Evidence of meeting #145 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 point.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
All right.
Mike wanted one more question, and I'll leave it to everybody to decide. We won't go longer than 12 minutes, but if it's less than that, then we'll adjourn.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Mike Bossio Liberal Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON
I don't know that they'll be able to provide an answer, but I'd like to see if there is an update anyway.
As you know, we did a report on CEPA. That's very near and dear to my heart, in particular given the impact within my own community of a chemical called 1,4-Dioxane, so I am always interested in any kind of updates that might exist around CEPA reform.
5:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Environmental Stewardship Branch, Department of the Environment
I can give you a brief update, but I'll start with the minister's response, which was that the committee identified a number of directional improvements that could be made to the implementation of the act and the department is committed to undertaking as many of those as possible. A lot of that work is under way and will be reflected in the next CEPA annual report.
Then there are some areas the committee recommended that would necessitate actual amendments to the statute. The government committed to consider those recommendations and to introduce amendments to the act in the next government, so after the election. In the interim, the government also committed to continue to engage with stakeholders to discuss the full set of potential amendments, including those that were recommended by the committee, with particular emphasis on three sets of amendments.
One set is around the so-called chemicals management plan, which really encompasses a lot of the environmental protection authorities in the act, the science and regulatory authorities. We've had extensive engagement with stakeholders for the past year on that, which will continue for at least another year on how that program could be improved and reoriented in the future.
The second area is the regulatory gap on first nation reserves. We have initiated consultations with first nations, in conjunction with CIRNA, because we see this as a subset of a broader governance issue on reserves. Again, the goal will be to conduct those consultations and then use those to inform any new government, post-fall 2019, of what the options are to address that issue.
The third very specific issue that the minister committed us to address is to do some more thinking and consultation, both with external stakeholders and with the Department of Justice, around substantive environmental rights. Those discussions are under way.
5:15 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Mike, sorry, I'm going to have to jump in.
5:15 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
I just learned that Madame Trudel needs to head back to the House. It's not great for us to continue without any members of the opposition here, so I do want to end the meeting at this point to respect that.
I have one really quick point. Tomorrow, the plastic pollution study revised work plan will be sent out to all members. We'll set a deadline in the note as to when you need to have comments back. Otherwise, that's what we will be working from when we get back to that study, after we finish off the two reports that we're working on now. Wayne will get the revised work plan for our next study tomorrow, but there's no urgency.
With that, thank you so much to the witnesses. It's always a pleasure to hear from you.
Mr. Jones.
February 27th, 2019 / 5:15 p.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Pan-Canadian Framework Implementation Office, Department of the Environment
I'm very sorry, but I want to flag something that I failed to mention during my update on the PCF, namely, two online resources that might be useful to the work of the committee. One is called the “Climate action map”, which is found on the Environment and Climate Change Canada website. It's an interactive map that shows individual projects with federal funds invested, whether from Infrastructure Canada, NRCan or Environment Canada. That might be a useful tool of interest.
The other is another interactive map at the Canadian Centre for Climate Services, in which we have compiled Environment Canada data on precipitation and temperature, both historical and projected into the future. You can click on different parts of the country and see not only historical trends, but also future projections. That is another useful tool.
I regret not mentioning those in my original answer. Thank you for the extra time.
5:20 p.m.
Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)
Okay, thank you.
Again, thank you to all of the witnesses.
Madame Trudel, thank you for being here.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.