Evidence of meeting #79 for Environment and Sustainable Development in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was freshwater.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Have you finished, Ms. Chatel? All right.
Go ahead, Mr. Mazier.
Conservative
Dan Mazier Conservative Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB
Thank you, Chair.
I'll just repeat the motion so the committee is up to speed on what the actual motion said. It reads:
That the committee report to the House that the first environmental act by this Liberal government was to approve the dumping of eight billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence River and that the committee agrees that the dumping of waste water into our waterways goes against Canadian efforts to promote clean water.
I think that everybody sitting around this table can completely agree with this—that it's not a good thing.
I also want to bring this to the committee's attention. It's actually from 2020. It's from The Canadian Press and it's entitled “Canada dumped nearly 900 billion litres of raw sewage into waterways between 2013 and 2018”. It reported that:
Data Environment Canada posted to the federal government's open-data website earlier this month shows in 2018, more than 190 billion litres of untreated wastewater poured out of city pipes that carry both sewage and storm water.
That's 190 billion litres. I'd asked the question earlier if you have any idea.... This is from 2020. This has been going on, and it's a big problem.
It goes on to say:
That is 14 per cent more than in 2017, and 44 per cent more than in 2013.
I don't know what the government is doing about it. This is why we MPs are so worried about this. Action is required.
The article continues:
Mark Mattson, president of Swim Drink Fish Canada, said the amount should shock people.
I agree. It goes on:
“It shows you the problem,” he said. “It should wake people up.”
“There's lots of holes in the data,” he noted.
The number does not include wastewater that leaks out from systems that don't use combined sewage and storm water pipes or any data on non-sewage related pollution that isn't treated by wastewater plants, such as pharmaceuticals. Quebec is also excluded from the data in 2018 because that province signed an agreement to report it to Ottawa in a different way.
That's why I was very concerned about the provinces and how this opening in the Canada Water Act involves all this as well.
That's what I have to say about this. I think it's a very important study. I'm hopeful that the committee can support continuing on with this motion and we can vote to approve it.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate that the motion that's been tabled with the committee today is related to the study in front of us. My colleagues have highlighted the fact that we have a whole theme within the study dedicated to the topic of waste water. My questions were related to waste water as well.
I think it undercuts the ability of the committee to hold our hearing today if this motion takes precedence over questioning the witnesses. The goal of this meeting was to hear from witnesses and to gain information that will help us with the scoping of this study.
As much as I'm fascinated by what happened in Montreal—4,000 kilometres from where I live—10 years ago, and I'm sure it's very pertinent to this committee's work, I'm not sure that I'm in a place where I can vote for a motion that expresses a specific opinion to the House.
My preference would be that we deal with this over the course of the study and look at recommendations in the report that would remedy underlying problems that may contribute to similar situations in the future. We can do forensic work and look at what happened 10 years ago, but in my view, that has utility only if it informs what we're going to do in the future.
I think very much that it's the kind of focus we could bring to this study to make it useful to Canadians and to the protection of fresh water.
Having said that, I'm going to move a motion to end debate on the motion before us in the interest of returning to the work of the committee on the freshwater study.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
I think, for today, we're done with the.... I don't see how we....
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Mr. Chair, I wanted to ask more questions of the witnesses. I have a whole list here. We've been thinking about their appearance, and I would like to get to those questions.
Liberal
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
If you invite them back for an hour, Mr. Chair, it postpones what is already a fairly lengthy study.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
I appreciate that you want it to be lengthier, because you're so passionate about this topic, but we're just kicking it down the road because we've allowed a motion to derail this meeting, which was intended to be about hearing from and asking questions of the witnesses.
NDP
Taylor Bachrach NDP Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC
Having said that, I'm now debating an undebatable motion, so—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Okay. It's my point of order, I guess.
There's a motion. It's to....
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It's to adjourn debate, but it's dilatory.
(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4)
The debate on this motion is adjourned.
I'm still going to invite the witnesses back for an hour, because their last hour was turned completely upside down. We can—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Everyone exercised their rights. There's no recrimination for anybody.
The point I'm trying to make is that the last hour was not productive and it did not conform to the aim of the agenda that was circulated to members. I will invite the witnesses back at some point for one hour of questioning.
Somebody may decide that we should adjourn, since it's—
Conservative
Liberal
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Mr. Chair, just to be sure of where we're going.
I won't repeat what you said, which is that the debate we had earlier was a waste of time. I don't think it was at all.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It wasn't a waste of time. I thought the discussion was very interesting.
It's more that the time allotted to the witnesses was wasted, but that's not a serious problem.
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
You suggested that it wasn't productive. I don't entirely agree with you.
The discussion lasted roughly 20 minutes. If we extend the meeting by about 20 minutes, that will take us to 1:20 p.m. I think we can all do that.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
The discussion lasted more than 20 minutes or so. It lasted at least a half-hour.
Conservative