October 5, 2023: Science Advisory Committee on Pest Control Products (SAC-PCP) meeting summary

Sixth meeting, Thursday, October 5, 2023, 1:00 to 4:00 pm EST

Hybrid meeting, in-person and online via Zoom

List of participants

SAC-PCP members

Dr. Valérie Langlois (co-chair)
Dr. Eric Liberda (co-chair)
Dr. Maricor Arlos
Dr. Kyle Bobiwash
Dr. Christy Morrissey
Dr. Sean Prager
Dr. Xianming Zhang

Health Canada executive

Dr. Cara Tannenbaum, Departmental Science Advisor

Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) executives

Frédéric Bissonnette, Executive Director
Manon Bombardier, Assistant Deputy Minister, PMRA Transformation 
Ruth Rancy, Director General, Policy and Operations Directorate and Executive Secretary to the SAC-PCP

Secretariat

Omar Ayad
Shannon Seguin
Stephanie Watson
Sophie Ziai

PMRA presenters

Lee Gomes
Michelle Kivi
Sara Rodney
Julia Howland
Gillian Manning

Summary

• The purpose of this sixth meeting was to provide the SAC-PCP members with a presentation and engage them in a discussion on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – Target 7 and present the Committee with their fourth science question on cumulative effects in environmental risk assessments for advice and recommendations.

Welcome and introductory remarks

• The Assistant Deputy Minister, PMRA Transformation began by welcoming all participants and observers to the sixth meeting and acknowledged that the land on which she was speaking from was the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabeg people.
• She then thanked the members for their continued participation in helping to strengthen the scientific work of the PMRA through their involvement on the Committee.
• Finally, she thanked the new SAC-PCP co-chair for accepting the position and expressed the Agency’s excitement in getting to work more closely with him.

Co-chairs address, review of affiliations and interests, and agenda

• The Committee co-chairs gave a brief introductory address then introduced the Committee members in attendance. The co-chairs also introduced the two members of the SAC-PCP’s Community of Specialized Experts (CSE) who were invited to attend the meeting to provide additional scientific expertise in support of the science question.
• In accordance with the Terms of Reference, the co-chairs asked each member to declare whether there had been any changes in their affiliations and interests since the last meeting.
  • All but two Committee members confirmed that their affiliations and interests had not changed since the last meeting. Committee members were reminded of the ongoing requirement to provide updated declarations and affiliations to the SAC-PCP Secretariat.
    • One Committee member recently formed a training company that specializes in chemical analysis of environmental contaminants. This change in their affiliations did not affect their conflict of interest rating, as per the advice of HC’s external COI expert.
    • The second Committee member is in contract discussions with an agricultural company. If a contract with the Committee member and company is signed, Health Canada will reassess the members COI rating. Currently the member is eligible to continue serving as a Committee member with an acceptable COI rating.
• The Committee co-chairs welcomed the thirty (30) observers to the meeting and clarified that they may not participate in the discussions, either by speaking or by otherwise expressing their support for or disagreement with what is being said, unless specifically invited to do so. The co-chairs also clarified that observers can only attend items on the agenda that are open to observers.
• The Committee co-chairs provided a brief walk through of the meeting agenda and clarified which portions of the meeting were open to observers.

Presentation on the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) - Target 7

• An overview of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework – Target 7 was presented.
• Questions asked by the Committee members related to:
• biopesticides
• cumulative environmental effects and the concept of additivity of pesticide risk
• sales data as a proxy of pesticide use
• climate change and its impact on the GBF
• indigenous engagement
• parameters that will be considered in developing indicators
• The PMRA will consider the valuable advice provided by the Committee and come back with an update at a future meeting.

Science question - Cumulative effects in environmental risk assessments

• The PMRA began the presentation by indicating its interest in pursuing an ongoing discussion with the Committee members on this topic and receiving scientific advice to inform the development of a framework for the environmental assessment of cumulative effects of pesticides.  
• The PMRA provided an overview of the current Canadian and international guidance available for cumulative effects assessments and described the major challenges with conducting environmental cumulative effects assessments for pesticides.
• Following the presentation of relevant background material, the SAC-PCP was presented with their fourth official science question for advice and recommendations.
• Questions for the SAC-PCP on chemical grouping criteria:
  • With the understanding that the PMRA is considering assessing cumulative environmental effects for pesticides that have a common mechanism of toxicity, what factors should be considered when grouping chemicals for assessing cumulative effects in environmental risk assessments?
    • Criteria for grouping chemicals have been developed for cumulative human health risk assessments, and often centre around the use of hazard-driven criteria (e.g., common mechanism of toxicity in mammals, toxicological effect, target organ, toxicokinetic parameters). Given that (i) pesticides may have more than one mechanism of toxicity among different taxa and (ii) information on the mechanisms of toxicity of a pesticide to all taxa may not be available, could these criteria be adapted for environmental risk assessment?
    • Other criteria used to group chemicals for the purpose of cumulative effects assessments include resistance management group (i.e., same mode of action on target pest), chemical structural similarity, common functional groups, common breakdown products, and likelihood of co-exposure. Which of these other criteria would be most appropriate to consider for environmental risk assessments? Could the SAC-PCP recommend any other criteria that the PMRA should consider for grouping chemicals for environmental cumulative effects assessments?
• Questions for the SAC-PCP on exposure scenarios:
  • There is an exceedingly large number of potential pesticide exposure scenarios (i.e., specific taxa and their conditions of exposure) involving more than one chemical for organisms found in the environment.
    • Understanding the complexity of the issue and the limited ability to consider all possibilities, the PMRA plans to begin with simple exposure scenarios (e.g., actives applied at the same time to the same crop) from which we could build upon. Does the SAC-PCP agree with this approach?
    • Could the SAC-PCP provide suggestions and recommendations on factors that the PMRA should consider when selecting exposure scenarios for the assessment of environmental cumulative effects of pesticides?
• Following the presentation to support the Committee's formulation of advice and recommendations surrounding the science question, all observers left the meeting so the Committee could begin the in-camera discussion period.

Question period and committee deliberations

• The Committee members asked questions pertaining to the science questions, then initiated their discussion period to begin formulating their advice and recommendations. Topics of discussion included:
  • developing standardized and transparent scenarios to assess risk for environmental cumulative effects (CE)
  • the need to define CE and consider other stressors in the environment
  • using a trait-based approach using one species for CE
  • revising the tiered approached for risk assessments
  • explaining CE with regards to formulated mixtures
  • using computational methods for CE
  • lessons learned from CE in health risk assessments
• The SAC-PCP co-chairs, along with the full Committee, agreed to provide their advice and recommendations in writing to the PMRA by mid-December 2023.
• The PMRA will inform the public when a summary of the Committee’s recommendations and the PMRA’s response is available on the official SAC-PCP webpage. The full Advisory Report will be available upon request.

Closing remarks and adjournment of meeting Science question - Cumulative effects in environmental risk assessments

• The Assistant Deputy Minister, PMRA Transformation thanked the Committee members for their participation, expressed the anticipation for the next meeting to occur in December 2023, and adjourned the meeting.