Environment Committee on Nov. 26th, 2012

[Guy Garand]

If the Government of Canada had to do something, it would be to establish a strategic plan to fund the municipalities. It should be consistent with a plan that you would impose, based on criteria, to determine which cities should receive ecological funding, in an urban setting, with respect to transport and so on.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Merci.

Next is Mr. Toet. You have five minutes.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our panel.

Ms. Ceschi-Smith, I want to clarify something. We were talking about all these different funds ending and you included the gas tax fund among them.

[Marguerite Ceschi-Smith]

That is not ending, though.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay. I wanted to give you an opportunity to clarify that, because I'm sure you didn't—

[Marguerite Ceschi-Smith]

I didn't mean that one was ending, not at all, but we have been asking for another piece to it so that it keeps up with inflation.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Okay. It's important to note that the fund has been made permanent by this government.

[Marguerite Ceschi-Smith]

We know it's permanent, and we're very appreciative of that.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Very good. Thank you.

Mr. Dion, I have a question for you.

We heard from representatives from the City of Winnipeg who talked about developers integrating the wetlands into their new developments. It was part of what they wanted to do, going forward, not really because there were rules or regulations on it, but they were seeing citizens showing their subconscious desire to be part of that, to have that part of their environment.

You said that 90% of the Ontario population is living in a greenbelt or conservation area now. First, perhaps you could confirm that I got that percentage right and that statement correct. That would be a good thing. Do you see how that is also working in those environments, that people have this desire in and of themselves, without regulation, to go forward in those kinds of developments?

[Ken Dion]

Actually, 90% of the population of Ontario is living within one of the jurisdictions for the conservation authorities. It's watershed based. We cover a large watershed area.

We have been finding that there's a lot of public interest to see greenbelts within their overall communities. Particularly in the GTA, a lot of people spend big bucks to have their cottage four to six hours away, but a lot of people don't have that luxury. These green areas in the urban centres provide that cottage country locally. That includes wetlands, the forests, the corridors. It includes being able to see Lake Ontario.

It's kind of ironic that people in Toronto go so far to have their little piece of lakefront when they have this massive lake that very few people actually use. With regard to your other questions on water quality improving, out of the eight beaches in Toronto, seven of them meet Blue Flag status. You can jump into the water most times during the year these days, but people don't take that opportunity.

We're building this intrinsically within development plans. In a lot of the work we're doing now, we're bringing back brownfields to become new future revitalized communities, instead of trying to maximize every square foot for development. Then, there's that darn river in the middle of our block. How do we minimize it and tuck it away behind someone's backyard? Let's celebrate it. Let's bring it out as the core piece of the development plans. Let's enhance it to make it function, and that brings value. There have been a lot of studies in Canada and the United States showing that this adds value to the properties provided.

Don't treat it as this thing that minimizes the effect on your bottom dollar. It could actually bring value, if properly planned overall.

[Lawrence Toet, Conservative, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Tovey, I see you nodding your head. I think it ties in with some of your opening comments. What I'm getting to is that, to a large degree, private enterprise is really starting to buy into this, and to want to be part of the solution. I'm wondering if you could make a quick comment on where private enterprise fits into this and actually has a desire to be part of it.

[Jim Tovey]

Absolutely. We found that they were really worried when they built Hammarby in Sweden. They built six storeys. They built it as green as they possibly could. It's the most environmentally sustainable community in the world. It's actually the highest valued real estate in the entire country because people are attracted to it.

I've been involved in the Inspiration Lakeview project since 2005. People love it. They are willing to spend extra money to be green. They want their children to grow up being green.

As Ken said, we're going to take a completely degraded waterfront, two degraded streams, and we're going to celebrate those. Everybody who's involved in this plan can't wait until the sales office opens. There is tremendous, tremendous value in doing this kind of stuff.

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Thank you very much. Time has expired.

Ms. Leslie, you have five minutes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here.

I have two questions, so I'll throw them out there, and you can take turns answering.

As you heard from the chair, one of the questions we should consider is what the best practices for Canada are concerning urban conservation. Mr. Tovey, you gave the example of it being cheaper to have stormwater channels than pipes. That's probably a best practice.

Mr. Garand said that we must, for example, avoid monocultures in order to fight invasive species.

There are practical examples.

What could be a federal role to ensure the sharing of best practices, making sure that everybody across Canada would understand what those best practices are?

My second question is about the federal role as well. Mr. Sopuck asked a question about looking at natural infrastructure as part of the green municipal fund. I'd like to pick up on that. I find that to be really interesting. We've heard some testimony about infrastructure spending generally, and the fact that urban conservation is not eligible for federal infrastructure funding. Some witnesses have suggested rethinking the way we grant this funding, especially the tripartite funding. Maybe we need more of a carrot by saying that these kinds of projects would be eligible.

Do you think it's time to re-imagine how we grant funding? Again, there is the role of the federal government and the sharing of best practices.

We can start with Mr. Garand.

[Guy Garand]

I would say that what's been done can't necessarily be completely redone. If you launch a national hard or green infrastructure funding program, the primary objective of such a program must be to establish goals that respect the support capacity of ecosystems. That's what is to come for future generations.

Each ecosystem has a capacity for absorption. Take the Great Lakes. I haven't stopped looking at the photo since this afternoon. The Great Lakes are dropping, the St. Lawrence River is dropping and all waterways in Canada are affected. There are a number of reasons for that. You have climate change, evaporation, vegetation being cut down along the water because we want to be close to the water—people always want to be close to the water. This has a negative effect. We want to channel more and more.

We are going to fight to reopen streams and waterways in Montreal. This is in the process of being done. They disappeared because of poor management in the past. People didn't have the knowledge. Today we do and we need to use it.

There is a way to achieve these models of sustainable development. Mr. Sopuck said it very well: there are probably too many engineers involved in the projects and not enough ecologists or sociologists. This requires multidisciplinary teams and each of them should respect each other and take into account the issues of each of discipline.

I also think that we will manage to have better development models and a better quality of life. Humans are also part of biodiversity.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Merci.

May I have your comments, Madam Ceschi-Smith or Mr. Tovey?

[Marguerite Ceschi-Smith]

I think it is important that there also be research done on the impacts of climate change, which is affecting municipalities, and everybody, without our knowing what all the impacts are. There should also be research on what's happening with our urban forests and the emerald ash borer. We should have Canadian-based research that relates to our environment. We need those kinds of things.

We need to build municipal capacity. I am proud to say that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities has been working very hard on this matter. The programs and projects we have are there to build capacity within municipalities. However, building this capacity is not just a municipal concern. Other orders of government, including the federal government, need to build that capacity. A lot can be done through research and through working with municipal governments on pilot projects.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Tovey.

[Jim Tovey]

The question was on whether the federal government should have more funding for—

[The Chair, Conservative, Mark Warawa]

Time has expired. Sorry about that.

Ms. Ambler.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Dion, we've heard a lot today about the economic benefits of brownfield remediation. If you have another comment about that, I'd be happy to hear it.

I want to know about the environmental benefits of the Lakeview project, especially the remediation. Maybe you could tell us a bit about that aspect of the project.

[Ken Dion]

There are not really a lot of economic benefits in brownfield remediation. It's a very costly process to clean up brownfields. With regard to the OPG site, the thing is not to get lands to that point before you start trying to improve things.

As for the overall environmental benefits of the fill being generated to create the new waterfront park, that material is clean. We're not dumping impacted soils within the lakes. We already have a very degraded shoreline habitat in this part of the waterfront. There is a very poor fisheries habitat. There is no terrestrial habitat within the area, and there are no wetlands. The shoreline doesn't have natural coastal processes with functioning eroding beaches. There are some remnant sand beaches, but they're fairly static and not very mobile.

The project is about land creation. We can't bring the existing shore back to the way it was. That would require removing the treatment plant. That would require removing large-scale pieces of the existing OPG site. Our only real approach in this location is to create a transition zone between the existing industrial land and the degraded part of the waterfront on Lake Ontario.

The clean fill from other infrastructure projects will allow us to create a land base on which to establish the diverse wetlands that the streams would feed into, enhancing the coastal dynamics where the wetlands interact with the lake. We'll be creating a terrestrial base that will allow the meadows and the forest habitat features to provide a diverse range of ecological functions to tie in with the wetlands. We shouldn't be doing just wetlands or forests. It's the suite of different habitat structures that provides the value. It's more than just the sum of its parts.

We're also proposing a dynamic beach system that allows a transition as you get from the shoreline to the water. This system will allow the movement of the materials necessary to create new fisheries habitat in the open lake areas. It's a combination. It's looking at the ecology from the broad perspective. We're not just looking to create a duck pond or a fisheries area. We're trying to provide a maximum range of opportunities for a suite of wildlife and fisheries for the public.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

I find it a little ironic that that fishing habitat was degraded under the old fisheries act that some people seem to want to bring back, but I digress.

Will people be allowed to fish? Will children be allowed to fish in that area, once this is done? How many years are we talking about here?

[Ken Dion]

Once we receive approval, the project can take about five to seven years to complete.