and Health Canada, we have a list of priority substances that we are examining right now.

Environment committee  I could quickly say that--based on our consultations--many of these institutional products are used in a variety of settings. They wouldn't just be limited to one type of institution. It may be restaurants, hospitals, bottling plants, etc., and so our sense is that the whole breadth of the use of the product needs to be considered.

Environment committee  It gets more to the industrial and institutional use, yes.

Environment committee  We have looked at various jurisdictions, various states within the U.S. We've talked to the industry. There are a good many small manufacturing companies that are involved in this industry in Canada. They have indicated they need a certain amount of time to reformulate, to repackage, to re-source ingredients, etc., and ensure they're working with a safe product.

Environment committee  Based on the consultations we've undertaken so far, we believe there can be a significant reduction in the concentration of these detergents and cleaning products to considerably less than they contain in the marketplace at this time. When we put forward a regulation like this, we also need to put in a compliance promotion process whereby we would be notifying industry and following up with industry.

Environment committee  The industry has indicated that if they have suitable time to identify alternatives that are safe and effective, they will undertake to comply.

Environment committee  The regulation we are talking about here would fall under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. Part of this act deals with nutrients very specific to cleaning products, and that is the area we are considering regulating at this point.

Environment committee  I might respond first to this question. This is an initiative that the federal government, with the provinces and the territories, is undertaking under the auspices of the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment. So the objective is to jointly develop common standards, one of which would be published under the Fisheries Act, a federal piece of legislation; but then every province and territory would have the opportunity to put their own measures in place.

Environment committee  My understanding of the strategy that accompanies these standards is that it will be phased in over a period of time, so that a municipality, for example, would need to be making investments to meet these standards ultimately. I know there are interactions or conversations between the infrastructure programs, but I do not have the details to answer the specific question that you asked.

Environment committee  Perhaps I misspoke. We were talking about the regulation of municipal waste-water effluent that would set a standard for treatment. It would reduce the amount of phosphorus, among other substances, that would be entering any waterway.

Environment committee  As described in the notice of intent, the areas that we are examining for regulation include laundry detergents. They are already in CEPA, but at a percentage of 2.2% by weight phosphorous. This proposal would lower this to 0.5% for laundry detergent. There is also the dishwashing detergent, with the proposed standard of 0.5%.