Environment Committee on May 17th, 2007

[Jacinthe Séguin, Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health]

Our mandate does not require us to take part in public awareness campaigns. However, we are expected to provide scientific information, particularly to municipalities or regional or provincial public health authorities. We provide them with the scientific information and they include it in their own public awareness campaigns.

That type of advertising is usually done locally, because each region or municipality determines its own objectives. They know what risks apply to their individual location and whether or not a campaign is warranted.

Therefore, we provide that type of information. From time to time, we review what has been prepared by some of these people, but we are not directly responsible for crafting the campaign.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bob Mills]

Mr. Cullen.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

It's a question about the $6.4 billion. Is this an annual? Is it a one-time-off benefit to the Canadian economy?

[Susan Fletcher]

It will be the annual by 2015. With the targets we have in place, by 2015 annually we should be seeing $6.4 billion.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Do we have any figures as to what the progression is in savings per year up until 2015 of the health benefits, rather than just the end point?

[Phil Blagden]

The scenario that was run—and we did run scenarios for the period 2015 to 2044—was based on the regulations coming into place in 2015, and the scenario looks at the impact of the regulations. So if those regulations come into play sooner, we'll have benefits. But the plan is that everything would be intact, in place, in 2015.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

This is a large figure, $6.5 billion. This is accrued through people not being in hospitals? This is a value given to—

[Phil Blagden]

Well, $6 billion of that is based on reduced mortality, $5 million a life. It is the standard value given in this sort of analysis.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

That's $5 million per person.

[Phil Blagden]

Yes, so 1,200 premature mortalities are avoided, and the model, although it does have confidence intervals on those ranges—So we do a confidence analysis on those ranges.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

This is focused entirely around air pollution rather than greenhouse gases.

[Phil Blagden]

Air pollution entirely.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

I want to get to that in a moment.

So we can figure out, if you allow NO_x and SO_x and volatile organic compounds to increase, we can use these models to determine how many people will die because of that and what the economic impact of those people dying is. Is that correct?

[Phil Blagden]

We ran the model for the business as usual scenario and then for the regulated scenario. The figures you see are the difference.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Right. So when we're talking about regulated, we're talking about NO_x, SO_x, smog-causing pollution.

[Phil Blagden]

Yes.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

So when the government allows a certain industry to increase pollutants, in a sense we can translate that into human mortality. If we were to say we were going to allow so many tonnes of these smog-causing pollutants—I know these are all models—we could estimate what that is.

[Phil Blagden]

Within the model. You have to realize the model was driven by a meteorological model, so there's an issue. If you go too small to calculate, then the model's not going to give you a difference in output because of the inherent errors in it. So I wouldn't want to narrow it down to one person's SUV.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

We can certainly narrow it down to a major industrial sector because that will produce enough. We had Natural Resources here yesterday, and I asked them particularly about the oil sands sector, which is being given permission to increase volatile organic compounds by 60%. Can we translate the allotment of increased pollution that is allowed to that particular industrial sector and then translate that into human life cost and then an economic figure?

[Phil Blagden]

Environment Canada would have to run the model to give us the ambient information.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Is it possible?

[Phil Blagden]

You would have to ask them in terms of the specifics of the scenario you'd like to run.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

But the model you were using and the $6.4 billion?

[Phil Blagden]

With the model we're using, if Environment Canada gives us an ambient concentration, we can calculate the health impacts.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Have they asked you to do that?