Environment Committee on Dec. 1st, 2016

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay, thank you. I'll be quick.

First of all, just to debunk something that Mr. Amos said. He suggested that except for the last 10 years, other governments had always made progress in addressing environmental regulations. Nothing could be further from the truth. I could spend the next half hour or hour regaling you with things that we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You don't have half an hour.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I'm not going to, but let's be fair. Every single government in Canada has tried to improve the environment. We sometimes disagree over the speed at which we want to do that, but I can assure you that Mr. Amos does not have a monopoly on virtue.

I want to go back to the heartland association and air quality monitoring because this is supposed to be a panel about monitoring and enforcement. Do you have some suggestions as to how we can additionally improve air quality monitoring and the regulations that support that monitoring?

[Nadine Blaney]

From the point of Fort Air Partnership's perspective, our monitoring program is mainly based on what is required under regulation as per operating approval requirements. Then we also add into the net needs of the provincial and federal governments with regard to the ambient air quality objectives that are set and the Canadian ambient air quality standards.

From our point of view, we are more than happy to monitor and report on things of interest. We've worked with Environment Canada before on launching volatile organic compounds monitoring projects, and we'd be happy to do that in the future if that's required, if that's an interest in this region. Any feedback or resources working together to determine what type of monitoring is necessary would be appreciated.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

But you don't have any specifics on what kinds of improvements you would like to see in the monitoring regime.

[Nadine Blaney]

Not that I can speak to right now, no.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Okay, if you do come up with some on further reflection, make sure you get those to our committee because that will then form part of the evidence that we'll base our report on.

[Nadine Blaney]

Yes, I will do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You're done; you're good. Okay.

We have Mr. Bossio.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm sorry that I missed everyone's presentation.

Professor Smol, it sounds as if a lot of what you were talking about was around monitoring and the bioaccumulation that we see in our environment from the introduction of numerous chemicals that are mixing within our environment. Would you agree that when a substance has clearly been identified as toxic, like asbestos, and substitutions have been identified to replace that substance, that we should set clear time frames in the regulations as to when that substitution should be introduced to society, hard time frames so that asbestos is not in brake pads, so it's not being imported?

It's great that we're not manufacturing or not exporting it, but as far as imports, as far as brake pad and piping systems....

[Dr. John Smol]

Yes, I would. That's a simple answer.

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

Given that technology has improved dramatically as far as our ability to test these different mixes of chemicals that we're now seeing within our system goes, should we not be....

It has been identified by a number of witnesses that risk assessment is not enough to really be able to get to the threat that is posed by a number of chemicals, or the bioaccumulation of those chemicals, or the mixture of those chemicals, and that we should establish a hybrid of risk assessment to take risk assessment beyond its capability and move towards hazard-based assessments.

It's not eliminating it but going beyond it.

[Dr. John Smol]

We are overly optimistic in the environment. Our history shows that continuously. We have totally underestimated throughout history the consequences of our actions. We know a lot of known unknowns, and there are a whole lot of unknown unknowns we don't know about yet. We just have to realize that we are overly optimistic.

I don't think there's any argument, if you look at the data, that we have totally underestimated our various risks through time. We haven't even begun to put together the multiplicity of how things interact together.

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

Thank you.

Chair, I'd like to share the rest of my time with....

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

You have 30 seconds, Mr. Gerretsen.

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

Mr. Larocque, when you talked with Mr. Fast, you were talking about the risk-based versus hazard-based and I didn't quite understand. Are you saying that you are content with the existing risk-based approach, or do you see an opportunity for a hybrid, as Mr. Bossio just indicated, involving both risk- and hazard-based approaches?

[Robert Larocque]

I do believe that the risk-based approach is working well. I understand that bioaccumulation is something that needs to be looked at.

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

Are you open to the idea of a hybrid?

[Robert Larocque]

Without knowing exactly what that means, if it could be improved, yes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

I don't know what it means either.

[The Chair, Liberal, Deb Schulte]

We're not sure yet either.

We're out of time. I want to thank our guests very much for sharing your wisdom and your experiences with us. We have a very short time frame because we're going to hear the bells very soon. We need to clear the room because the next session is in camera.

Thank you so much. We have just a couple of minutes to clear the room.

Again, I appreciate your time. Take care.

[Proceedings continue in camera]