Environment Committee on Oct. 4th, 2018

Evidence of meeting #123 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was audit.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Reports of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development - Fall 2018

Committee Business

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Chair Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)

Julie Gelfand Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Gwen Goodier Executive Director, Chemicals Management Division, Department of the Environment

Heather McCready Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

David Morin Director General, Safe Environments Directorate, Healthy Environments and Consumer Safety Branch, Department of Health

Adam Burns Director General, Fisheries Resources Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans

Roger Roberge Acting Director General, Sustainability Directorate, Department of the Environment

Philippe Morel Assistant Deputy Minister, Aquatic Ecosystems Sector, Department of Fisheries and Oceans

Wayne Stetski Kootenay—Columbia, NDP

Tamaini Snaith Acting Director, Natural Resources Conservation, Parks Canada Agency

Mike Lake Edmonton—Wetaskiwin, CPC

David Yurdiga Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC

Grant Hogg Director, Protected Areas Directorate, Department of the Environment

Julie Dzerowicz Davenport, Lib.

October 4th, 2018 / 4:50 p.m.

David Yurdiga Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming here today to provide so much knowledge in such a short time.

I'm new to this committee, and some things really stood out for me. The government identified 138 toxic substances, such as mercury, lead and PCBs. I'm curious about how it is broken down. What is the source? Is it municipal, industrial, agricultural?

We understand it's there. What is the source, and is that documented over time, Commissioner?

4:50 p.m.

Commissioner, Office of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development

Julie Gelfand

I think it's best to ask the department that question.

4:50 p.m.

Executive Director, Chemicals Management Division, Department of the Environment

Gwen Goodier

I can start. Then I think my colleague David will want to jump in.

When we do a risk assessment, we assess whether the substance has negative impacts on human health and the environment. They are from a multitude of sources. They can be end-of-pipe industrial releases or diffused from products in landfills into the air, water, groundwater or surface water. They can come directly from the processes that produce products, from the products themselves, from the mining sector or pulp and paper. Anywhere there is the potential for pollution is a potential source of toxic substances.

I don't think there is one that is greater than another. When we look at each toxic substance, we do assess how the exposure is happening, and how humans or the environment are exposed to that particular substance. That allows us to target our risk management efforts, because we need to know the source of the substance in order to be able to address the risks and reduce them.

4:50 p.m.

Fort McMurray—Cold Lake, CPC

David Yurdiga

Thank you.

A lot of municipalities dump raw sewage into our waterways. A lot of times, things are dumped into our system that shouldn't be.

What is the monitoring process for municipalities? Obviously, it's a huge concern for a lot of community members when we have raw sewage going into the waterways. Who does the testing for that? Is there a record of whether the toxins are increasing as a result of that? Can I go somewhere on the Internet and find out information? A lot of times information is not readily available to an average Canadian, or we don't know where to look.

4:50 p.m.

Director General, Environmental Enforcement, Department of the Environment

Heather McCready

I'll start from an enforcement perspective.

We may have to come back to you with that specific information, because that would come from our science and technology branch and we don't have anyone here with us. We can come back to you in writing if you would appreciate that.

Regarding municipal waste water, my program actually does quite a bit of work in that area outside the scope of this audit.

The way I look at our program, I'm not specifically looking at CEPA toxics or the Fisheries Act or mining. It's about enforcement as a whole and how to solve problems with the tools we have.

For example, we actually use the Fisheries Act to address issues with pesticides. That handles toxic things, but not in a way that this audit really captured.

You mentioned waste water, which is a significant area of work for us. We handle that with a regulation under the Fisheries Act called the wastewater systems effluent regulations. That is an area where we are doing more and more work. There are lots of inspections across the country, and we've put a national approach in place. Actually, one of our officers recently won an award from the Community of Federal Regulators for his unique approach in dealing with the province of Newfoundland.

Dealing with municipalities is a very different situation from dealing with a multinational mining corporation. We understand that with waste water, we're talking about a need for quite substantial infrastructure investments in some cases. It's a problem that doesn't necessarily have an enforcement solution, but enforcement can be an important part of it. We do quite a lot of inspections. Doing those inspections, we are able to identify which municipalities are having issues and are dumping the most raw sewage into the environment. Then we can prioritize our enforcement action to focus on those areas.

We end up working quite collaboratively with municipalities. Sometimes we'll issue an enforcement action to a municipality. That seems uncollaborative, but most of them understand that they are then able to use that to speak with provincial authorities or federal authorities to bump them up in the queue for getting potential funding for infrastructure investment. We can actually be a part of the solution. That's an area of key focus for us.

In terms of where you can go to get that information, we would have to come back to you in writing, potentially. Unless Gwen can add....

4:50 p.m.

Executive Director, Chemicals Management Division, Department of the Environment

Gwen Goodier

Under the wastewater effluent system regulations, municipal governments do have to do environmental effects monitoring, and they provide that data to the department. To my knowledge we don't make it public, but we do collect information to make sure that they're meeting the requirements under the regulations.

You're right to point out waste water as a source of contaminants. That's why those regulations were put in place. They spell out the timelines for municipal governments to make sure that their waste water treatment systems are dealing with the waste water to bring it to at least a secondary treatment level, which removes between 90% to 95% of contaminants.