Evidence of meeting #56 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 project.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
That is indeed the question, and I am sympathetic to the notion that it's hard to wrap your head around because that's my dilemma too.
What I would be grateful to hear from you is, what sorts of measurables for urban conservation should we be addressing?
Instructor, School of Environment, Olds College
What we're currently using here at the college, and certainly at other institutions, is based on a framework developed by the Sustainable Sites Initiative out of the States. With respect to a matrix of five categories—soils, vegetation, hydrology, materials, and human well-being and wellness—they've put a scoring system, where we can really break down each component of those five and evaluate the importance on a site, within a community, for example, a new site or a restoration, and link it against the benefits we're getting out of the project. We can spend a week going over what the Sustainable Sites Initiative group has done. They are folding their matrix into the Green Building Council in the U.S. I'm not sure if the Canada Green Building Council is also going to be adopting that. It complements what LEED has started.
In the LEED program, pretty much anything outside the building environment has really not been recognized, from an evaluation perspective. They talk about xeriscaping and some very basic water conservation practices, whereas with Sustainable Sites, we're folding in many layers that we can score and determine short term and long term, beneficially, how we can wrap it under urban conservation.
Conservative
NDP
François Pilon NDP Laval—Les Îles, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is also for Mr. Koch.
Last spring, I had the opportunity to visit your college and all its facilities. One thing I noticed was the pilot project for water filtration in the wetlands. The project would work well in Laval. I even started to take steps in that direction. Could you please explain, for the benefit of the people who weren't there that day, how your pilot project works and the process you want to carry out with the project?
Instructor, School of Environment, Olds College
Essentially what we have at the college is a series of ponds that move or meander through a very gradual elevation change. In other words, we can move water, recycle water, through these various pond stages. In each pond we have different planting regimes that are placed for certain uses, say to pull out different kinds of contaminants or for sediment or erosion control.
We have 20 ponds, or 20 cells, as we call them. Ultimately, in this simplistic fashion, we have an input at the upper end. We can control the flow through the 20 ponds. At the very end, or at the 20th pond, our largest pond, our holding pond, essentially we can have what's called polished water. When I say “polished water”, we're not talking about drinking water, but it is water for reuse, say, in an irrigation application on site.
Within the 20 ponds are eight ponds that we can recirculate in a confined, contained area. In that confined recirculated system we can charge the water with either different pollutants or different types of chemicals, and we can cycle them through our planting regimes and record a whole raft of data that our school of innovation sets up, whether it's dissolved oxygens, whether we're looking at salts or measurables of different contaminants at the input and the output side of things....
As to the various clients we're talking with, we certainly have people from the energy sector who are interested in seeing what kinds of valuations we can provide for them. The flip side is that we're talking to the development industry. They're looking at the types of contaminants that come off roadways, say during the winter, from salting.
We also have the ability to move the water from our pool here on campus, which is a saltwater pool. Unlike many practices with pool systems, they discharge into the sewer system. We're looking at the opportunity to cycle that water through our ponds and then have it available for reuse on irrigation systems.
The flexibility of our constructed wetlands here gives us the ability to work with industry or stakeholders and run variables on water quality sampling and testing using this kind of system.
NDP
François Pilon NDP Laval—Les Îles, QC
You said you are working with industries, but do you share your results with them? Given that those infrastructures become less costly for the municipalities, should the federal government have a role to play with municipalities in that type of infrastructure?
Instructor, School of Environment, Olds College
In reply to your first question, with respect to the information we gather, yes, that is published for various sectors, depending on whom we're partnering with or what the project is, whether it's under the guise of a public initiative.... Certainly it's made available.
We do have instances whereby we have done research work on a contract basis for a very distinct client, and in some cases those results may be held by them; they have ownership of them. It depends on how our contract or the research is set up.
With respect to funding these types of opportunities, certainly wherever financing is available, that is beneficial; there's no denying it. Currently, when we're looking at many developments, say, in the city of Calgary, and such a system is in place, the front-end cost is borne by the developer; it's part of the development agreement. In time, after they've gone through their warranty period, it is turned over to the municipality for the ongoing maintenance, but a developer puts the front-end costing into the site.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Mark Warawa
Thank you very much. The time has expired.
Ms. Ambler, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of our guests today for this most interesting information you've given us.
Mr. Kendall, I'd like to speak to you about Earth Rangers, in your capacity as executive director as opposed to a scientist. I'm not a scientist either, but I do think I am certainly grateful that this committee sees the importance of urban conservation, of bringing that to the government and making sure we make that a priority.
I'd like to talk to you about something I found amusing. You mentioned it when you talked about getting children to raise money.
I'd like to know how you do that, and I think that's amusing for some reason. It's very cute. I'm sure there's a great story behind it, so I'd like to hear about it.
Executive Director, Earth Rangers
This is our Bring Back the Wild program, which, as I said, came out of that large research study we did where kids were telling us they wanted to have more of a direct impact on helping animals.
Through that study as well, actually, 53% of them came up with fundraising as one of the ways they thought they could get involved. It happens in all sorts of different ways.
Executive Director, Earth Rangers
No. They have full, school-wide fundraising programs. Close to 400 schools a year are doing that right now, and then individuals themselves are running bake sales and art sales....
Executive Director, Earth Rangers
The money all goes to the conservation projects we're running across the country.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
So it's protecting the animals, which is what the kids want to do.
Executive Director, Earth Rangers
Absolutely. And then we're reporting back to the kids as their project progresses, and we're celebrating the success of the completion of the projects with them.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
Excellent. Thank you.
When I was last at the Kortright Centre I noticed a big sign with all of the logos of the partners. You mentioned that you have a corporate volunteer program. Your colleague mentioned OPG. Who are some of your other partners?
Director, Development, Earth Rangers
Do you mean corporate partners specifically?
Conservative
Director, Development, Earth Rangers
From the program Peter was talking about, Bring Back the Wild, the funds the kids raise are donated to different funding partners. It's financial institutions, like TD, RBC, HSBC; construction companies, like Holcim and Lafarge; energy companies, like Imperial Oil, Devon Energy; mining companies, like Teck and Valley; and Union Gas, OPG, and Capital One. We've had groups from PetSmart doing corporate volunteer groups.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
That's fantastic. The private sector is obviously showing a great interest in the work you're doing. That's good to know.
I heard Pizza Pizza is one of them.
Director, Development, Earth Rangers
It helped save the real reindeer this Christmas.
Conservative
Stella Ambler Conservative Mississauga South, ON
That's fantastic. That is wonderful.
Will you be able to use Rouge Park at all for your activities with children? Does that mean anything to you, the fact that the Rouge will soon be a national park?
Director, Development, Earth Rangers
Absolutely. Actually we are hoping one of our Bring Back the Wild conservation projects next year will be around reintroducing the Blanding's turtle into Rouge Park. We're hoping that will be something we'll be working on with kids across Canada.
Executive Director, Earth Rangers
One of the really neat things was that a letter came in a couple of weeks ago from a girl in Manitoba. One of our projects last year was around the plains bison. She had raised some money for that project in her school. Then, as a summer holiday, she and her family had gone to...?