Evidence of meeting #51 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was monitoring.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Voices
Oh, oh!
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Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Ms. Dodds and Dr. Lin, thank you both for coming out again today.
In your speech, Ms. Dodds, you mentioned a variety of things that we monitor through Environment Canada that your department looks at. I noted that you mentioned specifically surface-level ozone. So just to clarify, we do monitor that within Environment Canada, correct?
4 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
Yes.
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Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Excellent.
The other thing I wanted to talk about, building on my colleague Ms. Leslie's questioning, is about the science capacity that we have within Environment Canada to both collect the data and then use it in an international forum.
Just to clarify your earlier comments, in consultation with other world organizations such as the WMO that participate in this, the feedback has been that we have the science capacity to carry out our obligations adequately.
4 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
Yes.
4 p.m.
Director General, Atmospheric Science and Technology, Department of the Environment
Yes.
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Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Great.
Another thing that I wanted to talk about is something you started to talk about, Dr. Lin. As a country we do have, across the country, capacity for ozone research that continues, that's above and beyond Environment Canada. There is a lot of work happening at Canadian academic institutions. We continue to fund this work.
Is that correct? Would you characterize that as correct?
4 p.m.
Director General, Atmospheric Science and Technology, Department of the Environment
What I said was that Environment Canada still has significant capacity in ozone science. Now, we of course collaborate with many partners, including academia. That is true in ozone science and in other endeavours that we do.
4 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Great.
The other thing you mentioned today was that the LiDAR system has been used within the oil sands monitoring program. Do you foresee that continuing in the future as well?
4 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
Yes, I do.
I want to just explain a little bit or elaborate a little bit on Environment Canada's role and academia's role. When it comes to long-term monitoring of something, that seldom gets research grants from the large research-granting councils either at the federal level or at the provincial level, because it's not the research of most interest. So when you're talking about wanting ongoing monitoring, meeting the standards that are needed for that, that is very often the remit of federal government and Environment Canada, and in my branch we're responsible for a lot of that.
Then research is something where research scientists will have an area of interest and they'll respond to where money is being given and what the newest science is. So ozone and/or a technology like LiDARs might be of interest this year and in three or four years not of interest.
LiDARs are of interest, but remain right now really a research technology. They're very expensive. They haven't developed to the point where you could apply them really for routine monitoring, as I understand them. The way we're using them and planning to use them in the oil sands is as an additional method to look at some of these air contaminants that we do have some concerns about.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
I'm really glad you made that distinction, because I think it's one that's been core to a lot of the discussion on this topic over the last 12 months, in what the role of Environment Canada has been.
Just to clarify, after you made that point, you do feel that we have the capacity right now to meet our obligation when it comes to data measurement and data management, correct?
4:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
Yes.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
I want to go now to Dr. Lin. You mentioned the Nature paper, which I think was a great thing to come out of Environment Canada science. It showed again that there was a large hole that had formed over the Arctic.
Maybe you can elaborate for the committee on what Environment Canada is now doing with this data or this finding. What's the next step? Does it mean that the ozone hole...? Has it shrunk?
What are we seeing with that data, the follow-up that came from that paper?
4:05 p.m.
Director General, Atmospheric Science and Technology, Department of the Environment
There's significant variability. There are many factors that determine the distribution of ozone over the Arctic: the chemical reactions, the solar exposure, polar stratospheric clouds, the snow and ice distribution. These parameters change from year to year. It is a challenge to try to weave the story together, to tease out what is contributing to what.
Environment Canada scientists are working hard on that. This involves a combination of not just working with the data, but working with the numerical models, the satellite observations, as I had mentioned earlier.
This is not a question of collecting the data, noting that the hole is changing in size; we want to go one step further and try to ask the question of why this is happening. That's the much bigger story that I already mentioned.
4:05 p.m.
Conservative
Michelle Rempel Conservative Calgary Centre-North, AB
Great. Thank you.
Perhaps I'll close, because I'm sure my time is drawing short. You mentioned I think one of the great stories in the last few years, which has been the improvement in air quality in the country. Obviously the measurement components you spoke to today play a role in monitoring that.
Perhaps I'll give you the rest of my time just to elaborate on this trend in air quality improvement in the country. Perhaps you could speak to some of the bigger contributors that you found to this trend.
4:05 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
The science and technology branch has an important role to play in this, but we're not the policy setters and we're not the regulator. But when you monitor something, attention gets paid to it, and people need to respond to what the monitoring is showing.
A good example of that was when some of our scientists and others around the world showed that the ozone in the atmosphere was decreasing. Another very good example is work our scientists were part of that showed that acid rain was a significant problem probably in the mid-seventies to early eighties. When you have this ongoing monitoring looking at contaminants or pollutants of interest, then it is incumbent on the policy-makers and the regulators....
There was a Canada-U.S. air quality agreement, and action was taken in terms of emissions from vehicles and other things that really resulted in a very significant decline in the nitric oxides and the sulphur oxides. So you see very significant decreases in those contaminants and in acid rain and the consequent damage to the environment caused by acid rain.
It's the same thing for particulate matter. Ozone at the ground level is an important component of smog, so whenever you take action on these, you're getting benefits for human health and you're getting benefits for the environment writ large as well.
4:10 p.m.
Conservative
November 5th, 2012 / 4:10 p.m.
Liberal
Kirsty Duncan Liberal Etobicoke North, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to you both for coming.
It's my understanding that a year ago last August all of the members of Environment Canada's experimental studies division—code name ARQX, and also known as the ozone science group—received letters telling them that their job function had been eliminated.
Can you confirm whether that is true, yes or no?
4:10 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Science and Technology Branch, Department of the Environment
I'm not actually familiar with the acronym that you mentioned.
