Evidence of meeting #60 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 impact.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
The models we've done so far—
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I'm sorry, I want to be specific with my question. Have they asked you to do that with respect to the oil sands in particular?
12:40 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
I'm personally not aware of the current requests for modelling.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
These are choices that governments make about how much to restrict pollution—and you've claimed the $6.4 billion, which we'll accept as a model. When other choices are made to allow pollution to increase, then there are also consequences to those choices. It's curious to me that the government hasn't sought out what the health impacts are of allowing the oil sands to increase by that much.
I have a question about the science, and this might be for Madame Séguin. There was a statement made by Mr. Blagden earlier that there are no direct health impacts associated to greenhouse gas emissions. I'm having a hard time understanding the validity of that statement.
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Greenhouse gases influence climate change, if we take that as a premise. Climate change influences different components of the environment, and then it's through those changes that you might have direct health effects.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If we, say, in a city like Toronto or Montreal, increase the average temperature in a given a year by five degrees, we know the corresponding effects on smog of that five-degree increase. If you warm the atmosphere up that much, smog has a different impact.
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
It really depends—
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
—whether you're looking at the air quality aspect of it or at climate change, the change in the climate. They're not one and the same.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
They are interrelated.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If a city's average temperature is 10°C and you put this much pollution into it, if you increase the city's average temperature to 20°C and you put the same amount of pollutants into the atmosphere, the results of smog will be totally different. We know that. It's warmer in the summer.
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
It also depends on your cloud cover. Right now, there are some models that are becoming more sophisticated at modelling the interaction between increases in temperature and the formation of smog.
12:40 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Sure, but even anecdotally we know we get smog days predominantly in the summertime and not in the wintertime.
12:40 p.m.
Manager, Climate Change and Health Office, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Phil can answer that.
May 17th, 2007 / 12:45 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
These are really questions you should direct to Environment Canada, but I'll give you some of my knowledge from previous experience there.
There are a number of research studies out now, a small number of research studies, that attempt to calculate the impact on air pollution of increasing temperatures of climate change. Those studies do show generally an increase in ozone-particular smog in areas, if you assume certain scenarios.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
12:45 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
There has been some work done by Environment Canada, supported by Health Canada, looking at synoptic situations.
The important thing to keep in mind is that it's not just temperature driven, that there's complex meteorology involved.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
12:45 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Temperature is one factor that determines the release of certain precursors for ozone.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Would you describe it as an important one? There are only so many variables.
12:45 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
Yes, but it's not always the most important thing. You can get ozone episodes from a variety of circumstances. A lot of it is long-range transport. A lot of it has to do with whether or not you have an inversion.
12:45 p.m.
NDP
Nathan Cullen NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you.
The question I have, and this is what strikes me about this comment, is that when we look at cases, as was talked about in the opening brief, of extreme weather, the impacts of increase in temperature in the Far North—I mean, direct health impacts of that—and we talk about smog days and the average increase in temperature, why Health Canada has gone through the rigour of looking at the pollutant side, but when I look through all of your graphs in terms of wet sulphates, particulates, affected ozone levels, all of these are directly correlated, not exclusively to temperature.
12:45 p.m.
Acting Manager, Air Health Effects Division, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health
You're using the word “direct” in a different way than I did.