Evidence of meeting #82 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 infrastructure.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
Mr. Haller, at the very least, we can say that there can really be savings and increased effectiveness if we communicate. In addition, there should be far fewer bodies and levels to deal with so that everyone can basically exchange information.
In your opening address, right before ending, you mentioned, “the lack of flexibility available to the Minister to consider local situations”. Can you give us an example of the minister being unable to act because there were too many leverage points?
Executive Director, Canadian Water and Wastewater Association
I think sometimes there's not enough flexibility written into some of the legislation.
I'll take the effluent regulations. Mr. Carl Yates just left the meeting, but for 30 years he led Halifax Water. They have a situation where they need to meet regulations by 2030, with an outlet pipe of what they're releasing into the harbour. The many millions they're going to spend will only have a small impact, versus if they spent that same amount of money on combined sewer overflows or agricultural flows. They could have a far bigger impact in Halifax, but right now it's one-size-fits-all. Everyone meets the same criteria. No matter what the cost and no matter what the impact, we have to hit that target, and the impact for that investment could be very small versus working with the conservation authorities or the public works departments to have a far bigger impact with the same investment.
Liberal
Conservative
Gérard Deltell Conservative Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC
I'd just like to say that a lot of work is really needed if we are to become more effective when the time comes to protect our water. It's all very well to make pompous speeches, but what's needed is action. If we have 20 different groups to consult, it's definitely difficult to move forward very quickly.
The other essential step would be to make the legislation more flexible so that the minister can take action. Right now, we have a single policy from coast to coast, as if Canada was the same everywhere, but what makes Canada special is its wealth, its beauty and its distinctive regional features.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you, Mr. Deltell.
I am now giving the floor, virtually, to Mr. Kelloway.
Is Mr. Kelloway there? No?
We'll come back to Mr. Kelloway.
We'll go to Madam Pauzé.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
We're going to go back to him.
I'm sorry. I don't have time to waste here, because we're running a bit late.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
It would appear that Mr. Kelloway is here now. So I'll go back to him.
Mr. Kelloway, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Mike Kelloway Liberal Cape Breton—Canso, NS
I'm going to pass my question on to one of my colleagues, if that's possible.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Barbeau, you mentioned that it was important to build additional resiliency and sustainability criteria into infrastructure projects. Under the investing in Canada infrastructure program, we are injecting over $33 billion in infrastructure projects across the country. We signed an agreement with the Quebec government and are investing in its municipal water infrastructure fund. This program will involve major municipal drinking water and waste-water infrastructure repairs, expansion and construction projects. There are also going to be some new tender calls.
Under our agreements, there will be much more of an emphasis on building climate-smart sustainable infrastructures everywhere in Canada to help combat climate change and reduce energy costs.
Do you think we are on the right track?
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
Thank you for the question.
I do in fact believe that we've reached a point at which we have to build various financial requirements into grant applications in order to address other types of challenges. For example, for about 15 years now, the Quebec government has been requiring reduced water use and tying funding for new drinking water infrastructures to reduced water use targets. That's a way of clearly sending a message to the community, and of course, to engineers, so that they can alter their designs in ways that meet these new criteria.
To more specifically address the part of the question on introducing new climate-related criteria, I must say that they still need to be spelled out. It would be useful for Canada to identify regional criteria, as the climate varies from one part of the country to another, which include climate considerations.
I'll give you a very concrete example. In designing a sewer system, it used to be acceptable for a small suburb to have an overflow once every 10 years. Now, however, these overflows are more frequent. This means that new criteria that factor in heavier rainfall are required so that the sewers do not overflow any more frequently than before, despite the climate changes.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you.
I know that my Conservative colleagues are not particularly fond of numerous entities working together. And yet, if I've understood correctly, you believe that it's important to collaborate and to consult several key organizations and groups, such as the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec, to establish new criteria that would ensure that in Quebec and Canada, new parameters for water infrastructures will allow them to cope with climate change challenges. In your opening address, you mentioned several, including drought, water shortages and the impact of forest fires on water quality.
How might it be possible, together, to develop these criteria? Which stakeholders have to be involved.
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
As part of our research, we develop technological solutions. From now on, we are systematically doing a life-cycle analysis, meaning an analysis that addresses more than simply cost and performance targets.
The difficult part is that there is currently no clear consensus on which new performance indicators should be used to evaluate solutions. To what extent are municipalities ready to pay for these new indicators? What we're talking about are new requirements. If you were to ask me to develop a new solution that doesn't use more energy, you've added a requirement to the system, and it will no doubt add some costs.
We need to weigh these new obligations against their added costs, and that's a rather difficult exercise.
Liberal
Sophie Chatel Liberal Pontiac, QC
Thank you. I'd like to ask you a final question.
You talked about the flow of nutrients and the growing presence of algae in rivers and lakes owing to climate change. Can you tell us just how serious this problem is in terms of water management?
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
To be perfectly clear, agriculture is a major source of pollution. It has always been that way, and it still is today. Farmers use fertilizers, and climate changes have been leading to extreme events that lead to an accelerated flow of these nutrients, which ultimately end up in our lakes and rivers.When that is combined with a warmer climate, the conditions are perfect for the growth of cyanobacteria and algae.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Francis Scarpaleggia
Thank you very much, Mr. Barbeau.
That's already happening here, in Pointe-Claire. The water is warmer and there's blue algae. We have to put chlorine in the water, but people don't like the taste of it.
Ms. Pauzé, you have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd also like to thank all the witnesses.
Mr. Barbeau, we invited you in order to hear a technical and scientific perspective on the subject of waste water. At the end of your address, you began to talk about perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl contaminants, PFAS, which threaten the cleanliness of fresh water.
In October 2020, the Government of Canada published an advisory on pollution prevention plans that focused at the time on triclosan. The prevention planning was left to industry. In his opening address, Mr. Haller said that manufacturers often unilaterally decided all kinds of things.
I have read that Minnesota, New York and New Jersey had implemented regulatory targets. Is water contamination in Canada, particularly with respect to PFAS, comparable to what is happening in the United States?
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
The good news, fortunately, is that the situation is much less serious in Canada than in the United States with respect to perfluorinated compounds. The main reason is that Canada has never produced these compounds.
In the United States, new regulations will affect 67 million Americans—I've never seen anything like it in my career. It will certainly cost a lot of money.
Does that mean everything is fine in Canada and we can ignore the problem? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The whole Great Lakes system is affected, as is the St. Lawrence River, where concentrations of PFAS are below what is permitted by the current proposed figures. And yet we know that these figures should be even lower and that they will eventually have to be reduced. At the moment, conditions in the St. Lawrence are not ideal compared to the proposed standards. If consideration ever had to be given to treating the water in the St. Lawrence, it must not be forgotten that 45% of Quebec's population gets its water from the river. It would have to be done all the way to the Great Lakes, because they are affected as well.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Should Canada adopt the regulations in effect in the United States?
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
That's a good question. The fact is that the American regulatory approach is very different from Canada's. In the United States, the regulatory approach has to be based on science, and excludes what we call the precautionary principle. If a standard is introduced in the United States, it's because a cost-benefit analysis has shown that it would benefit American society.
Recently, Health Canada suggested a different proposal, mainly based on a precautionary approach. As the science is evolving, it's difficult for now to say which of the two approaches is better. Health Canada is nonetheless holding up rather well. In Quebec, for example, six cities are affected by perfluorinated compound contamination. If the American regulations were applied in Canada, the same number of cities would be considered affected, but not necessarily the same ones. As you can see, the impact is similar.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
In the briefing note prepared for us by the Library of Parliament, the analysts take a multi-barrier approach, which appears to recommend both prevention and precautionary environmental measures.
This approach is said to be different from the control and compliance model, but aren't both rather complementary?
Full Professor, Polytechnique Montréal, As an Individual
I agree with you. They do indeed complement one another.
In fact, the multi-barrier approach was developed in the 1990s. The current drinking water regulations recommend, among other things, that there be less than one parasite per 100,000 litres of water. Now today, in 2023, this is impossible to demonstrate in a laboratory. A different approach was accordingly adopted, one that consists of analyzing the risks and then measuring the water quality. Water quality risks are assessed when it enters the plants and then barriers, by which I mean treatments, are introduced to reduce these risks.
Bloc
Monique Pauzé Bloc Repentigny, QC
Are there any countries that harmonize the multi-barrier approach and the compliance approach?