Environment Committee on June 4th, 2024

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'm running out of time, but I'll go over to Mr. Jaques. On agriculture, something that agriculture and the farm community have really picked up on is beneficial management practice—looking at things that will help with water, with climate change and biodiversity.

Can you comment on the importance of clean technology in those fields?

[Shawn Jaques]

I go back to my opening comments where I've commented that with irrigation we're producing more food on the same land mass. There are going to be lower emissions.

I'd also comment that we're seeing producers already adopt technology not only in dryland farming but on irrigation, where they're making sure that they're only putting the right amount of water when needed—

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

The four Rs....

[Shawn Jaques]

—through a subsurface drip so they're not overutilizing water. We're seeing producers investing in those technologies.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're going to have to stop there.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

I really want to thank the witnesses for being here in person to offer their insights.

We're going to have a very short break. We don't have any onboarding to do online, but we need to change the panel. I'll just break for a couple of minutes.

Thanks, again. It was nice to see you, Mr. Donnelly.

It was also nice to see you again, Mr. Jaques, Mr. Cooper and Mr. Mack. Thanks, again.

We'll break for just a second.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Dear colleagues, we are resuming the meeting.

We don't want to waste any time. We want to finish on time today. We have a total of three hours for the meeting.

In this second group of witnesses, we have a representative from the Government of Prince Edward Island, Mr. Sean Ledgerwood, who is the acting manager, water and air monitoring, in the Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action.

We also have a representative from the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Mr. Haseen Khan, the director of the water resource management division of the Department of Environment and Climate Change.

Without further ado, gentlemen, we'll begin.

You will each have a maximum of five minutes for your address.

Mr. Ledgerwood, please go ahead.

[Sean Ledgerwood, Acting Manager, Water and Air Monitoring, Department of Environment, Energy and Climate Action, Government of Prince Edward Island]

Thank you for the opportunity to discuss freshwater resources and how our small island province is relying upon the resource.

As a province, we're 100% reliant on groundwater to supply our drinking water. All of our water is extracted from water wells. We also extract water from rivers for agricultural irrigation, but even in this case, there's an important link to groundwater. In the summer, the base flow from rivers can be almost entirely fed from groundwater.

With ever-increasing demands and threats to our water, we're striving to understand and address the issues. We're discovering that droughts can affect water availability at times of high demand. We are seeing more anoxic events in our waters. They are occurring earlier and they are lasting longer. We're also noticing that incidents of saltwater intrusion in our wells are becoming more common.

Because of this, we've been very active in trying to protect our valuable resource. In 2021, the P.E.I. Water Act was proclaimed, which provides the foundation for water and waste-water management in P.E.I. We are providing government with the tools necessary to mitigate issues and employ protection of the resource.

While the development of regulations is far from complete, several regulations, such as water withdrawal regulations and the drinking water supply and waste-water systems regulations, provide mechanisms for government to properly manage water.

Agriculture is a critical industry for the province and there are increasing demands for water for irrigation. Water is extracted from both wells and from rivers for irrigation. However, we've been trying to move away from river withdrawals, as groundwater extraction through a well can have a less immediate impact on the river in a watershed than the instantaneous impact that comes from surface-water extraction.

We have also instituted a requirement for all major water users to create drought contingency plans, where the users provide written plans for what they will do to reduce water usage during drought conditions.

Water permitting on P.E.I. is done on a watershed-by-watershed basis. Water extraction is to only occur up until the threshold deemed harmful to freshwater aquatic life is reached. While most watersheds in P.E.I. are not near water extraction limits, there are some watersheds where demand is approaching allocation limits.

Our department has always been a proponent of transparent monitoring, as we use much of this data to determine how best to protect our water resources. As a requirement of the new Water Act, we have created the P.E.I. water registry. I encourage each one of you to look at that and discover all it has to offer.

For our drinking water users, we have instituted several protection measures. For example, we offer drinking water analysis to the public for free. We're in the planning stage of the development of well-field protection regulations for our municipal systems.

We have long believed that protection and decision-making at a local level is an integral part of environmental protection. For example, we have the P.E.I. watershed groups on the island. With the Water Act, we hope we can expand governance at a local level to include water allocation decisions.

We consider the continued collaboration between the provincial and federal governments as a key part of protecting our water resource. A very successful example of this is the Canada-P.E.I. memorandum of agreement on water. Within this agreement, we've been able to partner and share resources with the federal government on a range of initiatives, such as water quality and water quantity monitoring, CABIN monitoring, pesticide monitoring, CESI, shellfish water classification program and, for the past two years, an expanded pesticide monitoring program with PMRA.

It is crucial that collaboration such as this and continued funding for water and waste-water systems continue, especially with the population growth we've seen. These models have served both governments very well in the past.

As I mentioned, agriculture is a critical industry for P.E.I. The federal government can support producers in their continued goal of reducing impacts to the environment. This can come in the form of research, education, collaboration with local watershed groups and monitoring in the following areas: reduction in the use and impact of fertilizers; reduction of soil loss and improved soil health; the use of pesticides best suited for P.E.I.'s unique environment; and pest- and drought-resistant crops.

There is widespread use of pesticide products within P.E.I. and PMRA should be reviewing registrations with a P.E.I. lens to ensure that they are safe to use with our unique environmental conditions. They have run an expanded pilot program across Canada in the last two years. We support the expansion of this program to fully understand the fate of these chemicals.

As emerging contaminants such as PFAS become an issue, there's often little known about them. The federal government can again assist with sampling costs, research and setting guideline values.

Governance at a local level is important and the federal government should continue to expand support for local groups, such as watershed groups on P.E.I. This support can include financial, research and sharing scientific expertise.

I hope I was able to provide you with a quick overview of the island's unique environment and the need for support on a variety of water-related issues.

Thank you for your valuable time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Thank you, Mr. Ledgerwood.

Before giving the floor to Mr. Kahn, I'd like to know whether there is a vote in the House, because I saw flashing lights.

[An hon. member]

They're asking for a quorum in the House.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

Okay.

Go ahead, Mr. Kahn.

[Haseen Khan, Director, Water Resources Management Division, Department of Environment and Climate Change, Government of the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador]

I would like to begin by thanking the chair and honourable members for inviting the Department of Environment and Climate Change of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador to appear before this committee to share our experience with fresh water.

Water is embedded inside everything we consume or manufacture, and it is the essence of life itself. Water has a spiritual significance for indigenous people and is a vehicle for the economic development of our communities. Water is a shared natural resource that crosses jurisdictional, geographical and political boundaries.

The key pillars for the effective management of water resources are water monitoring and reporting, prediction and forecasting, regulatory oversight, additional innovation, research and development, and coordination and collaboration among all stakeholders.

Water management within Canada and its respective jurisdictions is facing many complex and challenging issues that require a robust and collaborative strategy. One of the main drivers for this is the impact of climate change on water resources, amplifying the ever-changing natural dynamics of water.

The cornerstone of Newfoundland and Labrador's water management philosophy is that you cannot manage what you cannot measure.

The most visible impacts of climate change in Canada are on water: more frequent and severe floods; droughts; storms; sea level rise; reduced sea-ice coverage and duration, which is having a serious impact on our northern communities and their lifestyle; and less snowpack.

Canada's water infrastructure, including water and waste-water treatment plants, dams, dikes and levees, is aging. Appropriate measures are needed to upgrade or replace aging infrastructure to ensure public and environmental safety associated with climate change-related events.

Significant progress has been made since 2001 in the area of clean, safe and secure drinking water. However, small rural communities, especially northern communities, are still struggling to provide this necessity of life. The provision of clean and safe drinking water requires not only technical and financial capacity but human operational capacity and teamwork among all stakeholders. The integration of traditional knowledge with science and respect for water into water management policies is essential for all levels of government.

A comprehensive approach to the federal water stewardship is required, with less fragmentation of responsibility for water nationally. A modernized Canada Water Act should capture key themes of ecosystem-based management, stakeholder engagement, adoptive governance, additional innovation, research and development, and science-based and traditional knowledge-based decision-making, risk management, cross-sectoral collaboration and policy coherence.

There are huge gaps in coverage in existing monitory networks, especially in the northern parts of the country where the climate change impacts are more pronounced and where, in many cases, the current climate has already departed from historical norms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Francis Scarpaleggia]

We're going to have to stop there, Mr. Khan, but I'm sure there will be many questions, so you'll be able to share your remaining ideas in response to questions.

We'll go to Mr. Mazier for six minutes. Go ahead, please.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming out today.

I'm going to focus on Mr. Ledgerwood first of all and talk about the alternate land-use program.

We spoke briefly just outside here before this committee meeting, and you were right. The idea for the pilot, ALUS, was all thought of in Manitoba and tested in Manitoba, right in my riding actually, by Shoal Lake, so it was good. P.E.I., fortunately, picked it up and is embracing the whole model.

The key idea around ALUS, the alternative land-use service, was something very unique and very foreign, and that was to involve the landowners.

I'd like you to expand on that. How did the legend or the path of ALUS develop in P.E.I.? What are you finding good about it and where can we improve on it? It's one program that I think we can really leverage in the future, as a water committee, and I think we need to hear that.

[Sean Ledgerwood]

Thanks. That's a great question.

I can talk at a high level on that, because I'm not involved in the program at the finer levels. It's been an incredibly great program for P.E.I. You're right—it was a little bit novel and it took a little bit of convincing to get the public to get into the idea of paying farmers or agricultural producers to do something. Some people might say that they should be doing it already. However, it's a hurdle that we got over and it's been incredibly successful.

It's ongoing now. It's improving our environment, and we hope programs such as that and especially new ideas like that continue. That's always very important.

I don't know if I answered your question, but I would just note that it's been very successful in P.E.I., and we continue to use that program.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I think the key message is that you do acknowledge as well, as I understand it, that it involves having the landowners at the table to make those decisions and decide where the water should be stored. They're the managers. They know best what's going on in the landscape, and it actually comes down to savings. It's the best thing to do for society and for the landscape, but it's also the most efficient thing to do when it comes to money and that type of approach.

[Sean Ledgerwood]

I agree. I mentioned in my notes that governance at a local level is very important to us in all respects, especially with respect to water allocation, as I pointed out. You may look at our province, which is obviously the smallest, and think the province itself is local, but we want to operate on a watershed basis. When you get down to that really fine local level, you can have really good decisions, even in a small province like ours, and come up with points that the government might not have thought of.

Governance and collaboration at this very local-level watershed, as a basis, are very important, and we hope to continue that with respect to a whole bunch of different aspects.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Okay. Thank you.

Now we'll switch gears here and talk about the Canada water agency. Has P.E.I. been consulted on the Canada water agency?

[Sean Ledgerwood]

We have but only through committees, I believe. We've been consulted on the Canada Water Act, but I don't know very much about the agency yet. There have been just a few things within some committees I've been in. I was very interested to hear, just before my presentation, the water agency talking a little bit about where they plan to go. I'm very interested in that.

At our level, we're an island, literally, so we don't have transboundary water issues. I was hearing a little while ago about how that might be a big portion of what they're talking about. We'd be asking more about how we could partner for programs and that sort of thing.

I don't know if that answers your question.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

I does, kind of—so they're not really consulting you. Are you the person they would contact in the province?

[Sean Ledgerwood]

Yes, eventually it would get to me.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

It would eventually. Okay.

Mr. Khan, have they talked to Newfoundland at all about the Canada water agency?

[Haseen Khan]

Yes, we have talked. We have had a number of conference calls, and we provided comments during those conference calls. As well, we provided written comments on what types of issues and challenges there are, based on our experience, and how those issues or challenges should be addressed within this new agency.

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

This has been going on for a couple of years now—the engagement process. I was getting at that during the previous panel as well. We can talk. The government is notorious for talking. When it comes down to the rubber hitting the road and people getting flooded out or droughted out, however, it doesn't work. We'll have some more committee meetings or something like that. This is the caution we're talking about when we develop another agency with another layer of bureaucracy.

Did the federal government address that at all, when they were talking about the water agency? Did they say, “This is going to be much better”, or was it all, “Here, you're going to have a central place for your funds”?