Environment Committee on April 9th, 2024

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

I don't know. I don't know because I'm not in government and I don't have access to the information that government would have around this kind of issue, if it has this information.

The whole point of the bill is not to pressure but to incite government to collect that information and to estimate what such a system would look like and how much it would cost. Then the government can decide whether it feels it's worth the cost or not.

My role is really to try to accelerate things a little bit.

I don't know. I don't have the capacity to cost out a system that is so incredibly complex. I have an understanding of it a little bit, but nowhere near the understanding that Dr. Pomeroy has.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Maybe I'll ask the same question of Dr. Pomeroy.

If you don't have it down to the penny, do you have a high-level estimate or a ballpark figure?

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

It's not something we've costed out. It's my feeling that this would reduce redundancies that we have right now.

Right now, we have 13 systems duplicating themselves across the country, without help on some of the fundamentals. It would make each of those more efficient. It might reduce their costs at the provincial level. Federally, we have a federal system in place; it's a matter of coordination to make it a national system.

We could also benefit from a national system because the Americans have something called the Cooperative Institute for Research to Operations in Hydrology. They put, in Canadian dollars, $489 million over five years into this. They're drawing heavily upon the Canadian models that we developed in Global Water Futures, which aren't in operation in Canada yet but are going to be in the United States, including for all our shared river basins.

If we have a system that could take advantage of what's being developed on the continent, then we can apply things very efficiently, I think.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Could I add something?

I have a very strong hunch, given the figures we've heard about the cost of natural disasters in the last short while, that the benefit would outweigh the cost by multiple orders. I think that's important to keep in mind, as well.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay.

According to the website of Natural Resources Canada, they have something called the flood hazard identification and mapping program, which was launched late last year, I believe. I'd like to read a quick quote from the website. It says, “The Government of Canada is investing over $227 million in the ongoing Flood Hazard Identification and Mapping program...to meet this need by updating and expanding its existing flood mapping capabilities.... Natural Resources Canada leads [this program] in partnership with Environment and Climate Change Canada and Public Safety Canada.”

Can you give us an idea of how the initiative contained in Bill C-317 will align with these initiatives that are going on at Natural Resources Canada?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Before I pass it on to Dr. Pomeroy, I would say that I suspect that a sophisticated national flood forecasting system would simply add to the accuracy of the flood mapping that has been done by NRCan, but I don't know if that's a correct way of looking at it.

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

In terms of the NRCan program, I should say that I have funding from that at the University of Saskatchewan, along with our colleagues from the University of Calgary, Laval and McMaster. We're using the models we developed with Environment Canada for that.

We're trying to coordinate at the university end, and we're getting some support there, but a more formal process to do that would be very helpful, because NRCan should absolutely be benefiting from the national prediction program in this flood plain mapping. It's something individuals are trying to do, but it's ad hoc and kind of fragile, I'd say.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Chair, how am I doing for time?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Dan Mazier]

You're done.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay. Thank you so much.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Dan Mazier]

Mr. Longfield, you have five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Madame Pauzé also did a great job. This is a collaboration today.

You've touched on a couple of things, Dr. Pomeroy. You mentioned international things a little bit in terms of the United States using some of the modelling from Canada.

A constituent of mine has an advanced hydrology company that's been doing work in Bangladesh. The company is Ahydtech Geomorphic, and they're doing hydraulic monitoring. They're doing fluvial geomorphology. These are all words that have to do with droughts and floods. They're working in Bangladesh. They have access to the data there and they are making models. They're also working with municipalities, helping municipal governments determine where the risks are.

Could you or Mr. Scarpaleggia maybe speak to Canada's role internationally? Where do we have expertise in Canada that could actually have a huge economic benefit locally as well as an environmental benefit outside of our country?

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Can I just preface that? I'm a firm believer—as you may know, Mr. Longfield—that Canada, as a water nation or a collection of water nations, should be playing a leadership role in helping the world achieve global water security. I believe this is the new peacekeeping role for Canada, really. I believe this is one area in which we have the capacity to show leadership and to benefit from that leadership economically, as well, by sharing our expertise with the world.

I'll pass it on to Dr. Pomeroy.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you.

That was a great answer, unless you have something substantial to add.

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

I would just give a few examples.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay.

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

In the Global Water Futures program, we did deploy the models we developed in Canada to the Ganges in central Asia, to the Andes in South America and to the Pyrenees in Spain with great success.

There are clearly aid and commercial opportunities to do this sort of thing from Canada that have not been exploited. These were one-off pilot projects, but much more could be done.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

That's great. I love the vision of peacekeeping. Environment is a global feature; it's not a local feature.

Locally speaking, I met today with the Grain Growers of Canada. We were talking about the Guelph Statement on sustainable agriculture and the road to 2050 and how farmers are working on sustainability. I was able to talk to some farmers they brought to the meeting. There was one from the Lethbridge area in Alberta. We had one from Saskatchewan. We had another person from Alberta. They were talking about monitoring water in the soil.

On the other side, the drought side of things, you mentioned the allocation of water. One farmer from Alberta said that his allocation is going to be one inch of water this year. Based on that information, he is changing crops to low-water crops. He's going to barley instead of sugar beets. The farmer from Saskatchewan said that even last year she was able to keep her yields up by changing crop decisions. This is how the modelling can have an impact on what crops farmers, knowing what the drought situation could be, decide to put in the ground.

Could you maybe speak to how important it is for our farming community to have access to this information?

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

Yes, it's something we don't do now, but I believe the technical capabilities are there, and they need to be assembled and operationalized. Environment Canada produces monthly and seasonal forecasts. Those forecasts could be used to force the same models we use for flood prediction or drought prediction on a seasonal basis. I think that would have tremendous benefit, as you mentioned, because it would be information in time to be actionable by the farmers to make the shift so they can stay in business.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

The monitoring is not necessarily on the reservoirs, but actually on soil moisture content. The farmer from Quebec said he needs drain tiles, because he has floods, so he has to make different decisions on getting those tiles on his fields.

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

You can measure soil moisture from space with some accuracy, at least shallow soil moisture, but to get deep soil moisture, you need sensors in the ground, and that's where we have the Global Water Futures observatories network, which has these sorts of things. They tend not to be done provincially, and the federal government just has them at Ag Canada stations.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Beautiful. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Dan Mazier]

Thank you.

We go on to Madame Pauzé for two and a half minutes.

[Monique Pauzé, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Mr. Pomeroy, floods and droughts, both of which are related to available quantities of water, may occur on various time and geographic scales and in various places. It's highly diversified, and you think there really are benefits in dealing with all that together. However, are there really any benefits to be had from managing flood and drought risks under a single strategy? Do you know whether that's being done elsewhere, in another G7 country, for example? If so, is there an optimal model?

[Dr. John Pomeroy]

Yes, it's part of what's called earth system modelling, earth system prediction, and this is where Europe has been headed with its approaches, as well as the United States. The most sophisticated countries are going to these more complete system models that have the general predictions that are possible for both floods and droughts, and potentially water quality episodes as we develop them in the future.