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.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
Thank you, guests, for coming today.
I want to follow up with Dr. Ridal.
You mentioned the areas of concern and the conservation authorities. I'm not so familiar with the Bay of Quinte and the St. Lawrence conservation authorities, but I am familiar with the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. I meet with them frequently.
Can you clarify whether each area of concern has a conservation authority working on studies and projects?
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
In Ontario, as you know, every major watershed has a conservation authority, so if the area of concern falls within that watershed authority, then you are pretty much guaranteed that the conservation authority would have been a major player in the AOC. There are others in some of the northern communities that don't have those conservation authorities and would not have had an obvious seat for housing the local concerns so the community would have had to find a way to make that happen.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
My experience is that they do some excellent work—
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Yes, they do.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
—at different levels too. There is some data gathering, for example, on species. They also do a lot of consultations, education, and outreach.
As you mentioned, the remedial action plans are really important. I suppose at a local level, each area of concern would have its own set of priorities, so it's good that there's this, if you will, bottom-up approach to putting in remedial action plans.
In Toronto, for example, there are a lot of projects around some habitat restoration that they're doing at some of the different watersheds there, some invasive species work on sea lampreys, and even some studies and early plans with respect to Asian carp, for example. Hopefully, that will not hit our shores.
Can you clarify the funding models for the conservation authorities? I am under the impression that the federal government does provide significant funding for each conservation authority. Is it different for the different conservation authorities across Ontario?
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Other people may have something to add, but actually conservation authorities are funded primarily at the lower tier, usually by municipalities. I don't know, but perhaps Dr. Bruce might know, whether the Province of Ontario actually funds it.
The funding that comes in through COA-type funding is very important for conservation authorities, as it has been in our area and also for the River Institute and its work. The size of the municipality obviously makes a big difference with respect to the complexity of problems, so certainly the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority is known to be the flagship conservation authority. It is really quite integrated and quite evolved with respect to the abilities that they contain. As you go out, for example, Cornwall, which is essentially an area where they have a regional conservation authority, it is an office of about eight people, just to contrast that.
Professor Emeritus, Biology, University of Waterloo
I'll just add a little bit. I know that my conservation authority, and I think all of them in Ontario, do receive provincial funding as well as from the municipal governments and raise their own money. What would really help them is if they were eligible to be industrial partners and then work with researchers and get strategic project grant money, for example, from NSERC, but they are excluded as partners in those partnership programs. That's low fruit.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
There is a funding envelope federally from the Great Lakes program also. I know the Toronto conservation authority receives some federal funding also. I'm not sure if it's different for different conservation authorities.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Yes, the federal program is the cleanup fund program, and if you are in an AOC, you have access to that cleanup fund.
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
Toronto would get a fairly significant proportion.
Conservative
Bernard Trottier Conservative Etobicoke—Lakeshore, ON
The Great Lakes is an enormous watershed, and there's a mix of urban and rural challenges. A city like Toronto with five million people in the GTA, and similarly Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, can certainly exert all kinds of strains on Lake Ontario, whether they're effluent problems or stormwater runoff.
What's your sense when you talk about water quality in the Great Lakes? Is it more because of urban populations, or is it more because of agricultural and rural issues?
Representative, Forum for Leadership on Water
I can't answer the question because we don't have a good fix on the amount of various kinds of pollutants, including phosphorus, coming from urban areas and agricultural areas. If we had good information, I could answer your question, but we don't have the monitoring data to answer it.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
We have to leave it at that.
Thank you, Mr. Trottier.
Mr. Woodworth, you have five minutes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I want to preface my remarks by responding to some of the comments from some of the members that I find a little odd about this being frightening. I want you to know, professors, that I find this all very exciting and not frightening at all because of the cutting-edge research that all of you are doing, the obvious federal government funding of the research, the Great Lakes nutrient initiative, the progress in the areas of concern, the great Canada-Ontario partnership agreement. I see a good arc of progress and while I certainly know we have to be vigilant and we always have to be concerned to meet new challenges, I think we're on a great path and I have every confidence.
Regarding the Fisheries Act, the International Joint Commission and the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the Canada-Ontario agreement are all mechanisms by which that ecosystem approach that we've discussed can and I am confident will be implemented. It takes those broader approaches to deal with ecosystems rather than an act that is just targeted at fisheries. Again I think we're on the right track.
Finally I will say that the conservation authority groups that I'm aware of are all eligible for that recreational fisheries partnerships program that Mr. Sopuck mentioned, which is specifically designed for strategic programs to increase the recreational fisheries and the flow of waterways for that purpose.
All of that is by way of a too lengthy preamble.
I want to go back to Dr. Bruce to return to my question from long ago and far away. Are there any specific geographic areas of concern that should be added to the list, that we should think about prioritizing, apart from, as we've discussed, the ecosystems approaches in western Lake Erie especially and in the Lake Huron area?
Representative, Forum for Leadership on Water
I don't know of any areas that would be comparable to the areas of concern that were originally designated, but certainly we do have to be worried about the whole lake effects in Erie and Ontario and in Georgian Bay. I think that is going to keep people busy for a long time.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I think that's the tenor of a lot of evidence we've heard and I think you're quite right.
Professor Chow-Fraser, on the issue of the St. Clair dredging, I know that the International Joint Commission recently released a report, “International Upper Great Lakes Study”, which was a five-year, $17.6 million peer-reviewed study. It held hearings and identified a number of items, but I don't know whether they commented on this issue of the St. Clair River dredging. Do you know whether they did? What was their position?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
Yes, they did. The upper Great Lakes study recommended not to take any action, but the IJC said they should be pursuing it and then looking at restoration of some of that dredging that had not been licensed. They were permitted to dredge to a certain amount, but the erosion has taken it down further.
There are now studies by the Corps of Engineers to restore some of that riverbed.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Do you think that's heading in a reasonable direction?
Professor, Director of Life Sciences Program, McMaster University, Department of Biology, As an Individual
Yes, absolutely.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you.
I'm trying to pick up on a variety of things, Dr. Ridal. On the Bay of Quinte work that's being done, would you characterize the contribution of the Government of Canada as insignificant or as major?
Executive Director, St. Lawrence River Institute of Environmental Sciences
I don't manage the funds through the Bay of Quinte, but my sense of it is that it is an amount comparable to that of the province.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Okay, that's very good.
Dr. Bruce, I think you mentioned a concern about increased levels of mercury and that concerns me. I wonder if you can give me any direction about what you think is the source or the cause of the increases you've mentioned.