Evidence of meeting #40 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 industry.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

John Smol  Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen's University, As an Individual
Robert Larocque  Vice-President, Climate Change, Environment and Labour, Forest Products Association of Canada
Pam Cholak  Director, Stakeholder Relations, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association
Ed Gibbons  Councillor, City of Edmonton, and Chair, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association
Nadine Blaney  Executive Director, Fort Air Partnership, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association

4:45 p.m.

Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. John Smol

There are many good examples of joint independent reviews from scientists. It needs independent peer review from the scientific community. Some of that could be from the federal government to start with, but it always helps to have people, including international, seeing what you're doing.

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB

I got the peer review. I just want to know who has the last card? That's what I want to clarify with you. Is it the scientists or the government?

4:45 p.m.

Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. John Smol

I'm trying to say both.

4:45 p.m.

Conservative

Martin Shields Conservative Bow River, AB

You did say both.

4:45 p.m.

Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen's University, As an Individual

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

We're going to have to leave it at that.

Thank you. It's nice to have had a chance to hear from at least someone from the video conference in Edmonton.

Next up is Mr. Amos.

4:45 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

I'd like to explore with the Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association a little more of the conversation around regulatory certainty and timeliness. Having significant forestry sector interests in my riding, I appreciate how preoccupying it can be for industry when there is great uncertainty around any regulatory regime. This comes up every single time any regulation or legislation is contemplated by any level of government; the issue of uncertainty is invoked.

We'll all agree here that CEPA has not been amended for many years, despite two legislative reviews, both of which recommended significant changes and resulted in no change.

Now we have a committee looking at this. The government has made no statement one way or the other as to what it intends to do with CEPA, so all we have here is a committee looking at this. I don't expect that generates great investor uncertainty, but I just want to open the floor to you on this one. Correct me if I'm wrong. If a standing committee decides to explore an issue of statutory reform on a statute that's been in place for some time, does it give rise, in your estimation, to significant investor uncertainty?

4:50 p.m.

Director, Stakeholder Relations, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association

Pam Cholak

Thank you for that question. I think it does raise an important point about how we get to actually making the changes.

You raise an important point about process through the government. Certainly, just having a committee look at regulation and look at what is happening doesn't necessarily invoke massive amounts of fear and threat out in an investor community. I would say to you that most of the folks out in the global marketplace are not looking at standing committees of the federal Parliament in Canada regularly, even though the work you do is incredibly important.

However, I would say to you that this is a part of what happens along the line. This is the starting point of a discussion, and in the course of the discussion certain issues arise that can certainly raise concern, not necessarily for just the new companies but you have to remember that there are operating companies here with global reach that are paying attention.

From a standing committee perspective, is investment going to be fleeting because of the discussions at the table here? No. However, there certainly is historical precedent that sometimes these discussions end up taking a long time. You alluded to that and to the fact that discussions went on, and there was then a lot of discussion around what would happen. In the absence of knowing what will happen, a lot of that capital dollar investment and growth, a proper kind of growth, can be stifled. That money will go someplace else, because we're always in comparison to other jurisdictions outside of what Canada offers.

4:50 p.m.

Councillor, City of Edmonton, and Chair, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association

Ed Gibbons

Just jumping in on this, I mentioned some of the names. Maybe the fire chief from Strathcona can actually talk about this. The fact is that they're going to expand, and they're already very big, and there are other places in the world—whether it's Shell that might be in Philadelphia next or whatever—and we need to be able to make sure that they feel.... I think the chief will actually mention that he's dealing with them all the time.

Their municipality of Strathcona is very strong and regimented on moving forward, so I'm not sure if you'd like to hear that from one of the—

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Actually I don't think I need that added input.

Where I'd push back a bit is that it's sort of standard procedure. Every single government that is elected examines the public interest of health or environmental or other types of public interest statutes and evaluates if these are strong enough. The tendency, at least over time, with the possible exception of the last 10 years, has been to strengthen environmental laws.

My sense is that industry builds this kind of expectation into its understanding of how the world works. There is legislation, there are regulations, and it is possible that the legislation and those regulations will be strengthened over time and those additional costs, which may have to be built in, will be built in.

I wonder if Mr. Larocque, from the Forest Products Association, could speak to that.

4:50 p.m.

Vice-President, Climate Change, Environment and Labour, Forest Products Association of Canada

Robert Larocque

I completely agree. The standing committee looking at all this is not going to be.... We're following it. I totally agree with you. The uncertainty would happen if there were significant changes to CEPA. Sometimes there's an uncertainty on how it would be implemented following those changes, and that could take three, four, or five years. We saw it on SARA. It took a long time for it to be implemented and we're still dealing with some issues with the act initially.

That's the uncertainty that we're tracking; what were the changes and were they clear? If they were clear, we'll build into it, but if they're not, it will lead to uncertainty on how those changes will impact moving forward.

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

William Amos Liberal Pontiac, QC

Clarity on the actual changes and their implementation....

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Climate Change, Environment and Labour, Forest Products Association of Canada

4:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you very much. We now have Ms. Duncan.

We have a little bit of extra time. I'm looking at the clock. I've suggested that we do three more minutes for each side, which means I can add those three onto you and we do what we normally do. That means you have six.

December 1st, 2016 / 4:55 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

I'll try to be relatively brief.

I'm a little bit puzzled by what some of my colleagues were saying on the other side, because we do have the NPRI and that information on pollution is publicly available. For example, I can look on the NPRI and find out if the units of coal-fired power in my city are emitting more mercury than the units of coal-fired power in another jurisdiction. A lot of that information that's collected federally is already readily available. It's something that the Commission for Environmental Cooperation has been very involved in. I think Mr. Amos is interested in pursuing it in more detail, which is good.

I am a little bit concerned with what I'm hearing from the heartland association and I think I'd like to give you a chance to clarify what you're saying. We have this unique institution in Alberta called the Clean Air Strategic Alliance. I used to sit on the board of that entity. It's tripartite with federal and provincial governments—Councillor Gibbons has been part of that off and on—senior members of industry, and then senior representatives of the environmental community. We have indigenous people, we have farmers, and so forth, and regularly the provincial government refers any pollutant controls. For example, we did a big review on air emissions from the electricity sector.

I'm a little bit puzzled that there would be concern that there might be any surprises thrown at the petrochemical sector. My experience at both the federal and provincial levels is that there's a long-standing relationship with the industrial sectors on any pollutants of concern. For example, one is that the public is getting fed up with no action on the fine particulates. I'm hoping that your response to me would be that you're not suggesting that the government should not regulate a substance simply because it might be a risk to investment.

4:55 p.m.

Councillor, City of Edmonton, and Chair, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association

Ed Gibbons

The answer is no. I'm totally agreeing with you. Fort Air Partnership is already going through this and we work with them as partners. For NCIA, which is the industry and has already come in front of your committee before—whether it's Dow or whether it's whatever—Laurie Danielson is actually the representative and Laurie's a very strong advocate of the environment.

4:55 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

That's my understanding.

4:55 p.m.

Councillor, City of Edmonton, and Chair, Alberta's Industrial Heartland Association

Ed Gibbons

So the answer is no; we're with you. I sat on CASA with you for four years. I totally—

4:55 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

Exactly. That was the impression that was being left with me and I was getting very concerned. We actually have a trade agreement that would not allow that. Canada's not allowed to change their environmental protections for an economic advantage, so there are many drivers in that direction.

Mr. Larocque, I'm a little bit puzzled about your concern about the overlap in duplication in federal and provincial monitoring and inspection. It's my understanding that at the ground level in the field there has been a lot of effort in reducing that duplication and co-operation. Can you give us any kinds of examples where you're seeing that's causing a problem for your sector?

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Climate Change, Environment and Labour, Forest Products Association of Canada

Robert Larocque

Yes, sure. One of the latest examples we have was the latest multi-sector air pollutant regulation that came out, where some, for example, testing done under the provincial government may not be accepted under federal regulation, so now we're going to have to go back and retest, and it could be just because it's a test method that was not initially in the regulation. It could be that the boiler doesn't have a sampling port, so under the provincial government we sample somewhere else, but we can't do it under the new federal legislation.

Those are examples, from when the legislation was written, that create duplication and then duplicate enforcement, because when you go in, you're doing a certain method and the other one does not.

4:55 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

If there any kind of specific recommendations you want to send us after, we could always include those in the report. We did have the enforcement panel on Tuesday and they were reassuring us that the federal and provincial governments in the field are working very closely, but I know exactly the kind of situation you're talking about. Sometimes it's a problem in the regulation.

4:55 p.m.

Vice-President, Climate Change, Environment and Labour, Forest Products Association of Canada

4:55 p.m.

NDP

Linda Duncan NDP Edmonton Strathcona, AB

If you can give us more specifics of how that could be resolved in specific regulation, that would be helpful.

Dr. Smol, in the application of CEPA across the country, I would really appreciate it if you could put your mind to any specific recommendations that you would make for where we could be doing a better job of monitoring so the federal role could be more of a preventive mechanism rather than responding after the fact.

5 p.m.

Professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen's University, As an Individual

Dr. John Smol

I don't want to repeat myself, but trying to embrace what I think some of the Europeans are trying to do, realizing that we're not dealing in isolation and realizing that a lot of our problems do not come out on the point samples that we often do monitoring with.... This is where I tried to suggest the biomonitor—not suggest, but there are certainly technologies such as using biological organisms as part of a chemical monitoring program that take into account episodic events. Sometimes pollution is released at two o'clock in the morning and that happens to be in a river where you are taking the sample, but sedentary biological organisms are always there. There is certainly the scientific background to use them, and they are certainly used in many different ways.

Expanding what we monitor is one aspect of it. I understand industry always wants to know what's coming and have certainty, but we need some flexibility in the program too because we don't know what's coming. One of the issues was in the oil sands, if I could just bring up that example. Things changed in the last 16 years or however long that industry-sponsored monitoring program was going. Those scientific advances weren't implemented into how the monitoring program should have changed. We have to keep scientific oversight, again, and realize that we can't say this is permanent for 30 years. I think things change and we have to have some flexibility with that.

5 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Deb Schulte

Thank you very much.

Mr. Fast, you have three minutes.