The Chretien government is falling short of its regulatory obligation to protect Canadians from life-threatening toxic chemicals, according to a federal report to be released today. The findings are contained in an 86-page document prepared by the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, an independent advisory group appointed by Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Our government is routinely asked to make decisions that must weigh public health, environmental and commercial interests. Science plays a crucial role in these decisions but one that is increasingly difficult because of budget constraints, rising public expectations, globalization, increasing complexity of science and new technologies.
Resources are insufficient for the task ahead.
The capacity to create and evaluate scientific information must be substantially increased. However, the government officials who remain are responsible for enforcing nine federal statutes that regulate toxic substances. The major laws include the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, the Food and Drugs Act, the Pest Control Products Act, the Hazardous Products Act, the Fertilizers Act, the Fisheries Act and the Feeds Act. The report says cuts have not only hampered the government's ability to review the safety of new chemicals that industries want approved for use, but have left it also unable to properly re-examine whether substances in use for decades should be pulled from the marketplace because of newly emerging scientific evidence that raises health concerns. Compounding the impacts of funding cuts are advances in scientific understanding of how substances in the environment affect human health.