Evidence of meeting #30 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cepa.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Salt Institute
There's no question.
The other point is that it's not the salt that's delivered that causes any problem. It's the salt as applied in a particular place at a particular time, given certain local environmental conditions. The salt industry cannot control that unless it has somebody in the cab of every vehicle.
Conservative
President, Salt Institute
We are, and that's why we've been trying to train them for 40 years. That's why in the early days of the CEPA assessment we worked very closely with TAC, the Transportation Association of Canada, to develop guidelines that were the running head start the department was able to work into its code of practice.
Both the industry and the customers have been very proactive in trying to reduce the environmental insult of mismanagement of road salt.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
I'd sure like to hear from Mr. Stack and Mr. Wright on this as well.
Counsel, Sierra Legal Defence Fund - Toronto
If you look at our chart, there was only one conviction in 2005. So even if these were at the top end, we're not talking a lot of money, but these fines are generally at the lower end of the scale. Certainly, under the Fisheries Act the maximum is around $100,000 to $120,000. They're generally $10,000 to $20,000, so they're at the low end of the scale.
That's part of the reason I'm saying we should be equitable in our enforcement measures. I don't think they're dealing toughly enough with those lagging behind.
Derek.
Executive Director, Great Lakes United
Thank you, Rob.
I don't think either the fines or the threat of regulation have been sufficient to drive even voluntary action.
Vice-President, Technical Affairs, Canadian Chemical Producers' Association
This question is almost irrelevant to our membership. This is not what drives our performance. Responsible Care is about going beyond regulations, the charts I've shown you, and the performance we've achieved.
We're much more interested in what our communities want us to do, so we have mechanisms for that. We have mechanisms like this MOU I was talking about to listen to what stakeholders--and we see governments sitting on there as stakeholders--have to say about our performance and where it needs to be improved, and then we go and do it. Our members don't want to get caught up in paper trail violations. We don't get complaints from that, so I assume that's working properly, but that's not what motivates our members.
Liberal
Mario Silva Liberal Davenport, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. McGuinty spoke of the spectrum and the tools that are available within CEPA, and within those tools and options, I sort of need to know as well.... Of course one of them is the ability to fine, and there's even imprisonment if it's a gross violation. That spectrum goes from $1 million and three years imprisonment to $300,000 and six months imprisonment. But I need to know, what is the maximum ever handed out by the department?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Off the top of my head, I can't recall what the maximum is. I'd have to come back to you on that.
Liberal
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
No, but there are a lot more than one per year. Again I can't give you that; I'd have to get back to you.
Liberal
Mario Silva Liberal Davenport, ON
I think it's very valuable information, because we need to know whether the system we have in place is actually effective, and also if it's being effectively applied as a tool. I think this information is quite valuable for the committee, so I would appreciate it if you could provide that as soon as possible.
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
What I was trying to draw your attention to was the number of inspections per year, which are up around 5,000, and then to how this tracks into some of the tools that I mentioned, such as 1,000 warning letters and 100 environmental protection compliance orders. What it's showing you is that generally speaking industry is complying.
Out of over 5,000 inspections—an inspection is going on-site and finding out if there's a problem—this translated into 43 investigations. So that's when somebody goes on-site to inspect, starts to find a problem, and then launches an investigation.
Liberal
Mario Silva Liberal Davenport, ON
When you go out and investigate, and for example you find there's a problem, what do we do? Do we just send a warning, and then go back and see if there's another violation, and send another warning? When do we stop? At what point do we say, we have to fine these companies and these individuals, so that we can in fact have a clean, sustainable environment?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
We have a policy that describes how we go from one step to the other. Generally speaking, it depends on the nature of the violation; if it's a serious violation, we go from one step to another very quickly.
Liberal
Mario Silva Liberal Davenport, ON
Okay.
Now, obviously you work with provincial counterparts in dealing with those. Does their fining mechanism work well with the one that we have at the federal level? Or is it totally different and apart from what we're doing right now within CEPA?
Associate Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Generally speaking, the two levels of government actually have quite different regulations. But CEPA does allow us to cooperate with identical regulations. CEPA allows us to let the federal regulation stand down and the provincial one apply. We can also have work-sharing arrangements with the provinces, so that we don't send two levels of government in to inspect. The provinces can inspect for us.
In terms of fines, it's varies. But most of the provinces have tended to follow the federal government level of fines and have modernized their fines. Probably they don't tend to have the same range of tools as we do in terms of the stop work order type of thing and the alternative measures. But I suspect some of them will start copying those.
Liberal
David McGuinty Liberal Ottawa South, ON
Mr. Wright, can I go back to some comments you made about public participation? I think our guest from the Salt Institute mentioned it as well.
There are a number of examples of public participation out there. The North American Free Trade Agreement's Commission for Environmental Cooperation has a citizen-initiated process. Our Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development has a citizen-initiated process. There is a myriad of examples in provinces and across American states, and I think even at the federal level in the United States. The last time I looked at most of them, overall citizen-initiated processes of these kind were very few, not for lack of information or ease, or even in some cases for lack of intervenor funding, which is made available for them to initiate an action or a complaint.
Why is that?
Counsel, Sierra Legal Defence Fund - Toronto
On the processes you've talked about, at the end of the day all the CEC can do is make a recommendation. They can't make a legally enforceable decision, and of course it's across Mexico, Canada, and the U.S.
In the U.S. they have the citizen suits, which I've been talking about. We suggest that we should have the equivalent under CEPA, as we have under the Fisheries Act.
So I would suggest that in the U.S. they're not using those mechanisms as well, because they have citizen supervisions, the very kind that we're suggesting would work under CEPA. We think you would see more participation. You sure see it under the Fisheries Act, as far as it can go, and I would suggest there's no reason it wouldn't work here.
