Environment Committee on Dec. 1st, 2016

[Dr. John Smol]

I know a little about the study. I had a partial read of it when it came out. So much information is coming out, it's very hard to keep up with everything, so I can't speak specifically to that study.

It goes to my analogy that we're constantly opening all these new Pandora's boxes of different types of cocktails of pollutants, and we have very little understanding of the accumulative and additive effects of any of them. Even there, we're often looking at one pollutant at a time.

Even Dave Schindler's work, which was outstanding, with Erin Kelly as the lead author who started a lot of this, was just looking at first at PAHs, and even with that there are hundreds of PAHs but sometimes it's looking at specific ones. It is a daunting task, but it's these cocktails, these combinations, and constantly releasing new things on top of other environmental stresses, like habitat destruction, and I could make a long list of things.

I can't speak specifically to that study, except that I'm aware of it. I think it does speak to how we're in a far more complicated world environmentally than we often think. Each year—we're onto the Red Queen again—we're trying to just keep up, but it's very hard to keep up if we keep releasing new substances and finding out new interactions every day.

[William Amos, Liberal, Pontiac, QC]

Okay.

I'll ask one last quick question.

We've had witnesses before us, both academic and non-governmental, suggesting that CEPA needs to be modified such that substitution of a substance is required where a substance is deemed toxic, so forcing industry to find less toxic solutions. Is that something you would support, based on your research?

[Dr. John Smol]

If we can find less toxic solutions, that would certainly be a step in the right direction, but I think it's very hard to find out.... We have had examples in the past of things being replaced without sufficient study into what they were being replaced with. We need the sufficient study before we do anything, to find out the real consequences. Often we only find out about the consequences 10, 50, and sometimes 100 years later. I think, as much as possible, we need that research base on the substances before they are released. We'll never have it perfect, but we can do a lot better job than we're doing now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

Thank you all very much.

Next is Mr. Fast.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Going back to Dr. Smol, you've talked a lot about cocktails of toxins. You've talked about the cumulative effect, something that's been a pretty regular refrain here at this committee as we've studied CEPA.

Where there hasn't been complete clarity is on whether you take the risk-based assessment of substances and you replace it holus-bolus with a hazard-based approach. Would you agree with me that CEPA could be improved by addressing the issue of cocktails of toxins and the cumulative impact, without necessarily jettisoning the whole risk-based approach?

[Dr. John Smol]

I'm not sure I know enough about the actual details, the ins and outs, of how the act is placed, but I don't think anyone is suggesting a complete overhaul of the process. I think there are certainly many things that it's been successful at, on one level, and we build on it from there.

I think we've learned over history, since 1999, just how much more complicated the situation is. That's my main theme, I think, without being someone who actually deals with the ins and outs of the implementation of CEPA.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

The same thing is true for substitution. From what I understand, you could actually introduce improvements to CEPA that would take into account a greater incidence of using mandatory substitution where it's appropriate, without completely overhauling the risk-based approach to assessment that we presently have in Canada and the United States.

[Dr. John Smol]

A strong scientific base to all these changes, I think, is what we need. It sounds as if it might be a bit of a cop-out on my answer here, but we have to know what all those details are on a peer-reviewed, scientific basis before we make major changes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

Your panel was actually struck to address a specific point, which was monitoring and enforcement. We haven't actually heard a lot about that here. We tried to squeeze you into a panel where we would still hear you, but it would somehow flow into the various topical sections we had established.

What I would perhaps ask you to comment on, Mr. Larocque, is whether there are any clearly identifiable ways in which, within your industry, we could actually improve not only the monitoring but the enforcement.

[Robert Larocque]

Yes, I think there are a couple of examples. For example, better co-operation between the provinces and the federal government could improve enforcement. I think too many times legislation is done where it could be confusing, in that the test methods are not exactly the same as those of the provinces, so you would need to have double enforcement, or there is too much.

It could be the same air quality test, as long as it is recognized from a provincial or federal legislation. Then you can have better co-operation and that would allow more resources, instead of duplication going to a mill where we have a provincial enforcement officer and a federal enforcement officer coming in, just because there was a testing requirement difference between the two pieces of legislation. That's one of the examples I can show.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you.

You stated that your industry believes that the risk-based assessment process is one that has served Canada well, but would you agree that the process could be improved by addressing things such as Dr. Smol mentioned?

[Robert Larocque]

I completely agree with that. I think my point was not to go completely over, only on the hazard side of it. Maybe it's my view of the word “hazard”, but when you are making pulp and paper or tissue or toilet paper, you do use hazardous substances, like bleaching, for example. We need to be able to continue to use that, but it doesn't mean that Canadians are exposed to a bleach chemical when they're using our products. We don't want to go too far down the road that some of that stuff will not be able to be used in Canada as a product.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'll go back now to Dr. Smol.

You had referred to the fact that we need to be investing in our scientists, that we should be improving the poor state of environmental monitoring in Canada. Is there an increased role that citizen scientists could play in improving the rigour of our monitoring and enforcement systems?

[Dr. John Smol]

That's a very good question. Citizen science is playing a role certainly at the provincial level fairly extensively in Ontario, my home province, and other places in assisting in providing the overall monitoring programs.

I was recently in beautiful Banff, Alberta, at the North American Lake Management Society. There were whole sessions on citizen monitoring. These provide really important supplements to, let's say, a more professional monitoring program. I guess professional, because we're paid to do it. For example, often cottagers are very much associated with their lake, and they can provide very strong, realistic data that can be used in a very accessible way.

The Ontario ministry has these fairly large programs, for example the Secchi disk, a simple instrument that measures how clear the water is. A lot of cottagers do this on a very regular basis. They put it in a database. We're learning a lot about the clarity of lakes in Ontario based on pure volunteers. It engages people, and it engages people in understanding the environment and so forth. There is definitely a role for citizen-based science.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you to all of you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

All right.

Next up is Mr. Fisher.

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

Thank you very much, Madam Chair, and thank you to everyone.

I'm going to ask my question of Mr. Smol, but I feel so bad looking at these three folks, who are sitting here looking at the monitor and not a single question has gone their way. I wish they had been part of the testimony.

Mr. Smol, I'm just giving you a chance to elaborate on something that I found really thought-provoking to me when you said it, which was on the enhanced environmental monitoring versus the cost with regard to inaction. You glossed over that, and then you moved on because you only had so many minutes. But that made me think, and I'd like to know if you'd be willing to maybe stretch that a little bit and give me a little more feedback on what your thoughts are.

[Dr. John Smol]

Yes. I deal in environmental change over not just years, but decades and centuries. History teaches us a lot. It reminds us of our successes and it shows us many of our failures. Unfortunately, the environment has many failures in it. We talk a lot about the cost of monitoring, the cost of science. We should start talking more about the cost of not doing it. Climate change is a terrific example. I know this isn't a climate change hearing, but we hear a lot about the cost of dealing with climate change. Why is no one talking about the cost of not dealing with climate change?

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

It's the same thing you said about not putting a price on pollution.

[Dr. John Smol]

Exactly.

The other thing is that once a pollutant is out, PAH and stuff, to use an analogy, the toothpaste has gone out. Getting it back is not going to be easy. This is true of exotic species too. If you have exotic species that invade by some boat dumping, it's there. You have a problem now for billions of dollars potentially.

The cheapest thing is to not pollute. The cheapest thing is to mitigate very early on. The only way you can mitigate very early on is to have the proper monitoring program in place. Otherwise, we're just going non-scientifically and blindly.

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

Will referenced our meeting a couple of days ago, and I was thinking about inspections and proactive versus inactive. We had that same kind of discussion, although not exactly the same.

I'm going to blue sky for a second, if I could.

We talked about data, actual accessible data that is open to the general public, be it through Facebook or be it through Twitter. I know that we have Twitter feeds in Nova Scotia that tell you when restaurants have failed inspections. It lets the general public know what's going on in their community. I think about a former Ford dealership that's been a vacant lot for somewhere short of a decade, where kids have played in the grass. It's now being remediated and you can't not smell the hydrocarbons as they're digging up the soil from this 30-year-old car dealership. I think the general public has no clue that their kids have been throwing fly balls to their buddies on the grass in behind the dealership for years. It just makes me think about this accessible data.

Do any of you have thoughts on true accessible data that would let people in the area know what's going on as far as monitoring is concerned, and what's going on as far as—not that it's your field—inspections and environmental issues in communities, because every gas station that's closed down is a brownfield site?

[Dr. John Smol]

That's true. An increase in the accessibility of scientific data is obviously an important thing, but it also needs some interpretation. The problem is that we have some areas—and it reminds me a bit of the binders of data that some of my colleagues talk about that they get from monitoring programs—where it's basically binders of data. Then people do not have the resources to actually analyze that data to find out if the environment is changing, getting better or getting worse. The data access is critical for peer review, so that people can assess whether or not the people are capable of assessing—perhaps university people or others—whether it's being collected in a scientifically sound manner.

But then, especially when it gets to the general public, they need some interpretation of that data, done by an independent body. I believe that the government, again, is the logical place to do that, not necessarily the proponents who are in the industry. I think that is the main role for the government, to take the data, to actually use the data that it has mandated as required, and to use it in some meaningful manner. One of those meaningful products is to explain to the public what's actually happening.

Even for people like me who are scientists, who see these data, it would take a year to analyze even a possible trend, because it just hasn't been done to that level. If the data is never going to be used, then you wonder why we are collecting it.

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

Sometimes the data is used by industry.

[Dr. John Smol]

Yes, of course, but if it's being mandated by the public through the government, I would think that it requires some product that is useful to the public.

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

I'd even pay a $1.99 for that app.