Environment Committee on May 23rd, 2013

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much for that.

I want to raise the issue of habitat banking—I think that came up—in terms of what has happened in Montreal. You mentioned a significant loss of wetlands in and around the development areas as the urban areas expanded. I think you were concerned about the disturbing number of applications for development on sensitive areas that were approved.

The concept of habitat banking.... Madame Bellemare, when you spoke you expanded on something Mr. Garand only touched on, but I think you asked if a hectare of land is equal to a hectare of land. You're concerned about habitat banking; there seems to be some strategy employed in Quebec, but it's not high-value land, or equal value.

Could you give us a better idea of how the concept of habitat banking is being used? There must be high-value areas surrounding the Montreal area that could be protected, since it's very difficult to contain in the urban area.

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

You talk about habitat banking and thus about doing a kind of land exchange. The problem is that people often work at a regional level. For example, can further wetland losses in Laval right now be compensated for? I do not even know whether there are still any available wetlands. So they will be considering forests and lands. That is good; they are protecting forests. We are not opposed to protecting forests, but we are talking about water and habitat management thresholds. Wetlands and forests have different functions. Consequently, what may constitute a compensation must be defined. That is important.

How does that work at the present time? There is the mitigation sequence, which is explained in the federal policy on wetland conservation and is quite a widespread wetlands management method. That sequence is summed up in the words "avoid, minimize and compensate." As you have noticed, very rarely does anyone avoid or minimize. They go directly to compensation. I think we should promote the verbs "avoid and minimize". I think that is especially important.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Are you saying that the problem is really because you're trying to compensate within a region, that it's regionally managed? Are you suggesting it would be a good idea to collaborate with other regions where there may be higher-value land that's more equal to the land that's being lost in terms of ecological services? Maybe we have a barrier here by trying to contain this within a regional area where you're losing high-value and there just isn't any high-value land to replace it with?

Am I understanding you correctly? Could there be better collaboration with neighbouring regions that might have higher-value land that could be conserved, in development, with some collaboration between regions?

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

You have to understand one thing. In Laval, for example, we have not yet reached the point where we have to compensate. We have reached the point where there is a shortage. We have to make gains. So we have to restore wetlands, acquire lands and restore flood plains. The situation is really not in balance. We have to recover wetlands. If we are talking about compensation, I believe that is what we must do.

A little earlier I talked about taking action on the watershed scale. We must try not to work with political or administrative borders. We must work with a border that is more environmentally logical. That could be very promising.

I believe Guy had something to say on the subject.

[Guy Garand]

You talk a lot about local management. I would say that the city of Laval is one community or region, but when you add the population of Montérégie, Montreal, Laval, Laurentides and Lanaudière, you realize that 80% to 85% of the population lives in that geographic area. That is where you find the largest networks of farmlands in Quebec. The greatest wealth of biodiversity is in southern Quebec. The same is true of southern Ontario—which I know well—the southern Prairies, where I have been many times, and all of southern Canada. That is where the greatest wealth is. The high north has an endless number of large peat bogs and there are wetlands, but they are not necessarily threatened at this time. The only threat that weighs on northern wetlands is that of climate change. We are talking about permafrost, soils that are permanently frozen, but if they thaw, there will be methane emissions and they will accelerate global warming. How far will it go? That is the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much, Mr. Garand and Mr. Lunney.

We'll move now to Monsieur Pilon.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for their respective presentations. They were all interesting.

I would like to start by speaking to Mr. Garand and Ms. Bellemare.

I think it is interesting that 411 certificates of authorization were issued and that there was only 1 rejection. Could you tell us what certificate that was and why it was denied?

Do you know?

[Guy Garand]

That person must have put together a poor file.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Since I have been a member of this committee, I have felt that a better understanding absolutely must be established between the municipal, provincial and federal levels. We are seeing that with the Charbonneau commission in Laval. I do not always watch the hearings, but I know very well, having grown up there, that those lands were considered as having no monetary value. The promoters close to the people in power bought them and developed them. So, unless I am mistaken, they were also compensated. That is not a joke.

Can you tell us what the situation is in Laval? Can anything be done to prevent a municipality, whether it be Laval or another one, from allowing the friends of the people in power to buy wetlands, and thus to avoid a repeat of the situation?

[Guy Garand]

You are venturing onto a dangerous topic on which I will not offer an opinion.

Canada, Quebec and the major metropolitan areas and municipalities should work together and make it a national objective to protect 30% of our lands. The Nagoya Protocol signed by a number of countries in 2010, and the UN Environmental Programme stated that we had to protect 17% of our forests and 10% of our waterways, for a total of 27%.

The scientific communities, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and even Environment Canada's sites state that we must protect 30% of our territory. To my knowledge, we are far from achieving that objective on Canadian lands, even with the major national, provincial and other parks.

It is a good thing to put figures on paper and to set objectives and talk about policies, but you have to take action at some point because if we wait too long, we will not be able to recover our lands and say that we will protect 30% of our territory. That is an issue. We are part of biodiversity as human beings and we need all the natural elements around us to ensure our survival and that of every living thing.

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

I would like to add to that answer.

In Laval in particular, although I think this situation can be extrapolated to other urban areas, the area is often divided into agricultural zones and zones where development is permitted. In agricultural zones, perhaps you can grow cranberries in peat bogs, but the wetlands situated in agricultural zones in Laval are protected in that they cannot be cultivated. Farmers often know that they are a water resource and therefore protect them.

The problem is the zones that can be developed that belong to promoters who want to develop them. If we tell them those wetlands must be protected, their response to us will be that we have to buy their land and that it would be worth $8 million if they had developed it. We are the Conseil régional de l'environnement; we do not have $8 million to buy their land.

Unfortunately, since the cities have power and there is no political will at the municipal level to protect those lands, the task is left to the individual. I believe there are not really any objectives, evaluations, criteria or monitoring at the national level, and an attempt should therefore be made to provide a framework for all that so that everyone does the same thing. For example, if the decision were made in Laval to protect the wetlands and to stop developing them, that would not be fair, relative to the Laurentides, which will continue to develop their wetlands for the next 30 years.

We have to try to achieve a fair, standard arrangement for everyone. That will be a challenge, of course, but a necessary one.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Continuing my questions about Laval, I have always lived there. When I was young, there were a lot of boats and a marina on the Rivière des Mille Îles. Now you can cross the river on foot during the summer.

As you mentioned earlier, most Quebeckers live in the Montreal area. Do you think there could be a drinking water supply problem in the short or long term caused by a drought in the metropolitan area?

[Guy Garand]

I do not have a crystal ball. Although I do not wish for it, I am quite convinced that I may see the Rivière des Mille Îles run dry in my lifetime if we follow through with the development currently on the table at the Communauté métropolitaine de Montréal. Continuing to develop as we are doing, drawing water from the Rivière des Mille Îles in this way is unthinkable. If we continue in this manner, I believe we will have to run a pipeline—and this has already been discussed—from the Rivière des Prairies to supply the water treatment plants on the Rivière des Mille Îles because all the municipalities on the north shore and in northern Laval will be short of water.

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

You must also understand that the Rivière des Mille Îles is part of the Ottawa River, which is a major tributary of the St. Lawrence River corridor. Virtually everyone draws water from that part. This is quite serious.

As we speak, luxury condos are being built in the middle of flood plains, and this is accepted. Since they cannot build, because they are in the water table and there is water, they pump water again and again. They have been pumping water for a month now. They expect it to dry up, and then they will build condos, and that is all.

Let us just say that a lot of work has to be done to increase awareness.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

For those who do not live in the Montreal area, can you tell us how many municipalities draw their water from the Rivière des Mille Îles?

[Guy Garand]

There are Laval, Terrebonne, Mascouche, Lorraine, Rosemère, Saint-Eustache, and even Sainte-Marthe, Saint-Joseph and Sainte-Thérèse.

[A voice]

Saint-Jérôme.

[Guy Garand]

No. Saint-Jérôme draws from the Rivière du Nord.

That is already a lot. Approximately 400,000 to 450,000 people currently supply themselves with drinking water from the Rivière des Mille Îles and now they want to add a pool of some 150,000 people. Do the math: if each person consumes 500 litres of water a day, we are going to run short of water.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much. Your time is up.

We're going to move now to Mr. Sopuck for seven minutes.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

Monsieur Garand, I was very interested in your New York City example. I'm quite familiar with that; it's a template for what most urban areas need to do.

In our study of urban conservation, to follow up on that, we coined a phrase, “ecological infrastructure”, and actually recommended to the infrastructure department—the people who implement infrastructure programming—that ecological infrastructure be considered for programming under our infrastructure programs. It is kind of a radical idea, but I think it's an idea whose time has come. That could unleash significant financial resources for things like wetland creation and wetland conservation. Is that an approach that you would support, either of you?

[Guy Garand]

There has to be development. I am not opposed to development. I am a biologist, but I also have training in architecture. We must do a lot more thinking about integrating all the development models. Whether it be residential, commercial, industrial or institutional development, we must integrate them into the natural environment. The proximity of a natural environment adds value to any development project.

I am convinced that, if you had the choice to live in an urban environment, you would prefer to live near a natural environment, a wetland or a forest. You need only think of Central Park in New York. Go and look at the prices of condos around Central Park: they are unaffordable. Why do people want to live there? Because there is a lung there. The same is true of Mont Royal in Montreal and the major regional parks.

Everyone in every city of the world wants to live near a natural environment. If promoters seized the opportunity to integrate natural environments into their development projects and to consider all their benefits, everyone would win. Nature would win, promoters would make money, people would be happy, we would be in better health, and so on. That would also cost us much less for water treatment.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

I certainly agree with that.

A weakness we conservationists have is that we speak very emotionally about these precious lands, and using the language of industry and development may actually help us. When we can prove that a constructed wetland, for example, has significant benefits for water quality, that it does things that a water treatment plant would normally do but at a much lower cost, that would be a better approach.

I see Madame Bellemare nodding in agreement, so I'll ask you to make a comment, Madame Bellemare.

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

Definitely.

You talked about ecological infrastructure. I believe that expression will become increasingly important when it comes to development.

You asked me what my opinion would be if I had to choose between a concrete water treatment plant that channels my watercourses and a filtering marsh, which is increasingly being used, particularly in landscaping. You create a habitat and a park. People can come and visit it and increase their awareness. In addition, over the long term, that may require less monitoring and control because it is natural. So it is self-controlled. The ecosystem controls itself. This is necessarily a solution that should be considered.

However, we must not think that we can destroy wetlands and subsequently restore them. There is a lot of that these days. People pay to fill in a wetland and then to restore it. I do not think that is very cost effective. Nor should we focus solely on this problem. We must also continue making people aware of the idea of conserving what is already there and is free.

[Robert Sopuck, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Marquette, MB]

I represent a very large prairie constituency in western Manitoba that has literally thousands of wetlands in it. In fact, I own wetlands on my own farm.

It seems to me, at least in terms of agricultural wetlands, and prairie wetlands in particular—I understand you've been out there—they are actually among the easiest habitats to restore. It's very difficult to restore a riparian forest, to get that Carolinian forest back once it's gone.

I've seen many cases of poorly drained areas—in one particular case, north of Winnipeg—that were purchased by governments. All the drains were plugged and a beautiful wetland resulted.

Would you agree that wetland restoration actually is...? I'm not going to say it's easy, but is it one of the most effective restoration areas, as opposed to restoring other more complex habitats?

[Guy Garand]

We have to conserve what we have left before thinking about restoring anything. Restoration is a need and a necessity today. There is a tendency in all developing municipalities across Canada to put pipes underground, to pave roads, to build parking lots, to channel all that into the streams and rivers. I think it would be an interesting proposition to use wetlands to retain and filter water before it is transferred naturally into our streams and rivers.

With climate change, sometimes we have long periods of drought, but when it starts to rain, many millimeters fall. We can receive 10, 15, 20 or 25 millimeters of rain in half an hour. Many municipalities, including the City of Montreal, have rain water management problems. That may be the case for other major cities such as Toronto and Vancouver as well. I am not aware of all the water management problems, but all that is attributable to channelling, and we have made the ground artificial.

If we retained more natural environments and plants, and if we built streets much straighter and with less paving, while maintaining safety by relying on firefighters and ambulance attendants, that is to say on the services offered to citizens, I believe everyone would win. We would save on concrete infrastructure and road maintenance. Our natural environments would work for us and we would also save money in that area, and the water in our rivers would be of better quality. It would cost us less to treat the water we pump and filter for our water supply because it would be treated naturally.