Environment Committee on Nov. 17th, 2016

[Gabriel Miller]

Setting aside the variations among countries, the best information we have is that there are 50 countries around the world that have outright bans on the use of asbestos. I'm sure there's some variation in how complete that is, but there's no question that—

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

Where do we rank?

[Gabriel Miller]

We're not in the top 50. I can tell you that.

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

If you don't know, that's fine.

[Gabriel Miller]

Sure.

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

I have a question about toxins in general.

In your opinion, are there populations that are more vulnerable than other populations, populations that are more likely to be exposed? In other words, is there a socio-economic dynamic that should be considered when we're reviewing CEPA? Are there certain populations that would be more affected?

[Gabriel Miller]

I would suspect there's certainly a socio-economic dimension to a lot of these risks, both because people are less likely to have received education in where those risks reside and also because they may be more likely to rely on services that aren't equipped to meet the standards.

For instance, if you're renovating a home, lower-income people are probably less likely to be able to access the professional contractors who are going to go through a proper inspection.

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

For the record, what you're saying is just anecdotal.

[Gabriel Miller]

Sure.

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

You don't know that to be a fact.

[Gabriel Miller]

No.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you.

Mr. Shields is next.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to the witnesses here today.

I'm just following a bit along on the asbestos, because we've had conversations about it. Out there in the general public, there's a belief that there's none there, so that's your first challenge. Most people don't think it exists, right? Brake pads are something I used to put on myself, and we all have different ones, so that's part of your problem.

When people see asbestos removal, they see guys in hazmat suits and construction sites are closed in, and it is tight. Having been in the municipal world, that was our worst fear. If we were doing a renovation on a building and found asbestos somewhere, it meant a very expensive removal.

You referred to an inventory. In the world that I've known, you don't know it's there until you poke a hole in the wall. When you talked about doing an inventory, which is a really interesting topic, how would you do that? You've got all these people who may be exposed to it, but how are you going to do an inventory?

[Gabriel Miller]

Let me start with an answer, and then hopefully we'll get close to a complete one.

There are two existing lists of buildings with asbestos that I'm aware of. The federal government has produced one list of buildings owned by Public Works. It was just released a couple of months ago. There's also one that the Province of Saskatchewan has, which is a registry for all public buildings in Saskatchewan containing asbestos.

I think you have a point about the challenge with regard to knowing where it all is, but I think the first step is having a system in which, when you do know it's there, it is recorded, and people can access that information. One of the problems we have in a lot of the country is that even when asbestos is discovered somewhere, there is no requirement for it to be reported and for the information to be made publicly available to people to check. I think that's the first step. How you then go beyond that and make sure that it's comprehensive, potentially including both public and private buildings, is a different challenge, I think.

Do you have anything else on that?

[Sara Trotta]

No. I think the case in Saskatchewan is an interesting one, and their registry has definitely faced some obstacles, but they've gotten to a point now where they have basically mandated that all public buildings have to go through a study to determine whether or not they contain asbestos, and then the reporting mechanism is really quite simple. It reports not only whether or not there's asbestos contained in the building but also where it is in the building and the condition of it, because as you well know, the condition of asbestos does help to determine the risk associated with it. If it's undisturbed and it's completely contained, it's not necessarily dangerous. It's when it becomes disturbed that it's dangerous.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

One of the things we find with the private sector is that in municipalities, a lot of buildings are left and people can't sell them or they don't want to touch them because they know what's in there, so we're stuck with very hazardous buildings because nobody's willing to pay that cost. We get stuck with those in municipalities all the time, and we don't want to do it. They're not ours, but the private sector is not going to touch them. They've either gone bankrupt or walked away from them because of the extreme costs it takes to deal with them.

Since you are the Canadian Cancer Society, I'm going to move to the area of lifestyle choices.

To me, nicotine is one of the toughest ones out there, and it's a lifestyle choice. Talk a little bit about education. What do you believe people should be hearing, and at what age?

[Gabriel Miller]

I'll make a few key points.

You're absolutely right that tobacco remains the number one preventable cause of cancer death. Every year in Canada, it's responsible for 20,000 deaths by cancer alone. We are certainly advocating for a comprehensive approach that would include taxation, measures on packaging and sales, and education and cessation programs. I don't know what Sara thinks, but I don't think there's an age that's too young to start educating Canadians about the hazards of tobacco smoke, and also to make sure we're keeping the spaces where children are present completely free of tobacco smoke at all times.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I was involved in health governance for a long time, and one of the problems we had was that Health Canada and the Public Health Agency always wanted to deal with high school kids, and we could never convince them that this was the wrong level to start with. If you're not starting with kids in grades 4, 5, and 6, you're lost. As educators, we knew that when there was money coming from Health Canada and the Public Health Agency for health governance and cancer education, they always targeted the wrong age.

If you want to do something to make a difference with that very harmful cancer-causing agent, you're doing it at the wrong level. I say that from my experience both as an educator and as a public health person. It's at the wrong age, and we need to do more with that one, because as you say, that's a big one.

[Gabriel Miller]

Thank you.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

All right. Thank you.

I'm from the Athabasca-Peace country, and I appreciate your being here. As an Albertan, I've watched the development of the oil sands, with the history and the innovation. I'm very interested, as things could change and should change.

I think you started describing what your role would look like. We always hear the scientists. You talk about the scientists, but how would you match up? I heard you talking a little bit about how you would fit in with that science. We've talked about science a number of times in relation to different things, and as we've met with indigenous people, we've talked with them about their knowledge. What would the end result look like to you as a working model?

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Please be very short. I'm sorry to do that, but it was a long question, so we haven't got a lot of time for the answer. Go ahead.

[Melody Lepine]

To begin, we believe in the precautionary principle, as an example, so when you don't know, why keep approving? But that's what we see. We're sacrificing a lot of our traditional territory for the benefit of all Canadians with the economic opportunities from the development of the tar sands...oil sands.

I think my colleague spoke about free, prior, informed consent. There have been failures within consultation. I participated in over eight regulatory hearings where we voiced our concerns, and approval after approval neglected to include our traditional knowledge or really incorporate our concerns.

I think there could easily be thresholds identified and protected areas established in terms of how much wildlife needs to be impacted and what the quality of the water is.

I'll give you the example of the Athabasca River when Alberta developed the framework on how much water could be extracted for extracting bitumen. It's very intensive raw water use, and all of that comes from the Athabasca River. They incorporated a threshold only looking at how much water fish and fish habitat need. The federal government was involved with that through the DFO. Nobody asked our community how much water the Mikisew need. They did not say, “You navigate the river and you drink the water. How much do you need?”

Thresholds like those that include our concerns and our indigenous knowledge.... We actually came up with a threshold. We called it our aboriginal base flow, and now we monitor, and we're seeing a decline in an aboriginal base flow that is impacting our navigation and our ability to exercise our treaty rights.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you very much for that. Those are good answers.

Go ahead, Mr. Fisher.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

Thanks, folks, for being here. One of the reasons I like this committee so much is the tremendous amount of perspective we get and the level of expertise from the witnesses who present to us.

We've heard of and we've discussed environmental justice in marginalized communities. We've heard that perhaps there are greater health issues due to substances in marginalized communities. My question would be for Melody or Phil. As an indigenous government organization, is this your experience? I think Melody might have touched on a couple of specific examples of substances that may have been issues, but can you give me some examples of some substances that would certainly be bigger issues for marginalized communities?