Evidence of meeting #28 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 research.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I wasted it anyway. My apologies.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
10:10 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank both of you for coming here today, it's important for you to be here. I'm going to speak to Mr. Dixon first.
In listening to what you said—particularly you, Mr. Dixon—I got the feeling that you were somewhat uncomfortable on a scientific level, if you see what I mean. You are uncomfortable with regard to the oil sands project.
Is this the first time that you are expressing this discomfort? Have you done so elsewhere? Are you saying that, scientifically, we are not able to come up with something concrete? Have you made recommendations to change this? Have you recommended that more money be invested in research? With regard to research, I know that it's also a matter of time; it's not just a matter of money. Is it your opinion that the oil sands project is moving forward too quickly? Are there too many projects? Is it well-regulated enough?
You are experiencing some discomfort as a scientist. Have you spoken publicly about this feeling?
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I actually don't know how to answer that one, in some ways. The discomfort I have is not in the actual nature of the work that is being undertaken; the discomfort is in what I would call other areas that I know should be explored but for which there are not sufficient human resources, frankly, in the academic community in Canada to address all of the issues at the present time.
I have, on a number of occasions, made comments to individuals within the province of Alberta about what I think are the research needs in the oil sands. Two weeks ago, I gave a one-and-a-half-hour seminar to colleagues at Environment Canada, trying to encourage them to become involved to a greater extent in oil sands activity. I'm giving a web seminar to colleagues in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans in about two weeks to outline some of what I feel are the issues.
A lot of this has to do with what I said earlier, that up until two or three years ago the level of interest in this was not what it is now. So I've often, frankly, undertaken to encourage colleagues to join me in working in the oil sands on different appropriate issues.
There is a consortium. Please understand that some of the papers I've reported here were done with colleagues from Environment Canada. There are people from the University of Guelph, the University of Windsor, the University of Saskatchewan, and the University of Alberta who have participated in this.
Now, have I made pitches in the media with respect to more money for oil sands work? No. I find, frankly, that as a research scientist that is a particularly ineffective way of trying to influence people to give you further resources. I would suggest that perhaps fora like these, or talking to people who are controlling research funding more directly, are more productive.
So it's not a discomfort with the science that is done in the majority of cases, particularly that which is done in a peer-reviewed fashion. It's a discomfort in that there are probably more questions that need to be asked than we're fully drawing our attention to at the present time.
10:10 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Have you told the governments responsible—the Government of Alberta and the federal government—that you feel such discomfort? Have you said that we are unable to know just how toxic this project will be later? You and Dr. Barker talked about the water table. You said that 40 years was a short amount of time for the water table. So you're looking really far into the future.
Do you regularly say that, at present, you are unable to predict what will happen with the oil sands, what the end result with be?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I would say that it's a fair comment that when I'm making presentations with respect to this topic, I let it be known that there's a great degree of uncertainty around the end points that I'm discussing, yes.
10:15 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
Are you invited to take part in environmental impact assessments of new projects? Are you both asked to testify during such environmental impact assessments?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I have never participated in the preparation of an environmental impact assessment. I have reviewed parts of EIAs for Environment Canada on occasion.
10:15 a.m.
Professor, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
And I've never been involved in any EIAs.
10:15 a.m.
Bloc
Christian Ouellet Bloc Brome—Missisquoi, QC
So that means that you never share your concerns about the toxicity or dangers of the processes involved. You have never said that during an environmental impact assessment; you have never had the opportunity to do so.
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
EIAs are making what I would suggest would be statements about future activity. In order for me to undertake toxicity work, the mill has to be operational and I have to have some of the materials that they're working with to be able to do the toxicity work. In fact, when I have reviewed them, it has been with respect to their toxicity estimates and whether or not I thought they were reasonable. The models are there, they stay what they are, but frankly, you can't really tell what the toxicity of something is until you have something to expose organisms to.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
It has been extremely interesting, gentlemen, and I thank you for coming to our committee.
I think it's challenging for those of us who are not scientists, because a lot of the terminology that's used is hard to grasp. There have been suggestions that there are gaps in our knowledge and that there's inadequate information. Of course, that's sort of the continual state of science, isn't it? We never know as much.... If we knew everything, we could just put down our tools and stop studying. Correct?
Does that surprise you, that there are gaps in our knowledge?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
It doesn't surprise me. I've been doing environmental risk assessments for the mining industry for a long time. I've appeared in litigations for a number of different agencies looking at damaged environments, and I never have enough data.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
So let's take that as a given. Scientists probably never have enough data, and I understand that. But I seem to get from your presentation that even though we don't know 100% about this earth of ours, there's really quite a wealth of information about water and the oil sands. There's so much that you've identified the need to catalogue all this information as a high priority. Am I getting that right?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
You're getting that right in a sense, but I'm interested in cataloguing to further solidify and define the areas where we don't know what's going on, and then attempt to direct our activities into those areas.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Right. If I understood you correctly, there's been an increase in funding and other resources for research in this area over the last three years. Is that correct?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
That's a fair statement, but I don't have a budget sheet in front of me showing the cashflow to this research sector. There's certainly much more interest in undertaking research than there was, and I suspect there's more cash available.
10:15 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Do you happen to know what role, if any, the federal government has been playing over the last three years in facilitating that increase in research?
10:15 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I do not know anything about the internal A-base funding within either Environment Canada or Fisheries and Oceans in this area.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I understood you to say that every oil sands project that gets started is studied for impacts of its operation under the environmental impact assessment. Is that correct?
10:20 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
That's correct. In order to get a permit to operate, there has to be an EIA.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
May we safely assume that those EIAs for each project are done scientifically and with appropriate data, to your knowledge?
10:20 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
They're done with data in order to make the model predictions on what the outcome will be, but you're dealing with an industry that is evolving very rapidly in the techniques that are being used. If you look at the EIA that was originally filed for Suncor, I don't think you'll find mention of consolidated tails in there, because that's a new technology.
So there's enough information available in the EIA document for society to make a decision as to whether or not they want this to go forward, but the EIA documents are not chipped in stone by any stretch of the imagination. They are societal decisions based on what's in that EIA.
10:20 a.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I think I understood you to say that the only way to really verify whether the modelling being done bears out is to build it, monitor it, and then assess whether it matches the model. Is that correct?
