Environment Committee on April 1st, 2014

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Just quickly to follow up, is there a role that the federal government can play here?

[Mary Muter]

Of course, there's a role the federal government can play. We all need to be acting to reduce whatever impacts we can, whatever is contributing to climate change, obviously. Reducing greenhouse gas, that's a given, and being able to figure out how we can adjust to this in some way.

We think one of the most important measures is to develop the ability to retain water in all of the Great Lakes facing climate change impacts. The climate change impacts predicted for Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are very significant, but right now we only have the ability to hold water in Lake Superior and Lake Ontario, and to some degree for Lake Erie. But for this huge body of water in the middle, we have nothing.

We are saying that probably the best adaptive management measure that we could put in place is to develop some ability to retain water in all of the Great Lakes, and then have one balanced Great Lakes water quantity board that oversees it all. Right now, we set discharge monthly rates for Lake Superior and Lake Ontario. The outflows are measured on an hourly basis. We have nothing like that for the St. Clair River.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

I would just say quickly the importance of federal investment in research. I represent a number of communities near Lake Winnipeg, where there are similar concerns around algal blooms. As you know, the loss of the experimental lakes area in terms of federal funding is a huge loss for the kind of work in terms of prevention and protection that needs to be done.

I'm wondering if perhaps both of you can quickly comment on the loss of federal research and what that means for your work.

Maybe Ms. Muter and then quickly Mr. Sweetnam.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have 10 seconds, so very quickly.

[David Sweetnam]

Ontario has now taken it over. It is funded again and it is running, so that's the good news.

[Niki Ashton, NDP, Churchill, MB]

Should the federal government be funding research staff?

[Mary Muter]

Absolutely. If you think, that's how the phosphorous was first identified as a major contributing factor to algae, and that is the setting within which those kinds of research projects can be carried out. We have no place else like that.

[David Sweetnam]

There was just a press release today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

We'll move now to Mr. Toet for five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to allow Mr. Woodworth to finish with his couple of questions first. Then we'll see if he has time for me.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Good luck.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

You're probably right.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Toet.

I just want to assure my colleague from across the way that the Great Lakes nutrient initiative is in fact the very kind of research that she is pressing for.

In fact, I'd like to ask you again, Professor Ciborowski, particularly since you're involved in the issues around objectives and reduction targets, if you can tell me what the expected timeline is to complete that research and come up with those recommendations.

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

It's a very short timeline. The guidelines are required to be in place by September 2016, I believe, and that has to be after public comment. There are three or four meetings a year of these panels to try to bring the science into line, make the recommendations, and then evaluate them and see if they can be implemented.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

That's excellent. I'm just happy that the government has pivoted to that issue as quickly as it has.

The second thing I wanted to ask you about was something you said that intrigued me about how “we” are now quantifying risks and preparing maps. I wasn't sure who the “we” was and if that was connected to the Great Lakes nutrient initiative.

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

No, it isn't. This is research in which I am involved with colleagues at the University of Minnesota Duluth, with support from the U.S. EPA and some funding from Environment Canada, to develop maps of where the stresses are the greatest and the lowest, and then match the stress with the biological responses.

I wish I had—

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

So you are actually receiving funding from Environment Canada to do the very kind of research that my colleague from across the way was talking about.

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

Well, we have formerly received funding to create the maps. We don't currently have funding for that.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

All right. Well, we'll have to look into that. Thank you very much.

I'll return this back to Mr. Toet.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have two minutes, Mr. Toet.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you.

Ms. Muter, just now you quoted one of our witnesses from the last meeting, Patricia Chow-Fraser, on the temperature increase in the Great Lakes. Can you quantify that for us? That's something she wasn't able to do for us. Do you know what the temperatures were and what they are? You can tell me what they are currently. How much have they risen?

[Mary Muter]

I don't think I could give you an exact answer for that, because it depends on where you're sampling, and the Great Lakes are so huge. Also, the temperatures she was talking about were in one of these more shallow bays, so that's why it got up that high. We think that's also a contributing factor to the fish and bird die-offs on the south beaches of Georgian Bay, where the water temperature is warmer.

You're talking about the average temperature perhaps after turnover, after the lakes turn over in the spring, and I don't know that we're doing research at that level. It's—

[David Sweetnam]

The number that NOAA is using is five degrees Fahrenheit or about two degrees Celsius in the overall average increase in the Great Lakes water temperature.

[Mary Muter]

That research has been done up on Lake Superior. They have extrapolated that down for Lakes Michigan and Huron and Georgian Bay, so to extrapolate is a way to estimate.