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.
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
A point of order, Mr. Chair. I don't think Dr. Schindler ever suggested that.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
That's a point of debate. The transcripts clearly show that.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
10:05 a.m.
NDP
Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB
You are attributing something inappropriate to Dr. Schindler.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
If that question is deemed appropriate by the chair, fine.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Dave Schindler and I are research colleagues; I would suggest that we are friends. I am not going to make a comment on why Dr. Schindler does or does not take money from industry. That's up to him.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I will make a comment, though, that you perhaps would appreciate. Up until three years ago, trying to get resources to work on these chemicals was not a particularly easy thing to do. The oil sands have had a great amount of publicity over the last three or four years that has made the availability of research funding quite easy to come by.
Believe me, when I was originally starting to find money to look at the toxicity of these compounds called naphthenates that nobody had ever heard of, and they weren't really all that concerned about whether or not it was an issue, people were not lining up at my door with truckloads of money.
Having said that, my standard is that I publish it in the peer-reviewed literature. I've published over 25 papers in the oil sands area, and no one has ever questioned from the industrial side as to whether or not it was appropriate that I publish it.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Just for clarification, Dr. Schindler was one of my professors when I went to the University of Alberta. It's not a slight on Dr. Schindler. It just seemed to be a differing approach on where the researchers were getting their funding.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Exactly. It's called academic freedom. He's allowed to look, make his decisions, and go from there.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
Dr. Barker, in your testimony you said that researchers at the University of Alberta and the Alberta Research Council are leading one such research effort in dealing with some of the new seepage studies. Could you identify to us who some of those researchers are?
One of the things I'm not satisfied that we've done a thorough job of investigating, as a committee, is that we haven't had anybody from the reclamation side of things, a real expert on reclamation, testify before the committee.
Could either of you identify who you think could or should be appropriate? You've seen who has testified before the committee already, I'm sure, by reviewing our meetings. You don't have to answer right now, but if you could give it some thought and maybe get back to the committee with that, I would really like to hear from somebody along those lines.
Dr. Dixon, about fish, after your briefing.... A lot of your citations dealt with studies that dealt with Perca flavescens, which is yellow perch. They don't normally exist in rivers, so I'm assuming that these are in some of these test ponds where these things are being studied in a closed environment.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
When we were up at Fort Chip we heard anecdotal evidence from the fishermen and the locals who were there. I asked some questions about diseases and so on.
You know what lymphocystic is.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes.
10:05 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
Yes.
10:05 a.m.
Conservative
Blaine Calkins Conservative Wetaskiwin, AB
It's quite common in Stizostedion vitreum or the walleye populations and so on.
Do any of those diseases or any of those parasites cause deformations or abnormalities in fish?
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
I'm not a fish pathologist. I can't tell you off the top of my head that they do or don't. I have never seen an increased incidence of those in some of the fish sampling that I've been doing.
The yellow perch stuff that we're looking at has to do with lake environments, as opposed to the riverine environments that are in the area. There are lakes all over the place up there--please understand that--
10:10 a.m.
Vice-President, University Research and Professor of Biology, University of Waterloo, As an Individual
--and you'll find yellow perch in them.
One of the indicators that we were trying to use at one point in time had to do with some lymphocystic-type stuff in fat-head minnow, but it didn't sort of pan out as being reliable.
Frankly, I don't want to waste your time. I don't have a clear answer for you.
10:10 a.m.
Conservative
