Evidence of meeting #14 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was area.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Chris Murray  City Manager, City of Hamilton
Michael D'Andrea  Executive Director, Engineering and Construction Services, City of Toronto
David Ullrich  Executive Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative
John Hall  Coordinator, Hamilton Harbour Remedial Action Plan, City of Hamilton

5:15 p.m.

Executive Director, Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Cities Initiative

David Ullrich

Sir, your timing is perfect. There is no better opportunity to have that kind of cooperation than we have, really, as of today. The International Joint Commission essentially, through a very intensive study that has been essentially confirmed by other parallel, university studies, has quantified the kinds of reductions that we are going to have to get.

Starting with Lake Erie—and this can be the perfect example—the states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York and the Province of Ontario should, under the auspices of the water quality agreement, be sitting down as early as tomorrow. Unfortunately it won't be tomorrow. It takes a little while to get all the people together and say that we have to get such-and-such amount of reduction in the western basin, in the central basin, and in the eastern basin and ask how we can equitably divide those amounts.

You could set aside the specific laws or whatever, because you can get wrapped around the axle very quickly with something like that. How much reduction can you get? What is an equitable reduction from either side?

Then most importantly, a lot of this is going to boil down to best management practices.

Some of the suggestions are these. Don't apply any of the phosphorus—and you're a farmer, and you know better than I—in the fall. Second, don't apply it on frozen and snow-covered ground; it's much more a question of the proper application at a time when you can get the absorption. Obviously you can't control the rain, but you can control the timing and the weather conditions—whether it's frozen land, or in the fall.

I think there is this opportunity for the province and the four states to sit down and ask how they can come up with an equitable way and how they can share the best practices under the auspices of the International Joint Commission.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

Just quickly concerning municipalities, one thing I have found is that in my area, it seems that they will come in and.... We talked about what I call swamp, but marsh and wetlands. They will come in and, it would seem, be able to make the crusher to the urban area, because there are defined perimeters for urban areas. Then there's development that has to happen within it, whereby a number of acres will all of a sudden.... There's a machine that comes in and strips all the trees, and then the next time you come back, there's bare land. Then they bring in about five feet of topsoil or dirt to bring it up.

If I want to square up a farm, I have to go through a process and agree—which I will do—to replant trees someplace else.

I'm wondering how we get some control, if that is the right word—and it may be too big a word. I'm concerned, because there seems to be a disparity of authority in terms of who can cover marshland or leave a little bit of it. The stewards of the land, the agriculture people, are much more conscious, it seems, that if we're going to take some out, we're going to replant trees and are going to make sure that we protect those areas.

How, as municipal administrators, are you dealing with this, when you have the high pressure of developers coming in?

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht

Can you give a quick answer? Thank you.

5:20 p.m.

City Manager, City of Hamilton

Chris Murray

Mr. Chair, in Hamilton, in light of our environmental legacy and our history, we have a very active environmental community. The days of our being able to, not remove wetlands, but encroach on wetlands are essentially over. Wetlands are almost non-negotiable now. We have provincial legislation that governs them and we certainly have our own policies within the City of Hamilton, in the urban area, that restrict anything you can do.

Again, even from the perspective of encroachment, extensive studies have to be done to determine that there will be no impact or, if there is an impact, how you mitigate it.

I don't think we even contemplate development that is going to have any kind of truly negative consequence on any of the wetlands in our urbanized area. That's for certain.

5:20 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht

Thank you, Mr. Murray.

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Our time is coming to a close. We need to leave about five minutes for some committee business, and that will leave us a couple of minutes for transition.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here. Thank you for your expert testimony. You have been very helpful, and I'm sure there will be a lot of people going back through not only the written submissions you've given, but the blues from today to recap.

Thank you very much.

We will suspend for just two minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]