Exposure to chemical substances occurs through typical everyday activities, such as eating, breathing, drinking water, and using cosmetics or common household goods. Many of these consist of environmental contaminants, including brominated flame retardants, heavy metals, and pesticides, which are ubiquitous in the environment of industrialized countries. Exposure to these contaminants begins at conception and continues through the life course, such that individuals have little awareness and limited control over their exposure (Sexton, Needham, and Pirkle 2004). In response to health concerns associated with exposure to environmental contaminants, community groups, advocacy organizations, and consumers themselves have been calling for the implementation of a “precautionary” policy framework for the management of toxic substances. National policy frameworks in Canada have not followed a precautionary approach (CELA 2006; Denison 2007), although some elements of a more precautionary framework may now be emerging (see Chapter 3). Nevertheless, the shift towards more precautionary regulation is a recent one, meaning that chemicals policy in Canada is best described as a patchwork of precautionary and nonprecautionary approaches (see also CSM and CELA 2008). 1 The precautionary principle, referred to in Chapter 1, allows for restrictions on human activities suspected to pose a threat to the environment or human health by stating that proof of safety must be established before new technologies are introduced (O’Riordan, Cameron, and