Environment Committee on May 12th, 2015

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

They're not entirely mixed, because in 2010 there were six or seven studies, and now in 2014 there are something like 132 studies, the overwhelming preponderance of which show negative effects on animal and human health. I would have thought that you should actually exercise the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle says that you can't put the junk in the site unless you, the fracking company, can demonstrate that it's not going to affect the watercourses.

[Darren Goetze]

Again being the simple monitoring fellow that I am, I can tell you that we're trying to figure out if fracking is resulting in contamination of surface waters.

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

Has the minister ever asked you to move it up the food chain so to speak and get a handle on what this chemical soup is? I ask because I'm given to understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the companies claim a proprietary interest. That's more legal stuff—I was going to have a more pejorative description—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

You're running out of time so you need to give your—

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

I'm into the pejorative descriptions right now.

Is there any jurisdictional reason why you as Environment Canada can't get a handle on what this chemical soup is?

[John Moffet]

The short answer is no.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Okay.

We have Mrs. Ambler for the last five minutes.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Sorry.

Before we begin with Ms. Ambler I just want to clarify because I thought I heard you say we would wrap up after Ms. Ambler.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

That's correct.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Okay.

We do have 15 or 20 minutes left after Ms. Ambler, and I have more questions. The issue that Mr. Choquette brought up will be pretty quick because we already know—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Okay.

We have Mrs. Ambler and then you're on the list.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

That's great.

Thanks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll proceed with that.

Mrs. Ambler.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

Thank you for the second opportunity. I was hoping the first time around to ask about the Environment Canada funding of multi-stakeholder projects to restore Great Lakes areas of concern and, in particular, about the Great Lakes sustainability fund, which funds stewardship initiatives.

Has research been done on whether we're seeing the benefits of these stewardship programs and initiatives, especially at the local level, if they're being measured and how well they're working?

I know that in my area significant efforts have been undertaken to clean up the shoreline, to restore wildlife habitat, and to protect the fish. This is an important issue for residents of the area, but I always try to make the point, I think and I hope you'll agree, that it's not just for the local residents. It's a bigger issue when the government understands the importance of these small local efforts to clean up the water in urban areas and how important it is on a larger scale.

I'm wondering if you could comment on that fund, the stewardship initiatives, and if they're working.

[Darren Goetze]

I'm not in a position to do that because it's delivered by Environment Canada's office in the region. It's not directly an activity at the science program.

I don't know if Mr. Moffet can comment.

[John Moffet]

We can give you more information, but in general I can tell you that all these large ecosystem initiatives—the ones for the Great Lakes, Lake Simcoe, the St. Lawrence action plan, the Lake Winnipeg Basin stewardship fund, the Atlantic ecosystem initiatives funding program—are long-standing programs and all have built in obligations for evaluations. Whenever the funding gets renewed, the programs have to be evaluated.

We can provide you with access to the evaluation reports.

I certainly can't assert that every initiative has been uniformly successful, but for example within the Great Lakes close to a thousand restoration projects have been completed, where ecosystem quality has been improved. This has occurred over decades with the benefit of federal funding, federal scientific input, but also, of course, with the initiative of provincial and local governments and concerned citizens.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

That's wonderful.

Thank you.

Just to switch gears for a moment, Mr. Goetze, you mentioned a website earlier, and I was wondering who manages the website—the one that was referred to in the report on page 28, Environment Canada's water website. I also want to know how many visits that website receives, what types of Canadians go there, and whether there a place to comment on the website, what kinds of questions are asked, what do Canadians care about when it comes to water quality, and what are they asking you on this website?

[Darren Goetze]

I don't have statistics for the website visits. It would have to be our corporate services branch that would have those types of statistics. I can tell you that there is a place where Canadians can ask questions about water quality. We also have a site where they can ask for data as well. We share data. We respond to hundreds of requests for data every year through our website.

We also frankly get a range of questions about water quality. It would be hard to categorize individual topics. We have had questions, for example, on the airport of Montreal come through from our website. We've had questions on the Great Lakes and contaminants. We've had questions on legacy PCBs. We've had questions on the oil sands. We've really had quite a range of questions.

[Stella Ambler, Conservative, Mississauga South, ON]

And they're mostly just average, ordinary Canadians. They're not researchers or university students doing projects?

[Darren Goetze]

Data requests mostly come from the academic community, I would say. Other questions are mostly from Canadians trying to get information. Sometimes they haven't had a satisfactory answer from somewhere else. So they're coming to us to see if we can supplement answers that they may have asked of their province or city hall.

Yes, we do actually get a lot of kids coming in and asking us for help with their school projects.

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Thank you, Mrs. Ambler.

Our last question, Ms. Leslie, for five minutes, please.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for Environment Canada and are about the joint oil sands water monitoring project. Can you tell me if David Schindler is involved with the plan right now?

[Darren Goetze]

I don't think Dr. Schindler is directly involved with the planning, but I'm aware he has reviewed aspects and certainly talked to some of our scientists. I'm not aware that he's directly involved at this time.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

What about Dr. John O'Connor?