Environment Committee on Nov. 26th, 2012

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Welcome, colleagues. We will call the meeting to order, this being our 55th meeting of the Standing Committee on Environment and Sustainable Development, as we continue our study on urban conservation practices in Canada.

I want to welcome each of the witnesses with us today. Each witness group will have up to 10 minutes for their testimony. As you approach the 10 minutes, I will give you a one-minute signal. Then we'll open it up for some questions.

Thank you so much for being with us today. We're really excited to hear your testimony.

We will begin with the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Ms. Ceschi-Smith, for 10 minutes.

[Marguerite Ceschi-Smith, Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Environmental Issues and Sustainable Development, Councillor, City of Brantford, Federation of Canadian Municipalities]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for this opportunity to speak to you today.

On behalf of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, I am pleased to contribute a municipal perspective on urban conservation practices as you consider a national conservation plan.

We have been the national voice of municipal governments since 1901. We represent nearly 2,000 municipal governments which, in turn, represent more than 90% of Canada's population. Local governments share stewardship of the environment with other orders of government. Municipalities designate local parks, protect the urban tree canopy, local lakes and rivers, and ensure that Canadians can continue to rely on the environmental, social, and economic benefits of these spaces.

Urban forests are hugely beneficial to communities. They keep neighbourhoods cool, improve air quality, provide wildlife habitat, remove CO₂ from the atmosphere, retain stormwater runoff, and prevent erosion. Urban forests also add esthetic, recreational, and economic value to communities, all of which enhance the quality of life. In 2011, Oakville valued these benefits at $2.1 million annually, and Peel Region at $22.7 million annually.

Canada's urban forests face significant threats from invasive pest species such as the emerald ash borer and the mountain pine beetle, as well as climate change, which supports the expansion of invasive species, or in some communities leads to conditions such as drought which kills trees. Municipalities bear the high costs of managing these challenges, although the problem is national. The emerald ash borer illustrates the conservation challenges and costs faced by municipalities.

First identified in Canada in 2002 in the city of Windsor, the emerald ash borer has spread into many parts of southern Ontario and Quebec and is expected to soon hit Manitoba. The emerald ash borer will cost Canadians over $2 billion in treatment and replanting activities. The city of Kitchener estimates the cost of $10.4 million to eradicate the emerald ash borer, $7.5 million of which would need to be spent within the next five years. Toronto's emerald ash borer management plan was estimated to be $1.14 million in 2011. Toronto is spending $7 million per year in preventive treatment of trees.

Climate change is creating in Canada a warmer and, in some areas, a drier climate, which adds to the challenge of managing urban forests. The mountain pine beetle has decimated millions of acres of B.C. forests and has now spread to Alberta and Saskatchewan, partly because of successive dry summers and mild winters. Communities such as Prince George, B.C. have seen parks completely decimated, negatively impacting property values and creating high management costs. Between 2005 and 2011, the city spent over $9.52 million operating its mountain pine beetle and community wildfire protection programs.

Other urban canopies face different climate problems. In the city of Edmonton over the last decade, an average of 43,000 trees have died annually due to drought conditions, compared to previous annual loss rates of 600 to 900 trees. Despite spending millions of dollars, Edmonton has been unable to keep pace with tree losses. Edmonton's urban forest management plan is helping the municipality manage their canopy, but significant adaptation costs remain.

The federal government plays an important role in addressing this problem, from both statutory and economic perspectives.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is mandated to prevent the importation, exportation, and spread of plant pests under the Plant Protection Act. Under this act the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can place restrictions or prohibitions on items that may enable the transport of forest pests, and designate quarantine zones, or areas or zones free of specific tree species.

Although municipalities have incurred high costs to comply with these federal orders, no compensation has been provided to municipalities. These federal orders are designed to slow infestation across the region and provincial borders rather than limit infestation to the affected municipality. This means that any compliance costs incurred by infected municipalities are borne for the benefit of the country as a whole.

In terms of financial support, the now defunct Environment Canada invasive alien species partnership program enabled municipalities to apply for funds to control and eradicate forest pests. Between 2005 and 2012, $5.7 million of the invasive alien species partnership program was allocated to the control of pests, and $85 million of that budget was allocated to 170 projects focused on preventing, detecting, and managing invasive alien species. The maximum request for funding under the program was $50,000, too small to have much of an effect compared with the millions spent annually by communities. The funding for the invasive alien species partnership program was terminated as of March 31, 2012.

Short on effective funding, the program also had structural inefficiency. For example, in the context of B.C.'s mountain pine beetle infestation, uncertainties about the definition of invasive species made communities struggling with this pest ineligible for the funds. This, in turn, led to an insufficient response and continued propagation into Alberta and Saskatchewan. Although Prince George and others were able to access other federal programs, such as the two-year community adjustment fund, it also ended in 2011, while the problem persists.

This brings me to solutions.

Municipalities are doing their part to implement a range of strategies to protect the health of urban forests. However, threats to urban forests are often beyond the control of local and even provincial and territorial governments. There is an important role for the federal government to play, and we have some recommendations.

Our first recommendation is to make partnerships between all orders of government official policy with respect to urban forest management, including climate change and forest pests, across municipal, provincial, and territorial borders. Partnerships between all orders of government on strategies to contain forest pests, adapt to climate change, and other forestry initiatives will lead to the best outcomes for Canadians.

The second recommendation is that the government should take a leadership role in urban forestry through a broadened research mandate. Neither the federal nor the provincial governments currently include urban forestry in their mandates, except for a limited role with respect to exotic invasive pests. Other jurisdictions, such as the United States Forest Service and the European Urban Forestry Research and Information Centre, include urban forestry as a program and research area. With climate change and other stresses expected to play a greater role, this work will be important in enabling communities across the country to adapt to future risks.

Our third recommendation is that the government provide financial support to combat urban forest threats of a national scope.

The cost of managing the impacts of invasive pests and climate change on urban forests is in the billions of dollars. The government should establish funding assistance to municipalities for the control and management of species, such as the emerald ash borer, and any future significant diseases and insects. The government should also create and fund programs designed to support the ongoing sustainable management of urban forests.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you so much.

Next is Monsieur Garand and Madame Bellemare. I believe you'll be sharing your 10 minutes. Please proceed.

[Guy Garand, Managing Director, Conseil régional de l'environnement de Laval]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, members of the committee. I am very happy to be here with you today.

The Conseil régional de l'environnement (CRE) covers the territory of Laval. There are 16 regional environmental councils in Quebec, serving the entire region, with the exception of the far north. The regional councils are created by environmental organizations and by the public. They are grassroots organizations.

For the past 16 years, the Conseil régional de l'environnement de Laval has been working on the protection, conservation and development of natural environments, land use planning, public transport, waste management and so on. We have a small team of four professionals. We have an urban planner, a geographer, an ecologist and myself, working in environment and ecology.

Since the 1950s, our land use planning has had a major impact on our ecosystems and natural environments. We are actually exceeding the capacity of our ecosystems, meaning water, air and soil. That means that we are currently eating up capital. We are spending more than we are making in interest, and we no longer benefit from ecological services.

The loss of natural environments in urban areas and urban fringes, especially in southern Canada, is affecting climate change. We are seeing a loss of natural environments and biodiversity, a loss of flood plains, a loss of farmland and poor management of rainwater. We have been looking at what is happening in our region, in Richelieu, as well as around Red River. We have been looking at everything that is happening in the other provinces. We are seeing erosion because of excessive logging. We are seeing the poor quality of our waterways because we are now building along them. We are channeling the waterways and draining asphalt and all sorts of chemicals from cars into our waterways. This has been largely documented. We are also seeing the erosion of shorelines and sewage discharges, meaning everything that flows into our water.

There are also heat islands. I am actually leading a research project, one of the most extensive research projects ever conducted in North America. It covers the Montreal area. The university consortium includes the University of Montreal, the Université du Québec à Montréal and the Institut de recherche de biologie végétale. In the metropolitan area, from 1985 to 2005, we lost between 6 to 7 hectares of farmland and natural environments per year. That means that we are losing 12 to 14 hectares of natural environments and farmland every year because of urban sprawl.

We can see urban sprawl, the poor quality of our landscapes, the one person per car pattern—which produces substantial CO₂ emissions—air pollution, smog, the use of wood-burning stoves in some urban fringes and even in urban centres because of condominiums. There are a lot of households, and the energy demand is high. We are constantly using too much and requiring more energy.

So the CRE feels that one of the issues that deserves special attention is the management of lands so as to be mindful of the capacity of our ecosystems. On the north shore of Laval, where there are more than 500,000 people, we have had water supply problems since 2001. Following an order in council, we are required to blast the rocks between the Lac des Deux Montagnes and the Rivière-des-Mille-Îles to provide 400,000 or 500,000 residents with water.

If we had not done that, we would have jeopardized people's lives last summer. In terms of heat islands, there was a loss of biodiversity in 2010. Yes, it is important. We are talking about invasive plants, which is also important. However, climate change and heat islands are part of the reality. In 2010, in a seven-week period, 106 people died in Montreal during the heat wave. Those figures have been documented. If we do not think about that and about what a life is worth, we have some serious questions to ask ourselves, and we must reconsider our values. We are not just talking about economic values, we are talking about the life of the planet. I urge you to seriously look at everything that is being said and everything that is happening. The clock is ticking. It is one minute to midnight, not five minutes to midnight. We are running out of time.

It is now important to pay attention to the densification of lands to reduce the pressure on natural environments and farmland, as well as land use planning based on public and active transportation. We also have to identify and define the natural environments that need protection, conservation and development. In all the development plans in cities across Canada, when we determine the industrial areas, business areas and residential areas, we forget to specify which natural environments we are going to protect, preserve and, above all, make available to Canadians.

We are also talking about creating buffer zones. Depending on where you are in Canada, some regions have industrial areas, and people live close to some of those areas. Buffer zones should be created to limit the impact on health.

It is also a question of looking at legislation, guidelines and government regulations from a sustainable development point of view. The legislation is falling by the wayside and it is not being applied. We are afraid to apply the legislation and we are often wondering where we are heading and why the legislation is not enforced. The excuse is always that the environment harms the economy. But that is not true. The environment has to be a part of the economy. We have to pay attention to it more than ever.

Natural environments are important, be they wetlands that filter the water like kidneys or trees that catch the atmospheric dust and CO₂. They work for us around the clock, 365 days a year without asking for anything in return. That has always been the case and we are entitled to that, the same way we are entitled to high quality water.

Before I give the floor to Ms. Bellemare, let me point out that municipal taxes must be reviewed. Right now, in Quebec, the current government is talking about doing so, but to help people and municipalities across Canada, we must review the municipal taxes of all the territories and provinces. This is urgent because, in 15 or 20 years, 80% of Canadians will be living in major urban centres. It is important to make sure that those people will not suffocate and die at a younger age.

Thank you. I will now give the floor to Ms. Bellemare.

[Marie-Christine Bellemare, Project Officer, Conseil régional de l'environnement de Laval]

Good afternoon. I would like to thank the committee for inviting us today.

I am a biologist by training. I started working with the Conseil régional de l'environnement in the summer. My mandate requires me to study the wetlands of Laval. I have discovered that there is a very rich biodiversity in southern Quebec and southern Canada. Actually, most of Canada's biodiversity is in the south, but so is a lot of the urban sprawl. Let me just say that we are doing a lot to protect the north and we are exerting a lot of pressure, but we should pay attention to the situation in southern Canada.

We talked about urban conservation initiatives that can be taken into consideration. There are greenbelt initiatives. I am not sure if you are familiar with that concept. There is a greenbelt in Toronto and Vancouver, and we are in the process of creating one in Montreal. As part of the studies that are under way right now, we are trying to assess the ecosystem goods and services of a potential greenbelt in Montreal. We are talking about more than $4 billion a year in services provided by the environment.

All this to say that ecology can be of service to us. We are part of this ecosystem. I feel that Canada has what it takes to lead the way on the world stage, given that we still have many of our native natural environments, which are still viable. Unfortunately, I get the impression that there are not a lot of regulations in place to protect this heritage. In my view, this is a natural heritage that we can pass on to future generations.

Finally, I would like to say that we often talk about forests, meaning land areas, when we talk about conservation. But we should also talk about aquatic environments and farmlands. They are all part of the same system. We have to work toward biodiversity, which also includes the diversity of available habitats.

[Guy Garand]

In closing, I would like to thank Fisheries and Oceans Canada for helping us save dozens of hectares of wetlands in eastern and western Laval. We have saved about a dozen hectares in the eastern sector and around 60 to 70 hectares in the western sector. There were fish and rare birds in those wetlands, and it is this department—not the Government of Quebec—that stepped up. So my thanks go to Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Unfortunately, the Fisheries Act was amended. Section 35, I believe, was amended for reasons that are unknown to me. It would be useful to bring it back because it is related to biodiversity.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

Next we'll hear from Mr. Dion. You have 10 minutes.

[Ken Dion, Senior Project Manager, Watershed Management Division, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority]

Good afternoon. My name is Ken Dion. I am a senior project manager with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority.

I wanted to thank you, Mr. Chair and members, for this opportunity to address the committee regarding urban conservation in Canada. Today I am addressing the committee in the capacity as project manager for the Lakeview waterfront connection environmental assessment project on behalf of the Credit Valley Conservation Authority.

As you may be aware, Credit Valley Conservation and Toronto and Region Conservation Authority are two of 36 conservation authorities in Ontario. Conservation authorities are community-based watershed management agencies delivering services and programs to protect, manage, and conserve water and land resources in Ontario.

We operate through partnerships with government, landowners, and other stakeholders. In Ontario, more than 90% of the population lives within the jurisdiction of a conservation authority, including virtually all the urban areas. CVC and TRCA have a long history of collaborating on cross-watershed issues.

Today we were hoping to have Mr. Mike Puddister, director of restoration and stewardship from CVC join us, but he was not able to attend so I am opening up today's chat.

Jim Tovey is a councillor from the City of Mississauga and Region of Peel. He also sits on the boards of both CVC and TRCA. He will be following me and will be talking about Mississauga's Inspiration Lakeview vision, which the Lakeview waterfront connection project is tied to.

We have a convoluted management structure for the Lakeview waterfront connection environmental assessment. Ultimately this is being led by the Region of Peel. Their main interest is infrastructure, and they have a lot of projects to be undertaken over the next 10 years involving pipes and roads that have to be upgraded. That's going to generate a lot of fill over the next many years.

Costs for these capital works are increasing significantly with regard to the handling and disposal of this material. It's anticipated that about $38 million to $50 million is simply budgeted approximately for disposing of this material over this timeframe. They were looking for a better way to use and reuse this material that's generated through their other capital works locally to have strong public benefits locally.

The majority of the work that's going to be undertaken for this project is within CVC's jurisdiction. However, TRCA has a lot of experience working on these waterfront projects and we were asked to provide project management services. We also have an extensive team of ecologists between both conservation authorities, and a strong consultant team.

As will be seen on the screen, the project is located on the borders of Toronto and Mississauga, Region of Peel jurisdiction. TRCA's jurisdiction is with the City of Toronto, of course, and CVC's is with the City of Mississauga. The main project area is located within this area, in blue.

There are a number of issues with regard to the project. The project site that we're talking about is along Lake Ontario's shoreline and it's associated with the Region of Peel's G.E. Booth waste water treatment plant. It's tying into the east side of Ontario Power Generation's former Lakeview coal-powered power plant site and TRCA's jurisdiction with Marie Curtis Park and the Arsenal Lands.

I have identified Hanlan feeder main, which happens to be one of the main capital projects that the Region of Peel is proposing to undertake over the next several years, which is going to generate a significant amount of clean fill. It's this proximity to the project site, as well as the conditions that are along this existing shoreline, which helped us spearhead this project moving forward.

Of course there are other issues we have to be very aware of. We have water quality intakes for the water sources for the City of Mississauga and the Region of Peel, and a significant local community and residential community in the area as well.

This project is also being tied in with the City of Mississauga's Inspiration Lakeview vision. This is a community-led visioning process that occurred throughout 2010. It basically is looking to revitalize brownfields in a largely industrial area, working with OPG to come up with one of the most sustainable communities within the city. Jim will be talking more on that.

As a toehold for this process, the community, through that visioning process, identified a strong desire to see a naturalized waterfront park created as part of this overall Inspiration Lakeview. Our EA moving forward for this project is the first step of many that will be coming forward in the city of Mississauga.

This next image is a great one of the site that we're talking about. We're looking southwest from the air. It's a large industrial site. It's the treatment plant. We have the formal coal pile area for the OPG, Ontario Power Generation, power lots, the power plant area, as well as large piers that go out into the lake. We have a nice green space that ties in with Etobicoke Creek, in TRCA's jurisdiction, with the parks at Marie Curtis Park and the Arsenal Lands, which has a long military history, within this area.

Of course the main feature of this site is water. Lake Ontario is right next door and is a main focus of why this project is moving forward. We also have multiple streams within this area that we hope to incorporate into the design for this waterfront park: Applewood Creek, as well as Serson Creek, which was actually split years ago, so that low flows go through a culvert underneath the plant and discharge into the lake, whereas storm flows go through a channel further to the west between the two industrial sites. Part of the plans we're looking at are to consolidate these flows together and to incorporate them into future coastal wetlands.

There are also a lot of heavy impacts that led us to deciding on the location of this site. Historically this site was heavily mined for aggregate materials in the 1800s using a process called stonehooking. Port Credit was ground zero on Lake Ontario as the main focus for this activity. The shoreline has been heavily infilled to accommodate industry, and all the shorelines have been heavily armoured as well. There are very poor processes. The public is not able to get to the waterfront or along it, and in this area the coastal wetlands have all since been filled in.

As I mentioned, the Region of Peel is producing over 1.2 million cubic metres of fill as part of their day-to-day operations for expanding their infrastructure, as is the City of Mississauga as part of their bus rapid transit system.

Currently, this is all clean material, and it's being treated as waste. They're shipping it long distances to landfill sites at huge and ever-increasing costs, which creates a major drain on local municipal tax dollars. The main focus of this is to determine whether there is a way we can create this material as a resource that can provide a source of funding for us to move forward and bring back a lot to the community.

This project is generated through the collaboration of numerous municipalities and regional governments and conservation authorities to create a new natural park along the shoreline that will establish an ecological habitat and public access to this part of the waterfront.

Some of our objectives are to create new wetlands, coastal wetlands, coastal meadows, and forests, and to allow opportunities for the public to get to the water, to celebrate the water, to move along the water, and to connect to various waterfront parks between the cities of Toronto and Mississauga.

A major objective, of course, is the fiscal innovative funding approach that we're looking at using. The idea behind this is that if the Region of Peel was looking for $50 million to haul and treat this as waste and we can provide a local source, the difference in costs to get the material to the source becomes our funding that we can use for all the planning, land acquisition, and habitat creation to create a new local waterfront park that will greatly improve the environment within this area. There are also huge community spinoffs to not throwing this capital investment away to long-haul disposal.

Of course, we also have to work within the existing infrastructure framework. There are the waste water treatment facilities, and we also want to coordinate with Inspiration Lakeview work, which Jim will talk about shortly, the Lake Ontario integrated shoreline strategy, which CVC is leading, and other provincial and federal objectives for the environment.

We're leading this project right now through an EA process. That's an individual EA through the provincial process. That's a two-phased approach. We spend the first part of the process identifying how we're going to do the EA, which is through the EA terms of reference. We started in January. We submitted our EA TOR, terms of reference, for approval in July. We're waiting any day now for the approvals of that. Once we receive approvals, we'll move forward with the EA itself, which we hope to complete by the end of June 2013. We'll have approvals that will get us to the end of 2013. We're hoping to have construction of this great project some time in the summer of July 2014.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

The final witness is Councillor Jim Tovey from the City of Mississauga.

[Jim Tovey, Councillor, Ward 1, City of Mississauga, As an Individual]

Point of order, Madam Clerk has to set things up for my presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

We will pause and wait.

[Jim Tovey]

Thank you very much. I do apologize for that.

I'd like to thank you very much for allowing me to appear today. I'm actually an accidental politician. The image you're looking at right now is my community. That's what my community looked like for 43 years. At the time it was built, it was one of the largest coal-generating stations in North America and it was right smack dab in the middle of my community.

I started to investigate what the emissions were. This was when the coal-generating station was operating with scrubbers at 15% capacity. There is a grade school 300 metres from here that was the third lowest rated grade school in the entire region of Peel for over 20 years. They closed this generating station in 2005 and then they decided they were going to give us a 1,000 megawatt gas plant right on our waterfront.

If you put a compass on the site we're looking at, it's right at the epicentre of the golden horseshoe. It's the southeast corner of Mississauga, which means it's right beside the city of Toronto. It's 10 minutes by car to Yonge Street and it's 10 minutes to Pearson International Airport.

The site you're looking at outlined in red is approximately 285 acres. With the lakefill project, an additional 85 acres will be created.

I thought it was completely wrong that they should give us a coal-generating station for 43 years and then turn around and give us a 1,000 megawatt gas plant on seven kilometres of beautiful waterfront. I determined that this wasn't going to happen, so I put together a group. We partnered with the University of Toronto and we spent three years modelling with the community and we asked them if this was a blank slate, what they would like to see. We educated them on best practices. We did a complete cost analysis of the entire project. We became the first citizens group in North America to ever create its own master plan and have it accepted by all levels of government.

We defeated the power plant and we got both the City of Mississauga and the Government of Ontario to adopt what we called the legacy project. Our goal is to create the world's most environmentally sustainable community, and I know we can do it.

Then I spent two years chairing Mayor McCallion's task force on waterfront development and environmental sustainability. I got to work with some really terrific people. We got the power plant defeated in 2008. I did two years with madam mayor and the committee, and then everybody sat me down and said, “Okay, if we're going to get this job done, we have to get you elected”. I ran against a five-term incumbent and won by 128 votes. It was fun. It was like a horse race. I'm sure the politicians here can appreciate a good horse race. That was great.

Then we immediately wound up negotiating with the Province of Ontario and got a memorandum of understanding for a proper development of the site by 2014. We then started yet another round of what we now call Inspiration Lakeview. We went through a number of processes where we engaged the public. We allowed the community to design this new sustainable community. That's after we signed the memorandum of understanding with Charles Sousa, madam mayor, our city manager, and some people from OPG.

The site also has a terrific history. The very first airport in Canada was on this site. In 1915 J. A. D. McCurdy, the first man to fly an airplane, was the flight instructor there in 1915, 1916, and 1917. Eight of the top fifteen aces from World War I were trained there. They came over from England. There was this incredible history that was almost lost.

Here are more images of Inspiration Lakeview. We broke it down into eight principles. I'm going to go through them very quickly. We wanted to link the city and the water. In other words, we wanted to bring not only the city to the water, but the water to the city.

We had people from Hammarby, Sweden here. I don't know if any of you are familiar with Hammarby. It's currently the world's most environmentally sustainable community. We've actually just received a $175,000 grant from the federal government to bring some of the designers from Hammarby back over to help us with the next master plan, which we'll be starting in a week and a half.

We wanted to open the site and make it publicly accessible because it hadn't been accessible since 1896 when the Garrison Common used the entire site for firing ranges and artillery ranges.

We wanted to create a green, sustainable community. In Hammarby, Sweden, instead of using stormwater pipes, they use stormwater channels. They're quite beautiful, and they also help to filter the water. There's an economic benefit, too, because they're cheaper in the long run to maintain than a major stormwater system is.

We wanted to create a vibrant community that was at human scale. People like human scale. We also wanted to connect. The City of Mississauga is spending an awful lot of money on higher-order transit right now. Mayor McCallion was once considered to be the queen of sprawl, but no longer. She now gets transit, so that's really great.

We'll also create destinations down at the waterfront. The other thing we're going to do is commemorate history. We had the largest coal-generating station in North America, but now it's part of our heritage. It's a great heritage, and some of the best engineers in the world worked on this project.

We also want to make sure that it's financially viable. This is where a project like the one Ken has been referring to comes into play. These are all our sustainability things.

We've now done two different plans, and we'll be starting a master plan in a week and a half. It'll be finished in 18 months. Then we're going to start building. We're not asking for any money. We're going to do this ourselves. We've been doing it all along with private investment and with City of Mississauga money.

In the master planning, the 85 acres fit in quite beautifully. There are seven and a half kilometres, and the only place we didn't have public access is around the sewage plant. We have two creeks that are very badly degraded, and our wetlands project is going to help us with that. We're going to bring the water up into the site so it will create a lot of really interesting environmental opportunities.

We've already established our green corridors. Then, too, there's culture. Mississauga does not have a cultural centre and we want to bring in arts, heritage, science, and culture. We want to converge them all on this one site. If we can take a site with 120 years of military use and industrial abuse and turn it around to create a model for how to do things, then this can be done anywhere in the world. We can use this site, and we already have partnerships with three universities, to train a new generation of Canadians, and we can export that knowledge to the world.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much.

Before we begin our round of questioning, I want to share with you the scope of the study.

We had seven questions to answer in designing the scope of the study: One, what is urban conservation? Two, what are the goals of connecting urban Canadians with conservation? Three, what are the best practices in Canada for urban conservation? Four, what urban conservation initiatives are currently in use? What are the best practices and challenges? Five, what are the economic, health, biodiversity, and social benefits associated with urban conservation? Six, how do we define a protected space? Seven, what role should the federal government play in urban conservation?

What I've heard is very interesting, though it is at times broad in scope. What will be reported back to Parliament will be within that narrow scope, so I appreciate the comments focusing on dealing with those seven questions.

We'll begin with Ms. Ambler.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to all our witnesses for being here today. It is indeed interesting, and I'm just delighted to have all of you here.

I'd like to begin by asking Councillor Tovey how he first got the idea of a sustainable community on the waterfront.

[Jim Tovey]

I was in construction project management for years and years.

In 1994 the government of the day had said that we needed to start to densify our communities and we needed to start getting more use out of the infrastructure that we had, and we needed to stop degrading the environment. I took that very seriously. I was walking my dog and standing just north of a power plant and the moon came up and its reflection hit the water. I turned around and looked over my right shoulder and I could see Cawthra Road and Lake Shore. I looked over my left shoulder and I could see Lake Shore and Dixie Road. They're a mile and a quarter apart. This was such a massive site, but it was just a complete industrial wasteland. I thought that if we could get rid of the coal plant and we could do something else with this site, we could create a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

I think that's really the focus and the goal of this committee.

Take the example of the wetlands project. The Region of Peel was willing to spend $75 million to take all of that dirt and drive it out of the GTA and dump it in a hole. We have a crisis in the GTA in that there is nowhere to put fill.

This young lady's point is really great, that we have to concentrate on the south. Across the waterfront of the GTA, we've eliminated 93% of our wetlands and we've armoured 85% of our shores. As soon as you eliminate wetlands, you stop helping nature clean the water for you. When you talk about having the environment in an urban forum, what we need to do is reinstitute more things like this.

With a project like this we're going to reinstitute wetlands for $41 million as opposed to the $75 million that the region was willing to spend to dump the fill. Not only are we going to reinstitute wetlands, put in fish spawning beds, and fix two totally degraded creeks, we're going to create a much better experience for the people who live in that community because now they will be able to connect to nature.

We can start to understand what it's really all about and what we all need to do, as leaders, in the future. Fiscally, it's the right thing to do, so to me, that's what we need to be focused on.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That's exactly what this study is about. You're right, thank you.

How would building or enhancing any city's waterfront benefit the people living nearby? Is it just the people who live nearby who benefit, or are we talking about attracting other urban Canadians to the area, more so than would otherwise be there now?

[Jim Tovey]

It's really interesting. I've been studying planning for at least a dozen years now and I love reading planning studies. It sounds a little odd, but I do love reading planning studies.

There is a fellow named Jan Gehl, in Copenhagen. He's a professor. He's famous all over the world. He designed downtown Copenhagen. He just finished Times Square. He did downtown Sydney. The man is a genius.

They do all kinds of studies. There is a challenge you will find with people who live in an urban environment, as more and more of us tend to do. If you live in a concrete jungle such as they've created across Toronto's waterfront, it's a sterile, boring atmosphere. There are studies to prove that.

Jan Gehl did two studies, which I'm going to refer to very quickly.

One study was on how much stimulus the cerebral cortex required to not be bored. Well, every three seconds we need stimulus on our cerebral cortex or we're bored. When you walk through a place that has massive condominiums and 300-foot concrete facades, you're not going to be engaged in that. That is detrimental to your health and it's certainly detrimental to your sense of place.

There was another study done. I thought this study was absolutely incredible. You will notice in a lot of our images that none of them were more than six storeys. Jan Gehl's group did a study and they found that a mother could actually make eye-to-eye contact with her child from a six-storey balcony, yet she couldn't do that from seven storeys. Therefore, he doesn't design anything over six storeys for that reason.

These are all really interesting things, but it tells you a lot about the place. It tells you a lot about the urban forum.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, councillor.

Mr. Dion, you have experience not only on the Lakeview project, but you have done a fair bit of project management with Waterfront Toronto, in particular Tommy Thompson Park and the beautifully remediated beach area at the end of Leslie Street in Toronto.

Can you tell us what some of the best practices in urban conservation are that you used in Waterfront Toronto and that you're going to bring to this next waterfront community?

[Ken Dion]

Yes. Thank you very much.

I think that the first principle, when planning new communities, is not to lose what is already there in the first place. If there is a new greenfield area, take advantage of the natural systems already there and plan that up front in the overall development of a community.

We had a lot of work within the Toronto area, downtown around the Don and the port lands area. That opportunity has long since gone. What has been important, and this is something that's been recognized by all three levels of government and the community stakeholders, is that all the planning for this area is basically to put the river and the natural features up front, as a central component of the design for planning a community, and then meet your overall development targets around that, adding value to the community with the natural features, adding value to the overall development plan.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Time has expired. Thank you.

Monsieur Pilon, you have seven minutes.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, everyone. Your testimony was very interesting. I am going to start with the representatives from the CRE de Laval.

You talked about a greenbelt around Montreal. Could you tell us what that consists of? What is your vision for a greenbelt around Montreal?

[Marie-Christine Bellemare]

The greenbelt movement in the greater Montreal area was launched last week. It brings together a number of environmental organizations, including the David Suzuki Foundation.

The objective of a greenbelt is to ensure a minimum level of protection around the City of Montreal by making room for 17% of natural environments in the metropolitan area. This project involves natural environments, as well as farmlands and waterways. Since Montreal is an island on the St. Lawrence River, we cannot forget the waterway. It is a given. The goal is to work on protecting those environments by granting them protection status to secure a certain percentage of natural environments. At the same time, we want those places to be accessible from urban areas. So we want to make sure that the people who live in the greater Montreal area have access to nature.

We are told that, in previous years, it used to take Montrealers 20 minutes to be in nature. Now it takes them an hour on average. The purpose of a greenbelt is to curb urban sprawl. One of the best examples I use is the greenbelt in London, the first one in the world. But, unfortunately, it is like a doughnut. The city is surrounded by it and that is not what we want to have in Montreal. We want to set up a network of natural environments and work on connecting them, because that makes it possible for flora and fauna species to spread out and migrate. That is something we are going to set up because we can do that around Montreal.

We seek to curb urban sprawl and to achieve environmental sustainability.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you.

I have another question for you.

In terms of wetlands, everyone who knows me can tell you that I think they are very important. In addition, we know that almost all the wetlands in Laval are disappearing. In your view, should they be included in a conservation plan, and what are the risks if they are all destroyed?

[Guy Garand]

If we look beyond Laval at the whole St. Lawrence river system, 85% to 87% of wetlands have disappeared. There are 15% remaining. If we continue to eliminate them to make room for development and if we don't want to integrate them, that will have a major impact on water quality and on renewing our water resources. You just need to look at the statistics for the Rivière des Prairies and the Mille-Îles River. This year, the flow rate went down to almost 34 m³ or 35 m³ of water per second. I was talking about an order in council that was adopted by the Government of Quebec in 2010. The Mille-Îles River reached 9 m³ to 10 m³. When there is high water in the spring, the flow rate can reach up to 800 m³ or 900 m³ of water per second. That started in 2001.

Wetlands are affected by climate change, deforestation, the channeling of streams, the filling in of the shores, the artificialization of the banks and the loss of flood plains along the waterways. Flood plains are another type of wetland. So that has a major impact on the regularization of the water level, water filtration, groundwater recharge, groundwater and water tables. If we keep mishandling them, the biodiversity is going to disappear. They are the richest environments in southern Quebec. The same goes for all the provinces in Canada.

[François Pilon, NDP, Laval—Les Îles, QC]

Thank you.

My next question is for Ms. Smith. As the vice-president of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities, could you give us a concrete example of a city that had an urban environment plan or initiative that really worked well?