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.
Director General, Monitoring and Data Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
It would depend on the sites. We have been operating in Canada since 1908. Some sites have very long-term data collection and some have less. In particular, I would say that at the sites for transboundary waters, we have long-term data collection.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Keeping in mind the answers that were given a few moments ago about the report we have today showing us a snapshot for 2011, can you tell me whether or not the department operates any comparison of water flow over a longer period of time rather than simply an annual snapshot?
Director General, Monitoring and Data Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
Absolutely. This snapshot is just one product we were asked to develop so that the general population could actually analyze or see the results. The idea of a normal is so you can compare it to weather normals. It's warmer or colder than the normal. This information was meant to be sort of the same as that, but we actually do have to have authoritative data in the long term for it to help support design of dams and other types of engineering and constructions. So yes, we do have the long-term data.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Understanding that there are occasional idiosyncratic blips in particular geographic regions where the flow may from time to time depart significantly from normal, if I were to ask you about overall water flows in Canada in the last 10 years, would you say they had been normal compared to the 30-year norm you spoke about?
Director General, Monitoring and Data Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
The suggestion is that the amount of water we have in B.C. is tending to be a little bit higher. In the prairies, it is tending to be a bit lower, and in Ontario and Quebec, which are the other two provinces I have information on, the trends are not conclusive. But again, there are trends.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you.
A lot of your work involves the Canadian environmental sustainability indicators, CESI for short. Can you tell me when those were initiated or when they first began to be used?
Director General, Monitoring and Data Services Directorate, Department of the Environment
The Canadian sustainability indicators are actually fairly new. I should go back and say that the bulk of our work is really to support a number of things. I've talked about the engineering portion. Understanding the water flows will influence the constructions that you put in the rivers. That's one piece. But the other piece is the transboundary waters work, and we're supporting how we manage water levels in order to—
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
If I can draw you back to my question, I had the notion that the Canadian environmental sustainability indicators have been a big help and a great tool in guiding policy. I'd like to know for how long they've been available. Is this an initiative that has arisen in just the last 10 years or is it of longer standing?
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
It's a little longer than 10 years. CESI dates back to an initiative of the national round table in about 2004. The indicators have been updated continuously since then and expanded, and are now reported under the Federal Sustainable Development Act.
But I would emphasize that Environment Canada has had the obligation to report on the state of the environment and to generate indicators at a national, regional, and local level since 1988. Prior to 1988, of course, we go back to the beginning of the Meteorological Service, which is certainly the oldest organization in Environment Canada and has been generating and publishing data for almost a century now.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Harold Albrecht
You're well beyond your time, Mr. Woodworth, in spite of any level of frustration.
We'll hear from Mr. McKay and Mrs. Ambler and then we're going to discontinue.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Mr. Woodworth and I have something going here.
I want to go back to my front door-back door analogy here and maybe direct this to Mr. Goetze.
What if I stood on the edge of my riding of Scarborough—Guildwood, which, like Ms. Ambler's, is right on the edge of Lake Ontario but causes her some level of jealousy, because it is so beautiful—and I poured in benzene, a known carcinogen; toluene, which affects the nervous system with long-term exposure; ethylbenzene, which creates blood disorders; xylenes, which cause irritation to the nose and throat if absorbed in high levels; methanol, which causes blurred vision; naphthalene, which causes abdominal pain; and formaldehyde, which is a human carcinogen, etc.?
All of this stuff is going into fracking sites. I don't understand why. You tell me the jurisdictional reason why Environment Canada doesn't know, or doesn't monitor, or doesn't regulate that stuff, because I dare say that if I stood at the edge of my riding and poured all that stuff into Lake Ontario, you'd be all over me.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Exactly.
Tell me what is the intellectual or the legal distinction between my pouring all that stuff into Lake Ontario—and don't give me international jurisdictions, or water laws or jazz—but right into those fracking sites.... Why is it that you guys aren't all over that?
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
As Mr. Goetze is a poor simple physicist, I'll take that.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
Sorry. You know you're dead in the water when the lawyer answers.
Liberal
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
I'm sure Dr. Goetze has more to elaborate on this, but the basic issue at the moment is twofold. One, there is a federal jurisdictional issue. If you put that stuff in Lake Ontario, you would be depositing deleterious substances into water frequented by fish. You would have violated a long-standing statutory prohibition and—
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
So unless there are some fish swimming below the fracking site, you have no jurisdiction?
Director General, Legislative and Regulatory Affairs, Department of the Environment
Or we have evidence that the substances that you're depositing are posing a risk to the environment or to human health, and that's why Dr. Goetze and his team have initiated the study that he referred to earlier.
Liberal
John McKay Liberal Scarborough—Guildwood, ON
How much study do you actually need to know that benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, methanol, and naphthalene actually cause risks to human health?
Executive Director, Water Quality Monitoring and Surveillance, Department of the Environment
It's not so much that we don't understand whether these compounds pose a risk to human health; the question is whether they're occurring in surface waters as a result of the fracking activity. That's the question, frankly, that we don't know.... There have been international studies. We've looked at the range of literature that has been published on this and, frankly, the results are mixed.