Evidence of meeting #18 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 phosphorus.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
I'm sorry, how much?
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
We were just talking about the increase in the water temperature. Can you tell me how much the temperature has increased and over what time period?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
What I was talking about was in the nearshore, in an embayment. I don't have the numbers for the actual lake.
In what I was talking about, what we were measuring was from the period from about 1999 to the most recent in 2013. It's that data set we were looking at.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
In that data set, how much has water increased in temperature?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
We only have data from the last two years that we've been doing work on, so we don't know, but we know we are now approaching temperatures in the 27.5 range. That's the kind of thing for which if we had more historical information we would be able to see how much more it has been. But we can hindcast, and that's one of the things we're trying to do now, from satellite images. By the end of this year we will be able to tell you more about that, but right now we don't actually have buoys in the water measuring continuously as we might have in Lake Erie, for instance, or Lake Michigan or anywhere else.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Do we have the temperature increases in those lakes over the last several years?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
I don't know. I'm sure there is, but—
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
Yes, I expect those data are available, but I can't speak to them.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Just from listening, I'm hearing about how the water is increasing in temperature, so I was just wondering what those increases were.
Another issue that I actually wanted to ask you about was the restoring of fish habitat. Do we have any scientific evidence that shows us the best way to go about this?
In the conversation, Dr. Taylor, we heard that phosphorus was perhaps one of the solutions to better the size of the fish that we're having. I found that very interesting. Do we have any examples from other places in the country or in the U.S. that would lead us to better outcomes here?
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
That's a difficult question.
Fish habitat, as Dr. Chow-Fraser is talking about it, is mostly spawning habitat in wetlands and tributaries and so forth, so those are critical habitats that have to be protected for fishery production.
I was talking about the growth of fish in the lakes. As a rule of thumb, over a broad range, the more phosphorus you have in a lake, the more fish production you're going to have. But you can get to the point where you go over the top and you start creating hypoxia, to use a word that I've been waiting to use, low oxygen conditions where you then actually start reducing the habitat available to fish and having negative consequences. I would think in western Lake Erie we're at the point where there's enough eutrophication that the fishery is being damaged, whereas in the other lakes, if we were only concerned about fish, we might want more phosphorus and more fish.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
I have two more questions for you.
One, you had talked about a more holistic solution. Can you give me an example of somewhere in Canada where this kind of more holistic solution has been applied and been successful? Two, after that, in regard to your comments on the fish starving themselves, could you elaborate on that process and why that happens?
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
I don't know, but I don't think there's an analogous situation in Canada to the Great Lakes and their issues. So I don't know; I can't cite a jurisdiction that takes a more holistic view. I think it's more commonly done in Europe. The Europeans are very aware that the fish stock is interrelated with the water quality and that approach to managing water quality through the fish stock is mostly developed in Europe, and they're very expert at it.
In response to your second question about the fish actually starving, I think in the Great Lakes for a long time salmon were stocked in terms of as many as they could produce in the hatcheries. First of all, in Lake Michigan they actually stocked so many that the prey fish ran out, the salmon started to starve, and the lake changed dramatically in other aspects of its species composition. It happened there first and then it happened in Lake Ontario. Most recently, it's happening in Lake Huron. The condition of the salmon actually falls off. Twenty years ago you could catch a 40-pound salmon in Lake Huron or Lake Ontario. Now you could win a fishing contest with a 20 pounder.
The fish are exceeding the carrying capacity of the environment and yet at the same time nobody is....
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you, Mr. Storseth.
We'll move now to Madame Freeman again for five minutes.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
I have one question that came up from Professor Chow-Fraser's testimony.
You mentioned the lack of government support for your work. I don't know if you or your colleagues would like to speak to government support for science generally. What can we be doing more of?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
I think there's probably agreement among all of us that the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada has less funding to go around for research.
I know we are benefiting now from a new fund for the environment, Environment Canada's cleanup fund, for southern Georgian Bay and Lake Simcoe. I did receive funding for that, but that just started in this year, and that was for a very specific area in Nottawasaga, which I didn't have a chance to talk about here. There we actually have birds dying of botulism which is related to the low oxygen and the zebra mussels and blue-green algae. That's a very specific concern we have to solve there.
There are still a lot of areas where not a lot of people live, so there are not a lot of reports on where the best fishing holes are or how people want to protect them. Those are still areas that the fish are going to and that we need to protect, because ultimately, doing so benefits all the rest, but that's not being funded by governments because the areas we're getting a lot of money for are areas that are already in degraded conditions. We don't have a lot of funding for areas that are still in good shape but that are showing signs of going down. I think those are the areas in which I would like to be more proactive.
Representative, Forum for Leadership on Water
Where we've seen significant decline is in the government science departments: Environment Canada and Fisheries and Oceans. One of the important things that every one of us speakers has mentioned is the need for environmental monitoring and better environmental monitoring.
Pat Chow-Fraser talked about the water temperature monitoring, and the other speakers did too, and I did. I think the governments are in the best position to do monitoring rather than my academic colleagues, who have other things on their minds and who can't keep up a long-term record very well. The monitoring programs for phosphorus discharge into lakes, water temperatures, and all of the other factors we talked about should be done by the government, I believe.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
As an NGO we don't actually have that much access to the NSERC funding that's been talked about, but we are fortunate to have access to government funding, primarily through this Canada-Ontario agreement, which means that the money gets transferred from the federal government to the province to manage the Great Lakes and for these AOCs.
As I mentioned, I think one of the biggest fears you have locally in an AOC is that if you agree to delisting, you know you're giving up funding. This is one of the challenges that you face. It's sort of a no-win situation, and yet what do you do? In fact, in the St. Lawrence River Institute, our own organization, we were asked to vote on whether or not.... Basically do you give up funding? At the same time you have to look at the science and ask, ultimately, what the science is saying with respect to the status of this AOC, so you'd see what it would be going forward. If you're within an AOC, you do have some access to funding, but you don't if you're outside of it. I think that's a concern.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
It's a disincentive.
NDP
Mylène Freeman NDP Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC
I'm going to give the rest of my time, if I have any, Chair, to my colleague.
NDP
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
I think we'll come back in another round.
We'll move now to Mr. Trottier.