CEN Cross-Caucus Workshop
Merrickville, Ontario

Merrickville
February 17-19, 2004

DAY ONE

Address by Dr Barry Stemshorn – Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Protection Service (EPS), Environment Canada

Opening Remarks
B. Stemshorn began his speech by stating how impressed he was by ENGOs’ understanding of regulations, laws, and extraordinary committees pertaining to the environment. He also encouraged environmentalists to cultivate a main skill of lobbyists, i.e. boiling down information to one simple clear message.

Current Government Structure
Stemshorn then proceeded to detail the impacts of the Dec. 12 government shuffle and the state of the current Government Structure. He said that the Environmental Portfolio had grown substantially on December 12 and that as a consequence, the heads of a number of departments (Infrastructure (e.g. municipal wastewater), Canada Land Corporation, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, Transportation) now reported to the Minister of the Environment. He added that Minister Anderson now sits on several Cabinet Committees (Domestic Affairs – which combines the old Economic and Social Affairs committees, Priorities and Planning, Safety and Emergency, Global Affairs, and Canada-US) which allows him to pull together and understand existing links and should give him greater influence in the Cabinet process.

Policy Initiatives
Stemshorn touched upon the fact that the 2003 budget had been a big one for Environment Canada (i.e. Kyoto, additional funding for Clean Air, Canada-US pilot project, Emissions Trading Regime, $75 million over 2 years for continued improvement of CEPA, clean-up of Federal Contaminated Sites), and that similar themes were present in this year’s budget (implementing Kyoto and going beyond, Clean Air, Clean Water, $4 billion for contaminated sites - including $500 million for the Sydney Tar Ponds).

Environment Canada Organizational Structure
He then proceeded to talk about the Ministry’s recent organizational changes. He pointed out that the increased leadership and investments brought about with the creation of 2 new directorates whose DGs report to him (John Arseneau at the Risk Assessment Directorate and David Egar at the Pollution Prevention Directorate) represented a significant step in ensuring adequate human resources and capacity within EC.

He then proceeded to briefly outline the priorities of the 6 Directorates of the Environmental Protection Service:

1- Air Pollution Prevention Directorate
He pointed out that Minister Anderson’s top priority was Clean Air (this includes smog, acid gasses, acid rain), and that this Directorate’s work focused heavily on Canada-US relations, with SO2 and NOx representing an important subset of the negotiations. The prevailing strategy is to approach Canada-US relations with politics of INFLUENCE as opposed to confrontation, by making their agenda ours and taking advantage of the current malleability of American politics.

2- Risk Assessment Directorate
He mentioned that there was a lot of nervousness on the part of industry due to the stigma surrounding categorization of substances, but that overall, the process was moving along well.

3- Toxics Pollution Prevention Directorate
This Directorate is focusing on changing behaviours, and on how to best influence corporate behaviour.

4- Environmental Technology Advancement Directorate
He mentioned that this area plays an important role in risk management.

5- National Programs Directorate
This Directorate’s work focuses on 3 main areas: Environmental Emergencies in a post 9/11 context; Environmental Assessment and changes to CEAA; and the area of Enforcement, for which there has been increased funding over the last 3 successive budgets.

6- Strategic Priorities Directorate
B. Stemshorn and the Strategic Priorities Directorate recognize that the upcoming CEPA 5-year review represents an important phase of CEPA. He said that Environment Canada would hand over the CEPA review process to a Parliamentary Committee, and that they are preparing for the Review by gathering the most comprehensive perspective, with a focus on the efficiency of the process and the involvement of First Nations.

Stemshorn also identified Smart Regulations as a priority of this Directorate. He talked about the importance of establishing a Modern Regulatory Regime which incorporates the use of economic instruments and an ecological approach. He stated the need for more recognition and support of regulatory capacity within the Government.

Closing Remarks
B. Stemshorn ended his address by proposing ways in which we can better engage the Government and ensure that our message is heard. From Environment Canada’s Perspective, he mentioned that EC is continuously learning how to engage the rest of the Government in a better way, and pointed to encouraging achievements, such as the fact that the Ministry has had huge success in influencing the Privy Council (as demonstrated by the mention of environmental issues in the last Speech from the Throne).

From CEN’s and ENGOs’ perspective, he said that ENGOs should learn and apply the skills of professional lobbyists (i.e. packaging a message, building empathy), adding that ENGOs should practice the politics of INFLUENCE rather than confrontation. He ended by adding that it is more important for CEN and its members to focus their attention on shifting the thinking of other Departments rather than on shifting EC’s.

TAKE HOME MESSAGE: Environmentalists should focus their attention on building relationships and management skills and becoming more politically sophisticated.

DAY TWO

Panel Discussion – Perspectives on effective ENGO intervention

James Riordan – National Office of Pollution Prevention, EC
Riordan began by talking about the importance of ENGOs in the environmental policy making process, and congratulating them for their extremely effective work. He described one meeting of the Standing Committee for Environment and Development (June 2, 1998) during the development of CEPA 1999, as an example of ENGOs’ crucial role in influencing environmental policy.

Joan Kuyek – Mining Watch Canada (editor’s note – presentation available here in PDF format or html)
Joan Kuyek spoke about how Mining Watch Canada grew out of the Mining Caucus’s efforts to provide some balance to the powerful mining lobby. She shared statistics on the mining industry in an effort to dispel the myths that surround mining. Joan outlined the following Lessons learned:
1) The Mining Industry enjoys power in this country - and others - well in excess of its actual economic contribution.
2) The language of laws, regulation and policy in Canada may appear to support the protection of environment and the human communities that are part of it, but the mining industry and others are well-aware that “the devil is in the details”.
3) Everything is inter-connected.

Martha Kostuch – Prairie Acid Rain Coalition (editor’s note – presentation available here in PDF or html format)

Martha Kostuch spoke about the principal flaw in risk assessment being that the discipline focuses exclusively on what we do know rather than what we don’t know. She pointed out that scientific knowledge tends to evolve slowly, while people are sick. Martha then went into considerable detail on the CCME’s Harmonization initiative. She waxed eloquent on the many failures of the CCME to live up to their self-identified objectives. Martha emphasized that she feels that the outcomes have been better (or at least “less bad”) in every instance in which ENGOs have been involved in the consultation process. She also noted that the consensus process in Alberta has had good results, with ENGOs taking a leadership position. Martha outlined the following Lessons Learned:

• Better coordination is needed between processes, substances, ENGOs.
• Regular stakeholder input is needed at strategic policy level.
• Recommendation for John Arseneau: consider a priority setting workshop.
• There should be more use of the consensus approach.

Matthew Bramley – Pembina Institute (editor’s note – presentation available here in PDF or html format )

Matthew Bramley gave an overview of the situation with Climate Change, noting that the federal government created a 2002-2003 “reference group of Ministers” to address Climate Change but that this group has now lapsed. Matthew suggested that the Climate Change Secretariat has become almost moribund and that there is no central body addressing the issue (and therefore no single entry point for ENGO participation in the process). He touched on the current situation with Climate Change consultations, regretting NRCan’s failure to recognize ENGO’s vital role in providing some counterbalance to industry groups in the consultation process. He mentioned the small group approach as being one prospect to improve the current culture at NRCan.

Paul Muldoon, ED, Canadian Environmental Law Association

Paul Muldoon spoke about the evolution of CEPA and how Minister Tom MacMillan brought together stakeholders in 1986 to discuss their vision of environmental protection legislation. Paul saw this as the first step in a process that led to a 1995 report from the House of Commons environment committee that eventually resulted in draft legislation that was changed at the last minute to accommodate industry concerns on eleven key issues. Paul emphasized that ENGOs must articulate a clear position to government (not just Environment Canada) and also engage with industry and the general public. He conceded that it is difficult to engage with the public unless one can succeed in garnering media support in getting out a good message.

Lessons Learned:
1) We must clearly articulate what we want, in consultation with our communities, and set the agenda for government.
2) We must work with other government and deal with industry, identify their self-interest.
3) We must engage the public and the media.

John Arseneau, DG, Risk Assessment Directorate

J. Arseneau commented on the tendency of “scientific conservatism [to] rule the day” in the absence of strong representation from public interest groups. He recognized that ENGO intervention in risk assessment had historically been ad hoc, the only existing formalized process being through the Canada Gazette. John spoke about the New Substances Program and its constraints in regard to timeframes and transparency (proprietary info concerns). John encouraged groups to get involved in the priority setting process in deciding the “top ten” issues for Environment Canada.

He pointed out that EC had established a communications working group with involvement of CEN and industry groups (editor’s note – Barbara Schaefer of CEN participates in this group).

Action: Suggest we have a teleconference every 2 months for discussing categorization and update on activities. ENGOs invited to set agenda.

End of Panel Presentations

The facilitator summarized the following Cross-cutting Themes present in the Panel Discussion:

• ENGO involvement is of primary importance.
• We need to deal with the power and myth of industry.
• We need better communications and coordination within ENGOs and government.
• We need to improve dealings with other government departments.

Questions (Q), Comments (C), Responses (R)

Q. Olga: patent reform: doing risk assessment before it’s out in the community. Why is it not part of our discussion?

R. John: we have a program that looks at entry in the market in Canada. Substances modification program (get 1000 notifications per year). We run them through assessment. This is different than patents. Property rights vs what right you have to do with property

C. Mark: ENGO involvement. Cost of participation in process. Need for capacity and resources. EC needs to be more efficient and strategic about consultations.

R. John: ENGO community needs to choose where they want to be involved. REAL KEY point of intervention is about finding the problem. Here is the problem and let’s fix it. CRITICAL to get the problem on the agenda.

C. Anna: Process, history often dismissed. Typically processes get started and don’t go anywhere. At NPRI: EC was divided in front of industry. Other branch of EC on PCB issue conflicting with NPRI. Problem: conflicts. Capacity and how do we engage: labour (work and safety). We are experts too! But because ENGO, we are consider lesser. Class system where we divide, way of thinking. Risk assessment: statistical exercise, not an exact science.

R. John: Point taken about labour, need to work more with Health Canada. Point about experts: I view ENGOs not just as advocates but as experts too. Risk assessment: requires proven use of science, not just mechanical thing. Could arrange a conversation with risk assessor.

R. James: You should reassess the tone in which you talk about government departments. Short notice better than no notice. Re: CWS, James was more skeptical than we were, there was a political decision made, he has to follow it. He will use every tool at disposal to protect environment.

C. Martha: Concern with stakeholder input at high strategic level.

C. Sheila: Cumulative impact, especially with regard to indoor air environments. Need to start addressing the impact of classes of chemicals rather than considering them in isolation. Substances notification program: would like to see some of the ideas put back in bottle. Need to put a cap on number of substances accepted (1000 too much). In terms of ENGO participation in consultations, EC should provide Intervener Funding.

R. James: “The law forces us to go down a road of substance by substance…”

R. John: Wants to better integrate info from monitoring survey and emissions data to get better picture. We are starting to move on classes, of course there is push back. Chemical producers want proof of each class. Point of intervener funding: ENGOs should think of alternative ways to intervene more creatively.

R. Cynthia: Intervener funding: her group has been looking into ways to channel funding to CEN that will assist with work on EC priorities.

C. Delores: Get a place at table, then get the PUBLIC involved.

C. Therese: Refineries framework, harmonization. So much is going out of the hands of CCME into provinces for implementation. No mechanism for people to see that recommendations go through. So much effort upfront, no way to know if implemented.

C. Martha: CCME dying, no ACCOUNTABILITY of CCME (we don’t elect them). CCME not being funded. Implementation and follow-up mechanism, very little thought on this.

R. James: We did insist that public reporting is part of CWS for dioxins and furans. Gov’t version of screaming like hell. EC has to make report and ENGOs comment on them.

C. Beatrice: Barry is urging us to communicate with other departments. (catch more flies with honey than vinegar). No illusions that NRCan will see us as allies. Their constituency is industry.

C. Joan: Talking about doing things the way industry does it: we can’t! We’re in a different ball game. Effective to have people both inside and outside the consultation process. Multi-stakeholder process can work! e.g. 70% reduction in flaring volume. Good to have reporting but it’s not enough. Need follow-up. “The announcement of all the money for contaminated sites is a bonanza for everybody except the taxpayer”. Joan spoke about the power imbalance between the industry and ENGO reps, citing the hierarchy and paid employees that allow the mining industry to bring pressure to bear in a strategic fashion. “They can buy any of the brains that they want in the country”. Joan commented that there seem to be 120 paid lobbyists for the mining industry but only 4 ENGO FTEs nationwide.

R. John: stressed the importance of making representations to many departments so that an issue gets to the cabinet table via multiple briefing notes rather than from a sole source.

C. Steve: Some people have spent 10-30 years working for the environment. Capacity building: we need more people, mentoring, $$.

R. James: YES. We have been working with YEN. Within Canadian gov’t, there is this same concern. “Please don’t leave thinking I’m the guy defending CCME. Please don’t give up.” Industry with hundreds of lobbyists, Friday group is their version of CEN. Lobbyists have copied what environmentalists do, and then they put more $$ into it.

Cynthia Wright, DG, Strategic Priorities, EC - EC’s Plans For the CEPA 1999 Five-Year Review
(editor’s note – PowerPoint presentation available here)

Cynthia began by saying that in terms of environmental protection legislation, CEPA and by extension Canada, ranked in the upper echelon of countries (but not at the very top). She reminded us that the upcoming CEPA review would be a parliamentary one, as opposed to a ministerial review (such as was done for the review of CEAA). She informed us that the 5-year anniversary of CEPA would come into force March 31, 2005, and under a best scenario situation, we would have a new piece of legislation in place in 2008.

Questions (Q), Comments (C), Responses (R)

Q. Mark: Expressed concern over the fact that Environment Canada does not seem to have a defined agenda, as opposed to other stakeholders who are pushing to attain clearly defined goals. He encouraged EC to take on a strong position on its own, stating that the “Best defense is a good offense”.

R. Cynthia: Acknowledged that EC had not yet started thinking about some of the solutions, and that they were working on a paper to this effect.

C. Anne : Highlighted the point in Cynthia’s presentation on Building a Strong Economy for the 21st Century in a Global Context (under the slide entitled Context for preparing for the CEPA Parliamentary Review). She commented on the use of the word “strong” and was opposed to “sustainable” and remarked the mention of innovation and all other technologies in the last Speech from the Throne.

R. Cynthia: With regards to the Global Context, Cynthia explained this point by convergence with other countries’ environmental laws and keeping abreast of new developments in the global environmental arena (e.g. REACH in Europe). With regards to the use of technologies, from a CEPA point of view, we want to make sure we have the right regulatory context for them. Cynthia pointed out that there are advantages to the use of technologies, and she gave clean air as an example.

R. Anne: Would like to see a larger discussion taking place about whether these technologies are actually good for Canadian society.

C. Anna: “Environment Canada needs all help it can get from the environmental community, earlier rather than later.” Anna urged EC to engage in discussion with CEN and environmental groups on the issue of the environmentalists in this process. Ana also expressed concern about the point in Cynthia’s presentation stating a ccommitment to fiscal prudence (under the slide entitled Context for preparing for the CEPA Parliamentary Review), and the absence of any reference to health or the environment under this Context heading. Finally, Ana asked Cynthia whether EC had any thoughts on how to carry out a review of something that has not fully come into effect.

Current ENGO effort for the CEPA review, Paul Muldoon, CELA (Editor’s Note: this presentation was originally scheduled for Thursday at 12:30)

Paul started off by pointing out that CEPA issues are cross-cutting and impact caucuses beyond Toxics. He posed the question whether the Toxics Caucus was the right formation to take on the CEPA review work and invited us to think about this. He then proceeded to give an overview on the regulatory environment in general, covering a broad range of activities from across Canada and around the world, and highlighting the European REACH (Registration, Evaluation and Assessment of Chemicals) program as an initiative that may provide some ideas for future directions. He emphasized the importance of building alliances with Health groups (e.g. Canadian Assoc. of Physicians for the Environment).

He talked about the issue of implementation, and mentioned three influential events that had taken place after CEPA 99:
1) July 2003: Adoption of Precautionary Principle through the Privy Council.
2) Regulatory policy
3) Smart Regulations process (editor’s Note: Hugh Benevides’s draft paper on Smart Regulations available for comment, ASAP!, on CEN Cross-Caucus Workshop web page)

He lamented that in 2004, the onus for proving that something is dangerous still lies with the government and the public. He spoke about the need to move the policy agenda to alternatives. He ended by outlining the four (4) items that should be discussed by participants at this meeting:
1) How do we organize ourselves to respond to Cynthia’s CEPA review timeline?
2) How do we improve our capacity to ensure that we are fully prepared for the task?
3) We need to analyse and evaluate what works and what does not work in CEPA.
4) What process should we put in place to enable us to set the environmental community’s priorities?

Questions (Q), Comments (C), Responses (R)

Q. Olga: Expressed her desire to see more involvement on the part of Industry Canada and pointed out that EC should not be wasting its resources on helping industry. Olga also made a comment on the difficulty to evaluate a legislation than spans over a long period of time.

R. Cynthia: Replied that EC envisioned the proposed Multi-stakeholder Discussions to include other Departments, and there was a good possibility these would include IC. She recognized that the very large scope of substances covered by CEPA (23 000 substances) made the evaluation of the Act very difficult, giving the example of TMEs, which timeline is 10 years.

R. James: Pointed out that there was a reporting element built in to all that we do, in other words, that we didn’t have to wait 10 years to evaluate all our work.

C. Anna: Expressed her confusion regarding the instruments that are used to declare substances toxic.

Q. Bea: Asked if we could focus on municipalities and on how their role could be factored into CEPA.

R. Cynthia: Replied that municipalities had made a big difference at the delivery phase, and gave the example of the Municipal Waste Water issue. She added that not much thought had been given to including municipalities in the legislature per se. She ended by saying that her group had done a lot of work with regional counterparts for setting priorities and working with municipalities.

Lunch Break

Towards more effective ENGO interventions in domestic environmental policy (plenary discussion)

In connection with the External Advisory Committee on Smart Regulations and the submission that CELA is preparing for it, Hugh Benevides provided some background on the federal regulatory process for questions and discussion. He talked about the need for ENGOs to understand regulatory process and culture, and to build our own regulatory capacity (in keeping with Stemshorn’s remarks about the need for greater regulatory capacity within government). He asked participants to provide insight on their experience relating to regulatory processes, and to draw linkages on how that experience relates to our current theoretical process.

He talked about the “democratic deficit” in terms of the regulatory process, and invited the participants to take a look at the draft submission in terms of how Canada’s regulatory policy can be made more accountable to the general population.

Open Plenary

An open discussion followed in which the group discussed a possible strategy for ENGO intervention in the CEPA Review. The following points were agreed upon:

• CEN Staff will take the lead in drafting a proposal to Cynthia Wright’s Office for setting up a CEPA working group.
• CEN Staff will prepare an issues-based survey for ENGOs, building on the preliminary survey that was circulated by CELA (Fe de Leon)
• CEN Staff will prepare a second proposal focusing on an outreach strategy and the engagement of the grassroots via the Regional Affiliates

A Discussion on what participants wanted to be included in the CEPA 5-Year Review (summarized in point form below) then followed. The points in bold are the ones that were repeated the most.

• No rollback/regression
• Burden of proof
• Precautionary principle (link to B of P)
• Alternatives (link to B of P)
• Timelines (from when a substance is categorized to when it’s declared toxic)
• Instrument Selection
• Mining in NPRI
• Definition of Toxic
• Virtual elimination (level of quantification)
• Emphasis on prevention (e.g. 2-BE not declared toxic until found it in Great Lakes)
• Definition and Implementation of P2 plans, access to information
• Citizen’s Suit Provision.
• Public “right to know”
• EC environmental enforcement plans
• propriety information
• Locomotive emissions under CEPA
• GHGs under CEPA
• Choice of substances
• Barriers/conflicts with other legislation
• Tie in to CISE
• Link between discussion of CEPA instrument and Back Sliding
• CEAA triggers in CEPA
• Aboriginal Issues
• Federal house in order
• Pollution prevention
• Definition of toxics
• Virtual elimination

A separate chart with ideas of messages that could be used to illustrate the above points was drafted:

• real life examples, price to pay
• examine claims and look at results ex: P2 plans
• vulnerable communities (workers, children, chemically sensitive)

DAY THREE

Canadian Health Protection Act (CHPA) Review

Sheila Cole gave an introduction and explanation of CELA’s paper. Michelle Swenarchuk then proceeded to review the paper. Comments are listed below.

General Overall Comments

· There is concern regarding the ongoing use of the word “modern” throughout the legislative proposal.

· Concern over ambush of this legislation and other pieces of legislation by bodies such as Privy Council (i.e. democratic deficit).

· There is a disjoint between the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Agriculture Canada, and Health Canada with regards to food, labelling, etc. These three bodies are sending out different messages, and this is endangering the health of Canadians. For example, while the Canadian Food Inspection Agency requires potentially toxic fish destined for export to be tested, the same fish destined to the domestic market is exempt from such testing.

Action: Participants to send information on food issues to Michelle for inclusion in the 2nd draft.

· Nothing in the Act is said in regards to vaccination. There is currently a lack of warnings regarding the content of some vaccines (e.g. mercury).

Action: Anna Tilman to send further information on this point to Michelle.

· On the issue of Pig Farms, we need to go beyond Provincial legislature. We should think about and discuss how the pig farm problem could be worked into CHPA. One suggestion is to include Pig Farms in the preamble/opening commentary of the ENGO position paper .

· The Canadian Health Coalition has prepared a Citizen’s Guide to CHPA, which focuses on food and drugs. CHC has also put out an Open Letter to the Primed Minister calling for immediate termination of the Act. We managed to stop this proposal in 1998. Canadians are extremely naïve if they think this new legislation will protect their health. This is a deregulation story.

Comments on Section 3: CHPA Purpose, values, and guiding principles

· Vulnerable populations should include not only children but also the Chemically Sensitive. This erosion of the Act is a nightmare for the Chemically Sensitive. This could be mentioned in the preamble of the ENGO position paper.

Comments on Section 5: General Safety Requirement

· There is no sign from Government of any willingness to sue companies over product safety. As it stands now, criminal prosecution of companies would require a very high standard of proof.

· The “barriers to innovation” mentioned in this section need to be defined.

· This sections represents an erosion of the Rule of Law.

· GSR is Health Canada’s way of saying they have the opportunity to prosecute manufacturers now and then, but lack of will to do so is obvious .

· What are the implications of the Act’s lack of commitment to enhanced protection and the reliance on foreign or corporate “standards” for the Standard Council of Canada? How would the SCS be affected by this?

· The following link can be drawn between CEPA/Smart Regulations and the CHPA: the main assumption with regards to both Acts is that they are intended to protect the environment and that they constitute enforceable pieces of legislation with a demonstrated ability to be enforced. In reality, both are drafted following a deregulation pattern, and a self-regulation mentality, as illustrated by the Act’s reliance on foreign standards.

Comments on Section 6: Supply Chain

· The concept of Extended Producer Responsibility should be one that incorporates LIABILITY.

· Consideration should be given to the question of how to apply Extended Producer Liability.

· In terms of Extended Producer Responsibility, we should rely on the European model as opposed to the US model, where the approach to EPR is a voluntary one.

· Canada’s economy, as opposed to Europe’s, depends on the extraction of raw materials. The Canadian EPR strategy should therefore focus on reducing extraction. “How to deal with reliance on extraction” should be a point that is addressed in the ENGO position paper.

· The ENGO position paper should have something along the lines of “the administrator SHALL adopt an Extended Producer Responsibility strategy.” There should be mention of EPR in all three pieces of legislation under review (Pest Control Products Act, CEPA, and CHPA) to ensure that the message is conveyed effectively.

Comments on Section 7: Novel Foods

· This proposal is hands-off biotech food.
· Suggestion: a point on irradiated foods should be included in the ENGO position paper.

Strategizing:

· The main goal of the CEN Health Caucus is to engage with Health Canada and build a relationship between HC and the CEN. Suggestion: delay the Act and continue building our relationship.

· Process Suggestion: comments from today will be taken in and incorporated into the current draft. Once this is done, a second draft will be circulated for ENGO’s endorsement. However, many subjects are not addressed in this current draft, so please develop your own thoughts and send them in to HC.

· HC will be doing a cross-country tour with full-day consultations in March. ENGOs are strongly encouraged to attend. Health Canada told Mike McBane (from the Canadian Health Coalition) that they would host a meeting anywhere on demand. An open town meeting is being organized by the BC nurses, they are inviting HC representatives who will be asked to account for their proposal within an informed panel. There are various ways of using this consultation process.

· A. Tilman requests assistance from CEN in putting together listing of what is going on (any community group that has organized something, HC consultations, etc.)

· There is concern within CELA over children’s exposition to hazardous products, and there is a real need in the country for this initiative. Michelle’s position on what do to about the Act is that she is more inclined to put out a critique of the Act and mobilize people rather than stopping the Act altogether.

· No funds were raised to support the efforts surrounding the opposition of the Regulatory Efficiency Act. Funds should be raised this time for the campaign surrounding CHPA. The strategy should include a mix of grassroots and policy activists, as well as labour, and health professional associations

· J Kuyek: The introduction/Executive Summary of the ENGO position paper should include the following 2 elements: 1) This Act should not be supported and it is a waste of people’s time to fight it and 2) The Government can’t afford another scandal of double speak. It is important for people to use this language.

· A. Mitchell: This proposal should not go forward, CEN needs to figure out how to work with CHC.

· T. Hutchinson: any legislation document coming out in the next years should be looked at in terms of how it promotes and advances the WTO/big trading agreement agenda.

· G. Dalzel would like a fact sheet, something to give to the press and communities. M. Swenarchuk indicates that as part of the 2nd ENGO position draft an executive summary will be written up, which can used for these purposes.

· D. Broten: when is the right time for swinging the grassroots into action? Reply: Current proposal represents a model for the kind of legislation the government wants to draft. It is not entirely draft language yet. The whole process could take a decade, ENGOs need to be engaged at every step. The Act is scheduled to be presented to Parliament by mid-to-end of 2005. In short, it is too early to take it to the grassroots level right now BUT it is important to popularize the issue during the election campaign.

· B. Walker: strong opinion to throw CHPA in the chipper!

· A. Tilman: why aren’t we stopping it? If we try to improve it, there is the risk that we will become entrenched into every detail. Suggests that our platform should be STOP, using election platform, political forum. S. Cole agrees with A. Tilman.

· Reply: What does this mean for the second draft? Scrapping the Act will not be helpful to the public. Michelle’s discussion document should be used as a brief to educate people.

· The ENGO position paper should include the following element: “This proposal should not go forward BUT we recognize that outdated laws need to be changed…”. We should keep in mind that even if this legislation does not go forward in its current form, it will eventually come back in some way.

· B. Olivastri: we should nail key points and apply them to CEPA, Pesticide Control Products Act, and other important upcoming legislation, so as to convey a consistent message.

· D. Daughton: there is already a vigorous campaign from CHC to stop the Act. Anyone can sign on. If we stop the Act, how do we ensure that we maintain a vigorous environmental involvement with health issues?

· J. Nicol: General perception is that environmentalists are always saying NO. What strategy can we use to reach the general population? A suggested strategy is to approach CHPA from a “how can it be changed?” angle, introducing the concepts of Burden of Proof and Precautionary Principle.

· D. Broten: we need to approach this with clear and agreed-upon basic principles: “this is what we need, this Proposed New Law does not have it”.

Closing Remarks by Arciris G.-Arevalo, CEN Health Caucus Co-Chair:

· We need to prolong and nurture our nascent relationship with Health Canada. The environmental and health link has to be constant.

Appendum: Comments Submitted by David Daughton

Bringing Health Canada into the environmental arena has great potential benefits for environmental advocates. HC’s scientific capacity and budget dwarfs EC’s and HC is much better positioned to raise public concern about issues such as pharmaceutical and personal care product residues accumulating in drinking water (hair dye and other lifestyle choices are currently hard to address from a social marketing standpoint as purely environmental issues).

HPB was a national disgrace, the new Act could be a distinct improvement. The Act has to be seen within the context of the patriarchal attack on traditional wisdom and self-care that has been going on since the slaughter of the Druids and the Witchcraft holocaust. The regulatory rewrite started off as a covert attack on small suppliers of natural health products; in stiffening regulatory requirements we need to be aware that the end result can be the prosecution of hunter gatherers and "wise women" (such as our colleague Bev Gray from the Yukon) and the primacy of Monsanto and Pfizer, ironic given that serious adverse reactions to herbal medicine have hovered at almost undetectable levels while dozens of deaths occur each week from adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.

Deregulation with industry in control is not acceptable, but regulation is not a panacea. We already have a comparatively stringent regulatory environment for pharmaceutical products, yet the regulated products have major public health hazards and use a wide range of so-called “inert” ingredients that are harmful (2-butoxyethanol being only one example). Part of the strategy could be to press for the inclusion of Traditional Knowledge as well as the “solely scientific” focus that characterizes the current draft.

When commenting on the Act, we need to keep in mind the need to actively acknowledge the natural life cycle (healthy living culminates in healthy dying). If not explicitly acknowledged, the already open door swings wider to inter-species medical “therapies” and technologies, often masquerading in the guise of “innovation” and further paves the way for the inter-species options such as genetic technologies and xenotransplantation. The need to be wary about a lack of rigour regarding “novel foods” is dealt with in the paper, but needs to be “top of mind” in our thinking and reaction.

In summary, we need to consider the outcomes of the legislation in terms of freedom of choice in health care, especially in terms of the need to avoid a further shoring up of a system that is rooted in profit-driven sickness treatment rather than health promotion and disease prevention practices.

Cross-caucus Communications – Open Facilitated Discussion

Delores would like to get more specific information that can be used towards Citizen Capacity Building from the CEN caucus structure.

Olga expressed the fact that there was a lack of clarity regarding the contents and purpose of he CEN Newsletter. She requested that Call for Delegates in the newsletter include the following information: number of times the Call has been posted, the number of missing delegates, as well as a notification when the delegation has been filled. When turned down for a delegate position, she would like to know why.

CEN staff reminded participants that selection criteria are included in the Call for Delegates itself, and invited applicants to go into detail on their experience relating to the consultation they are applying for.

CEN assured participants that action was currently being taken to fix the problem relating to the confirmation of receipt when using the electronic application form.

A discussion took place on whether it is desirable to divulgate the names of the people on a given selection committee to applicants. Some voiced concern.

The issue of the lack of opportunity to strategize and network on issues that are outside of the realm of consultations (e.g. waste incineration across the country) was raised. CEN staff invited members to contact them with files of interest.

A discussion on the status of the Agriculture Caucus took place. Andrea asked what could be done to put some life into it. Derek indicated the need for the Agriculture Steering Committee to form on its own before coming to CEN. CEN staff will put out a new Call for Interest for the Agriculture caucus. Derek suggests piloting a listserv for the Agriculture Caucus as a possible option.

Lobie recommends that the caucus unit work with the Affiliate Networks to get recommendations on who should go to a given consultation. He suggests a “personal touch” follow-up for the Delegate Section Process to complement the simple sending out of the Weekly Bulletin.

Members are reminded by CEN staff that submissions for Weekly Bulletin should be non-advocacy in nature, and national or at least regional in scope.

A discussion then followed on the best way to incorporate members’ requests for information with the CEN’s current communications tools.

The importance for delegates to report on the consultation process was brought up. CEN staff reminded participants of the current policy in this regard, which states that delegates are to file a report to the caucus coordinator after attending a consultation. If funds are supplied via EC for the report, the delegate is not to receive this payment before producing the report. But in most cases there are no such funds, and hence a lack of incentive for producing the report.

CEN staff reminded participants that a Delegate Report Template could be found on the CEN web page, in the Consultations section.

CEN staff agreed to send an E-mail note to clarify the purpose of the E-Bulletin and remind ENGOs that ALL Calls for Delegates appear in the E-Bulletin.

Some discussion was had on the issue of CEN Working Groups vs Caucuses. It was pointed out that although the working group structure can seem more appealing to new members and less cumbersome administratively, it holds no political weight within CEN.

A suggestion was made for members to send their list of priorities to CEN and for CEN to elaborate a cross-caucus topic map

The need for caucuses to engage strategically within CEN’s governance structure was emphasized.

There was discussion of the best ways to involve youth delegates (e.g. mentorship, shadowing program).

Meeting Adjourned

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