Environment Committee on April 1st, 2014

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

Yes. Okay.

I guess what I find very interesting is that we are bringing forward factual evidence and then saying that we don't really know how much it has increased. That is troubling for us, because when we bring forward testimony that quotes certain studies showing certain things happening, and then we can't give the basis points for that, it does really make it challenging for us to understand what's the degree, what's the change, and how much it has changed.

[Mary Muter]

Well, David just told you. It's the U.S. agency. We don't have any Canadian agency that's doing that kind of work.

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

Thank you.

[David Sweetnam]

We could provide that information to the clerk.

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

Thank you.

Going over to Ducks, I have a quick question.

I found it very interesting to see some of the figures that you had here on the economic valuation, the estimated worth of the hectares of land in the Lake Simcoe basin or the wetlands. I found some of those numbers that you came up with there very interesting. Without going into a great deal of detail, because we have a very short time span, I'm wondering if you could give us some idea of how you arrived at those numbers. I'm talking about the $11,172.

[Mark Gloutney]

That was a report from the Suzuki foundation, pulled together, and they looked at all of the combined values of all the services you get from wetlands. They're talking about phosphorous removal. They're talking about recreational opportunities. They're talking about flood storage capacity. They're talking about—it has been a while since I read the report—carbon issues, carbon sequestration, greenhouse gases, and recreational value. They considered all of those goods and services that you get from having wetlands within the landscape.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Toet.

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

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to touch on the wetlands as well, because over the last two years in Parliament we've heard much about how this present government has taken away the requirement of environmental assessment for farmers for drainage ditches. They talked about it quite a bit. I'm thinking to myself there are hundreds of thousands of farmers, and hundreds of thousands of drainage ditches. At what point do non-regulated drainage ditches add to the problem of wetland removals in this country?

[James Brennan]

The drainage ditches are a vehicle through which wetlands are drained. So we have been arguing for some time that if you're going to address the problem, you need to address the root of the problem, which is the loss of the wetland on the landscape.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

So basically that would be my concern. If we're taking away the need for anyone to get licences or permission to increase the drainage in a particular area, then through that process we may well be losing lots of wetlands. Is that assumption valid?

[Mark Gloutney]

A core part of all of the work we've done from the policy perspective is really identifying the need to keep the wetlands on the landscape. Wetland policies need to look at all the wetlands that exist on the landscape and identify those that need to be protected. There are instances across the country where you have unregulated and unrestricted drainage happening, and it's contributing to losses of wetlands.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Fair enough, then. I just want that point to be well understood by my colleagues here.

Professor Ciborowski, I brought up the TFA. There was a study done in 2002 that showed elevated levels of this compound in the lakes. Now, that was 12 years ago. Do you mean there hasn't been any further study of this particular compound?

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

There could very well be, but it's outside my area of expertise. That's why I can't give you a direct answer on it.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Okay. How would we find out what chemicals are being tested for in the Great Lakes right now? What is the agency that would provide that information?

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

That would be Environment Canada on the Canadian side and the EPA on the U.S. side that are doing those—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Are they publicly listing compounds that they've tested for?

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

They're part of the routine monitoring for the Great Lakes themselves. But again that is being cut back to some extent. The way monitoring proceeds on the Great Lakes right now is that each Great Lake is targeted for an intensive year of study in rotation. So last year was the intensive year for Lake Ontario; so there should be current information collected for Lake Ontario from last year. This year is the intensive year for Lake Erie, so the parties will be collecting data for the conditions in Lake Erie.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Western Arctic, NT]

Do you see anything that we should be testing for in those lakes? Are there chemicals that you feel need to be looked at more in depth? That's a little bit of a pun, but....

[Dr. Jan Ciborowski]

That's a fundamental part of monitoring, and the sediments in the water are monitored on a regular basis. Keeping track of what those trends are is another part where we don't have the resources. We have loads and loads of information that sits there in the databases because we don't have the scientists to interpret that information and make it public. So the information could very well be there, but it's sitting on a database rather than being interpreted and publicized.

[David Sweetnam]

I just had a point with emerging chemicals. For example, everybody liked this idea of body washes that had antimicrobial properties, and the personal care product companies started to load nano-silver into these products, which bioaccumulate. They're persistent in the environment. There's no connection between adding something to a personal care product and water quality. There's no scrutinization process that connects those two right now, which leads us to point to this precautionary approach in order to avoid those things before you allow them. If there was some linkage between regulation of any product that ultimately may make its way into the water body, I think you could actually start to be a little more proactive than reactive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you.

We'll move now to Mr. Storseth for the last five minutes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for coming today. It's always entertaining. My opposition colleagues in the NDP, if it breathes, they'll tax it. If it exists, they'll regulate it. When it dies, they'll tax it again.

To be clear, it's not the ditches themselves that are the issue, but the wetlands that we need to make sure we maintain and preserve. That's the ultimate solution.

[James Brennan]

Yes. It's the wetlands loss that's the issue.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

So if we regulate the ditches as best as we can, will it help us preserve the wetlands?

[James Brennan]

I would say likely not.