Environment Committee on March 25th, 2014

[Terry Murphy]

We just had a case under the Fisheries Act where an individual applied to build up a causeway, fill in a causeway, and went to the website. One of the questions is, “Is there any fisheries habitat?” His response was no. We found out after he had a permit that it turns out to be prime pike habitat because it floods every spring and that's where the pike spawn. Those are the things that, when you go to a self-help permit, people filling it out either don't know the proper answer to or they do know that if they fill it out that way, they won't get a permit. I think it's going to open the door for a lot of abuse of the system.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Mr. Pearson, I was just looking at the map of your territory and you know, frankly, my reaction was: well, you're cooked. There's really little or nothing.... By the time the watershed gets down to your neck of the woods, it's filled with whatever it's going to be filled with and there's very little that you, as a small municipality, can actually do about it.

[Don Pearson]

Well, I'm not quite that pessimistic. It is challenging but I think we take a fair amount of comfort in the fact that in the upper part of the watershed, the forest cover is a greater percentage, it's a minimum of 9% and as high as 15% in those communities. As you move down the watershed the forest cover depletes to less than 3%. The slope is greater in the upper watershed and so there's greater potential for soil, if it's not properly managed, to move off and into the watercourses.

Once again, I think of necessity the agricultural producers are much more aware of that, and there is a good history of trying to contain that. It really then behooves the producers in the lower watershed, even though they have flatter soils more intensively farmed, to make sure that their contributions aren't being ignored as well. In reality the ability of the lower watershed to contribute, particularly during intensive rainfall events, is just as great as the upper watersheds. So, we have to do our share in the lower part and I think farmers—in fact the population in general—are happier to do their share when they understand it's their share and that everybody else is also doing their share.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

Ms. Fox, I was up in Keswick—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. McKay, you have eight seconds.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I was up in Keswick and I had a wonderful time.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Bonnie Fox]

Nice time.

[John McKay, Liberal, Scarborough—Guildwood, ON]

I recommend everybody visit there.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mr. McKay.

We move now to Mr. Bevington for five minutes, please.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for your presentations here today.

A number of things have come up here. This a pretty rapidly urbanizing area. Is the population of this whole region going up in a dramatic fashion? Does anybody have the data on that?

[Bonnie Fox]

I don't know the exact data but around the Greater Golden Horseshoe is a major growth area, Windsor area and Ottawa, or at least it's planned for growth. Windsor is planned for growth; I don't know that it is growing.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

What about taking up farmland? Is there more farmland being taken up all the time or is it pretty well established now what the farmland is?

[Don Pearson]

I can respond to that.

Certainly in Ontario the urban boundary was contained in the Greater Golden Horseshoe by the implementation of the greenbelt. That had the unintended consequence of creating growth pressure beyond the greenbelt so certainly those communities of Kitchener-Waterloo, which are outside the greenbelt, are experiencing greater growth pressure, and there's no question there continues to be conversion of farmland.

The urban growth rate in Ontario is equivalent to adding the city of Guelph every year. Most of that growth does occur within the Greater Golden Horseshoe and then north up the Highway 400 corridor, Kitchener-Waterloo to the next extent, and probably the Ottawa area. The reality is that most of the rest of Ontario is pretty static as far as urban growth is concerned. Rural southwestern Ontario, west of the Niagara escarpment, is not.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So does your planning take into account the future projections for what's going to happen in this area? Are you pretty much on that phase? What are the conservation associations doing in terms of that?

[Bonnie Fox]

Yes, I can speak to that.

Briefly, the municipalities are responsible for managing the growth and the land use planning, etc., but in the Greater Golden Horseshoe, there are a few conservation authorities that have done a really good job. Credit Valley Conservation and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority have actually looked at the projected population growth and what the different land use scenarios are.

So municipalities need to plan out decades in terms of what's coming.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are you setting standards for existing operations based on what the future is going to look like?

Say in terms of their ability to enter phosphorus into the systems. Just take that one. Are you saying to people on farmland that we can't afford to have them even do what they're doing today, that they've got to cut back because we know that the growth is going to occur and there is going to be more phosphorus in this area that's going to have to be dealt with?

[Terry Murphy]

In the Quinte area we're working with the municipalities. We are working with the planning staff trying to encourage master drainage plans. We are concerned about stormwater and runoff going into the Bay of Quinte and the pickup of phosphorus as it goes in. So I guess the answer partly is yes. We're trying to plan ahead. We don't want each development doing its own plans. We want the cities to have a plan so all developments have to fit into it as they come in.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

If farmland is wetland and farmland is important for preserving non-drainage, or slowing down drainage, why would you support this idea that farmland drainage should not be subject to any kind of oversight? That's what was suggested by my colleague, under the act, that drainage ditches aren't all that important, cleaning them out.... But if you multiply that by 100,000 farms, all doing a little bit to increase their drainage, wouldn't that amount to quite an important problem in your district?

[Terry Murphy]

In the Quinte area, we don't have a lot of farm drains.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay, well then in another area.

[Don Pearson]

In answer to your question, we have a lot of farm drains. There are more drains in Chatham-Kent than there are in the rest of Ontario combined, and again, a municipal drain in Ontario is a legal concept. The reality is a municipal drain looks like a stream and functions as a stream in many cases, and fish and other organisms don't distinguish whether they're in a municipal drain or a stream. It's part of the ecosystem.

We need to take, as I said earlier, a systems approach, and the old method of saying this is a drain so the Drainage Act applies and this is something else so a different piece of legislation applies, in fact a different agency applies, that underscores the problem. We have a hodgepodge of regulations, layer upon layer upon layer, and I think that really became the breaking point that resulted in things like the Fisheries Act getting yanked.

I would be the first to admit we have an abundance of regulation. What we need is effective regulation based on a very systematic approach, looking at the problem and understanding that we need farm drainage, we need fisheries habitat, we need to prevent phosphorus from being displaced off farmland into the Great Lakes where it's causing.... There is no regulatory planning mechanism that requires that to be done. The Ontario Planning Act doesn't quite get the job done. Conservation authorities have the ability to do watershed planning. There is no ability to implement a watershed plan other than the extent to which you can get others to voluntarily buy in to doing their share of it. The Grand River has an initiative going on right now that is a good example of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

And we've heard from them too.

Thank you.

We'll move now to Mr. Toet, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our guests. It has been very informative.

I want to start with Mr. Pearson. In your presentation to us, you said that historically much had been learned about the effectiveness of various best management practices for reducing non-point source pollution. I'm just wondering if you could expand on that a little bit. What has been learned through these best management practices, and how has that been applied?