Environment Committee on June 2nd, 2016

[Julie Gelfand]

Sixty-five percent of residences are flood plain mapped; 35% are not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're going to have to stop there. We're over six minutes.

Before I turn to the next person, I am also a past regional councillor, and I think it would be great if it were just about giving the money back to that community, but it isn't. It's taking money from other communities and other Canadians and other places and putting it to that project. It isn't set that you put this much money in through your gas tax, and that this is how much you get back. It's a broad program, and I think we need to be accountable to all Canadians.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

That's not correct. That's not the case. The money comes back based on population.

[Dianne Lynn Watts, Conservative, South Surrey—White Rock, BC]

It's based on population. We regionalize some of it, but it's all per capita.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

It's totally per capita? There isn't any additional money? Then I'm mistaken, and I will retract. Sorry I put my oar in the water.

Mr. Fisher.

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

I had to scratch an awful lot of my stuff because a lot of the people around the table have asked some of the great questions I wanted to ask—albeit probably provided to me by Mr. Gerretsen, who is the king of great questions.

Mr. Bossio was talking about the risk-based approach. Julie, you note in your report:

The department's reactive approach to addressing reported product safety incidents did not provide an acceptable substitute for a more strategic assessment of risk to determine whether further attention to this issue may be warranted.

If Health Canada were to move away from a risk-based approach in favour of something more strategic, what would that look like? What would you suggest? What do you think might be a better approach?

We've talked a lot about the risk-based approach. We talked about it in our CEPA review. It has come up numerous times. Some people felt it worked pretty well. I'm not certain. I would be interested in your comments on that.

[Julie Gelfand]

I'm going to pass this over to Andrew, and perhaps it will go over to the department.

[Andrew Ferguson, Principal, Sustainable Development Strategies, Audits and Studies, Office of the Auditor General of Canada]

We're not suggesting that a risk-based approach is not appropriate. What we were suggesting is that the number of incident reports related to counterfeit products is not a reasonable proxy for a more thorough risk assessment.

As the commissioner pointed out, many people aren't even aware that they should report these incidents to Health Canada when such an incident occurs or when they become aware of something, yet we've found—or it's our understanding, at least—that this is what the department uses to determine the risks of counterfeit in e-commerce in the Canadian marketplace. We don't believe that the number of incident reports is a reasonable proxy for a thorough risk assessment.

[Julie Gelfand]

I was going to add that in 2007 and 2008 the department got some funding to try to improve the cosmetic regulations. We note in our report three things that the department could have done, but in 2012 they decided not to proceed. Those three things would have been requiring mandatory incident reporting—because right now it's not mandatory—notifying Health Canada of ingredients prior to sale, and disclosure of these fragrance allergens, as happens in the European Union. They decided not to proceed with that. You could ask the department why and whether or not they're thinking of reinvigorating those potential regulations to strengthen the cosmetic regulations.

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

I have one further question. I guess this one would be for Ms. MacDonald, as it pertains to severe weather and natural disasters. I'm interested in action versus reaction. Right now to mitigate we spend pennies, compared to what we spend on restorative efforts after a natural disaster or a severe weather incident.

Is it realistic? How do you spend money properly across a huge country to mitigate for a natural disaster or severe weather instances? Do you feel that there's a way we could find to spread money out to be prepared for something that you would have virtually no ability to predict, such as Fort Mac, for instance?

[Lori MacDonald]

I think that going forward there are many ways in which we can prepare in terms of mitigating against natural disasters. We know that in Canada right now we spend the most money on flooding. With respect to flood-related disasters, there are many mitigative measures we can put in place in local communities to reduce that and to actually build into that a return on investment in terms of savings.

The example of Manitoba is a very good one in terms of that. Mitigation measures, prevention, and public awareness are all important pieces in order to become a more resilient and sustainable community. That's one example.

Another example would be what we call “building back better”. You can look at Fort McMurray as an example. As they go through this process of rebuilding we're already having conversations with them with respect to how to become more resilient. Things like fire-retardant asphalt in the community and fire-retardant shingles on roofs are community-resilient things that are mitigative in scope and also have an impact in terms of return on investment. There are many things that we can be doing to become more resilient.

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

You speak of scope. To me, it sounds like that would be a huge cost across a huge country like Canada. To put that into scope for mitigation for the entire country to predict for a possible natural disaster within a certain area is I think a huge challenge.

Do I still have a minute left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have one minute.

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

I'd like to give it to Mr. Amos for a question that he was trying to get out.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have one minute, Mr. Amos.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

My question is going to be a bit of a riff on member Watts' point around the “facts“ on how gas-tax funding happened. I think she states the record quite clearly. Climate and environment weren't the specific focus of gas-tax funding. It happened that there were projects that were funded in the environmental realm; however, the federal government did not, over the past decade, make greenhouse gas emissions reductions the primary focus. I think that's to the discredit of the previous government's decision-making.

[An hon. member]

Oh, oh!

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Excuse me, but I think that's a direction that we need to be moving in.

My question would go to Infrastructure Canada. How will we enable municipal governments to do the greenhouse gas emission reduction analysis so they can come forward with projects that can enable that kind of policy objective?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

As I mentioned earlier, we are going to be partnering with a few partners, such as the FCM, to push the envelope even a little bit longer in terms of planning and asset management. Coming back to more sustainability and clean water, we are going to invest a fair amount of dollars in terms of making sure that municipalities can do long-term planning, providing whatever requirements they have in terms of priorities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Okay, we're out of time, I'm sorry.

We have one last questioner. Back to Mr. Donnelly, for three minutes.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Commissioner, I want to go back to talking about incentives for a second. In your audit on severe weather you mentioned that in order “to successfully promote mitigation, programs should include incentives for provinces and territories to take proactive measures.” Are there specific incentives you propose in these programs?

[Julie Gelfand]

My understanding is that we did not promote any specific incentives. When we looked at these, there were three funds that would help communities mitigate against severe weather events. We found very little funding was actually applied for. There was about $253 million available, and the provinces and territories applied for less than half of that. We suggest to the government that there's something there, albeit we're not sure what. We recommend to Infrastructure Canada that they look at the design of that and figure out what is stopping provinces and territories from applying for that money, essentially leaving money on the table.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Can I ask Infrastructure Canada if they have suggestions for incentives, or if they are working on or looking at ideas for incentives?

[Dr. Marc Fortin]

That's a core question. We're getting into the world of categories here, of eligibility in terms of projects. The federal government's approach, under the gas tax in particular, was to have a wider range of categories so that the municipalities and the provinces could choose in line with their top priorities. But we do set some categories in order to frame the area of eligibility a little bit.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

You're broadening the scope, but are there other specific incentives that are going to help them achieve these?