Environment Committee on Nov. 28th, 2013

[Bob Hamilton]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll note at the outset that in addition to Ron and Alan, we have officials behind us who can help with some of the detailed questions. With your permission, I could call them up to the table from time to time as we go.

Let me start on the Great Lakes issue, and I would ask our chief financial officer, Carol Najm, if she would come forward and provide specific details on what you've asked.

You're right to point out that the work we do at Environment Canada in the area of water is one of our priorities. We consider it quite important. It covers the Great Lakes, as you've mentioned, but there's also Georgian Bay, Lake Winnipeg, and a number of areas across the country. We're looking at what we can do to prevent the harmful effects of algae and other substances by trying to limit the amount of phosphorous that goes into the water, and we have a number of programs we've set up to do science, research, and action on those fronts. We work together with DFO in a number of circumstances.

Before I turn to Carol on the specific transfer to Fisheries, I'd just mention that our work with the U.S. on the Great Lakes is quite an important part of our activities as well, and we did agree to a renewal of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement in 2012. That provides a very important part to our work, together with the U.S., in an area that obviously has very sensitive environmental impacts and a large population living around it. That's an area where we focus a fair amount of attention, and we were very happy to have that agreement renewed.

That agreement identifies specific areas of concern, which you've raised. I would note one that's very topical at the moment, which we've just got agreement to move forward on, and that's Randle Reef in Hamilton Harbour. It has been identified as one of the areas of concern, and we are now moving forward with the agreement of the Government of Ontario, the municipality, and the Hamilton Port Authority on a very major remediation effort there. That's going to last a number of years, but we will finally be able to take care of the contaminants that are located there. That, again, is a very important part of what we're doing in the Great Lakes, in addition to the other areas across the country.

Carol, if you want to add anything on the specific transfer, go ahead.

[Carol Najm, Assistant Deputy Minister, Finance Branch, Department of the Environment]

In response to the request from Fisheries and Oceans, Environment Canada, as part of supplementary estimates (B), will transfer close to $900,000 to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans specifically for work in the Hamilton Harbour and the Bay of Quinte. It's going to be conducting habitat research and assessment of fish populations in support of remediation in that area of concern.

[Stephen Woodworth, Conservative, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

The other area I wanted to ask about arises in part from the minister's comment regarding oil spill concerns. There is a vote in these estimates of around $2.387 million to strengthen prevention, preparedness, and response to oil spills from ships, $2.327 million of which is for operating expenditures. I'm very glad the Government of Canada is strengthening those procedures because it's essential to social licence that we look after those risks. I wondered if one of you might comment for me on some particulars regarding that appropriation.

[Bob Hamilton]

Yes. Again, I'll start by talking a little bit about our work in the area of oil spills, and Carol can comment and add any details on the specific amounts in supplementary (B)s.

This is an area where we're doing a fair amount of work at the moment. From the Environment Canada angle, it comes in two forms. When there is an oil spill, often we're not the lead department in that exercise. It could be Transport or another department that would be leading. We are very important in a couple of regards, one of which is that we provide a coordination effort in terms of the response to an emergency, whatever it might be, such as an environmental emergency. We are putting a lot of effort into making sure we are doing that effectively. We've got some greater efficiencies in that area now, and we're able to better manage when something happens, making sure everybody knows what's going on.

I would also add that we contribute with our weather services in terms of the need to track wind patterns or anything that would help determine what the impacts of the spill would be and what the next steps would be. We provide efforts on that front.

The other area, in terms of oil spills, is that we are doing some scientific research on how diluted bitumen behaves, for example, in water. Does it behave the same as other types of oil? Are there things we can see that would help us know about the behaviour? This is if there were to be a spill. We do everything we can to prevent there ever being one. So we contribute on that science side of things to the debate to try to bring that scientific information to the front.

Those are a couple of the areas where we contribute to the oil spills regime. I think Environment Canada plays a pretty significant role.

Carol, if you want to talk a little bit about subsidies—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

We'll have to leave the specifics for another time. We're well over on Mr. Woodworth's time.

We'll move to Madame Freeman and Mr. Aubin.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thanks to our officials for being here today.

I'm going to jump right in, because I have a bunch of questions, and if I have time left over, I'm going to pass it on to my colleagues.

In the changes that were brought in through the last couple of omnibus budget bills, there were two that resulted in big changes to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, and as a result to its budget. The repeal of the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and gutting of the Navigable Waters Protection Act mean that only a handful of the projects that would have been assessed under the 1995 CEAA are now being assessed. My information is that just under 1% are being assessed. So with only a handful of rivers and lakes protected under navigable waters, hundreds of thousands of lakes, a thousand in my riding actually, could have pipelines, or bridges, or other works built, without triggering any kind of environmental assessment that would have been triggered before.

The new CEAA 2012 regulations were announced a couple of weeks ago, and there are holes, in my opinion, in the list of projects that now require an environmental assessment—pipelines, offshore drilling, just as examples. How exactly was this list arrived at? What is the process for amending it? And how did you decide that it was no longer worthwhile examining projects that cross navigable waters, for example?

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Mr. Hallman, do you want to respond to that, or Mr. Hamilton?

Mr. Hallman.

[Ron Hallman, President, Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency]

Thank you. I'll start, Chair, and others may jump in after.

What I can tell you is that changes to the project list regulations were made to ensure that they cover those projects with the greatest potential for significant adverse environmental effects in areas of federal jurisdiction, which focuses resources on where they most need to be. A number of additions and deletions were made to the previous project list, based on whether they have potential for significant adverse environmental effects in areas of federal jurisdiction or not.

For example, project classes such as offshore exploratory wells and diamond mines were not previously on the list. They were added as it was determined that they do have a higher potential for adverse effects. Projects like in situ oil drilling are not included because they don't have significant effects in areas of federal jurisdiction. And just for clarification, in situ was never on the list. It wasn't removed; it just wasn't added.

For those types that were removed from the list, they were found to not have typically had high potential for significant effects in areas of federal jurisdiction, so they were removed. The process for that was that the government consulted various stakeholders, aboriginal groups, the public. There was a draft that was gazetted. Based on that feedback, the government made decisions about what would be on the regulations, and those are the ones we saw.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

To be fair, there is a pretty major limiting of the scope, and there's been a reduction in the number of factors that are taken into account.

But to get beyond that, how much money is the government saving the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency's budget by really limiting the scope?

[Ron Hallman]

I think a more accurate way of framing that would be that we are putting the resources we do have to those areas that have the highest potential for adverse effect. So rather than dealing with some that may have been more inconsequential, and that were subject to a federal EA simply because, for example, the federal government may have been putting in money even if there were not significant effects, those have been removed so that the bigger, more major projects that are expected to potentially have significant effects can be focused on with the resources we have.

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Unfortunately, we don't know exactly yet, but that does leave a fair number of gaps that are leaving a lot of things completely uncovered, and not covered by provincial jurisdiction either, so it's not a question of duplication.

But to move on further into that, the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency had 12.8% of its available funds allowed to lapse; that's $4.1 million. For me, that's not surprising. I assume that's because there are cuts and not so many triggers left. Can you explain that substantial amount of money left over? I'd also like to know if it's going to be carried forward to this year's budget, and how the agency actually overestimated its budget to such a huge percentage.

[Ron Hallman]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I can first of all acknowledge the question in terms of the lapsing. There were really two portions to the lapse identified by the member, the $4.1 million lapse. Part of it was through grants and contributions, the dollars that were lapsed, and the other part was the O and M that was lapsed.

The reason, really, for the grants and contributions is twofold. First of all, the agency manages those contribution dollars based on take-up and need, and based on the timing and phasing of the projects. When we are forecasting projects that we believe are coming forward, we map out the potential timeframe for a proponent to bring forward a project description, an EIS statement, and the actual conduct of the EA. We map out certain timeframes. Often the proponent will take longer—or shorter—than what we anticipated to get the project description done. They will take longer to do the environmental impact statement than we might have contemplated.

During those times the clock is stopped, but there also is no work for aboriginal or other groups to comment on or participate in, and we don't flow that money when it's not needed. Those commitments, however, are retained going forward.

We have more than $6 million, for example, already booked for contribution—

[Mylène Freeman, NDP, Argenteuil—Papineau—Mirabel, QC]

Sorry, but I'm going to stop you right there and put forward a couple of questions—

[The Chair, Conservative, Harold Albrecht]

Maybe in the next round you can, because your time is up. We're at seven minutes.

We'll move to Mr. Lunney, please.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much.

I want to pick up on the marine environment and marine conservation areas, being as I come from a coastal area. I noticed these sums:

$1,234,506 to support conservation in marine based ecosystems, $340,000 of which is through grants and contributions, while $894,506 is for operating expenditures;

I wanted to ask about how the funds in this marine-based ecosystem are based. Is a lot of this money going into ongoing development plans for marine conservation areas—I know we have an interest in going in that direction—or is some in managing some of our marine conservation areas?

As well, on the grants and contributions, could you describe maybe who are some of the partners you're working with in that realm?

[Bob Hamilton]

Perhaps I'll turn that over to Carol. I'm not sure if we have all of the information that you want at our disposal, but we can certainly get it.

Carol, did you want to tackle that?

[Carol Najm]

I can briefly give some highlights.

Responsible marine management is really about all of the work that's done on consultations, designation, and the management of proposed work. Their 2013-14 funding will enable the completion of a management action plan, regulatory impact assessments to support the designation process, and the publication of proposed regulatory amendments.

For example, the establishment of Scott Islands will enable Canada to contribute to the global target by protecting 10% of the marine and coastal environment by 2020.

Those are some of the high-level examples. We can provide you with more details.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, well, there's a lot of interest out our way in the Georgia Strait initiative around the Gulf Islands. It's a very ambitious plan considering it's a rather developed area with lots of human activity in the area, including industrial traffic through the area.

Mr. Latourelle, I don't know whether that falls into your area. Where are you at with consultations in that particular development? Can you comment on that?

[Alan Latourelle, Chief Executive Officer, Parks Canada]

Yes, I can, Mr. Chair.

We're continuing the feasibility study. As the member is probably aware, the federal and provincial governments have identified the proposed boundary that we're consulting on. We're now carrying out consultations with municipalities but also with aboriginal communities.

Our objective over the next year is to complete that consultation process and be in a position to offer advice to the government.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you.

Does that include some of the industrial users in the area, such as the commercial fishing in there, and...?

[Alan Latourelle]

Yes. The broad range of users in the national marine conservation area are all consulted, for example, and would be part of the report we would table in Parliament if there was establishment of the marine conservation area.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thanks very much.

Now, I want to go on to another issue, which was actually where my colleague, Mr. Woodworth, was headed, and you didn't get a chance to reply. That is on the $2.387 million toward strengthening prevention, preparedness and response to oil spills from ships. As we jump into that, part of your response before you ran out of time was that you are looking at doing some research on the behaviour of bitumen and water, especially salt water, how it behaves and so on. I just want to throw something out for consideration if it isn't on your radar.

I remember that when the terrible incident happened down in the gulf, there were farmers saying why didn't they just distribute straw on the surface of the water, that it was great for trapping and holding oil on the surface. I don't know if anybody followed up on that, so I'll throw it out there for consideration.

But I would like you to perhaps follow up on where we were headed with Mr. Woodworth's question. There's a lot of anxiety on the coast about the oil spill situation, even though we have double-hulled tankers now and there hasn't been a major spill since that's been engaged—anywhere in the world, actually. The risk is small, but the anxiety is high. So I think in terms of addressing social licence, we have to do more to make sure that contingency plans are in place to deal with the worst-case scenario. Could you explain to us exactly where we're at on that file?

[Bob Hamilton]

Yes.

The last time we ran out of time because I went on a long time and Carol didn't get to provide the details. So I'll keep it very short.

Suffice to say that, yes, there's a lot of interest and work being done on the issue of oil spills, and there are two tracks. One is to make sure we do everything we can to prevent them—collectively. It isn't just Environment Canada; it's across governments—federal, provincial. Are we doing everything we can to prevent them? And then, are we also making the necessary plans so that in the event something happens, we minimize the environmental impact from it?

For our part in Environment Canada, the point you raised, the research we're doing—which isn't completed yet, but we hope to be completing it soon—is looking at bitumen. We have a lot of information about how conventional oil might behave if it were spilled. We're trying to get the information up to that level for bitumen, which may or may not react differently. We want to understand the properties and what would happen, and then be best placed to deal with a spill if it ever did happen. So that research will be our contribution into that effort, which as you say, goes from the types of ships that are there to a whole bunch of other areas that are really being led by others.

Carol, is there anything further that you wanted to add on the specifics of those dollars that you didn't get a chance to?

[Carol Najm]

Not at this time, no.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay, thank you for that.