Environment Committee on Feb. 16th, 2016

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

What city is that?

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Fort St. John.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Well done. Good for you.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

We need to address those kinds of things and the different technologies. Most of it, if you look at a solar panel in your house or thermal energy, it just doesn't pay today for an average person to upgrade their house with modern technology to make it energy efficient. They won't recover the cost. Most of the time it takes 25 to 30 years to recover that cost, so most people won't invest.

As a government we need to encourage industry to develop these technologies and bring the costs down. It's not going to happen unless we work at it that way to get those things.

There's another thing I wanted to mention. Mark, were you the one who talked about contaminated sites, or was that your partner next door to you?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

It was Will.

[Jim Eglinski, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Yes.

As a mayor, I was frustrated. Anyone else who has been a mayor or has lived in municipalities knows this. We have these brown sites all over this country. There are probably thousands of them. You can't force the companies to do anything with them because there are no laws. The municipalities are sitting on these vacant lots throughout the cities, and the companies will not do anything about them because it's cheaper to pay the taxes and leave the lot sitting the way it is.

We have many municipalities, smaller and larger ones around this country, that are screaming for space and for development within their communities and we have these vacant lots. You can probably relate to this, but I checked with our environmental lawyers, and they said we couldn't take those sites over, clean them up ourselves, and make little parks out of them because then we're taking on the liability factor of the old contaminated sites.

This is something that needs to be looked at, because there are thousands and thousands of acres of land in our municipalities across this country that are contaminated sites. The companies would rather pay taxes on them than do anything to reclaim them or help the municipalities.

I'm supportive of a lot of those things.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

MP Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I also got great value from the discussion around this table.

In terms of process going forward and how we want to frame any future studies, I think we want to make sure that the studies we undertake are significantly focused so we actually get the value out of them. In other words, there's a suggestion that we do a review of CEPA, and maybe that wasn't the full suggestion, but if we were going to do a review of CEPA, with all of the different headings that William mentioned, for example, it could take years for us to complete. Most studies take five or ten sessions and they're done. So they have to be very focused.

I appreciated William's comment about the bankruptcy legislation and some of its shortcomings when it comes to environmental protection. That's something that could be undertaken in a relatively short study. You could get that accomplished and then move on to something else, rather than doing a comprehensive study of a larger and broader piece of legislation.

As a note to Darren, we did actually fund recreational infrastructure under the rink program. You may remember it.

[Darren Fisher, Liberal, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Light refittings and stuff—

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

No, it was a pretty significant program across the country.

I have one question.

John, you mentioned a SARA review. My understanding from the minister was that at this point, government is not considering to undertake a review of SARA—CEAA, but not SARA itself. If we do that here, it will be an interesting discussion.

I also embrace Mike's suggestion that we look at the whole issue of energy subsidies, especially in the alternative energy sector. I think we as a country and as provinces can do better than we've done so far. Driving up the cost of energy unnecessarily is a challenge that we face, and it's a study that I think we would embrace.

Also, there is a suggestion that we talk about a change in our building codes to take into account the technology that is already available and that is becoming available in the future. We allow houses to be built. They're there for 40, 50, or 70 years. Once they're built, to reorient them, especially in terms of rooflines, is very difficult if not impossible to do.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

On that one, were you agreeing or not?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes, I'm agreeing.

Those are the kinds of studies that are specific enough that we can actually get them done in a reasonable period of time and move them forward for consideration by government.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

I'd like to add something.

I wonder if we have the mandate for that. I agree with it 100%. The building codes are so outdated. They're still building houses like they did 100 years ago when so many improvements could be made. However, the building codes themselves are driven by the provinces. We'd have to do that as a study that hopefully the provinces would buy into.

I don't know how that would work, but that would be something for us to look into further. I think it's a great idea, but—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Are you okay if people jump in?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes.

There is a federal component to the provincial building codes.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Is there?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Yes.

The provinces are actually adopting national standards.

[Mike Bossio, Liberal, Hastings—Lennox and Addington, ON]

Are they? Okay, good. Thank you. I think that was—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Is that what you were going to say, MP Gerretsen?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

I was just going to make the comment that my understanding is that only two provinces, Ontario and Quebec, actually have provincial building codes. Does Alberta have a provincial building code?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

B.C. does.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

B.C. does.

[An hon. member]

Everybody does.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Everybody has their own? I thought that a number of the provinces just take the national standard as theirs.

Thank you for the clarification.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Mr. Amos, we don't want to steal the show from Mr. Fast, but go ahead.