Evidence of meeting #55 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 data.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I'm glad to hear it, because we often, around this table, get various people who are full of doom and gloom, and this is a good news story.
I would like to ask you about the water quality monitoring that you do. I don't know if it was in Mr. Moffet's comments or in the report itself, but I saw that there were over 500 water quality monitoring sites. Am I correctly stating that?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
Yes.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Are those 500 operated by the Government of Canada?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
In fact, if you look at the picture on page 8, you'll see a collection of the sites there, and you'll see that they're a mix of federal, federal-provincial, water boards, and other activities that we're engaged in.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Has there been a change in number of water quality monitoring sites over the 10-year time period that is addressed in some of these comments?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
There have been relatively small changes over time in water quality monitoring sites.
We are currently at a point in our implementation of a risk-based approach such that we may actually make adjustments to water quality monitoring in accordance with the risk assessments we've done. We have made small changes in frequency monitoring. We've reinitiated different types of monitoring in parts of the country, based on our risk assessment.
It's very much a dynamic and adaptive system that we have at this point. We're making small changes over time as we go, as the data indicates that the changes are warranted.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In fact, I noticed in the report, under the heading “Freshwater Quality Monitoring Program”, that there was a reference to risk-based basin analysis. I don't know if a basin analysis is different from what you're talking about when you talk about risk-based analysis.
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
The risk-based basin analysis is one of the tools that we use in a broad-based, risk-based adaptive management approach that we're now using in the water quality monitoring program. Basically, we take geo-referenced information from a range of factors that can lead to water quality impairment. They include all of the factors that Ms. Gelfand mentioned earlier, such as run-off, agriculture, industrial activity of all kinds, population, waste water treatment plants, economic development, and climate change. We layer them onto a map and we come up with, on a basin basis across the country, a map of risk to water quality impairment in Canada.
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
That guides our implementation of our program so that we are addressing the biggest risks to water quality impairment across the country while not ignoring areas where the risks to water quality are low.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I'd like to get a temporal dimension on that, because I understand from Ms. Gelfand that this approach was in response to her recommendation in 2010 or 2011. Can you tell me how far you've gone in implementing in this risk-based approach and how much further you have to go?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
The short answer is that we have actually done everything that was recommended in the report and more.
We have done a review of our mandate. We have done site-specific risk assessments. We have done this basin level risk assessment. We have developed a new leading-edge statistical power analysis tool to optimize frequency of monitoring. We are integrating a biomonitoring tool so that we can look at aquatic ecosystem health. We have implemented a quality assurance framework.
We are now in the process of integrating our network design with the risk-based results and data coming out of the system so that we have comprehensive work plans that are data driven and adjusted for risk every single year.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
What's the timeframe for that integration of design with the data you have?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
The tool's development was basically from the period after the audit came out, starting in about 2011. We completed the tool's development in 2014 with the second, enhanced version of the risk-based basin assessment. We are now in the process of integrating and finalizing this tool.
It is a dynamic system. We call it a “plan-do-check-improve” model. It doesn't actually finish. We go back to the beginning and start over again so that we are constantly at the leading edge.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
Thank you, Mr. Woodworth. I understand your frustration in only having seven minutes, as a lawyer, but with at least three lawyers in the room, we may have to deal with rising levels of frustration.
We'll move on to Mr. McKay for seven minutes.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
For another rising level of frustration. That has been happening for the last six years, actually.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Like Mr. Woodworth, I am a recovering lawyer. Looking at this petri dish or soup of a jurisdictional exercise, you could take this and layer over the provincial, then layer over the municipal, and then presumably layer over the aboriginal. It seems to me that you would have a whole bunch of people running around and you would not necessarily get some serious monitoring.
I want to direct my first question to you, Mr. Moffet, with respect to the issue of fracking. It's largely a water issue but also an air issue. New York has taken the position that fracking is banned until the industry can prove that it is not of health concern. I don't know the basis for Quebec's ban, but I think it's still in place. New Brunswick is dealing with it. I'm not quite sure where New Brunswick will land on it. You probably know better than I the state of other jurisdictions.
The big issue with fracking seems to be this chemical soup that gets injected into the shale and the process itself. Whether it's the soup or whether it's the emissions or whether it's the discharges, you get all kinds of contradictory evidence going one way or another as to whether this is or is not a safe process. The evidence seems to be growing that this is less and less of a safe process. I'd be interested to know Environment Canada's level of jurisdiction and whether in fact Environment Canada sets up a monitoring site at each fracking site, each wellhead site.
Could you enlighten the committee on those issues, Mr. Moffet?
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
I'll start, and I think perhaps both of my colleagues might be able to add more detail.
The primary jurisdiction over fracking is provincial. Environment Canada could have jurisdiction if, for example, there were evidence that substances that had been assessed as toxic and added to schedule 1 of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act were being created or released in a way that created risk to the environment or to human health. Our science colleagues are remaining abreast of the scientific developments with respect to the toxic impact of fracking.
Other than that, it's the result of a local industrial activity that may have some geological impacts. It may have impacts on the water table. We don't have jurisdiction with respect to that. Of course, under the Fisheries Act we have jurisdiction over water that's frequented by fish.
So in terms of jurisdictional impacts, at the moment, as I say, unless we concluded that there was release of substances considered to be toxic, we would not have jurisdiction, but—
Liberal
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
I'm going to let Darren talk about the current scientific work that we're doing in this area.
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
Fracking has been an emerging issue and, obviously, there has been more and more attention given to the issue.
We initiated a study—what we would call a surveillance activity—four years ago. We are looking at a water quality baseline in an area of heavy fracking activity, the Horn River basin in northeastern British Columbia. That work is currently under way, and we expect to be publishing the results shortly.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Will you be able to find out what the chemical soup is that's going into these fracking sites?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
What we're looking for are chemicals that are indicative of fracking activity in surface water quality.