Environment Committee on March 25th, 2014

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Is there a timeline on that work?

[Bonnie Fox]

Yes, there is. I believe it's 2018. It is actually specified in the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

I'm at least glad to hear the government is alert to it and on the case.

How much time do I have, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You have a minute and a half.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

I want to go back again to a historical perspective. I'm interested in the distinction between non-point sources and point sources. My general impression is that in the past, point sources were a major concern and that much of that has been eliminated, allowing us to turn our attention to non-point sources.

I wonder if any of the three of you would care to comment on that and give a little explanation?

Mr. Pearson.

[Don Pearson]

Thank you.

I think the distinction is important. The point sources were largely accomplished through a regulatory approach. They were often industry or municipal sources, so there was an appetite and ability to create a regulatory framework, and then the technology was applied within that framework to achieve the targets.

The challenge with the non-point sources is that by definition they're so dispersed that a regulatory approach would be neither practical nor very well accepted in my view, so it has been more of a broadcasting approach based on education, demonstration, applied research, and working with landowners, and on spreading the word in that way, if you will, and then hopefully an eventual uptake more broadly by the industry.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Am I correct that we've largely overcome the problem of point sources? Or not?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Could we have a very quick response?

[Don Pearson]

I don't think you can ever say that we've solved it, because as populations grow those point sources will respond with greater loads. We have to manage those loads to maintain them within the target, so we can never ignore them, but I think it's fair to say that we have a handle on them. We need to put the effort into the non-point sources.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Woodworth.

We'll go now to Mr. McKay for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Murphy, you certainly got everyone's attention when you talked about arsenic coming down the system. I was up in Yellowknife a few years ago, as Mr. Bevington will know. Their proposal for dealing with arsenic is to bury it at the bottom of the mine shaft and then turn the whole thing into a giant ice cube and hope that global warming really doesn't take off.

It gave me a feel for how difficult it is to actually contain any significant quantity of arsenic. You may be working very hard at the bottom end of the system down at the Bay of Quinte whereas upstream you have some significant difficulties. Can you elaborate a little on how satisfied you are that this point source of arsenic—which is a big point source—is actually going to be contained?

[Terry Murphy]

I wish I had a picture of the whole site, because it's a huge site. We're talking about an area of probably 50 hectares of saturated arsenic soils that have to be removed and contained. Over the years, the provincial government, through the Ministry of the Environment, has done a great job. I don't know what the total cost has been to date, but I'm sure it's $40 million or $50 million. With the cost of removing that arsenic to someplace that could look after it, we probably could never have afforded to do the work in the first place.

The water testing shows that the arsenic coming down the system is basically gone, so I think...I'm very satisfied that the arsenic has been contained already, and by the time the province is done with the project, it's the best that we can hope for. People ask if they can swim in the river, and we don't hesitate to say yes. We advise them not to drink the water, but we say the same thing about every lake in Ontario, so....

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

Yes. Well, let's hope there's no catastrophic event that just throws out the best laid plans of men and mice.

[Terry Murphy]

Yes.

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

You talked about the federal government staff reductions. That has been an ongoing concern. How will that affect you directly?

[Terry Murphy]

For the last 10 years we have partnered with the federal government to deliver the Fisheries Act. The hardest part is that we still want to ensure that the act is used properly to ensure the protection of our waterways in our watersheds. Where we used to have federal staff available for enforcement on major violations, or a biologist available to assist on large situations, such as habitat loss, those staff are no longer available.

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

You lose enforcement staff and you lose data collection staff, if you will.

[Terry Murphy]

Yes.

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

All right.

I'm given to understand that DFO has reduced 50 positions in Ontario. I'm assuming that you're one or two or three of those positions. Is that correct?

[Terry Murphy]

We just lost the last biologist two weeks ago. So, we're basically.... Our biologists do the work and the....

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

When you say it's our biologist, is that the Government of Ontario's biologist or the conservation authority's?

[Terry Murphy]

The conservation authority's. We have our own fisheries biologist on staff.

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

This do-it-yourself permit business, how does that work? If I'm a farmer and I want water do I just—

[Terry Murphy]

—go on the website.

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

—fill in the blanks and tell them what I think they want to know?