Evidence of meeting #11 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was offence.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
You're recommending another law.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
We are studying species at risk, so it's not on topic. We're trying to talk about Bill C-16 right now.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Mr. Chair, we are doing a SARA review, so it is relevant information to SARA.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I can rephrase it, I suppose, to make it more relevant.
Is there any objection, in principle, as to why this bill might not, in principle, also cover the Species at Risk Act?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
We did analyze the Species at Risk Act for these provisions. According to our analysis, it's like the other provisions. Sometimes there's an element there, but it's not necessarily consistent and as modern as Bill C-16.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Your time has expired. Thank you, Mr. Woodworth.
This is something the committee will deal with, instead of putting our public servants into those difficult situations.
Mr. Scarpaleggia, could you kick us off for the five-minute round?
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Sure.
It's nice to see you again, Ms. Wright. We're seeing a lot of you these days. You almost might as well join the committee at this stage. Obviously, you come well prepared.
What is the International River Improvements Act?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
That's the oldest of the suite of statutes that's being revised. It's from 1955, and it was created to allow for a government decision about constructing any dam or diversion that would affect the flow of an international river. It sets out a process for regulating, permitting, and essentially constructing things like dams and diversions that would have a significant effect on the water flow.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
In this case, an inspector's role would be to supervise the construction of the dam, canal, or whatever?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
It would be more in the operation of such a dam--
Liberal
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
--because the permit restricts what changes they can make to the flow on a seasonal basis and that sort of thing.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Okay. Maybe this isn't a fair question. DFO, of course, must have many inspectors, and this bill doesn't deal with DFO. I know this may be a very odd question to ask you, but is it because the inspection provisions under the Fisheries Act are satisfactory? Or have you heard that maybe that department will be proceeding with the same kinds of changes?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
This bill is just dealing with statutes under the power of the Minister of Environment and parks.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Okay. We'll leave it at that.
What about CEPA now? At one point, a politician or member of Parliament suggested that we use CEPA to attack the problem of cities that don't have secondary or tertiary treatment of sewage. Are those cities actually breaking the law, and if so, why are we not enforcing the law? Can you enlighten us on that?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
I think it's actually the Fisheries Act, Mr. Chair. The fisheries minister has committed to developing a regulation that would set a certain standard of treatment for all discharges of municipal waste water into fish-bearing waters. It's going to be guided by the Canada-wide strategy that was just agreed to in the middle of February by all federal-provincial ministers of the environment.
Liberal
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
There are some elements of CEPA, and we are currently using some guideline provisions for CEPA for ammonia discharges. We also have a pollution prevention plan for reducing chlorinated effluent discharges. We are using CEPA, and we will continue to use CEPA under the chemical management plan to actually prevent things from even being entered into municipal waste or even pre-treatment.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
Going back to when you appeared on the oil sands study, we talked about monitoring the Athabasca for signs of pollution. That would be a fisheries issue, I guess?
Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
Yes, that is a fisheries issue.
Liberal
Francis Scarpaleggia Liberal Lac-Saint-Louis, QC
This is a bit off topic, I suppose. I'm just raising this by way of analogy.
A little while ago I asked the Department of Health about inspectors at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The question was on how many inspectors were available in February 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008 to inspect water-bottling plants. In response to part of that question, the answer I got was:
The CFIA does not have an information system that can identify the specific job duties of inspectors in the past. Although the CFIA does have information regarding the total number of inspectors for each time period, an inspector's individual duties are dependent upon program requirements and health risk assessments. These duties change and are not tracked under our current systems.
Is that the same for inspectors who work under Environment Canada? I guess what they're saying is that they know how many inspectors they have, but they're not really tracking what they've done. If there's a problem, the inspectors will alert the agency, but their role or their tasks are so variable, the agency doesn't keep track. This strikes me as odd, but maybe it makes sense. I don't know.
Would that be true for Environment Canada inspectors as well?
Chief Enforcement Officer, Department of the Environment
We can definitely distinguish between the officers working in wildlife and those working in pollution. That's very easy for us to do.
Your question has more to do with the environmental problems or ones linked to pollution. Right now, it is in fact very difficult for us to tell you exactly how much time, in all, our officers have invested in connection with the Fisheries Act compared to the Canadian Environmental Protection Act or certain regulations pertaining to this statute. However, our organization is setting up a procedure so that we will have a much more accurate idea of the time actually spent by all our officers with respect to the various regulations and different statutes. This should be put in place quite quickly.
Conservative
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you very much for coming to enlighten us. Indeed, this is not an easy bill.
