Evidence of meeting #55 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 water.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Councillor, Ward 1, City of Mississauga, As an Individual
Sorry, I wanted to make a comment on the economics part of it.
The OPG site, the 275 acres, staff has estimated the cost of remediation of that to be between $300,000 and $500,000 an acre. Of course, being that it's in the central part of the GTA, that land, once it's remediated, will now be worth about $1.5 million to $2 million an acre, so it's certainly worth it.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Right, thanks for pointing that out. I appreciate that.
I believe there is a program, Mr. Dion, of federal offsets, but I don't know how it works. Do you know the formula or how it works, or if it's going to be used at all in the Lakeview project?
Senior Project Manager, Watershed Management Division, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
I'm not aware of that right now. I'm sorry.
Conservative
Senior Project Manager, Watershed Management Division, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
Are you talking about the habitat banking?
Senior Project Manager, Watershed Management Division, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
Yes, we understand there's a program going forward, that if we have additional habitat created as part of the project beyond the fisheries compensation, we can provide a sort of banking process for other projects that have impacts elsewhere.
Conservative
Senior Project Manager, Watershed Management Division, Toronto and Region Conservation Authority
Yes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa
I'm sorry, Ms. Ambler, your time has expired.
Mr. Mayes, welcome to our committee. You have five minutes.
Conservative
Colin Mayes Conservative Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses today.
I'm not part of this committee regularly and it's been very interesting. As a mayor of both communities that I've lived in, I understand some of the challenges presented by the FCM.
I want to talk a little about water conservation, but before I do that, I want to go back to the funding.
Our government has partnered with provinces and municipalities and has been part of the biggest investment in infrastructure in 50 years in this country. It's not only that we ramped up the gas tax fund, but we also have the community adjustment fund, the building Canada fund, the green municipal fund, and the stimulus funding. When I was mayor, the federal government stopped charging GST on all projects for municipalities, saving literally hundreds of millions of dollars. When you talk about 8% or 9%, we are partnering and we're doing our part to support municipalities.
The one issue I have about water conservation, and I think it has a little to do with planning, is that our community built a $21-million water treatment plant that had ultraviolet light treatment, the chlorine treatment, filtration. We pump all this great safe water to our residents and they use it to sprinkle on their lawns. Now, that's the challenge, the way our infrastructure is structured. The capacity of that water treatment plant had to be built to accommodate people watering their lawns. It's at great cost and is an expensive way to water your lawn.
Another issue concerns things like low-flush toilets. In Australia, the federal government came in with the regulation that everyone had to have a low-flush toilet that had two buttons on it, and you know what the two buttons are for. It literally saved billions of dollars in costs of infrastructure—billions—because of the lower amount of water they used.
There are all kinds of ways, I would think, at the municipal level to actually provide bylaws to make sure there is conservation.
We talked about drainage. In the United States, they actually collect the drainage and some of the grey water in the subdivisions and recycle it and use it to irrigate their landscaping. Those are the kind of things I think of as water conservation, that would help the water table and those trees that you wanted to ensure got good water.
Madam Ceschi-Smith, are there any best practices that the Federation of Canadian Municipalities is working on to look at water conservation in a larger context to ensure that we also protect the other components of our ecosystem?
Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Environmental Issues and Sustainable Development, Councillor, City of Brantford, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
I'll try to answer. In terms of conservation, the green municipal funds provide funding for municipal governments to look at ways, for example, to reduce consumption of water. We do an awful lot of research and we have tools and materials that municipalities can use, but for projects that are done through the green funds, conservation measures are often a part of the project.
When we have a project, for example, through the green funds that may have a LEED standard, it will have low-flush toilets and will have all of those kinds of pieces in it. These things then become part of what we do. Many of those kinds of projects are showcased through the sustainable communities initiative and the awards that we have. There are materials that are shared with other municipalities across the country whereby they can learn what the best practices are from watching a DVD or joining a webinar or talking to other municipalities that are doing those things.
I don't know whether this answers your question, but certainly an active piece of what we do is building capacity and sharing information on the best practices we have learned.
Councillor, Ward 1, City of Mississauga, As an Individual
I want to make a quick comment on the Inspiration Lakeview site. We're going to be using two different water sources. You're absolutely right that we spend way too much to clean and chlorinate water. We don't use chlorine anymore; we ozonate our water at my water plant. It's a much better system. We're going to have two taps in each house: you'll have one tap for drinking and the other for using for showers and everything. The water that's now coming out of the sewage plant that's right next door is actually potable. We're going to be using it also to pump up and to help clean the stormwater canal. We're looking at all those programs.
November 26th, 2012 / 5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
As you know, I'm also not a regular member of this committee, but I have been happy to be here today, because I have found it to be very informative and helpful across the board.
I want to pick up on a comment that Mr. Tovey made.
I was struck by your comment to the effect that the municipalities bear 65% of the costs and get back 9¢ on the dollar. I'm wondering whether, from your private sector experience and your success with the legacy project, you have any suggestions as to how we can redress that imbalance.
Councillor, Ward 1, City of Mississauga, As an Individual
Actually, many of my friends, when we sit down and talk about this, wonder why we need provincial governments, to be honest with you. I know it sounds crazy, but they're all thinking that. The city of Mississauga has 740,000 people. It's the size of some provinces.
Something has to be more equitable. I like your idea that all three levels should sit down to sort this out. Our infrastructure in the city of Mississauga is incredibly well run. We're running an annual capital replacement deficit of $85 million a year. We're going to raise taxes 7.8% again this year and we're only able to put $9.75 million towards that $85 million. This means that every year on an ongoing basis we're running $74.25 million in the hole.
My concern and my responsibility, I believe—I'm a first-term councillor, so I'm a little idealistic—is to start talking about this and addressing it, because when my grandchildren want to go to a community centre or a swimming pool or want to drive along a road, I don't want them coming back to me when I'm sitting in my wheelchair saying, “Hey, Grandpa, what did you do?” because they're all closed.
What makes this country great is that we help each other. I think we all need to sit down and say that we have to work a little more closely together to make sure that everything's sustainable.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
I have one quick question, because I know time is running out. This may be to Marguerite Ceschi-Smith.
Mr. Garand spoke about environmental protection at the regional level, in Laval.
Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Environmental Issues and Sustainable Development, Councillor, City of Brantford, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
You can speak in English, if you like.
Liberal
Irwin Cotler Liberal Mount Royal, QC
Mr. Garand was speaking particularly about joining with other groups for a greenbelt for Montreal. I'm putting the question to you because of your FCM experience.
Using Ottawa's greenbelt as a reference point, there has been some tension, apparently, between the preservation and expansion of a greenbelt perimeter and the need to facilitate public transport and access to the city for commuters from outside the greenbelt area. Some of you even said that there may be a risk, if you reroute transportation to take account of the greenbelt, that doing so could result in greater commuter times and even in greater transportation-related pollution.
Have you had any thoughts or experience about how you address that particular tension between the greenbelt on the one hand and access to public transportation on the other?
Vice-Chair, Standing Committee on Environmental Issues and Sustainable Development, Councillor, City of Brantford, Federation of Canadian Municipalities
To be really blunt, it's land use planning. It's how you decide what you're going to do. I know many cities now have their roads. It's a difficult question, but I think by working with all the bodies that are there, you can figure things out. I guess in this case it would be the three orders of government.
Traffic is a huge issue, as we all know, in Ottawa, in Toronto, everywhere. We're all trying to deal with that. We need to do it also for health reasons and for all kinds of other reasons. I think the three orders of government should be sitting down together and working that out, using a template, a master plan, and a land use plan of what the city's going to be and what it's going to look like.
Ontario doesn't have a greenbelt but it has places to grow legislation that is trying to curb that urban sprawl so that cities have to plan within the envelope they have.
Liberal
Managing Director, Conseil régional de l'environnement de Laval
I would say that transportation needs to be limited. We need to move towards transit-oriented development or new urbanisms for city densification.
I don't have a problem with it if people live far away, but we need to densify. We need to let them get where they're going quickly with dedicated lanes, buses or electric trains or what have you, but we need to respect the capacity for support. It doesn't bother me if people jump further away.